Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate-Essentials University

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.



Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.



Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate's site, is redirected to the merchant's website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.



Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.



In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.



Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.



All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

3 Necessary Tools for the High Rolling Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate-Essentials University

What does it take to become a successful Affiliate Marketer? What are the ingredients of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to Affiliate Marketing glory? All these questions play around in the minds of affiliate marketers who want to make it big in this business.


Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it is not as easy as it sounds. The wise affiliate marketer plans every action and executes it the best way he can. He should also maximize the potential to earn by utilizing the right tools necessary for a successful Affiliate Marketing business. We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and below are the top three necessary tools for a successful affiliate marketing business.



Important Tool #1: Your Own Website



The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and service you are promoting and make a purchase. Therefore, you must first concentrate your efforts in building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.



The most important thing you should consider is that almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. People will love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, in the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a good step in building up a loyal consumer base.



Important Tool #2: Incentives



Competition is extremely tight in the internet world. You must always be one-step ahead of your rivals to ensure that you capture a significant share of your target market. Therefore, you must use every possible means to encourage people not only to visit your site but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting. Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather prospects. Offer a newsletter or an e-zine. Better yet, offer incentives to your prospects to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletters. You can present free softwares, access to exclusive services and other freebies that will be helpful to your prospects.



Important Tool #3: Link Popularity



The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important entities in the internet world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you should carry out. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive reciprocal link campaign.



One of the best ways to do this – at no cost at all – is by submitting articles, with your website's link at the resource box, to e-zines and free article sites. You will not only gain exposure, you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, just include a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity is. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick it up and post it.



These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. You can always explore other ideas and adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become a high rolling affiliate marketer.

Building Affiliate Marketing Websites The Easy Way

Affiliate-Essentials University

There are some myths in affiliate marketing, which attract a lot of people to it believing they are true. First is they think managing an online business is easy and second, they think that one can make a fortune through online marketing in an instant. Probably not even 10% of those who are into affiliate marketing became rich overnight. There may be some who fortunately achieved overwhelming success in just a short span of time after setting up an affiliate program, but not a majority of them can confidently say they only had luck. Anyone who is successful in this kind of business would say he worked hard to get to where he is right now. Success in affiliate marketing takes time and hard work, but it’s worth it.



If you are planning to start an affiliate program, one of the things you have to consider is having your own website, not just an ordinary website but a professional looking one. How do you build an affiliate marketing website? What are the easy steps to build one? First, you must have already decided on the theme or niche of your website. It would be better if you already have an idea what products or services to promote as this would help you plan the design and lay-out of your web pages. The next thing to do is to choose a domain name and get it hosted. The domain name is a unique name used to label the actual address of your website on the Internet. In deciding what domain name to register, look into the type of products you are endorsing and the theme of your site. Having the right keywords in your domain name would give you better chances of drawing more visitors to your website. Also, choose a top level domain or extension, such as .com because it is more popular. In selecting your web host, consider the security of servers and up time guarantees.



Now, you can start creating your webpages. Don’t be disheartened when you know a little in this field. There are page generation tools and fast launch sites available online; you just have to search for them. Countless online sources could help you build an affiliate marketing website, though you might need time to study and learn the whole process. This is one of the reasons why your site or the products you are going to promote must match your interest. Building your marketing website for the first time would be a lot more fun if you know very well the theme of your site. If you don’t have time to make your own website, you can use templates or purchase readily available websites. The latter, however, is a more expensive option.



Creating an affiliate website on your own would be cheaper and more interesting. In the process of building your website, you may also increase your knowledge in Information Technology and the use of computers, softwares and the Internet. As you educate yourself in these fields, you are increasing your advantage against other affiliate marketers. It helps a lot, though, if you already know the basics in web page development like programming languages and graphics softwares because you can make your site extra corporate-looking, more convenient to use or easier to navigate. Furthermore, if you are knowledgeable and skillful in this area, you can already concentrate more on the content of the page rather than the design.



The key to draw visitors to your website is to have high quality content; thus, the next thing you must pay attention to in building your marketing website is this. There may be several other factors that contribute to the success of your affiliate marketing site, but a good content tops the list. This is precisely the reason why users choose to enter your site. They want to get information and so when they don’t find it, they would definitely go elsewhere. Write interesting articles related to your theme as this would make them frequent your site. If you have already looked for affiliate programs that complement your site, add links to the business sites and other very good informative sites. Links contribute to how well you will be listed in major search engines as well. Also, create pages for the products you are endorsing, but don’t just promote the products by putting hyped-up ads. Keep your readers interested by injecting lots of relevant and useful information. This would make them click the link to the business site and buy the product. Remember that no good content means no frequent visitors, no sales and ultimately, no commission.



