By Mal Keenan

Once you have your affiliate link, you’re ready to go!

All you have to do, as we’ve discussed earlier, is to pre-sell your affiliate’s products by marketing the same through your affiliate link. An affiliate link leads the would-be buyer to the affiliate merchant’s payment processing page. Once you have managed to do that, your job is done, and the affiliate merchant will take care of the rest. This system makes affiliate marketing a very convenient home based business for anyone!

Pre-selling, however, should be carried out through effective marketing strategies to make this venture really profitable for you. These marketing strategies should be able to ensure a high conversion rate, or the power to convert the people who would be exposed to your affiliate link into successful sales.

Here are some of the more popular types of marketing campaigns being used as promotional tools in this home based business:

* Promoting your affiliate links through viral marketing. Viral marketing is a very powerful strategy that would rapidly expose your business message, or your affiliate links in this case, in just a short period of time. Viral marketing tools usually involve eBooks, special reports and other information products. We will discuss this effective promotional tactic for your home based business in the succeeding lesson.

* Marketing your affiliate links through forums. As we’ve discussed in a previous articles, promotion in online communities is an affordable and efficient way in spreading the word about your products or website, including your affiliate links. You could try to be active in these forums, befriend other members if you have to, and before you know it, you’ll have more traffic for your site and more referrals that could rake in some good commissions for your home based business.

* Article marketing. As we’ve likewise mentioned in a prior article, writing articles and submitting them in various venues, with your resource box firmly attached at the end of each piece, is a magnificent way of promotions. People would scour the Internet for information, and if you write something about what they’re looking for, you’ll win their favor and expose your affiliate links to them aswel. This could only redound to the benefit of your home based business.

* Search engine optimization. As we’ve mentioned earlier in these lessons, having your own website would help a lot in marketing your affiliate links. If your website carries your affiliate links, you could always optimize the same for the search engines and drive a humongous amount of traffic to your pages. Every visitor you’ll have would always carry with him the chance of clicking on your affiliate links.

* Create your own mailing list. With a mailing list in place for your home business, you won’t have to lose any visitors. You could always “capture” them, warm them up for an offer later on, or present to them new packages that they might be interested with in the future. Most successful affiliates make a killing with their mailing lists alone! We will discuss this in detail in one of the the forthcoming lessons.

These are but some of the ways by which you could market your affiliate links. If done well, they could assure for you a very successful business that can be easy to sustain as well.

About The Author

Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Work at Home Based Business Opportunities Ezine.

Visit his home business opportunities website for more ideas, articles and resources PLUS your free 30 page home business success e-book.

By Judy Wilson

Mystery shopping sounds exciting to many who seek an independent work at home or part time job. At one time I became a mystery shopper after hearing I could make three hundred dollars in one day. Now that sounds exciting! After ten mystery shops I came to the conclusion, mystery shopping is not for everyone.

After ten mystery shops I came to the conclusion, mystery shopping is not for everyone. Being a mystery shopper has perks and downfalls. If you take a look on any search engine with the keywords mystery shopper, you will find many websites offering free and paid memberships to shop. Some offer small fees for memberships around $24.95. Some are much more expensive. Coming back to reality, this small fee to most people is one big fee even if you are promised to make your membership fee back within your first few shops. I would suggest staying with the free mystery shopping websites.

Mystery shopping has its perks. I will grant that. It is a good extra income for many people. Some people even claim they make their living off of mystery shopping. If you find a good company, you could get paid up to twenty - five dollars per shop for just an hour or two of work. You have the ability most of the time to work your own hours and select dates you would like to shop. This works out great for the mystery shopper who has children. All your assignment can be reported 99% of the time online. Many companies pay you mileage.

Some downfalls also come with mystery shopping. If you ever have been a mystery shopper, most companies want you to give your social security number through the Internet by way of an online form. This of course can make anyone very hesitant. The majority of shoppers said they liked working their own hours. Yet, a lot of mystery shops have to be done at a certain time, therefore many mystery shoppers do not set their schedule. Many shoppers like to work independently. Being able to choose shops or deny them depending on their weekly schedules. Just do not turn down to many shops, you sometimes will see a decrease in pay or offers to shop, said one mystery shopper, who is my dearest friend.

Usually if you work jobs in January you do not get paid until the very end of February. Some shops require you to give an accurate description of the employee including height, eye color, hair color, and sometimes even more information. Certain companies forget you are helping them and take advantage of your services.

Before you begin a career in mystery shopping, take my advice and ask a lot of questions from a company your considering working with. Remember, you do not work for them as an employee. You are working for yourself. If you are not getting paid by each shop make sure you are paid at least minimum wage per each hour you work plus mileage if the shop is out of your area. You do not have to accept every shop presented. Choose the shops that work for you.

I think anyone can do well at mystery shopping. It is ultimately up to you. It depends mainly on the companies you shop for and how many jobs they allow you to accept per month. If you enlist with companies that pay higher hourly wages you can do very well. Keep in mind that some companies do not pay for mileage.

About The Author

Judy Wilson. Always seeking legitimate work at home ideas to place on my website. Free work at home opportunities