Many people, a new year provides an opportunity for reflection and a chance to start a fresh page in their lives. The same holds true in business as companies roll over to a new set of goals.

How can you take advantage of the brief lull between the holiday frenzy and upcoming seasonal promotions? For those of you who didn’t just answer “Take a vacation,” here are 8 practical tips that will help you put your best foot forward in the New Year.

1. Reflect on the Past Year: What Worked? What Didn’t?Take some time to step back and examine how you did this past year. There are two important questions to ask yourself when conducting this review: What worked well for me? and What could I have done better? Are there any areas of your business that were neglected? Take a look at your actual performance for the year and compare it to past performance data. Did you generate more sales this year than last year? Which categories saw an increase or decline? What about your EPC – has it improved in the last 12 months? What contributed to your successes, and how can you continue that success into the New Year? Ask yourself these questions and use the answers to improve your business in the coming year.
2. Set Goals for Yourself: What Do You Want to Accomplish This Year?Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do for your business. After reflecting on the past year, set some high-level goals for the coming year. Maybe you’d like to grow your overall sales by 10 percent. Maybe you’d like to establish 20 new advertiser relationships. Whatever your goals are, it is crucial to think carefully about them and record them in some way. Write them on a piece of paper and tape it to the side of your computer monitor. Create a document and set a reminder to review these goals once a month. Find a way to keep your goals top of mind.
3. Gear up for Q1: Get Ready, Get Set, Go!Once you’ve set some high-level goals for the entire year, it’s time to dig in and nail down your plans for the first quarter. Make sure you are geared up and ready to get off to a great start. Have you planned which advertisers you will promote in the coming months? Be sure to pay attention to advertisers in key categories that relate to consumers’ New Year’s resolutions, such as Dieting and Dating, and also to advertisers in the Tax category. Also, look ahead to some of the upcoming seasonal promotions such as the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day promotions.
4. Plan Your Networking Events for the Year: It’s All About WHO You KnowEveryone knows that networking is a vital component of a successful business. As such, make it a priority to look at the calendar and plan out which industry events you would like to attend in the coming months. By planning in advance, you can save yourself some money on flights, accommodations and other travel expenses. And you’ll be able to look forward to events and prepare for them well in advance to make the most of each networking opportunity. Each event will enable you to establish, rekindle or solidify business relationships. Be sure to save a slot for CJU in the fall.
5. Review Your Web Site: How Are You Benefiting From That Analytics Package?Take a look at your Web analytics reports from the past year. If you don’t have any Web analytics for your site, this is a great opportunity to do a little homework and find a package you like. Google Analytics is a fairly popular package, and you can’t beat the price. If you already have some kind of analytics package installed, review the data and look for ways to improve your site. Are there certain pages that are converting better than others? Try to figure out what specific qualities are helping those pages convert and apply that information to improve other pages on your site. Are there other areas of your site that could use a little improvement? This is a great time to make those changes.
6. Get Some Feedback: Reach Out to Your Site’s VisitorsIf you are having trouble figuring out your next step or how you can grow your business, consider consulting the best resource you have – your site’s visitors. Reach out to your customers and ask them for feedback. Don’t expect them to give you a definitive answer, but their input can help steer you in a new direction. You can post a brief Web survey to ask them what they like or don’t like; or, you can contact users individually and try to get some more detailed feedback. Ultimately, these people are responsible for the success of your business, so it doesn’t hurt to cater to their needs, when you can.
7. Promote Yourself: Try Something NewYour success depends on being able to bring visitors to your site. To that end, you can never do enough to promote yourself and your site. This is a great opportunity to test a new method of self-promotion. Take a stab at a paid search campaign. Try sending a newsletter to your users. Consider sending out a press release. Build out a page on a social network. There are countless ways to get your name out there; why not pick one and give it a try?
8. Clean House in the CJ Account Manager: Is Your Information Up-to-Date?Spend a few minutes reviewing all the information about your company in the CJ Account Manager. Verify that everything is accurate and up-to-date. This includes your contact information, address and payment information, as well as all the details for your various Web sites and promotional methods. While you’re in there, have a look at your Performance Reports and find any relationships that were unproductive (i.e., any advertisers for whom you generated no sales in the past year). Spend some time evaluating the relationships to ensure that you are not missing an opportunity and try to jump-start those that still have potential. Finally, consider removing non-responsive relationships to help you focus on your more productive ones. While this may seem mundane and non-critical, a few minutes spent on this now can save a hassle somewhere down the road.

You will inevitably be spending time relaxing with family and friends this holiday season, but don’t forget that next year is just around the corner. It’s never too early to start looking at new opportunities and planning for a successful year. We hope these 8 tips have given you some great ideas that will help you get off to a great start next year and make it your best year yet.

Marketers with successful affiliate marketing programs know that the affiliate channel is a cost-effective way to drive incremental revenue.

