Home Based Business

By Stone Evans

The exciting idea about joining affiliate programs is that they give you EVERYTHING you need to make money right away.

Is that REALLY true?

Well, you get your own own custom affiliate website, pre-written ads and banners, a list of online advertising hot spots, etc. They say all you need to do is plug those babies in and profit... Does it really happen that way?

NOT USUALLY!

The problem with joining affiliate programs is that people get lazy. They slave away 40+ ours a week at their job and then think they can take the standard affiliate website they are given, plug it into a couple of free advertising tools that take 5 minutes to setup and start making money right away. People are willing to work their BUTT off at work every day, but they want to not have to do ANYTHING with their affiliate programs and make a bunch of money... It's true.

Yes, it is possible to sign up for an affiliate program, grab your affiliate link, promote it directly and make money. Especially if you are using Google AdWords or ezine solo ads which will talk about in future lessons...

But to really get an affiliate marketing business off the ground, you need to have YOUR OWN WEBSITE... One that you control... One that is on YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME...

Example: Which of the following links looks more professional to you?

Standard affiliate link:

http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-22613/empowerism-success.html

Personally owned domain name:

http://www.onlinehomebizniz.com/Empowerism

The 2nd one right?

Here's 3 more potential problems with affiliate links...

Problem #1: Affiliate links can have your ID's removed from them. Personally owned domain names allow you to cloak affiliate links.

For example, let's look at an Empowerism affiliate link:

http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-22613/empowerism-success.html

That's OK. If people click that link and sign up for Empowerism, you still get credit for the sale, but there is a better way to do it for some instances. For example, if you are talking to someone and you want them to check out your Empowerism website, you could setup what is called a "re-direct" script on your own domain name that makes the Empowerism link look like this: "YourName.com/Empowerism".

People who click that link will still get to the same website, but it looks more professional on the front-end and ensures that nobody cuts off your affiliate ID in the process which would cause you to lose the commission. This applies to any and all affiliate programs and products you promote.

One of the big reasons people fail as affiliates is because they never invest in getting their own domain name and website setup. Somehow they think this is an unnecessary thing when the fact is, having your own domain name is one of the MOST necessary things of all to succeed in this business.

If you're promoting affiliate programs right now and you're doing it without having your own domain name and website, you're absolutely shooting yourself in the foot. You might as well be playing ping-pong without a paddle or canoeing without oars. Having your own domain name and website is a required ingredient to succeed as an affiliate.

You don't want to put yourself at the mercy of the company you are promoting. You want and need to be in full control of your business at all times. What happens if you've spend a lot of money and/or time promoting your affiliate link all over the Internet and then the company you are promoting changes the structure of their affiliate links or goes out of business.

Well, if you didn't have your own domain name and weren't promoting through re-direct links, you'd be out of luck! But if you set things up correctly from the BEGINNING and did all your promotions through YOUR OWN WEBSITE, all you would need to do is login to your hosting account, click a button and replace the link you were promoting that doesn't work anymore.

The host we use with the Plug-In Profit Site system makes it very easy to make re-direct links. You just go to your account control panel that looks like this:
http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-22613/controlpanel.html,
click that little doorway button on the bottom row that says "Redirect Manager", enter the affiliate link you want to point to into a little field and press a "Add New Redirect" button. This creates cloaked affiliate links (that protect your commissions) on the fly! More details on the Host4Profit service are available at:

http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-22613/host4profit.html

Problem #2: Affiliate links are not controlled by you. Personally owned domain names are.

You have to be able to control your own website. Affiliate links don't let you do this. You need to be able to add your own flair and personality to your site. You need to be able to add and promote other products you believe in. You need to be able to change the color, the type of font, the message, etc. Ultimately, you need to be in full control of your own website.

That's why all Plug-In Profit Site members get THEIR OWN domain name and website setup immediately. They are always in full control and have all the tools necessary to promote
their affiliate programs and products effectively AND make any and all changes they want to their site whenever they want. Review details about the Plug-In Profit Site here:
http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-22613/freesetup.html

If you're not in control of your site, someone else is and if someone else is in control of your site, their agenda will always take precedent over yours. Remember that. Take control of your site and you take control of your future.

Problem #3: Affiliate links don't rank high in search engines. Personally owned domain names do.

One of the best ways to promote affiliate products online is to get good free rankings in the search engines. But you simply can't do that with affiliate links. However, if you have your own domain name and hosting account, all you need to do is put up a site with unique content on it, get a few links from other sites and you're on your way to getting lots of natural free listings and traffic from the search engines.

Free traffic from natural listings in the search engines is some of the best traffic in the world. You're conversion rates on turning prospects into customers shoot straight through the roof once you get these natural listings. But this can only happen when you have your own domain name and hosting account.

If you don't know where to start, I encourage you to get your own domain name and hosting account setup here: