Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing — using one website to drive traffic to another — is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.

The beginning

The concept of revenue sharing — paying commission for referred business — predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened almost four years after the World Wide Web was born in November 1994.

The consensus of marketers and adult industry insiders is that Cybererotica was either the first or among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.

During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. With this program CDNOW was the first non-adult website to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen Records asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen Records realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist's music page.

Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996. Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.

When visitors clicked from the associate's website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely-known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.

In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent (6,029,141) on all the essential components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.

Historic development

Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the UK alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005. MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense.

Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail sectors. The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors. Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix. Of course, this is constantly subject to change.

Types of affiliate websites

Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.

• Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers' offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
• Comparison shopping websites and directories
• Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back, or charitable donations
• Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
• Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
• Personal websites (This type of website was the reason for the birth of affiliate marketing; however, such websites are almost reduced to complete irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate websites.)
• Weblogs and website syndication feeds
• E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in email lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
• Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
• Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
• Cost per action (CPA) networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliate

THIS LIST TOP AFFILIATE PROGRAM

Suspicious or suspecting somebody else such as hacker or intruder is accessing and hacking into your Gmail account without your knowledge? Gmail is getting popular as email service provider of choice by many, and is probably holding and storing lots of sensitive private personal information such as user name and password credential recoveries, tax records, love letters, Google Talk chat histories, bank statements and etc.

Thus protecting the security of Gmail or Google Mail account is of utmost important. Other than using a hard-to-guess and long password to secure the e-mail account from brute-force and dictionary attack hacking attempt, it may be useful to review and check Gmail account login session and access activity history in order to ensure that only user himself or herself and other authorized people is gaining access and logging into the Gmail account.

Gmail has launched “Last Account Activity” feature that showing user information about recent activity in the Gmail account. Recent activation information includes any times that the mail account was accessed, using a regular web browser, through a POP or IMAP client, from Google Toolbar or a mobile device, and other access type. The IP address from which the access was made, as well as the time and date is listed, enable user to check and verify that the login is indeed valid and legitimate, and whether there is another person use the Gmail account without your consent and knowledge.

To access the last account activity history, click on the Details link at the end of the Last account activity line at the bottom of any Gmail page to open a new window showing the recent sign in records from last few hours onwards, including concurrent session information if user (or anybody else) opens Gmail account access in more than one location.

In the “Activity on this account” window, there are plentiful of information that is available, including user’s current IP address, so that user can know easily which session is opened by him, and if there is another login session to Gmail that does not occur on his or her comptuer. Gmail Blog explains how to use these information to protect and secure your Gmail account.

The top table, under “Concurrent session information,” indicates all open sessions, along with IP address and “access type” — which refers to how email was retrieved, for example, through iGoogle, POP3 or a mobile phone. The bottom table, under “Recent activity,” contains my most recent history along with times of access. I can also view my current IP address at the very bottom of this window, where it says “This computer is using IP address…”

With this information, I can quickly verify that all the Gmail activity was indeed mine. I remember using Gmail at the times and locations listed. Being extra cautious, I can also click on the “Sign out all other sessions” button to sign out of the account I left open at home.

If you suspect the intrusion or violation into your Gmail has occurred, then remotely sign out and log out all Gmail access session that is not on your current computer by clicking on Sign out all other sessions button. The next thing you should do if immediately changing your Gmail account password by going to Google Account Settings, and then click on Change Password. If you no longer has access to Gmail, try to recover or reset the Gmail and Google Account password.

SEOmoz has a new search engine optimization metric analysis tool that will determine how your blog or website ranks in terms of ranking search engines results page (SERP), linkage or backlinks to the blog, relative importance, visibility of the webpage, popularity, mentions of the page across the Web and etc. In other words, it’s another tool that will tell webmasters how likely their pages and sites will rank on SERP, or the potential strength and ability of a page to rank in the search engines. Page Strength is a good add-on and comparison to Google Page Rank, which based solely on Google data.

