X10 InHouse VIP Affiliates! Want to create your own website complete with trackable “Add to Cart” buttons or anchor links that direct to pages throughout the X10 site? Here’s how!
Continue reading "InHouse Affiliates! Build Your Own X10 Shopping Site" »
Many people join affiliate marketing programs with the dreams of making a fortune but then are left wondering what to do because the sales just aren’t arriving as they had thought. It’s easy to add a banner to your website, but what do you have to do to make that first sale? A lot of people don’t realize that affiliate marketing can take time and work. Remember, you’re not buying a lottery ticket hoping to win a golden jackpot.
We encounter many people with these ambitions, however they are left shaking their head in confusion – they’ve tried everything, but are still unable to generate any sales. With a little bit of patience and a better understanding, the goal of this guide is to help you move in the right direction by earning that first sale then building up to greater achievements. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you work to earn your hard-earned dollars.
This blog post focuses on how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and increasing page ranking of your website. Due to Google’s popularity as the top search engine, this article focuses on tips to improve SEO and page rank via this venue.
Attention Affiliates! Earn 40% commission by selling one of the HOTTEST products to hit the market today --- The iconRemote!
Retail value is at $129.99, and you keep 40% from all qualifying orders! Look for new banners and creatives, coming soon to www.X10Affiliate.com!
Just about everybody hears. But only so many people listen. What’s the difference you may be asking? Quite a bit actually.
I received an email from Lonnie this morning who recently signed up for our affiliate program. In his email he asked about affiliate bidding policies, and how our main rule stated that affiliates must not overbid X10 keywords. He mentioned that he was unsure of how to check if he was overbidding.
A simple way to check is to look at the sponsors area on the top of the search engine. For instance, If you were to type in “X10” and do a search, your website should not be positioned above X10.com in the paid advertisers area. If you are, then you must lower your bid amount on your keyword in order to not be in violation of the bidding policies.
Thanks for writing in Lonnie!
Now is a great time to reach out to your market and advertise X10 products! Do you speak Spanish, French, Chinese, or another dialect in the US or Canada? Reach out to your fellow language speakers by advertising X10 products! The best way is to join the X10 VIP Affiliate Program and set up a blog posting about the benefits of X10 in your dialect! Reach out to your communities and earn 40% commissions on all qualifying sales!
If you need assistance on how to get started, contact the Affiliates Desk at affiliates@x10.com!
Each week, we receive many emails from affiliates and potential affiliates regarding our Advertising program. In an effort to provide a service to all of you, I plan on publishing several of these letters along with our response. Here is our first letter from Lonnie.
When many of my affiliates ask me what they can do to increase sales and orders of X10 products, I always ask about their blog. Some either have a blog, and others are confused as to why a blog would make any difference. The one thing I realize though is that the majority of these publishers underestimate the power of how a blog can drive sales, especially those who keep one. The affiliates that do have a blog only write one because they’re told that blogs can help – however, they really have no idea how or why this is so. I wanted today’s post to focus on explaining the effectiveness of a blog and how you should use it to your advantage.
Attention X10 Affiliates! The VK59A is now SOLD OUT! We are focusing our efforts on finding a viable alternative to this product in the future.
Currently, any customers looking to purchase this item will receive a free equipment upgrade/replacement featuring the VK82A for a limited time only, until a permanent solution can be decided upon.
The Google Analytic tool is one that I highly recommend to my affiliates. This is a website tracking system provided by Google that shows everything in full detail such as where your visitors are coming from, how many visitors you have, and much more. Knowing this information can help you to identify important geographic information in order to cater your website to your customers. It can also tell you the busiest times of traffic or slowest times visitors come to your site. One of the best features is its ability to tell you the sites for where your traffic came through, giving you an opportunity to advertise to your target market.
The Google Analytics program is a free service of Google. You can find the registration link at www.google.com/analytics.
Attention X10 affiliates! Have you published an interesting article regarding something you did with your X10 products? Let everyone know about it and don’t forget to add your affiliate links and banners!
I’ll publish your articles or blogs on the X10 Community and you can have readers from all over the world read about your great idea and click on your links!
So what are you waiting for? Start submitting your articles today! community@x10.com
Creativity is key for several of our X10 Affiliates. One of the things they are able to do is sell their consulting skills to their customers (when they meet face-to-face) by providing in-depth knowledge about our products that can enhance or better their lives. In doing so, they are able to make the sale and earn the commissions.
(As originally published on www.X10affiliate.com)
How does Shed.com get traffic and earn commission with the X10 VIP Program?
Here's an interesting link referring to the Top 10 Search Engines brought to you by SEOConsultants.com
These stats displayed on this article send the same message I usually tell our affiliates who are interested in jumping into paid search or SEO:
1. Google is THE KING
2. Yahoo! Comes in 2nd
3. MSN is closely behind Yahoo!
Knowing this information play a big role, because it shows where your best chance of landing the sales would come from... Any thoughts?
Because of concerns of making sure they receive commissions from their online orders, I have affiliates call in on a regular basis to test their links to check that their affiliate information is properly embedded.
The simplest way I tell them is to use a Firefox browser.
Here are the steps for checking your affiliate cookies to make sure they are properly embedded:
Continue reading "Testing Your Cookies To Make Sure They Are Functioning" »
How can you persuade more buyers to purchase through your website? here’s a great read by bCentral, entitled Increase Sales Online, which provides some great tips on how to do so.
I received an email by Caid yesterday, who is new to the “world of affiliation.” I thought he posed a good question, so I wanted to share it with you.
I was on the phone the other day with Dave, one of my affiliates back east. Dave and I always have an interesting talk about some of the things he finds online. I was intrigued with a couple of the sites he mentioned, because one of them had the ability to display past snapshots of your website showing you how your site has developed over time. The other site was a great datafeed provider to thousands of other companies, giving you a world of options.
Digg.com is all about user-powered content. Everything on the site is submitted and voted on by the Digg Community. How it works is that you as the user submit the content in the form of a blog then others in the community read it and comment on it.
A mainstream site with millions of readers, many X10 affiliates have recently used Digg to their advantage to help generate sales. Do you like to write? Better yet do you have an interesting story that you want to share pertaining to your X10 gadgets? Write up your blog and submit it to Digg today. Be sure to provide useful tips and of course include your affiliate links to help people know where they can go to buy them from you. It’s a great way to attract more interest to your site and possibly make a few sales.
I received a call today from Kevin. Kevin and I had spoken a few times over the past week, and in our conversation, we talked about things that I hear about on a regular occasion from a lot of other affiliates, that being "Now that I signed up as an Affiliate, i've already designed my website. What’s next?"
Usually the first question I’ll ask from this point is "Did you register a name for your site and choose a hosting company?" at which usually the reply is no.
Continue reading "The Very Basics To Getting Your Site Online" »
Do you often wonder about the effectiveness of your site? Here are some questions to think about: Are you getting the most of out it that you should be? Are you reaching your target audience? Does your audience have any interest in your site? After all, what good is having a website if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do?
I wanted to add on to yesterday’s post by continuing the discussion of keywords, or more importantly, discussing ways to get the most out of your keyword list in order to be more effective for the search engines.
Did you know that there are tools you can use for doing keyword research? These tools are in the form of programs that you can use to measure how many times keywords are being searched on the popular search engines.
Continue reading "Getting The Most Out Of Your Keyword List" »
I speak to many affiliates who advertise on the keyword channels without much success. On the flipside, I also speak to many who have a ton of success. Usually those who are successful, are unwilling to give up their secrets, but after all, who can blame them?
Video Blogs, or Vlogs as they are known, are the latest trend generated by the Internet. Popular online video sites such as YouTube, Grouper, & Jumpcut generate millions of visitors to their sites daily, and have even grabbed the attention of such online giants as MSN, AOL & Google. So much in fact, that in October of 2006, Search Engine giant Google.com recently in a rivalry battle, shoveled out $1.65 billion USD to purchase online video community giant YouTube, while MSN and AOL have recently launched their own video community sites with the hopes of competing and taking a chunk of the market share.
Happy New Years everyone! I hope you all had a great Holiday season. I just returned from a nice little family vacation overseas and had the chance to re-acquaint with the relatives after over 20 years.
As I get back into the flow of things, you can expect new blog postings by next week. Right now, it’s time for me to catch up. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, I’ll be getting back to you very soon!
