June 28, 2011

LinkConnector, (http://www.linkconnector.com/), a leading Affiliate Marketing Network with progressive solutions for affiliates and merchants, announced today that it exceeded the milestone of 20,000 active affiliates in its network earlier this year and expects this number to grow by 25% within one year. The growth rate of the network has been tempered since its launch in late 2004 by LinkConnector’s long-standing fight against fraud. With the Front Door Fraud Protection component of LinkConnector’s FraudFREE™ system, close to 60% of all affiliate applicants are prevented from ever joining the network. This ensures the integrity of LinkConnector’s affiliate base and cements the network’s standing as one of the highest quality Affiliate Marketing Networks available to merchants while also making itself available as one of the largest in the industry.

One factor driving strong affiliate growth in the LinkConnector Network is its premium merchant list, including dozens of exclusive merchants and those with the highest paying offers. Affiliates are able to establish long-term, sustainable relationships with globally recognized brands and Internet Retailer Top 500 merchants. Affiliates also have access to a dedicated Affiliate Relations department, giving them in-depth support in areas such as solidifying increased payouts, obtaining SEM exclusivity and acquiring vanity coupon codes from merchants. Affiliates desiring to integrate Affiliate Marketing into their website applications have access to affiliate-focused technologies, such as a Product Feed Search API, a Coupon/Promo Feed, a reporting API and a real-time stats console.

“We are honored to be the network of choice for many affiliates, and expect to maintain our position as a top-tier network, steadily growing into the future,” said Tara McCommons, director of Sales for LinkConnector. “While it is exciting for us to be able to provide a powerhouse of affiliates for our merchants to partner with, what matters the most to us is being able to affirm the integrity behind each of those affiliate accounts.”

LinkConnector has a zero tolerance fraud policy that is backed by its FraudFREE protection system. This is a sophisticated fraud detection and elimination system that employs technologies including click validation, Source Checker™, data pattern matching, and Front Door Fraud Protection (FDFP). Currently, the FDFP component of FraudFREE rejects nearly 60% of applicants deemed too risky. “We place critical importance on network quality, and we believe it shows,” said Ernie St. Gelais, chief technology officer for LinkConnector. “When an affiliate joins our network, they are not one among the masses, but rather each affiliate is a priority of ours and is enabled for success. Our merchants recognize and benefit from this, creating an overall more productive environment in which to conduct business.”

About LinkConnector

LinkConnector, an Affiliate Marketing Network headquartered in Cary, NC, provides progressive solutions for affiliates and merchants, enabling them to increase online revenue and drive results. Since its inception in 2004, the company has continuously introduced new technologies to the industry, such as the Affiliate Widget Builder, advanced FraudFREE Protection System, Pending Sale functionality, patent-pending Naked Link Technology®, and Affiliate Connections™ optimizing technology to better meet affiliate and merchant expectations in a rapidly evolving industry. LinkConnector maintains a strong emphasis on network quality and stands by its zero tolerance fraud policy. Complementing its technological advances and innovative approach to Affiliate Marketing, LinkConnector also offers proven traditional affiliate marketing tools and approaches, such as standard linking campaigns. Combined with superior customer service, LinkConnector provides its affiliates and merchants a measurable edge in the market.

LinkConnector is operating as the fastest growing Affiliate Marketing Network—especially among Internet Retailer Top 500 companies.

Join free or learn more at http://www.linkconnector.com.

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinkConnector.

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Article source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/6/prweb8590760.htm

delhi, India, June 16, 2011 –(PR.com)– The program, free to join, offers Rs. 500 just for Signing Up. Up to 5 percent commissions per sale resulting from affiliate leads. No technical knowledge is required during account sign-up or set-up. Egully.com supplies all of the tracking and advertising tools affiliate marketers need to launch, refine and maximize their campaign including a broad range of full-color banners in various sizes and dimensions. Banners are suitable for both website and email newsletter publication.

Textural links and graphic ads provided within each affiliate’s secure administration panel incorporate a unique identifying account code. When prospects click through these advertisements, their activity is tracked and recorded automatically by Egully.com affiliate software. Affiliates may log into their account at any time to review and assess real-time sales, traffic and commission statistics and reports.

“We’re excited to introduce the new Egully.com Affiliate Marketing Program,” explains Rahul Malik, Founder and MD of Egully.com. “The program is particularly advantageous to those that don’t want to receive orders, manage inventory and fulfill orders, but would rather refer and earn supplemental revenue that can enhance and diversify their bottom line.”

Because the company receives a large number of referrals from satisfied customers, Egully.com also wanted to provide a means of expressing its gratitude through this program. Egully.com Marketing Affiliates holding a minimum balance of at least Rs. 2500 receive payments via check once per month for all sales generated during the previous billing period.

About Egully.com:
Egully.com offers products at very competitive rates including free shipping on thousands of products. It has a dedicated customer service division to take care of queries and assist customers ordering via phone. Users can pay via multiple modes like debit/credit card, internet banking, cash card, cheques and mobile payments. All the transactions made on Egully.com are secured. Egully.com was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New Delhi.

Egully.com is a subsidiary of ChannelPush Online Services Pvt Limited which ventures in online retail consulting. This venture was started by couple of IIM grads and Computer Science Grad from Illinois, Chicago. ChannelPush helps in optimizing the distribution channels by formulating tactics for efficient utilization of online resources. Some of its areas of specialization are Online retail distribution, Online marketing and advertising, Supply chain optimization for online sales, Setting up of online platforms for retailers, and Comparison shopping.