Make your site simple yet not without a touch of class in order to make it appear more of a business website rather than a personal website. This would be pleasing to the eyes and more interesting to browse. To help you with the design, you can check some successful online stores to get an idea on how you can make your site look better. Make sure you don’t place too many banner ads since these could distract some site users; and thus, instead of clicking your ad, they might just leave your site and look for other interesting websites. After all, banner ads are not the only means of advertising your products. Now your website is complete, submit its URL to major search engines to increase your traffic.



Grow from where you started. Learn about use of keywords for search engine optimization and apply them in your content. Update your site regularly or add new webpages. Make sure to inform your prospects about the latest updates in your site. You can use newsletters to accomplish this. The Internet offers a huge source of information about just anything, make use of it. Continue to educate yourself on how to improve your website and soon you’ll find yourself successful in affiliate marketing.

7 Ways to Drive Laser-Targeted Traffic

Affiliate-Essentials University

An affiliate marketer may have all the things needed for him to be able to succeed in a business such as affiliate marketing. He may have the necessary drive, diligence and perseverance to be able to understand how the system works. He may have all the tools necessary in maintaining the business, including a really unique and interesting website which could earn him a fortune if only the whole world could see it. However, all these would prove useless if he does not know how to drive traffic to his website. His business would sink into oblivion together with all the sales, fortune and dreams that he might have realized if he only knew how to do this particular task.




Getting people who matter to see one’s website is a difficult undertaking if he tries to consider the fact that there are rivals everywhere waiting to pin him down. The immensity of the internet as well as the affiliate marketing world has given birth to the fierce competition between affiliate marketers, each of whom has his own great product to offer. With all the websites piling on top of each other, how would one be able to stand out? The seven best ways to drive laser-targeted traffic to one’s own website would help those who are bent on sticking it out with this business wherever it is bound to take them.



The first step in driving traffic to one’s website is by relying on search engines and what they can do for the affiliate marketer concerned. Because they are popular for driving free targeted traffic, they should not be ignored by all means. Having top search engine rankings is vital in building popularity links, and the use of the right keywords is important in attaining this goal. Once a website is on top of the list, it is easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it for himself.



The second way in driving traffic to one’s website is by contacting other webmasters for a possible link exchange partnership. Locating websites that are related to one’s own website is the primary task. Once there, he should be able to establish communication by personalizing everything as much as possible. It is then possible to make reciprocal link exchanges between webmasters whichever way the affiliate marketer prefers.



The third way is through writing one’s own articles. This is an effective way in promoting a website, because good content that are appreciated by readers will lead them to visit the writer’s very own website out of sheer interest.



The fourth way is through joint venture marketing. This is one of the most effective ways of promoting a product or a service. Having a partner through ad swap or link exchange is beneficial to both parties as it allows them to reach a wide customer base in a short amount of time.



The fifth is through joining affiliate programs. Having affiliates to do the work means allowing them to bring tons of traffic to a website. Skyrocketing sales would be realized as a result, and both the affiliate and the website owner will benefit from the situation.



The sixth is by having a list of subscribers that one can refer to every so often, because they are those which would prove to be valuable assets for the marketer concerned. The use of autoresponders and personalized newsletters is one way of keeping track of them all, and holding on to them by letting them know about new products and services is an essential task that should be done by the affiliate marketer concerned.



The seventh is by knowing one’s market through and through. It is important for traffic to be targeted to those who might have a special interest in the theme or topic of one’s website. This way, a solid customer base is going to be created. Once a potential customer shows an interest in a particular website by paying it a visit, one must not waste time in trying to show him that his effort is worth it.



Traffic generating strategies are important in trying to make one’s affiliate marketing career inch forward. It is always advantageous to plan one’s moves in any business that he might undertake. This is particularly so in affiliate marketing. If one knows how to get people to see what he has to offer, then he is on the right track.

Is Affiliate Marketing Any Good?

