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| October 2006 Issue | |||||||||||||||
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Dear 1&1 Affiliate,
Welcome to the Monthly Affiliate eTips newsletter! In this newsletter we provide quick tips and inside information about hot products and new features that help you promote our products even better. Make sure to read our Feature Editorial to learn how use blogs to build traffic and earnings. Affiliates just like yourself have contributed to our newsletter by submitting questions and feedback and affiliates like you continue to help 1&1 grow. September Webcam Winners: Congratulations to the affiliates who made over 10 sales in September! Dozens of you will be contacted personally to let you know about the delivery of your two (2) FREE Logitech webcams. A sincere "Thank you" from our whole team! |
In this Issue:
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| FEATURE EDITORIAL | |||||||||||||||
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Blogging for Fun and Profit By Karthik Manick and Joshua Sloan of 1&1 Internet You may or may not realize how blogging is shaping the web and how to earn with this knowledge. We hope to give you an overview and a few tips to help you take advantage of this growing trend. A Simple Blog Overview Blogs (short for Web logs) are web-based "journals" or "newsletters" that are typically written in a personal style. They are typically with short entries daily or weekly and often reflect the opinions or personality of the author. You can either think of a blog in technical terms - as a content management system, or in layman’s terms – as an easy virtual diary of text, images, audio or photos which are meaningful to your site’s visitors. Blogs are too powerful of a communication media for website owners to ignore. While some people choose to run a blog as a stand alone site, still others ‘add-on’ a blog to their existing sites. Most often this is done with a subdomain and a special folder where the blog program is installed. Like regular websites, blogs can contain pages about specific topics, resources or information, but the main content is ever growing based upon your own posts and the comments from others. Getting Started You are the “expert” and visitors to your site want to know your opinions and advice. You could start, as with any writing, by listing what you seek to achieve through your blog. Expand upon your initial thoughts and try to visualize your first posting. Just try to keep some focus, so that your reader does not get too confused. You want, no, you need them to keep coming back! Title the blog crisply, to the point. After your first post, continue to update regularly and do make it easy for your readers to contact you. Some posts you may want readers to comment on, others you may not. User comments (if relevant) can further enhance the value of your blog. Create simple, yet related categories under which you will post comments, photos, audio, or text. Good categorization of topics and links make sense for blogs as much as it does for regular websites. Techie types will probably want to opt for a full-version Blog software like WordPress (which is free). The full version has many advanced features and options, but those of us with less technical skill may need the help of a web programmer or the WordPress community to get it up and running. For beginning bloggers, 1&1 Blog which is included with all Linux shared hosting plans, can be installed quickly and easily in under 5 minutes. There are of course, dedicated blog hosting services like Blogger.com, but having a blog on your own domain, even if it's in a subdomain like http://blog.mydomain.com in most cases is preferential over using and external service. Every time you post new information on your blog, the most recent posts will show first, and older posts will be archived, yet still available for readers to find. Keep in mind that readers want quality. This means it would be unwise to ONLY post affiliate links to other companies like 1&1 when it makes sense to, or if readers might be genuinely interested in how you built and hosted your site, or if the topic is technology related. If your quality of posts is good, occasional affiliate product recommendations will be tolerated and respected. Here are a few sample blogs: www.newsthewayiseeit.info
Blogs are content rich, and often tend to attract more traffic than the average websites. Because of this, it is possible that your blog may prove to be a great traffic generator. This is primarily because the search engines (and other sites) know that the content you provide continues to expand, thus growing the value of your site. Many blog building tools also syndicate the content you post to other sites which are interested it the topic(s) you post about. This is done via RSS (really simple syndication). Like regular sites, the more good sites that link to you, the better. You could use your blog to promote your website, your products, products you have tried or would like to recommend (don’t forget to insert your affiliate link with the ‘review’) or connect with your customers in a personal, yet web based environment. The virtual relationship building you can do with your blog will help to increase traffic and sales, subscriptions, etc... When posting to your blog, make sure that your main domain is included in your “signature” that you place in each post. This way anyone who reuses the information you post will have a link back to your site.