When you the URL or link address of the web page or website, the SEOmoz Page Strenght Analysis Tool will retrieve some data about the website from various source and then process the date in order to calculate the page strenght. The data includes:

• Links pointing to full URL
• Links pointing to domain
• Position at Google for first four words of title tag on target URL
• Age of Domain
• Links from domains with .edu TLDs
• Links from domains with .gov TLDs
• Alexa Rank
• Domain name visibility
• Internal Link Percent
• Number of search results for URL search at del.icio.us
• Listings in DMOZ (ODP)
• Links found in Wikipedia
• Google Pagerank of full URL and Domain

So it’s the data analysis is pretty intensive, but the Page Strenght may not reflect your actual standing in search engine as the calculation, after all, is from SEOmoz and not from the search engines themselves, although it may comes close. Anyway, with SEOmoz Page Strength tool, you can have a glance of most important indicators about your website on one single page.

Google has quietly unveiled its next level of search engine program called Google Merchant Search. Generally, Google Merchant Search is a search platform which offers users a new and different way to find products or services from the providers. Based on the search result typed in by the user, Google Merchant Search will display a list of product/service providers that meet the user’s search requirement. The user can have a quick glance at these providers and sort/filter them in accordance to the criteria specified. From the filtered result, the user can choose to contact any of the providers in the list directly for a more detailed quote. Otherwise, the user can leave his/her contact information and Google which function as a middle man between the service provider and the user will forward the user’s request to the selected providers. Once there is a reply from the providers, Google’s representative will connect the user to these providers. In this exchange, Google keeps the user’s contact information and will not disclose it to the providers.

Google Merchant Search is a beta program which is currently only available in UK. In this current testing state, this new program can only conduct searches for secured loans from financial service providers in UK. Users can see the demo shown in the photos below.

Users use the Google search engine to search for a Secured Loan. Users can use the Google Merchant Search to compare loan lenders to get the best rate.

A list of loan lenders with relevant information will be shown once users proceed with the search via Google Merchant Search.

The emergence of Google Merchant Search has enhanced users’ product/service searching experience. With the search result, users can easily compare the pricing and service. However, Google is also in a dilemma after introducing this new service. With Google Merchant Search, the existing search mechanism might be in jeopardy. Google’s highly profitable Search Engine Marketers which bring in traffic and benefit the tripartite network of advertisers, publishers and Google itself is threatened. When users click on sponsored listings, Google makes money; likewise, the advertisers profit when there is high traffic while website publishers profit when their sites attract traffic. Google’s organic search results bring many visitors to the sites. At the same time, many visitors are channeled to certain network sites via AdWords. Thus, businesses benefit from Google but the mechanism also puts the relevant business models at risk for they depend solely on Google. When the centre breaks, things fall apart.

SEOmoz has a new search engine optimization metric analysis tool that will determine how your blog or website ranks in terms of ranking search engines results page (SERP), linkage or backlinks to the blog, relative importance, visibility of the webpage, popularity, mentions of the page across the Web and etc. In other words, it’s another tool that will tell webmasters how likely their pages and sites will rank on SERP, or the potential strength and ability of a page to rank in the search engines. Page Strength is a good add-on and comparison to Google Page Rank, which based solely on Google data.

When you the URL or link address of the web page or website, the SEOmoz Page Strenght Analysis Tool will retrieve some data about the website from various source and then process the date in order to calculate the page strenght. The data includes:

• Links pointing to full URL
• Links pointing to domain
• Position at Google for first four words of title tag on target URL
• Age of Domain
• Links from domains with .edu TLDs
• Links from domains with .gov TLDs
• Alexa Rank
• Domain name visibility
• Internal Link Percent
• Number of search results for URL search at del.icio.us
• Listings in DMOZ (ODP)
• Links found in Wikipedia
• Google Pagerank of full URL and Domain

So it’s the data analysis is pretty intensive, but the Page Strenght may not reflect your actual standing in search engine as the calculation, after all, is from SEOmoz and not from the search engines themselves, although it may comes close. Anyway, with SEOmoz Page Strength tool, you can have a glance of most important indicators about your website on one single page.

