How to Setup an Affiliate Link That Looks Normal
Ready to become a WAHM Geek?
Have you ever hovered over a banner ad or link only to shy away from clicking on it because the link looked like code written by some pimply faced hacker?
Chances are the link was a tracking link used to record where you were when you clicked. This is how affiliate programs are tracked so the right people get credit for sending traffic and paid.
Here are two examples of typical affiliate links:
https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=68188&c=ib&aff=18667&ev=af7a1c01e8
or like this if they’re trying their best to not scare you out of clicking :
They’ll work if and when people click on them, but there is a cleaner, more effective, approach.
Here’s how you can setup affiliate links that should help your overall results:
- Log into your Web host manager (cpanel in my case) and create a new FOLDER and name it ‘more’ (or whatever you prefer). Note: You can set this folder up in your root directory (public_html) or in any subfolder.
- Next open the new “more” FOLDER and create an HTML FILE named “info1001″ or anything you like. You should keep it generic and keep in mind that you may want to create many more links in the future.
This has created a single blank page in the ‘more’ folder. This will result in a link that looks like this when someone scrolls over it:
http://www.yoursite.com/more/info1001.html
Now you have the good looking link ready… but if you want the link to work you will have to insert a little code onto the HTML page you created, which is inside of the new folder.
Here’s the code:
(REPLACE the generic info in all caps with YOUR information.)
—————————————————————
<html>
<head>
<title>YOUR PAGE TITLE</title>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;url=http://YOUR AFFILIATE URL”>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Redirecting, please wait. If you’re not redirected within a couple of seconds,
click here:<br />
<a href=”http://YOUR AFFILIATE URL”>PRODUCT NAME</a>
——————————————————–
Change “YOUR PAGE TITLE” (whatever you want it to be)
Change “YOUR AFFILIATE URL” to the affiliate url given to you from vendor for the item or page (must be precise and complete)
Change “PRODUCT NAME” to your affiliate product name (can be anything)
——————————————
Yes, it takes about 10-15 minutes, but once it’s setup you can reuse it everywhere you want to market that program, product, or service using the easy-to-remember URL you created from scratch.
If this doesn’t work for you try this site:
http://www.forfreedom.ws/affiliate-marketing-for-dummies/how-to-hide-affiliate-links-25/
(NO… that is NOT an affiliate link! Really!)
How Mompreneurs Use Elance to Find Clients
I’ve been familiar with Elance for years and although I’ve never utilized it I’m aware of many situations where entrepreneurs and clients have connected to do great things together. What is Elance you ask? Here’s how they describe themselves: “Elance is an online workplace where businesses find and hire people “on demand” to get work done quickly and cost effectively.”
Elance recently posted a series of 3 mom articles about mompreneurs that utilize Elance to keep business rolling in. The most recent article was about Sue Kristoff 
who started her business, The Kristoff Group LLC, after she had a couple of children and decided to trade in her daily commute and co-workers for her family. Her freelance technical writing business is doing well and she spends about 10 hours a week serving clients right now while her kids are young. Sounds like a great plan to me!
The other two articles offer glimpses into two other moms that have decided to take control over their time and destiny. They can be found on the Elance blog here:
Using Thumbnails on Your Website
No, we’re not talking about scratching your website’s eyes out with your thumbnail… We’re talking about the small pictures of websites that you see on some sites like the Momz.com directory for example. Momz.com presents a thumbnail of every one of the 1,500 or so websites listed in the directory. This helps the visitor determine which sites are worth visiting with a quick glance.
These “thumbnails” help filter out foreign sites, offensive sites, and generally offer us a better surfing experience.
We use Thumbshots, a free tool to pull the thumbnail images from their database and present them when needed. All they ask for in return for this highly useful service is a link back to their site on your website.
To show you how easy it is I’ll explain what I did to add the thumbnails to this post:
- Register at Thumbshots
- Once registered they share the small piece of code needed to add the thumbs to any post or web page you want.
- Using Wordpress you just place your cursor where you want to insert the thumbnail and press the picture icon just as you would to insert any photograph.
- This time you’ll enter the code from Thumbshots and after the “=” equal sign simply type in the URL of the website and like magic their tool pulls the thumb of the website and places it where you wanted it.
- To move the thumbnail over to the left and have the text wrap around it using Wordpress you click on the
image, click on the LEFT justify icon or button and the picture is moved to left and text wraps around automatically.
Give it a try on your website. Post any questions in the comments area and we’ll try to help.
Landing Page Design and Conversion
During some routine surfing of some Webmaster resource sites I came across a useful article by a search engine expert and thought I’d share it with you since so many of you sell products. The article, ‘11 Ways to Improve Landing Pages‘ on Social Patterns was written some time ago, but the recommendations continue to be solid and worth a quick read if you want to increase your conversion rates and success in selling online.
————————————————————————–
70-554, MCSD Microsoft .NET Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer is very beneficial for those candidates who already have knowledge and experience of using Microsoft .NET framework. EX0-100, Microsoft exams is very helpful in providing very comprehensive and authentic knowledge for IT specialists. HP0-064, HP Microsoft certification is very significant to improve the technical skills of IT expertise. MB2-421, Microsoft certification exam is very important in introducing the latest tools and techniques of e-commerce to establish IT business successfully.
Google Checkout for WAHM Shop Owners
This news is old news for some of you, but I’ve seen so many online stores not participating that I thought I’d send out this reminder… Google is a major online force and whenever they announce a new product, service or tool intelligent netpreneurs pay close attention, as does Wall Street to see which poor companies are at risk of going extinct.
Awhile back Google announced the launch of their Google Checkout and WAHM shop owners should be taking advantage of this additional payment method that more and more online buyers are utilizing.
SEO 101
For those of you with Websites, but not a lot of experience as Webmasters you may have heard the terms SEO, search marketing, search engine marketing and SERPs, but never really understood what the heck they meant. I’ll attempt to answer some of those questions in this series, SEO 101:
What is Search Engine Marketing?
- Search engine marketing is the methodology we use to get our Websites more visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- There are variety of methods that can be used to achieve better visibility in search engines, which include search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), paid-inclusion and link building techniques.
- The ultimate goal of your search engine marketing campaigns should be to increase traffic from search engines listings. I’ve read that the value of first page results on Google searches can be valued into the multiple thousands of dollars. The more traffic you can drive to your site through search engines the less you’ll have to rely on paid advertising.
- In order to succeed at this, search engine marketing campaigns are usually focused on a users search query as a starting point. For example, if a potential customer enters “newborn baby clothes”, and you sell baby clothing from an online shop, you’ll want that prospect to find your site, or a subpage within your site, ahead of other online shops selling baby clothes. “newborn baby clothes” is an example of a keyword term.
- Keyword terms make search marketing a powerful advertising vehicle. It’s the most targeted form of marketing available bar none. What better time to be in front of a potential buyer then when they’re online searching for an online shop that sells “newborn baby clothes”?
- Once this mom arrives in your shop you have to try and turn her into a customer, if not now, in the future and hopefully for years to come. That’s another lesson….
- Determining which keyword terms your target audience are using for their searches is a key concept in search marketing.
I’ve added some links below to help you determine which search terms might generate enough volume to warrant your efforts in building a search engine marketing campaign:
I use Overture’s Keyword Tool to help spot keywords and search terms that generate loads of traffic. Overture is owned by Yahoo! so while it’s not Google it’ll give you a good idea of where to go looking for gold.
Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
For an excellent introduction to SEO I recommend a visit to a thread written by John Scott over at the v7n forums. Click here for the SEO Primer.