So how do you know what your customers want? A great way to find out is to add an online poll to your site. Free poll services are available throughout the Internet, and they are great because people like to respond to them.
“When a new visitor accesses your Web site, a rapid and almost unconscious, complex thought process is activated. Within seconds, an impression is formed, a determination is made, and the visitor decides whether to stay or leave.” As reported by Steven Brightbill, in an article entitled Your Website’s First Impression, published by Sounding Line Magazine, a resource that provides insight for making smart decisions about insurance technology.
Sales leads are important to generating sales. Isn’t that a coincidence? When you are able to bring people to your site you have a better chance of landing the sales. I want to discuss ways to help you locate leads and talk about ways to help you close on them.
The great thing about the Internet is its ability to target a worldwide audience. With its popularity, the majority of people in North America now have at least one email address. Statistics from ConsumerAffairs.com on a September 21, 2006 article show that 66% of the US population has some form of high speed Internet (DSL or Cable) as opposed to 44% with dial-up.
I wanted to give everyone a heads up, that there won’t be any blog posts next week from the 20th of December until the 2007 New Year as I’ll be on vacation during that time off in some wonderful warm tropical place, away from the wind, rain, and snow of the Pacific Northwest. It’ll be the first time that the Christmas tree won’t be consisting of pine needles, but of coconuts and palm leaves… It’ll be strange… It makes it a little tougher to conceal the Christmas gifts underneath!
I’m reminded of a funny quote from a friend who lived on this tropical place that they knew Christmas was quickly approaching because the weather was getting too hot and becoming uncomfortable. For those of us in the US, that’s definitely a strange thing to hear as it’s totally opposite. Guess I’ll be on the beach building up a sand man.
I wanted to talk about some of the X10 policies that you can use to your advantage by posting on your website. If anything I’m always asked by people interested in purchasing things such as return policies and shipping costs. With all of the concerns I receive, it’s important to market your site knowing that you can offer assurances for your customers. By offering assurances you’ll be able to put your customers at ease and help them make their decisions to purchase from you an easier choice. The last thing they want to worry about is what happens if this purchase doesn’t satisfy their expectations?
In addition, it’s also important to provide resources for your buyers so they have the ability to turn somewhere if they need assistance.
Continue reading "Assuring Your Customers & Putting Them At Ease" »
Who Buys X10 Products?
Knowing your customer is key to successful marketing programs. I found a link compiling some basic marketing statistics that you can use to help you properly market your X10 links containing key demographics for X10 products.
According to Lee Ann Obringer, author of How Sales Techniques Work, it costs more than five times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. She goes on to say that that in itself should help you understand the value of building a relationship with your customers and turning them into both repeat buyers and spokespeople for your company because word of mouth referrals are still one of the best ways to make sales.
Answers.com defines emotional appeal as a type of advertising in which the copy is designed to stimulate one's emotions, rather than one's sense of the practical or impractical. When copywriters use emotional appeal in advertising, they are attempting to appeal to the consumer's psychological, social, or emotional needs. The copy is written to arouse fear, love, hate, greed, sexual desire, or humor, or otherwise create psychological tension that can best be resolved by purchase of the product or service (2006).
I believe that the difference between a salesman and a consultant is the way that they appear to the buyer. A salesman is pushy, and may seem greedy or unhelpful, and you can tell that their main focus is to make a sale at all costs, even if it is the wrong item that doesn’t fit your needs or criteria.
So how can you use the “sexy factor” to your advantage on your website? First, it’s important to think about marketing demographics. Since everyone has a different target audience, it’s important to look at who your potential buyers are and to think about what makes them “feel sexy.”
Continue reading "Psychology of "Sexy Selling" -- Pt. 3 of 3" »
In continuing from yesterday’s post on "Sexy Selling," here’s part 2 of our 3 part Series…
Continue reading "Psychology of "Sexy Selling" -- Pt 2 of 3" »
Let’s face it, sexiness sells. Sexy marketing is everywhere today.
In this 3-part series, I’m going to talk about the Psychology of “Sexy Selling” in three different segments. This segment will focus on why I feel that sex appeal sells; the next segment (which will be published tomorrow) will focus on some interesting facts that I discovered about sexy marketing; and the final segment will focus on how you can use sexy marketing to your advantage.