SEOmoz Page Strength

Source From : My digital live

WEB MARKETING

In the wild wild web, it is crutial to be pro-active in promoting your site to compete with the competition. Key Theory provides marketing and search engine optimization services that are designed to drive targeted traffic to your web site.

If you don't have a large budget to get started, you can start an initial campaign and expand your marketing as your business grows.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

All web sites created by Key Theory are initially optimized for the web. Key Theory offers SEO services to web sites in need of SEO and web sites looking to improve their search engine rankings. view more S.E.O.

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Pay-Per-Click search engine placement is the only guaranteed way to hold top placement in the search engines. These results are quick and effective and will bring targeted traffic instantly. Key Theory will work with you to develop and maintain an effective pay-per-click campaign.

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E-mail Newsletters

Keeping in touch with your customers with targeted HTML e-mail campaigns is one of the easiest and cost effective ways to increase customer retention and repeat sales. Key Theory will develop campain that will let you keep track of your customers e-mail addresses and e-mail them a designed e-mail with important messages and news about your company.

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Monitoring Statistics

Monitoring the progress of your web marketing campaign is an important part of validating the success of a campaign and continuing to improve upon it. Key Theory will provide and evaluate the statistics of your campain results.

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Web Banners

Web banner campains are an effective way to get more traffic to a web site. They function as little ads that are featured on popular web sites. A campain can be very targeted or very broad depending on your budget and objectives. Web banners are typically a static image file or a Flash animation.

Pay per click (PPC)

Is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. Advertisers bid on keywords they predict their target market will use as search terms when they are looking for a product or service. When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, or views a page with relevant content, the advertiser's ad may be shown. These ads are called a "Sponsored link" or "sponsored ads" and appear next to or above the "natural" or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster/blogger chooses on a content page.

Pay per click ads may also appear on content network websites. In this case, ad networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network attempt to provide ads that are relevant to the content of the page where they appear, and no search function is involved.

While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the largest network operators as of 2007. Minimum prices per click, often referred to as Costs Per Click (CPC), vary depending on the search engine, with some as low as $0.01. Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Arguably this advertising model may be open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and other search engines have implemented automated systems to guard against this.

What SEO Theory Means To You

SEO Theory is an embryonic science, only a few years old and lacking the formal discipline of a true science. The study of search engine optimization remains very much a lonely outpost on the frontier of human experience. The SEO Theorist is constantly asking "why?", "how?", and "what next?".

Psychologists study the behavior of animals. Physicists study the interactions of matter and energy. Computer science is the study of computing systems and computation.

SEO Theory studies the behaviors of systems of Web pages and search engine systems, as well as their interactions. A Web page "behaves" through its content. A search engine "behaves" through its algorithms. The dynamics of interaction between Web pages and search engines draw upon the forces of marketing, information management, and user management.

Technical interest in SEO Theory obviously seeks to understand how the systems work with the intent of improving overall performance of Web content in search engine indexes. Non-technical interest in SEO Theory may be driven by no more than simple curiosity, but as the business and organizational comunities increase their dependence upon search engine optimization, decision-makers need to understand the risks, values, and returns offered by search engine optimization.

As a purely intellectual exercise, the study of search engine optimization is almost non-existent. It remains a peripheral aspect of more traditional academic research focusing on search engine indexing and technology. The motives of the search engine optimization community in documenting, explaining, and promoting "techniques" are almost completely mercantile.

Sponsored by a commercial optimization firm as this site is, SEO-Theory.com cannot avoid standing at least partially inside the shadow of self-promotional bias. However, in studying the SEO community, one is always well advised to scrutinize every point made with a firm skepticism. The articles and papers you find here explain why skepticism is important while laying the groundwork for further study by all.