The most popular way of generating revenue through blogs is by way of advertising. This doesn’t necessarily mean the placement of 3rd party ads; you could only promote your own products and services. As your own web properties, you can advertise in your blog (depending on its configuration and add-on modules) in a variety of way. Some of these ways include: Text or banners ads as part of the blog template When picking the best way to advertise, you should try to keep the ads relevant to the category or topic you are posting about. Targeting ads or links is important. They should enhance, not distract from the readers experience. The topic of blogging is a big one. This article is meant to just give you a “taste”. For additional hints, tips and tools please continue to the Tips section below.
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| TIPS | |||||||||||||||
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1&1 Affiliate Success Formulas In the past few issues of our affiliate newsletters we have talked about creating unique content in order to build web traffic and affiliate sales. Blogs as you can see from the article above can be another strategy for accomplishing this. Below are some helpful links from our own bookmarks, as well as one suggested by an affiliate. History of Blogging: Blog Usability: Avoiding Blog Spam: Blogs and Search Engine Optimization: Promoting your Blog: Earning Revenue with Blogs: Blog for affiliates: 1&1 Blog FAQ: |
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Here's
the latest information to help you sell!
1&1's 25% off shared hosting offer has been extended until October 31st due to popular demand. This offer applies to both Microsoft and Linux shared hosting. This special discount has really helped our 1&1 affiliates get even more referral commissions in September, so keep promoting it in October. Combined with the features below, In a nutshell, here are the features you really should consider when promoting 1&1 this month: - Up to 5 free domains with select shared hosting. In our usual tradition, we are offering more to our hosting and domain clients
at much less cost that the competition. In case you haven't noticed, 1&1 is simply the best web host for most people. Our multi-page print ads in magazines such as Wired, Business2.0, PCWorld, etc. help to drive traffic and interest not only to our site, but also to our partner's site's as well. Few major web host advertising their brands like 1&1 does. A strong brand means good sales for affiliates, and with a conversion rate of over 4%, you can earn big by leading your visitor referrals to us. |
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Affiliate
Question of the Month
Q: I have a lot of visitors from the U.K., can I promote 1&1 in this country? A: You can only promote www.1and1.com using your U.S. 1&1 affiliate link to customers within U.S. and Canada because only these customers can order from www.1and1.com. However we have companies and sites in other countries and you are able to join their external affiliate programs (without being a customer of 1&1 in those countries). If you are not a U.K. citizen and would like to refer customers to 1and1.co.uk then
you have to join the 1&1 U.K. affiliate program in Commission Junction
using the following link: Once you joined you will get a U.K. tracking link. Your U.S. tracking link
will not work in the U.K.
Q: Will Search Engine Optimization (SEO) really help my affiliate sales? A: Yes. Generating more traffic to your websites, means more visitors seeing your affiliate link and clicking on it. We understand the importance of a fair amount of traffic to your website, for this reason we provide our customers with submission tools and SEO tools. They are accessible from the 1&1 control panel. When using the 1&1 WebsiteBuilder each page can be edited to have it's unique page title and meta description. |
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Tell
Us What You Think!
We'd love to hear what you think of this issue. Are there special questions about how to best position or promote your 1&1 ads and tracking link? Would you like to share your own success with other 1&1 affiliates? Please send your comments, questions, and ideas for upcoming issues to us at: Affiliate feedback matters to us! |
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Thanks for reading this edition of the '1&1 Monthly Affiliate eTips'. We want to provide you with valuable tips and tricks to earn as much as possible. Wishing you continued success, Jesse Bouman and PS - If you missed last month's newsletter be sure to read it for several special bonuses for our affiliates, and watch next month, we'll have even more!
For all question which are NOT related to our Affiliate Program please use the following contact information: Billing Support: Technical Support: |
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