Continue reading "Psychology of “Sexy Selling” – Pt. 1 of 3" »
Each day I review many web sites from people who are applying for acceptance into our Commission Junction Affiliate Program. 1 out of every 10 applicants will be declined entry into the program because they run a banner site.
Got snowed in today... As those of you who watched the Monday Night Football game know, the weather in Seattle has been snowy. I write today's blog post from home, as the roads are slicked over, and the temperatures are not going to rise up enough to melt the ice. In fact, this is the earliest I can recall the snow arriving. We usually don't even receive much snow out in the Pacific Northwest as it is.
First I wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a great opportunity to spend precious family time together and enjoy each other’s company.
Paul Graham, from Yahoo Small Business, released an article in 1999 entitled The 10 Secrets of Selling Online. A great read, Graham reveals information as to how online businesses are able to overcome adversity and become profitable. Much of what he discusses are the same points I usually provide to our affiliates.
You see them on television everytime during a commercial. They may be actors or professionals, or they may even be regular people, and usually the message they speak says a lot about the products they are talking about. When it comes to using testimonials, they are guaranteed to help sell more product. Why is this? On June 9, 2006, Testimonailblog.com publishes an interesting articles in regards to why testimonials are great.
Many people find them very annoying. I even receive a number of emails each week about how much people hate our popups. They even tell us where we can put them. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s not a very nice place.
With so many people writing in providing their opinions of “where we can place our popups” why does X10 continue to do it?
Did you know that the color of your website has an adverse effect on your visitors? When designing a site, it’s always good to think about Psychology Color Marketing, or how you use colors to convey a subliminal message about your website. When done properly, considering Psychology Color marketing provides you the ability to generate additional affiliate sales.
Continue reading "Adding The Right Colors To Your Website" »
I was creating an article that I was hoping to publish tonight regarding the Psychology of Colors for your websites. Unfortunately, it's taking a bit longer to draft then I had expected. Look for the article to be published by early next week, hopefully by Monday. It's a great way to help you figure out how to setup your X10 banners to best attract your customers.
Have A Good Weekend!
The new affiliates usually ask me what the top selling items are at X10. Especially the items that do so well for affiliate sales. I wanted to put out a quick mention to let you know.
The affiliate team is busy working on new landing pages and banners to replace some of the current and out of date ones you can find online.
Recently, we posted new banners to the Video Calling System, added a new Text Link that tracks back to X10.com, and added a new banner that tracks back to X10.com.
Right now, we are working on a new Protector Plus landing page which should work well to help you make more sales.
Look for new changes to come soon! Check out www.x10affiliate.com for more affiliate advertisements!
X10 affiliates are some of the most creative bunch of people when it comes to finding ways to make sales. Aside from the traditional ways of advertising via a website, many use some unconventional ways that seem to work.
One affiliate who lives in a large metropolitan area I spoke to uses one of their independent newspapers to place ads. By adding his website, his Affiliate ID, and the X10 Affiliate sales hotline number to his ad, he finds great success in making sales.
Another affiliate uses the power of community sites. Placing a listing on the classified section of MySpace, Friendster, and Tagworld, she had the ability to create an interest and make a few sales.
Last month I spoke to another Affiliate who advertises in their church bulletin. He says it works oddly enough and has the sales to support it. And the most interesting thing is a gentleman who works for the State Prison system. With many prisons in the area he was able to capture an interesting market.
Hmm…. How do you make your X10 sales?
How does Google do it? Many people have asked me this very question, especially those new to search engines and keyword bidding. You look at the site and you see a plain and simple looking page. Yet, they have the world’s financial backing behind them and have deep pockets consisting of billions of dollars.
The secret to Google’s success lies not on the fact that anything and everything on the web can be found on their website, but the fact that retailers, merchants, and those in the web industry pay for advertisement space on their site. How are they doing this you ask? Since Google likes to list every site in the world as it is for free?
Today is Halloween… and by the time I get home from work it’ll already be dark and the streets will be full of ghosts, goblins, monsters, and more. I’m ashamed to admit this, but last week I bought a big bag of candy to pass out. But as the week passed on, I’ve been slowly munching away on the little delights, now leaving only about 5 pieces in the bag… It looks like I’ll be shutting off the lights to the front door and quietly be hiding in my home. Oh well, I tried….