Affiliate-Essentials University

Affiliate marketing takes on many forms, but, simply put, it is a way to make money on the internet. Each product to sell becomes associated with its affiliates. Terms like solar affiliates describe these people. The methods they use also identify them such as 'eBay alternative' affiliate. Basically, affiliate marketing is an agreement between a merchant and its affiliates. The affiliates drive business to the merchants, and the merchants pay the affiliates.




So, here's the question" Is affiliate marketing any good? The pay is usually in the form of commission on every sale the affiliate generates. This commission can be as high as 75%. Some companies even pay their affiliates for every person that signs up to the site, not necessarily spending any money. For every sign up they generate, the affiliates usually get up to $4.50. This is the highest rate I have personally seen.



The affiliate industry is often misunderstood. Do not be tricked into thinking that it will be a get rich quick scheme. Also, affiliate marketing must be started with an initial investment. This investment might not be returned for weeks, or even months. If you quit after the first try, the investment will be lost forever.



The affiliate industry can't be described with single words such as "selling" or "advertising". In fact, the most successful affiliates do a lot of everything. They are webmasters, advertisers, pitch men, and entrepreneurs. Clearly, affiliate marketing takes some very hard work in order to be effective.



This can definitely generate a full time income, but it requires some full time work. Part of the initial investment should go toward some essential affiliate tools. Be sure to pick up a keyword analyzer, article submitter, and a few pieces of affiliate marketing learning material. You should definitely grab a few ebooks, and read them three times! Read them before you get started, use them as a quick reference while you're working, and then read them again.



Ryan knows the hardships involved in starting a new business. Affiliate marketing is no different. Contrary to popular belief, there are no get rich quick schemes that work.



There are, however, some tried and true tactics for affiliate success. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can simply copy someone else's work, though. If they're selling their AdWords campaigns, it usually means the niche has been bled dry and flooded out.



Instead of paying for someone else's trash, visit Affiliate-Essential University



You will discover an enormous collection of training guides, insider tactics, and hot-selling stuff for you to rebrand and sell as your own!



Ryan has dedicated the last year of his life in acquiring the most effective resources for affiliate marketers. Find them all at http://www.affiliate-essentials.com/

Affiliate Marketing - No Website Needed

Affiliate-Essentials University

Are you itching to start your own business? Don't have the time or capital to invest in it? You can still make money online without owning or operating a website. The answer is affiliate marketing.




Even if you don't have your own product to market, you can still make some money online. Through affiliate marketing, you can literally choose the most successful, highest grossing products to sell. Or you can do some research and find a niche product that has a lot of potential.



The only thing affiliate marketers are required to do is direct traffic to a merchant website. Then, for every sale that is generated, the affiliate gets a certain commission. The best part of affiliate marketing is that it is usually free to get signed up. Additionally, if you are like me, you probably already have a huge contacts list in your email account. For a no-cost sales method, just start dropping your contacts a line referring them to your chosen product.



Article marketing is another great way to succeed without a website. As an expert in your chosen field, you can write several articles for free. These will be posted online, and are easily accessible through search engines. These articles become free publicity, which should be your ultimate goal.



One thing to keep in mind as an affiliate, though, is that there are no free rides. To put it bluntly, succeeding as an affiliate takes a lot of hard work. It is simply not enough to sign up and choose a product. You have to make the effort to out compete many other affiliates promoting the same thing.



Ryan knows the hardships involved in starting a new business. Affiliate marketing is no different. Contrary to popular belief, there are no get rich quick schemes that work.



There are, however, some tried and true tactics for affiliate success. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can simply copy someone else's work, though. If they're selling their AdWords campaigns, it usually means the niche has been bled dry and flooded out.



Instead of paying for someone else's trash, visit Affiliate-Essential University



You will discover an enormous collection of training guides, insider tactics, and hot-selling stuff for you to rebrand and sell as your own!



Ryan has dedicated the last year of his life in acquiring the most effective resources for affiliate marketers. Find them all at http://www.affiliate-essentials.com/



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ryan_B._Carter

3 Essential Affiliate Marketing Tools

Affiliate-Essentials University

How do I become an affiliate marketer? How do I start an online business? Where do I start? What tools do I need in order to succeed? These questions are common to all aspiring affiliate marketers. In this article, I will clarify the most essential tools that every affiliate marketer needs.