SEO Theory White Papers

These white papers should help you learn more about SEO Theory, its application, and how to begin studying search engine optimization techniques and methodologies yourself.

Introduction to SEO Theory

Abstract: This paper explains the basic concepts and describes some of the popular methodologies developed through current SEO Theory. Topics include: Fundamental Principles of SEO Theory, History of SEO Theory, How SEO Theorists Work, Examples of SEO Theory Concepts, SEO Theory Terminology, and The Future of SEO Theory.
View 'Introduction to SEO Theory' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

Fundamental Principles of Search Engine Optimization

Abstract: This paper discusses the most basic concepts involved in search engine optimization. It also examines some of the very popular myths and misconceptions that are passed around by people who don't understand search engine optimization very well. Topics include: Keyword Research, Content Organization, Search Visibility, and Linking Relationships.
View 'Fundamental Principles of Search Engine Optimization' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

Content Optimization Theory

Abstract: This paper discusses how to organize large content sites to improve the user experience as well as to reduce the amount of time search engines require to crawl and index the sites. Topics incldue: Internal Navigation, Topic Organization, and Cross-Promotion.
View 'Content Optimization Theory' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

What 1st Query Will Do For You

Abstract: This is a quick overview of what 1st Query does to help clients.
View 'Content Optimization Theory' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

10 SEO Tips

Abstract: A quick introduction to basic search engine optimization for Web developers.
View '10 SEO Tips' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

SEO Theory Search Engine Optimization Quick Reference Guide

Abstract: Selected articles from the SEO Theory blog have been compiled to provide a concise, descriptive "how-to" guide for people interested in improving their search engine optimization skills and their understanding of the search engine optimization process.
View 'SEO Theory Search Engine Optimization Quick Reference Guide' .PDF file (Right-click to save file)

Source From : http://www.seo-theory.com

Affiliate marketing

As a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies and in-house affiliate managers, specialized 3rd party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, email marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques like publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing — using one site to drive traffic to another — is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail and RSS capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers'

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Is a multifaceted process, mediated by a set of information technologies, that focuses on creating two-way exchanges with customers so that firms have an intimate knowledge of their needs, wants, and buying patterns. In this way, CRM is intended to help companies understand, as well as anticipate, the needs of current and potential customers. Functions that support this business purpose include sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Many CRM initiatives have failed because implementation was limited to software installation without alignment to a customer-centric strategy.

Email marketing

Is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

• Sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
• Sending emails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately.
• Adding advertisements in emails sent by other companies to their customers.
• Emails that are being sent on the Internet (Email did and does exist outside the Internet, Network Email, FIDO etc.)

Researchers estimate that US firms alone spent $400 million on email marketing in 2006

In-text advertising

Is a form of contextual advertising where specific words within the text of a webpage are associated with advertising content.

Description

Although contextual advertising in general refers to the inclusion of advertisements adjacent to relevant online context (e.g., Google AdSense), in-text advertising places hyperlinks directly into the text of the webpage. Most in-text advertising has the following characteristics:

1. The text associated with an advertisement is identified by a double-underline to differentiate it from regular hyperlinks.
2. An in-page window containing advertising content appears when the cursor is positioned over the corresponding text.

Blog marketing

Is the term used to describe internet marketing via web blogs. These blogs differ from corporate websites because they feature daily or weekly posts, often around a single topic. Typically, corporations use blogs to create a dialogs with customers and explain features of their products and services.

Blog Marketing has evolved since the start of Blogger. There has been various Blog Softwares on the Web today which are free, the most popular among them being Wordpress and Blogger. Blogs are Basic websites which are updated Regularly. They act as a Private news interface for any Company / Website. With regular update being handled by the company and The need for Fresh content on the web makes the Blogs a preferred destination for Resources. Blogs have been focussed as a primary platform for Marketing since the early 2006.

Source From : www.wikipedia.org

This Informations maybe usefull.