Sorry for not posting lately…our group went on a trip to Anvaya Cove, Bataan, Philippines (a really nice place by the way…check it out here. I am not in any way affiliated with them, although one of my colleague is).

Along the way, we were struck by several mishaps and what was supposed to be a day trip became an overnight stay. I have to leave the car there too…

It was all worth it though. The ambiance and scenery were all breathtaking. After finally reaching home, I opened the PC and guess what welcomed me? A list of unfinished tasks…And one of it is this post!

As an internet marketer, we should be effective at managing our time. Is your hard drive a disaster right now? Do you made a plan at the beginning of the year and realized that you are not at least halfway to it?

If you didn’t know, I have a lot of sites to maintain…a total of five sites including this blog. Complete list of things that need prioritization:

• My-Resources.Net – my main site. This is where all my info-products and affiliate pages are stored.
• This blog, RiczSabido.Com – where I place all my shameless plugs : )….. and share all what I know about Internet Marketing.
• Fat-Loss-101.Com – a joint venture with my girlfriend. Although both of us don’t know anything about weight loss. All articles are researched and outsourced.
• LyfCafe.Com – my group’s blog. Self-improvement niche. Really delayed though…
• My girlfriend…
• My family
• My Caring Group

There are several other things not mentioned above the list but these are the ones that I prioritize over others. The real challenge for an internet marketer is managing all these.

I can do it all, however, there are still a lot of things that I do regularly that aren’t productive (one’s that are not contributing any value towards the realization of my goals).

To be an effective internet marketer, one of our main goals should be to manage our time better. We can’t avoid it, some things will just eventually fall through. Sometimes, we just don’t accomplish certain important things and it always cost us money along the way.

My hard drive is in a mess right now. I plan to sort through all of it and get my system of organization back.

I used to be good at organizing things and managing my time, but as I added and changed a lot of things in the process, it messed up the big picture and it never found a smooth transition within. I’m buried and, I must admit, a little scattered.

There was a book that I remember reading a year ago that really gave me a sense of direction and I plan to reread it again this week. The title of the book is Getting Things Done by David Allen. I highly recommend this book if you feel lost in your online business. David shows an incredible approach on how to organize things.

This is probably one of the most useful book I’ve read about time management and the most powerful too. It gives a very simple straight-forward plan to get all the things you need to be done, organize it, and put it into a system (The same process we need as an internet marketer – automation!).

It’s really easy once you have a system in place to take care of all important tasks. And for us internet marketers, time is just as important as making money and building a business. If you’re disoriented right now, focus on rebuilding your system. Work less, Make more!

Others who read this post also read:

• September 9, 2009 -- Split Testing Basics (2)
• August 21, 2009 -- File Storage Service – Using Amazon S3 Video (0)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)
• September 16, 2009 -- Where To Get Your Website Content (1)
• September 13, 2009 -- Internet Viral Marketing 101 (2)

If you’re having a hard time getting additional traffic, then you should try out other ways of increasing the income you get from your online business. I’ve already talked about one method on one of my post which is creating back-end products and adding it to your sales funnel.

Today, I’ll tackle another method which is one of the easiest ways to make more money online in your business without directing additional traffic to your site – split testing.

The Magic of Split Testing

Split testing is very easy to do and most of the time you can do it for free (I’ll show you a free method later on). Split testing, as the name implies, takes the traffic from your site, split it and drive it into different variants (in this case your webpage) that you want to test.

What pages of your site should be tested?

You can actually test any page that you have in your site that requires an action from the visitor – this can be a simple click on a link, opting in forms, or getting them to buy your product.

Most Important Pages To Split Test:

• Opt-in Page – page where you have your opt-in form. This is where people type in their name and email address in exchange of the information you promised.
• Sales Page - your sales letter. Where you advertise your product and entice people to buy it.

Two types of split testing:

• A/B split testing – the simplest way of testing. Compares the performance of two different versions of a page. This is what I’ll discuss further on this post.
• Multivariate testing – Tests the content variations on multiple areas or parts of your web page. One page with multiple testing points.

A/B Split Testing

This type of split testing compares the performance of two different versions of your webpage.

This test equally splits the traffic you get from your site and directs it to the two versions of the web page you want to test. Version A – the original page (we call this the control version), and Version B – the page where you made some changes.

You need to use a split testing tool to do this. There are several tools and softwares that offer split testing capability but the one I use is Google Adwords Website Optimizer which is free if you have a Google Adwords Account.

If you don’t have a Google Adwords Account yet, you can sign up here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to run an Adwords Ad campaign to use its tools. Follow the instructions below to get to the website optimizer A/B split testing tool page.