1.  Your own website I can't stress this enough... you have to have your own domain and website in order to get anywhere as an affiliate marketer. Having your own website, you are free to customize the look, feel, and content of your site. You are also free to change your marketing strategies and sales pitches as you see fit. Since you are attempting to sell products, you should strive for a professional layout.

2.  Incentives In order to lure some of your potential customers away from your rivals, try to come up with something to offer them. A very effective tactic is to offer them a free newsletter or ezine in exchange for their email address. Building your email contacts in this way will lead to some quick sales.

3.  Lots and lots of backlinks Backlinks are the heart and soul of a successful website. In order to get a decent ranking in the top search engines, you need some valuable backlinks. These links point back to your site, and are very effective at getting you some much needed traffic. Google actually looks at each link as a vote for your site.

Of course, a key to my success is blogging and article writing! These are great ways to build up back links that are free of charge. Basically, when you start your online business, the more articles you write about it, the more traffic you will get. The more traffic you get, the more money you make.

Also, an often overlooked tactic is to find an online wholesale business opportunity. These will supply you with your own products to sell. They are really effective at minimizing start up costs.

I know the hardships involved in starting a new business. Affiliate marketing is no different. Contrary to popular belief, there are no get rich quick schemes that work. There are, however, some tried and true tactics for affiliate success. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can simply copy someone else's work, though. If they're selling their AdWords campaigns, it usually means the niche has been bled dry and flooded out.

Instead of paying for someone else's trash, visit Affiliate-Essential University You will discover an enormous collection of training guides, insider tactics, and hot-selling stuff for you to rebrand and sell as your own!

PLR Success

What is the difference between Resell Rights & Pvt. Label Rights?


Answer:

Many people are confused about the difference between resell rights and private label rights. Several mistakenly think that they are the same thing, and this is not so. It is easy, however, to understand how the two terms can be confusing.

If you have resell rights, you have the right to resell the product, in conjunction with the terms and conditions set forth in your license, as is. This means that you cannot alter or edit the product in any way, and you cannot put your name on it as the author.

If you have private label rights, however, you can edit and alter the product as you see fit, and you can even put your own name, or your company’s name, on the product as the author. You can change words, chapters, graphics, add to the product, break the product down into several different products – whatever you choose to do.

Because you have more freedom with private label rights, these types of products generally cost more to purchase the rights for. Some products even have two options when you purchase them: resell rights or private label rights. In fact, you can use your private label rights products and sell the resell rights to others, after you have changed the product and put your name on it.

There is also a difference between resell rights and master resell rights. Resell rights simply give you the right to resell the product, while master resell rights allow you to resell the product and the resell rights!

Again, it is easy to see how one could be confused with these various terms. However, if given the choice, always go for the private label rights. This will allow you to have a product of your very own, without actually having to create one yourself. Most private label rights licenses give you much more leniency.

PLR Explained

Are all Resell Rights products the same in terms and conditions?


Answer:

All Resell Rights are not created equally. Resell Rights vary from one product to the next, with different rights, terms, and conditions. In fact, some products that are contained in a Resell Rights package are not for resell at all, but are instead for personal use only.

If you purchase a resell rights package, which contains more than one product, the package will typically contain a resell license agreement for each product. Do not assume anything! Read every word of the resell license before you resell the product, and keep that license in a safe place for future reference.

For some products, you may be allowed to resell the product for any price, or even give it away for free. Others may have a set price, meaning that you cannot sell the product for less than that price or give it away for free. In the case of physical products, such as CD’s or DVD’s, you may or may not be allowed to duplicate the product when you sell it. Some companies may require you to purchase the product directly from them for resell – for each sale.

There are usually other terms and conditions for reselling a product as well, other than the price at which you may resell it. For instance, most product authors will have strict anti-spam policies, meaning that the product cannot be advertised by any method that may be in violation of federal spam laws.

If you are ever unsure about your resell rights, contact the author of the product before doing anything else. You do not want to violate any terms or conditions, as it can and will be considered a violation of copyright laws, which is a federal offense. Make sure that you aren’t just asking another reseller – contact the author of the product directly.

Make sure that you don’t misplace your licenses. Print them out and keep them on a file. You should also back up electronic copies on a disk. Include any email exchanges with the product author as well in your backup files, including the emails that you send.
The Best TV on PC Service

Private Labe Rights Products

Resell Rights can sound all “alien” to you especially if you are new to the marketing scene or simply stepped in fresh from the world of doing business conventionally.

