In this Issue:

1&1 NEWS
	1&1 Announcements
	Spotlight Article
	eMarketing News & Events
TIPS
	Ad Creatives
	Secrets of Success
	Tool Tips
	Affiliate Bonuses

Q4 Incentive Offer - increase your earnings by 60%!*

Receive 20% extra commissions if you sell 50-99 of any 1&1 hosting products in a month.
Receive 40% extra commissions if you sell 100-149 of any 1&1 hosting products in a month.
Receive 60% extra commissions if you sell 150+ of any 1&1 hosting products in a month.

*Gross sales calculated after 60 days. We reserve the right to reclaim commissions for sales not active for our 90 day guarantee period, per our Affiliate T&C.

Q4 Landing Page Design Contest (10 winners)

Win a subscription to one of the most popular keyword research tools on the web Wordtracker

Contest:
Create a landing page for any 1&1 hosting product(s).
Prizes:
1st prize: a 1 year Wordtracker subscription ($299)
2nd, 3rd and 4th prize: a 1 month Wordtracker subscription (3 X $59)
5th to 10th prize: a 1 week Wordtracker subscription (5 X $30)
Deadline:
All landing pages MUST be submitted by December 31st 2007. Send a link to the hosted page to jesse.bouman@1and1.com

Requirements:

Title:
60 characters, contains good keywords.
Keywords:
No more than 3-6 for the page.
Description:
150-200 words. Contains at least 1-3 keywords. 1-2 full sentences, no marketing words like biggest-best-strongest-fastest, etc. (see DMOZ.org for how to write good site descriptions).
Content:
500-1000 words. We want you to create unique opinion/review/help/instructional user generated content (great for search engines). You may use the specifications/features of the product(s) you chose to present on your landing page, but content must give additional value/insights to readers.
Linking:
Must have at least 1 link embedded into your content. Page should be linked to from another page on your site (for example homepage, about us page, links page).
Affiliate banner:
Optional but nice.
Copyrights:
No copy stealing images or text copy from 1&1's site. You must respect the copyrights/trademarks of 1&1 and content/images of other companies as well.

Additional Tips:
For your keyword research you can use the free trial that Wordtracker offers on their website: http://www.wordtracker.com/free-trial.html

You might also consider signing up for Wordtracker's outstanding 'Using Keywords' mini-course – delivered to you via email in 9 handy installments. (http://www.wordtracker.com/promotions/1-and-1-november)

Generally we recommend "link cloaking" or link encrypting for your affiliate links. This can be done using a free online tool. More advanced users may choose to write a redirect script or a meta refresh, but the result is the same.

November Special Offers

Due to the overwhelming number of new small to medium sized business owners currently looking to expand their web presence, 1&1 is making hosting and server offers assured to cut costs.

HOSTING: In hosting, we are offering $50 off the first year for all Business Packages, for an overall savings of over 40%! While this is a great package for small to medium business users, it is also great for home users in need of more web space, bandwidth, domains, and free PPC ad money.

SERVERS: We are offering a whopping $200 off the first year price of all Enterprise Servers!  

STRATEGIES FOR AFFILIATE SUCCESS
Six Ways to Boost Your Business Online
By Evan Carmichael

Some people join an affiliate program in the hopes that it will make them a lot of money in very little time – and all for doing very little work. They quickly discover that is rarely the case. Becoming an affiliate is by no means a get rich quick scheme. It takes the same hard work as does running any other business because, after all, that’s exactly what you’re doing.

So how exactly do you go about promoting a product that’s not your own? How do you compete with the thousand of other affiliates working in the same program as you, selling the same product and targeting the same market? It’s not easy, but here are six things you can do to generate more traffic and convert that traffic into sales.

Choose the right ads.
First of all, make sure you choose the right ads for your site. While you might not have a lot of choice, try to avoid anything too flashy or too animated. There is a thin line between ads that get attention and ads that annoy – don’t cross it.  Experiment with text link ads and see how they perform. I would also suggest avoiding pop up ads since in my experience they do more harm than good.

Don’t limit yourself.
Secondly, don’t limit your campaign to the ads provided to you by the associate program. These days, you need to do a lot more than just place a link and an ad on your website in order to get clicks, especially when those same ads are appearing on thousands of other websites as well. Instead, try to make your campaign as personal as possible, and relevant to your visitors. Strategies like adding a personal recommendation or review of the product you are selling are good ways to build trust and convince people that it’s worth buying. Just make sure you don’t start recommending everything under the sun, or you will lose credibility – fast.  

Increase traffic.
Another great way to increase your affiliate traffic and sales is to increase traffic to your own site. Make sure your site has been optimized for search engines so that people can find you by your main keywords. But more than that create a site that acts as a one-stop resource for all things related to what you’re selling. Post articles, offer online courses, write an e-book, create a user forum – do whatever it takes to build trust with your visitors and keep them coming back for more.

Mask affiliate links.
Fourthly, while we’re on the more technical side of things, don’t forget to mask your affiliate links. When people see long or suspicious looking links in the status bar, they’re more hesitant to click on them. Some don’t want to get viruses, while others just don’t want webmasters to make that clickthrough money. Either way, hiding your affiliate URLs is a quick solution.