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Article source: http://www.pr.com/press-release/331848

David Mercer

• SEO and marketing shortcomings of hosted WordPress blogs
• SEO blogging tips for business
• Separate individual business offerings for increased ROI

Let me begin by saying that I really like WordPress. It’s not my intention to discourage people from using it as their web platform of choice in any way. My intention is to make people aware that using a hosted WordPress.com blog comes with some fairly serious limitations in terms of SEO and marketing.

In order to properly implement an internet marketing plan, as outlined in the post entitled “Easy 8 step marketing”, it is important to not only be able to implement good SEO and marketing practice, but also analyze and refine your methods. This is where WordPress.com falls down.

WordPress.com is designed to be as easy to implement as possible for the average non-technical person. In this regard they do a fantastic job. However, with great ease of use inevitably comes a loss of flexibility and power. This stands to reason because the more powerful and more flexible a platform, the more work is needed to understand and implement the greater array of choices and options available.

Far more importantly, WordPress.com, at the time of writing, implements its own analytics facilities (Site Stats), which are at best a shadow of the power and flexibility provided freely by Google analytics. This is a real problem because it is not possible to properly analyze and refine your marketing campaigns without access to fine grained data about traffic patterns and user behavior.

In addition, WordPress.com users are not able to access the underlying page source code (HTML). This means that you are not able to add META keywords and description tags. Again, while this doesn’t directly affect the SEO standing of your pages according to Google, it does affect your control over how your pages are presented in search engine results, since the meta description is often used here by Google. In other words, it’s important for human readers to make up their own minds about the content and value of your pages.

The upshot of this is that you need to think carefully about where you want your site or blog to go in the future before deciding on a web platform like WordPress.com. If, at some stage, you think you might want to do some serious traffic building, SEO and marketing then you need to look at a WordPress.org blog…. or better yet, a Drupal website.

Article source: http://www.businessinsider.com/seo-and-marketing-shortcomings-of-hosted-wordpress-blogs-2011-6

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The 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report is now available for free at http://affstat.com/. The report can be viewed online or downloaded.

Over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed on their methods, preferences, and strategies for the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

The report features dozens of charts of data, based on the responses from the participating affiliates on affiliate marketing, social media, search marketing, blogs, email, and demographics of affiliates.

Also included, an uncensored view into the opinions of affiliates on a variety of other subjects.

Affiliates were asked to share any complaints, ideas, suggestions or opinions they have regarding affiliate marketing.

Feel free to use material from the report in blog posts, presentations, etc. Just reference that the information came from the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

Below are the questions covered in the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

1. Do you maintain an opt-in e-mail list for your site(s)?
2. Do you promote your affiliate links in PPC search engines?
3. Finish this sentence: I have been an affiliate since…
4. When signing up for an affiliate program, do you read the affiliate agreement?
5. Do commission payment policies (how often a program pays) affect your decision to promote an affiliate offer?
6. Have you successfully requested an increase in commission from an affiliate manager?
7. How do you most often find out about an affiliate program and then join?
8. What is your preferred method for finding out information from an affiliate manager?
9. How much information should an affiliate manager make available to you?
10. How would you prefer to be contacted by affiliate managers on an individual basis?
11. What is your preferred method of commission payment?
12. What is the highest reversal rate you would accept?
13. What is the most important factor in choosing a merchant?
14. What are your preferred link types?
15. Do you cloak/redirect links?
16. Are you currently using any URL Shortening Services in your marketing efforts?
17. If you answered YES to the question above, which URL Shortening Services are you actively using?
18. Does your affiliate marketing plan currently incorporate marketing on social networking sites?
19. If you answered YES to the above questions, which social networking sites are you currently using in your affiliate marketing efforts?
20. Are you currently integrating video in your affiliate marketing plan?
21. Are you currently using any WordPress plugins or widgets designed for affiliate marketing efforts?
22. If you answered YES to the above question, which affiliate marketing related plugins and widgets are you currently using?
23. If you are currently using WordPress to build out affiliate sites, what is your preferred WordPress theme?
24. What is your age range?
25. Mac or PC?
26. Do you work from home?
27. Are you married or single?
28. Do you have children?
29. Please feel free to share any complaints, ideas, suggestions or opinions you have regarding affiliate marketing.

Get your free copy of the Affiliate Summit AffStat Report at http://affstat.com/.

2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();

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Article source: http://feedfront.com/archives/article004227

eBay to raise fees for private ‘Buy It Now’ listings

eBay is introducing a flat 10% fee for private sellers using its “Buy It Now” fixed price listings from next month.

The changes will affect users trying to sell all items except mobile phones sold under contract, motor vehicles and property.

The new fees will be capped at £40 and will be introduced on 21 July.

The auction website says the changes will not affect small to medium-sized businesses or entrepreneurs trading professionally.

An eBay spokesperson said: “We want to give our buyers a range of great value prices on eBay which is why both auction-style and fixed price (or buy it now) sales are integral to eBay’s business.

“[These changes] will make working out the cost of selling on eBay much simpler across the board, and still very competitive compared with other marketplaces.

“It does not affect the 180,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs trading professionally on eBay.co.uk as they are required by law to be registered as businesses and benefit from lower overall seller fees as a result.

“This means that our business sellers will continue to pass on great deals to customers.”

eBay was founded in 1995 and allows anyone to sell goods online for a fixed price or as part of an auction lasting a set number of days.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13874290