Perhaps you are more familiar with the term “retail” and “wholesale” in the offline world of doing business but some things can change slightly in the world of E-Commerce though many have dubbed Internet Marketing as a way of selling through the Internet as a medium with many of the conventional and time-tested principles intact.

So by now that you’ve heard about Resell Rights, you’re probably wondering what this new opportunity is all about and how you get your own piece of the pie from it. I was when I first discovered the might of Resell Rights.

In a nutshell, most top marketers today boost their income and add spikes to their traffic and edges to building their mailing lists through creative use and leverage on Resell Rights. And it can very well be your leverage to your next breakthrough in Internet Marketing, too, but only if you understand it first!

Long Time, No See

Wow, I have been absent for awhile...

I finished my first class at the University Of Phoenix, and so far I'm pretty impressed. The class instructors are very professional, and overall it was a good experience. I have made some pretty interesting findings as well. The at-home business is really taking off!

First off, I have to say that making money through the internet is way harder than anyone will tell you. It also requires a pretty substantial investment. I have been able to break even as of right now, but that's OK because the money is still coming in. In about 2 or 3 months I should have made about double what I put in.

The investment part is necessary because I had to register some domain names. Now, the actual building of the websites is no problem. There are plenty of free website templates out there. I started out with one website, monetized it, and got it indexed by Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It makes around 4 bucks a day. That may sound like chump change, but keep in mind that I now have multiple websites doing the exact same thing!

What Now?

So, having lost money, what are my next steps? Well, first I have to explain to my wife where the $25 went. Piece of cake, right? "Don't worry, honey, I just gave some off the wall website some free publicity at our expense." Next, I try again. I lower my cost per click bids, and even deactivate a couple of the campaigns. I let the active ones run all night, then check the progress in the morning. To my amazement, I made one sell!! My commission totaled $20.03. Since I spent $15 on clicks last night, I am now behind about $20.00.

No Money, Of Course

So I took about 2 weeks to research some online marketing programs. I signed up with Clickbank and chose a few digital products to start promoting. My next stop was Google Adwords. After setting up an account, I created a few ads and activated them. Within about an hour I had around 50 "clicks". These clicks cost on average about $0.50 per click. Do the math...that's 25 bucks. I didn't get a single sale.

This was very frustrating, considering that most of the products advertised 1:14 conversions. So, now I'm starting off losing money!!

How To Make Money!!! (Yeah, right)

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be rich. I'm not talking about comfortable... I mean filthy, stinking rich. The older I get, the more transparent that dream has become. In its place, feelings of dread and anxiety accompany the coming of each new month. How will we pay rent? Are we going to have to skimp on groceries? How do we pay back the loan we just took out?

I think I'm getting ahead of myself... I believe introductions are in order. My name is Ryan and I am a 29 year old married father of two. I am a full-time student, which is the cause of the money troubles. I recently graduated with a Bachelor's of Biology, and am currently working on my MBA. I recently took the MCAT and scored a 32 O. My long-term goal is to go to medical school and become a pediatrician.

How do I have time to blog? Easy, the kids are asleep! In this blog, I will document my many online endeavors to make money. It should be a fairly painful process, since I am pretty sure I will have to invest some money in order to make a profit.

This is a learning process for me, and I am very willing to share my findings with anyone else looking for some online profit. I began my search at Yahoo, mainly because that's currently my home page. Upon running one search on "how to make money online", a seemingly endless sea of exclamation points and "sure-fire" get-rich-quick schemes barraged my senses. Realizing that all of the results looked similair, I decided to go to the next page of results. I started seeing more review pages than offer pages; these pages appeared to be someone who was kind enough to host an entire website dedicated to saving me money!! The sincere wording, initial negative description of the product, and overall amateur feel of the review site gave me a false sense of safety. Could this person really be trying to help me??

As I conducted more research, I discovered something called affiliate marketing. This is probably what everyone who blogs has in mind these days. It occurred to me that this "reviewer" was working for the very website he was "reviewing". (I know, I know, it's so obvious, now.) With a little creative thinking, he was able to feign an initial feel of caution at the beginning of his review. He asked himself the very questions I had asked about the product. He then appeared to go through the same learning process. By the end of the review, he had magically concluded that the product under review was worth the money spent. He then conveniently included a link for me to try the product for myself....