Everywhere I read that I should get linking partners. It seems that is a great thing to do. Linking partners are the best. They’re great. They will make you loads of money.
The only problem is that no one seems to be telling anyone how to go about GETTING the linking partners. Here in this article I want to give you some pointers on getting that accomplished.
No, I don’t mean MLM. What I mean is that you need to learn to get to know people online. Make friends. Create alliances. Some of your time every week needs to be spent corresponding with people are also in Net Biz. Not only will it mean more linking partners for you, it’s also more fun.
2. Identify Possible Link-Mates and contact them.
This is pretty easy to do. Go to your favorite search engine and type in words for products and services that COMPLEMENT but do not COMPETE WITH your product. Make a list of some of the HIGHEST TRAFFIC sites for those keywords.
Next, do a WHOIS search at a place like DirectNIC.com to see who is the person behind the site.
Then, pick up the phone. Yup, the phone. Most of these webmasters get hundreds of emails every day, most of them get very few personal phone calls.
Take some time asking them questions that show your interest in them. Don’t make it all about what you want and need from them. Work out with them a “win-win” situation.
One of the ways you can create that “win-win” is to offer them a premium referral listing in exchange for a small listing on your page. Here is how you get that done:
You offer to put a link to them on a page with the caption, “I highly recommend…” and then let them write a 200 word recommendation.
In return, you ask for them to place a small link at the foot of their main page simply saying, “For more information about YOUR PAGE TOPIC click here.”
Other types of link-exchanges you can do would include ad swaps, opt-in list solo swaps, etc. The possibilities here are endless.
3. Set up an affiliate program.
If you don’t have an affiliate program set up for your products, you are losing money. Period. There is no reason not to have an affiliate program working for you. Here’s why:
Imagine a world where you never paid for advertising, yet people were constantly coming to your site from advertising.
Imagine a world where you never recruited linking partners, yet new linking partners were coming on board daily.
Imagine a world where you could decide exactly how much of your profit you were willing to give to make a sale, and then never having to pay more than that.
Imagine being able to track every promotion, every sale and know exactly what was working and what wasn’t.
That’s what a good affiliate program will provide for you.
There are several sources for software to run an affiliate program. Here are some things you need to look for:
* You need to be able to set everything yourself.
This means that you have control over the commission structure, welcome package, products sold, etc.
* You need to have a two-tier commission structure.
You want your affiliates to recruit other affiliates. When you go with a company that simply pays on one level, or that pays so poorly on the second level that it is not making you any money, your affiliates will not be recruiters.
Let me give you a case in point: About once per month someone comes to me with a great product they would like me to sell for them. When they only offer one level of commission, I often decline because I know that many of my subscribers and customers are Internet savvy and will sign up for the affiliate program before they buy, meaning that I will make little or no commission from the sale.
If they offered a two-tier structure, not only would I buy, I would probably recruit more of my affiliates to be theirs.
* You need to have a dependable service.
It can’t be down. It can’t be needing constant updates. It can’t require you to send out the stats. It needs to be as hands off as possible. People need to be able to sign up themselves, check their own stats,
So, is getting this cheap? It depends what you mean. If you are in this for the long haul, then it’s plenty cheap. If you are looking for a quick buck, this isn’t for you. The software we chose is not the only on the market, but it is the only one we found that would carry us through the long term. You can take a look at it here:
http://all-in-one-business.com/assoc
If you have a good affiliate program, you will find that your sales, traffic and linking partners will grow without any effort on your part.
4. Submit Classified Ads to Online Services
We offer free classified ads to our subscribers. So do some other sites. One of the pluses of this for these advertisers is that I am basically giving them a LINK to their site. Every time one of the search engine spiders looks at my site, it sees a link to theirs.
[If you want a classified ad, go to the classified section of this week’s I-Marketer to get the details: http://all-in-one-business.com/imm ]
5. Put your site on Rotations.
Again, this works like #4–as you get listed with more of the Start Page Rotators, etc. you will find more incoming links. How valuable are they? I don’t know, but the free advertising won’t hurt.
6. Write Articles.
I have had hundreds of my articles published by various webmasters. Every one of these is required to contain my site address. Since many of these are posted online for later viewing, I get more links to my site.
There you have it, six different ways to get linking partners to your site. Take the time to do them right, focus on developing an affiliate force, and you will see a growing stream of traffic to your site.
Kevin Bidwell is owner of
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293
Kevin just finished a complete report on building a passive
income. Grab your copy here:
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293&e=/pi