1. Log-in -> Select tools tab -> more tools.

2. Select website optimizer from the set of tools.

3. Create a new experiment.

4. Choose A/B Experiment

5. Follow the instructions and complete your first split testing experiment.

This split testing tool will track the performance of each version and will tell you which of the two has a higher conversion rate.

What elements to split test?

• Content – heading, sub-heading, P.S., call to action, etc…
• Layout – position of your opt-in form, call to action, etc…
• Colors – background, font, borders, etc…
• Sizes - font, heading, sub-heading, etc…

After putting up your first testing experiment, you need to forget about it for now. Remember that you need a significant number of traffic to really determine the winner. I suggest you select the winning version after having at least a hundred conversions.

Split testing is an ongoing process. Strive to increase your conversion rate by 1-3% per experiment. This way, you increase your income without the need for additional traffic.

Others who read this post also read:

• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)
• August 31, 2009 -- Getting Ideas For Your First Info Product (1)
• August 25, 2009 -- How To Become An Expert In Your Niche (1)
• August 22, 2009 -- Making Money Online Is Not Just Finding the Right Opportunity (1)
• August 17, 2009 -- Getting Out Of The Newbie Stage (0)

Trying to make money online with affiliate marketing? Are you seeing no results with your affiliate marketing campaigns? Don’t worry; almost 95% of the marketers are in the same situation as you are right now. And it’s not your fault. It’s either the gurus have not given you a sure-fire way to success or you’re just following the wrong system.

I’m going to share with you the most important lessons that I learned during my first few months as an affiliate. Use this as a road map to get your affiliate marketing campaigns on the right track.

Affiliate Marketing Road Map:

1. Always Have an Opt-In Form in Place

Even if you’re just starting out, always practice to include an opt-in form asking for the email addresses of your visitors. Put this on all of your affiliate/ squeeze pages.  Make your visitors opt-in by giving away gifts such as free reports, mini-courses, ebooks, and so on. The key here is to make the gift related to the product you are promoting and should be of high quality and unique.

Getting their email addresses can help you make a sale from customers that were not prepared to buy immediately. This allows you to follow up with them as long as you like. You can also offer new products and refer them to more of your affiliate programs in the future.

2. Avoid Stuffing Your Affiliate Web Pages with Ads

Visitors will leave your site if it’s full of different ads. Take the extra time to create separate web pages for each of the products that you promote. On that particular page, you should focus on only one product. Make it simple. As much as possible avoid putting two to three different ads on a single page.

Don’t give your visitors too many distractions on your site. Instead create a clean, easy to navigate and informative affiliate site. Your only goal is for them to take your desired action, which is either opt-in on your form or click on your affiliate links.

3. Choose the Right Products To Promote

Just because the product has the highest payout or commission doesn’t mean it’s the perfect product for you. Of course, having a good payout and high converting product is one factor, but if you’re new to affiliate marketing, what you should look for in a product should go beyond its profitability.

Before choosing an affiliate program, you should ask these questions to yourself:

• Is the product something you would buy and use for yourself?
  • Always promote a product that is of high quality. Promoting sloppy products can really hurt your credibility in the long run.
• Can you sell the product given your available resources (time, money, knowledge?)
  • Remember, even if you opted to promote using free traffic tactics, this will still cost you in terms of time. Choose a product that will fit with your current resources.
• Is the payout of the product higher than the cost of getting one sale?
  • Simply ask the product owner for the conversion rate of the product. If you know this, you can compute how much it will cost you to earn a sale. It really depends on the advertising medium that you will use.

4. Buy the Product That You’re Planning To Promote and Actually Use It

It’s extremely easier to sell a product that you have tried for yourself. Spend time and money to try the product out and study it as much as you can. You’ll be glad that you did in the long run.

If you have used the product to its full capability, you can quickly tailor your promotions to connect with your site’s visitors. You will be viewed as someone who they can trust because you promote using the knowledge you gained from actually using the product and not just for the sake of making money.

If you can’t buy the product, ask others who have used it. Before promoting a product, I always ask the owner if he/ she can provide me a test copy for affiliates. And at most times, the owner will be more than willing to give you one.

Plus, you can create a guide for the product in pdf or video format and use it as your bonus. You can know more about bonuses by reading my post, making more money online using bonuses.

5. Rework the Sales Materials Provided To You

If you want to stand out from the rest of the affiliates promoting the same product as you do, you need to take this extra step. Especially if you are promoting internet marketing or make money online stuffs. You will be bombarded with several emails having the same subject line and content from different marketers. Would you open it all up? Heck no!