It’s been a good trick or treat campaign for our affiliates though this past week, as many of them have been able to generate a lot of sales. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with several of them and was provided some goodies. For example, www.davesbargain.com has a section on freebies. In talking to Dave, he’s taken advantage of a few things there himself and is the recipient of several cool gifts. I just wanted to share this with everyone in the event you may be looking for a few good deals. Thanks Dave!
Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!
I would have to say the most often asked question I receive, and the most important, is “What are X10’s rules when it comes to keyword bidding on the Search Engines?”
With the recent push of Google updating their backlinks, many of our affiliate’s sites were re-ranked or pushed aside from the front of the search engine towards the back. This had a big effect on them as many of them saw their sales plummet.
Continue reading "The Basics to Improving Your Search Engine Rankings" »
I receive many inquires from our affiliates about Microsites. These were mini-websites that X10 used to design for affiliates to help them sell our products. Unfortunately, X10 no longer produces these mini-sites. However, we have had many affiliates inquire about designing their own sites and were in need of articles, comparisons, or faqs regarding X10 products. Those items, we do have. All that’s needed is a simple email to the Affiliates Team at affiliates@x10.com and we can quickly email them to you. Also, please title your subject line with X10 Affiliates, or something that will catch our eye, as we receive thousands of emails a day that are spam.
For those of you looking to be creative, you are also welcome to use any of the items on x10.com if it will help you out. This includes all images, multimedia, graphics, articles and more!
To learn more, visit us at www.x10affiliate.com
As the Affiliate manager, one of the most asked questions I receive comes from others living globally outside of the United States and Canada. The question “Can I join if I operate my website from a country that’s not the US or Canada?”
The answer to this question is YES! Absolutely! Keep in mind that the Internet is a global phenomenon. It’s a way to tie people together from all parts of the world. As a hobbyist web designer I know that many of my readers come from outside the US. So I find it fascinating that someone in Europe would be going over things that I am creating in the Northwest Corner up in Seattle. By adding products that they may be interested in, I am reaching out to them overseas and finding ways to earn extra income. This logic holds true for anyone no matter where they may be. X10 may only ship products throughout North America, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t have the ability to capitalize on this, especially if you draw a readership base with many from the US or Canada.
To learn more, visit us at www.x10affiliate.com
This has been a very busy week here at X10, probably the busiest since my tenure here. Needless to say, I’m proud that all of the hard work I’ve put in has amounted to a ton of newfound knowledge and improvements for the Departments I am asked to care for.
With many hours put in this week, I’ve spent many of them revamping our Affiliate site. It’s in with the new and out with the old. Also, I’ve had the opportunity to speak directly with so many of our Affiliates to find ways that we can help them make more sales. I’m excited to see the results start to show from their end.
I just wanted to remind you, if you operate a website, let us help you make money off of it! Come visit our In-house VIP Affiliate Program at www.x10affiliate.com! If you have ever wanted to get into the world of Online Advertising, it’s definitely a great way to go!
Today we are providing our Affiliate partners through our VIP Affiliate site another opportunity to make their riches!
X10 is pleased to announce that affiliates can now earn 10% profits from every Video Calling System sold as a result of their advertisements. This means at the minimum you’ll make $29.99 USD per system sold!
If you are an affiliate jump into the action by grabbing banners from our affiliate site. If you want to learn more about becoming a VIP Affiliate, visit us at our website at www.x10affiliate.com.
Becoming an affiliate is free! and you'll never have to pay for anything. So why not start earning your riches today?
Following up the blog I posted on June 28, 2006 entitled Enjoy X10 and Make A Few Bucks on the Side!, I’ve had numerous questions inquiring more into the affiliation program and how it works.
Continue reading "Answers to Your Questions Regarding Affiliation" »
I remember when I was fairly new to web design and would host my own sites. I used to browse the web at other people’s pages and wonder how was it that they were able to get advertisers to place their ads onto their pages. This used to bug me, as I could never figure this out. I used to try and call businesses to let them know that I had a website and was looking to place ads, but would never get anywhere doing this.
Continue reading "Enjoy X10 and make a few bucks on the side!" »