Go beyond your site.
Fifthly, think outside your site. Experiment with social networking sites like Squidoo and see how you can use them to promote your business. Create a promotional video and upload it to YouTube. Create a Facebook group for users of the product you’re selling. With a little creativity, there is no shortage of ways to promote your site. 

Stay focused.
The sixth step is to stay focused. Don’t belong to too many affiliate programs at once. The more you extend yourself, the more you lose credibility in the face of your visitors. After all, what would you think about a website that promotes both outdoor clothing and computer software? Would you trust their recommendations? Would you want to buy from them? Stick to one theme and have all your content geared towards that theme.

Good luck and here’s to your affiliate success!

Evan Carmichael

Evan is an entrepreneur and international speaker. Evan's website, www.evancarmichael.com is the world's #1 website for small business motivation and strategies. With over 230,000 monthly visitors, 1,500 contributing authors, and 32,000 pages of content no website shares more profiles of famous entrepreneurs and inspires more small business owners than EvanCarmichael.com. Evan has been interviewed by newspapers, radio stations, and television stations including The Globe and Mail, CHUM FM, CityTV, Global TV, OMNI TV, Enterprise, and the Toronto Sun.

All the news that's fit for affiliates and online marketers to read. Stay up to date with the latest news about affiliate marketing, search engines, e-mail and other issues which can affect your online marketing success.

News:
AffiliateTip.com - From affiliate marketer Shawn Collins
www.affiliatetip.com/affiliate_newsletter.php

ReveNews - Affiliate portal and newsletter
www./revenews.com/newsletter.html

MarketingSherpa.com - Premium Internet Marketing studies and research
www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters.html

SEO news - Weekly search engine optimization news
www.free-seo-news.com/index.php

Marketingnewz - Assorted marketing headlines
www.marketingnewz.com

Searchenginewatch - Top search engine news
www.searchenginewatch.com

MediaPost - Professional online marketers news and resources
www.mediapost.com

Events:

September through November
Internet Marketing Center events
Several locations in the US

November 15 – November 16th, 2007
PPC Summit
San Francisco, CA

December 04 – December 07, 2007
Pubcon Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada

In addition to placing banners on your website, include an original text link explaining why you have placed the banner on your page. This will give your visitors a reason to click and then buy.

Examples:

I trust 1&1 with all my web hosting
Building this site was easy with 1&1’s Website Builder
I saved a bundle with 1&1…You can too!

Our current banner - If you don't have it yet, make sure to get it from your control panel: 1&1 Control Panel

I saved a bundle with 1&1…You can too!

1. Communicate with your affiliate team, they can give you feedback and inform you about current promotions on the website that help you sell. In addition they can review text ads and banner placements on your website and keep you informed about your performance.
2. Take your time writing both original and valuable content. If your articles contain recent news and relevant information that is not on 1000s of other web pages, you are much more likely to get noticed from natural search.
3. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different banner types and placements. If it doesn’t work, then restore it to the previous version.
4. Use pre-sell or dedicated pages for your affiliate programs. A full pre-sale page develops trust from your visitors by having them get to know you a bit more. If they trust you, they are significantly more likely to buy what you are selling.
5. Include your affiliate link in your e-mail signature.
6. Research your keywords!
7. It seems obvious, but if you are writing reviews for your advertiser’s products keep the content positive. Not many people hear so and so’s products are awful and then wonder what the quickest way to the shopping cart is. 

These tools and newsletters are completely FREE. Hint: Add these goodies to your web favorites and grab them today.

NEW! Design your logo FOR FREE with LogoMaker by HP.
http://www.logomaker.com/

NEW! Free widgets for your blog
http://www.widgetbox.com

Free CSS website templates:
http://www.opendesigns.org

Web Master Tools
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/

Search Engine Marketing Tools
http://www.marketleap.com/siteindex

Create a Googlerankings account
http://googlerankings.com/positiontracking/

Free website templates
http://www.oswd.org/

Free PDFmaker (great for making newsletters or eBooks that you can imbed your affiliate link into)
http://www.pdf995.com/

Favicon Generator - Brand your site!
http://www.favicongenerator.com/

Affiliate marketing news and opinion from Shawn Collins
http://blog.affiliatetip.com/

NEW! 20% Off any order with Text-Link-Ads!
http://www.text-link-ads.com/1and1 (use promo code 1and1)

UPDATED! Wordtracker offers 25% off their one month subscription (normal price $59)
Click here (offer extended through December 31).

Free MP3 mini SEO course by James Martell
Download your own copy here

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We really appreciate your continued support of 1&1 and for your interest and participation in our affiliate program. Participation in the 1&1 affiliate program is a great way to earn back all of your hosting and domain fees - many times over!

Please bookmark this month's eNews, return often and tell others about our program and the value it creates for you. We will continue to bring you the latest product and affiliate tips to help you increase your traffic and your 1&1 affiliate commission earnings.

Your 1&1 Affiliate Team
(610) 560-1539

1&1 Internet Inc.
701 Lee Road Suite 300
Chesterbrook, PA 19087

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