Add it up with Google penalizing duplicate contents and you’ll be sure that that web page will never see the light with all of those web pages having the same content that you have. (In case you put up a page for that product and copied all the sales materials given to you on it). Mix in your creative juices and add your twist on all of the sales materials (of course you don’t need to edit the banners or images) and you’ll be rewarded with a higher click through rate and make more money online.

6. Your Job is To Promote So Don’t Sell!

Leave the selling to the product owner. That’s why they have a sales page for their product. Your job as an affiliate is to promote the product by providing information. Pre-selling is entirely different to actually selling the product. By pre-selling, you give the right amount of information to the prospective buyers with the objective of drawing them in.

Intensify their interest to the product you’re promoting. Satisfy their hunger for information regarding the product but don’t give them all they need. Make them want more information. This will actually lead them to the product owner’s sales page.

7. Dedicate, Commit, and Focus!

If you lack even one of these three, you are guaranteed to fail sooner or later with affiliate marketing. Don’t be enticed with the promises of several affiliate programs out there. Sometimes the problem isn’t the system that you’re following, its YOU. Don’t jump from one program to the other unless you think that you have given enough time and effort to the program you’re currently promoting.

Once you have chosen the right product for you, dedicate and commit yourself by studying the program and the products you’ll be promoting. Once you started promoting it, focus on making a sale. Don’t just give up without exhausting all your resources. Almost all affiliate programs need ample amount of time before results kick in.

Follow this road map and you’ll be way ahead of several other marketers online. There is one final turn that I want you to take though. And this is to know the right mindset of an internet marketer. Without it, you could follow this road map all day long and yet still feel lost at end.

Believe in yourself that you can do it and follow this fail proof affiliate marketing tips.

See you at the top!

Others who read this post also read:

• July 27, 2009 -- Making More Money Online By Utilizing the Power of a Bonus (2)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)
• August 6, 2009 -- Choosing The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Program For You (0)
• July 29, 2009 -- Why Affiliate Marketing Is Still the Best Online Business Model (0)
• September 24, 2009 -- Time Management For Internet Marketers (1)

If you are subscribed to a number of affiliate marketer’s list, chances are that you’ve been offered a bribe to purchase whatever the affiliate is referring you. This method changed the affiliate marketing game as every buyer is now on the lookout for the best bonus that they can get from purchasing a particular product.

Bonuses are what’s “in” right now in affiliate marketing. Yes, it only made the game harder; pushing you to provide high quality bonuses to your loyal customers, but you can’t just simply ignore it. Unless you want your loyal customers to go to the other guy’s list just because he have a bonus to offer while you don’t.

Some of the more popular bonuses that are offered by affiliates are ebooks, videos, and a free access to their membership sites. The question you should focus now is not only how you should market the product but also what bonuses can you give.

Here are some tips to make your bonus package irresistible:

1. Make sure that your bonus package is relevant to what you are promoting. If you are promoting an SEO software, it’s not wise to offer copywriting ebooks. Look for PLR products that can supplement or complement to the product you are promoting.
2. Ask the product owner for a sample of the product so you can test it. After checking out the product, make a video or a guide for the product and use it as your bonus.
3. Interview the product owner and record it. Audio interviews are hot bonuses. Just make sure to let the product owner know of your intention.
4. Ask the product owner this question: “What is it that you wish you have included in your product that you didn’t?” This knowledge is powerful. You can create a product out of this that makes the product that you’re promoting complete. Provide it as a bonus and all you do is wait for the money to roll in.
5. Offer a free ticket to one of your seminars. This is the technique that several internet marketing gurus are using recently. Anik Singal and Amit Mehta’s PPC Classroom 2.0 and Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing 2.0 use this as their bonus.
6. Sometimes, the product owner is just waiting for someone to contact them and ask for further assistance in promoting their products. Try to squeeze out something from the product owner; he might give you exclusive rights to one of his best products so you can give it away as a bonus on your promotions.

Bonuses are an amazing tool to utilize on your promotions. It can make you a lot of money online. Just be sure you can deliver it to all who took your offers. Also, make sure that you can check who actually purchased through your affiliate link and if you’re credited on the sale.

It is also equally important to clearly state to your buyers how can they claim their bonus from you. If you can’t give it on time, notify and let them know when they will receive it.

Keep your customers happy by giving high quality bonuses and ensuring proper bonus fulfillment. Set your goals and work to reach it!

Others who read this post also read:

• August 4, 2009 -- Fail Proof Affiliate Marketing Tips (0)
• August 8, 2009 -- Why 95% of People Fail In Making Money Online (0)
• August 6, 2009 -- Choosing The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Program For You (0)
• July 29, 2009 -- Why Affiliate Marketing Is Still the Best Online Business Model (0)
• October 12, 2009 -- My Take On The New FTC Rule Concerning Online Marketers (2)