Beginner’s Guide To affiliate marketing

Google Adwords Rules and Regulations
Adwords’ rules and regulations can and do change. Google provides a free guide to help you get started, along with information online and the Adwords Blog.
When it comes to landing pages, Google Adwords expects a link that works. (Seems like a no-brainer but they obviously had to put it in writing.)
Once a viewer clicks on your ad, the promoted product should not be more than 3 clicks away. The landing page cannot contain pop-ups or pop-unders. Clicking on the back arrow at any time must return the user to Google.
The landing page is a vital part of pay-per-click marketing. If you send viewers directly to the Clickbank merchant’s page, you’re required to show yourself as an affiliate. Google allows two affiliate links per merchant per page. Two. If you aren’t one of the top two producing pay per click affiliate marketers for the product, don’t bother writing ads.
URL’s featuring affiliate links or long URLs do not look professional and this can reduce clickability. Example: Promoting the tattoo site with the Clickbank link would look something like this – http://tattoo.hop.clickbank.com/7634. Some merchant affiliate links are quite lengthy. Example: http://greattattoo.com/angel/user/bebop/site2/3658720-90.
These are fictional examples but they illustrate the problem. One solution to affiliate links? Go to http://www.tinyurl.com/ and shorten the link. This is a popular solution. So popular that the words tiny URL look almost generic. Tinyurl.com also offers what they call the preview version, meant to instill more customer confidence. This version just adds the world ‘preview’ to the newly created URL.
You can also download profit protector and use it to create redirects. Since this does require FTP experience, you might prefer to use URL freeze. It’s free and doesn’t involve any uploading of files. You’ll find it at http://www.urlfreeze.com/.
The best solution to the URL issue is to get your own domain name. Use your keywords. Example: We’ll pretend that qualitytattoo.com is available and use it for the exercises we’re doing.
You cannot set up an actual Google Adwords campaign until you have a URL to direct ads to. When you type your ad into the Google Adwords ad setup, you’ll be required to provide the URL. Google will follow the URL, making sure it works and that your landing page contains the same keywords.
To register a domain name, go to a domain name registrar by typing domain name into the search engine search bar. There are several popular ones. GoDaddy, and Hostgator are two of them. Since you’re going to need a 2 page website, it will be easier to get both name and web address at the same place. While it is possible to point domain names to any location, it takes time.
Landing Page Hosting

To promote affiliate products with pay per click marketing, a lot of bandwidth or server space is not required. You don’t have to purchase a big, expensive hosting plan. There’s a good chance that the simplest plan will do nicely.
If you’re new to website design, it helps if your website host has built in website creator software. It isn’t necessary. There are a wide variety of free and low cost website templates available online. They come with directions for altering the template and uploading it to the server at your web host address.
Creating a Landing Page
Once you have a name and an address, it’s time to create a landing page that results in sales. Keep it simple. Many marketers state that a simple two column page is all you need. For a header at the top of your page, consider downloading a banner from the affiliate program.
If our example site qualitytattoo.com provided free banners for affiliates, getting one would be a simple matter of going to the page where affiliate tools and links are provided.
Page one should be where the customer arrives when clicking on the pay per click ad. The second page is the About page. That’s it. Two pages. Google expects to find a home page, an about page and contact information.
Three key features of a good landing page:
Easy to Read
Attractive and Professional
Directly Represent What Ad Promotes
The landing page should match the ad – it should contain the same keywords. Write a short review or article about the product you are promoting. Put text links inside the article to the merchant page.
Example promo written for domain name of myangeltattoo.com:
The Ebony Angel Tattoo by renowned tattoo artist Cherise is truly a work of art. The ethereal glow of the angel wings gives the tattoo the look of a living, breathing creature. Crimson etching shadowing the wings lend an aura of dangerous power… more
The hyperlink for the word ‘more’ leads to the merchant page. The phrase ‘Angel Tattoo’ and other keywords, (tattoo, design, etc) should be bold and can also be hyperlinked to the sales page. This text can be a two to three paragraph article or a short introduction.
Your landing page must hook and hold viewers attention in just a few seconds. Product image(s) should be placed to the left side of the page.
Other Landing Page Contents
A free newsletter sign up form should be included on the page. This is often in the upper right or left corners of the page. Many web hosting services that feature website builder software also provide easy to use forms to include on pages. Some web hosts also include a free autoresponder to handle the signups.
Contact information should reflect the email address you set up with your hosting provider or a free email address that you will check frequently.
Opinions vary on how many products to feature on a page. Since the angel tattoo, fairy tattoo and dragon tattoo are all tattoos; all three could be featured on the same landing page. In this case, an article or product review would be done for each tattoo.
You can keep the landing page fresh and continually updated by grabbing an article feed and having articles about tattoo related topics showing on the page. These should be positioned below your tattoo promo material.
Using RSS article feeds
Ezinearticles.com and other article sites allow articles to be used as long as resource boxes are included. If you are using the ezinearticle.com feed, you don’t have to worry about anything except making sure the feed works. Ezinearticles.com has a high ranking, another good reason to have them linked to your page.
To get an ezinearticle.com feed, go to www.ezinearticles.com/rss. There you can scroll down to the ezinearticles.com arts and entertainment - tattoo section. Click on the orange feed button. The copy and paste the address shown at the top of the page. It will end in xml. In this case it is http://ezinearticles.com/rss/Arts-and-Entertainment-Tattoos.xml
This will be the feed address needed to add the feed to your landing page. If the website builder software that came with your webhosting doesn’t allow easy, automatic feed insertion, there are many free RSS tutorials online.
Search engines like fresh content and a feed that updates daily is fresh content you don’t have to be doing manually.
Landing Page Do’s

Do deliver what the ad promises.
Do include ad headline in landing page headline.
Do limit or remove navigation
Do use the search terms at the top of the landing page so that viewers know they’ve landed on the right page.
Landing Page Do Not’s

Do not use the same old boring text.
Do not clutter the page.
Do not make it easy for the customer to leave the page. (Keep navigation bar a simple one – home and about.)

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