But as with any marketing strategy, if you don’t consistently apply best practices to your tactical efforts, you’re likely to have disappointing results. Here are ten things you should focus on to improve the performance of your affiliate marketing program:

1. Effective Creative: Publishers spend time and money promoting your products or services, so you need to make sure you provide effective creative to help them sell your products. Effective creative has consistent brand messaging and a consistent look and feel every place the consumer interacts with it in the buy-or-try conversion funnel, from the banner on a publisher’s site to your landing page to your shopping cart or lead form. Effective creative also has a clear and highly visible call to action and a compelling offer (see Tip 2 below).
2. Competitive Offers: Are your offers in line with your vertical or industry? Take a look at what your competitors are offering for similar products or services and evaluate whether or not your margins allow you to provide a comparable or better offer. The trend of offering free expedited shipping proved successful for online retailers during the 2008 holiday shopping season and is continuing to be popular with consumers in 2009.
3. Deep Linking: It’s well known that deep linking (linking directly from your offer on a publisher’s site to the landing page where the product or service can be ordered) converts better than linking to your home page. The fewer pages a consumer has to click to before reaching the item, the more likely that shopper will complete the purchase. An easy way for online retailers to provide publishers with their complete and up-to-date product catalogs is through the use of data feeds, which we can set you up with.
4. Optimized Landing Pages: Your publishers can drive quality traffic for you all day every day, but if your landing pages aren’t optimized, then your conversion rate will suffer. Make sure that there’s visual consistency between your ads and landing pages, that your copy resonates with your target audience and that you follow through on the promise of your ad by making it clear what shoppers need to do next to get the special offer.
5. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)/Search Engine Optimization (SEO): If you’re not using paid and/or natural search campaigns to test the effectiveness of your ad copy, you’re essentially just guessing at what works. Often the success you see in search can be the best indicator for the success of your affiliate program.
6. Simple Checkout Process: Streamline your checkout process to reduce the steps required to purchase a product. To prevent shopping cart abandonment, list shipping charges early in the checkout process and include thumbnail images of items next to their descriptions to provide a visual reminder for customers returning to their carts from previous visits.
7. Incentives: Top-performing publishers drive the majority of your revenue and expect to be compensated accordingly. So don’t let them down by offering the standard commission you give to all your publishers. By offering special incentives that you tie to a specific product or to a volume or time-based goal, you’re letting your best publishers know that you’ll reward them for achieving the results you need.
8. Communication: Lack of communication with your publishers is the cause of many failed relationships. Make it a priority to communicate frequently and clearly with your publishers using the methods they prefer. Many publishers rely on email or instant messaging, but there may be times when they’d appreciate it if you picked up the phone or visited in person – this especially applies to your top revenue-producing publishers.
9. Professionalism: What you communicate to your publishers can be just as important as how. If you don’t have marketing copywriters on staff, make sure to run your affiliate program description page and publisher newsletters by your company’s corporate communications or documentation teams so they can flag typos and make sure the copy reads well.
10. Quality Online Presence: When was the last time you looked critically at your Web site? If it takes forever to load, has confusing navigation or amateurish graphic design, then consumers are likely to perceive your products and services negatively. Invest in a graphic designer or user interaction designer (or a talented intern) who is skilled at presenting information from a consumer’s point of view rather than from a corporate perspective.

There’s a considerable assortment of strategies you are able to adapt, from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. Even so, just about all of these methods require payment. All the same, there are methods to advertise your website plus boost your web traffic without expenditure. Publishing articles is among the better website promotion strategies you are able to employ and they can be really potent. You might ask,How could writing articles help better your web traffic? Here are the top 7 ways in which it can assist in exploding your business.

1.Contact many people

When you compose expert articles, it would be a pity never to share them. You are able to place your articles on your website or you can submit them to different web sites for example e-zines and online publishers. Through submitting your articles to these places, you get exposure not just for your ideas but also for your site. Just include a hyperlink back to your website or include selective information in the resource box. By this, you acquire exposure and free advertising. Submit your articles to hot e-zines and capitalize on their popularity. Further web sites which find your article relevant might also hyperlink back to you. Therefore, you boost your link popularity, which constitutes one of the most vital strategies in cyberspace. Many people are searching for data online and by meeting this need with your expert article, you might gain the benefit of extra exposure and much more web traffic.

2.Free Advertising

Submitting your articles to other sites gives you a chance to advertise your website without paying exorbitant fees. Though you should keep away from marketing terminology in your articles and keep them helpful and of value to your readers, you will be able to include your web site link in the resource box. Additionally, by creating an article relevant and informative to your readers, you’re creating a great impression for your site, which can in the end result in a visit and maybe a purchase. Good quality content within an article is far better and more powerful than a couple of lines of advertising space. You’ve a very special chance to presell your product and/or service to your potential client.

3.Earn top SE Ranking

Produce a new web page for your article on your website. Optimise your article to make it SE friendly. Employ top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your site a high SE ranking. When you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you will be able to get an increase in SE ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a really useful strategy to get a top rating in search results.

4.Increases Link Popularity

Rather than searching for other websites who would like to set up reciprocal links with your website, you are able to just submit an article to one other website, don’t forget to include a hyperlink to your website within your resource box. Once these sites pick out and publish your article, you automatically acquire a link partner. Attempt to find as many link partners as you are able to. Link popularity is among the factors applied by search engines in deciding SE rankings. Make your article specially helpful and appealing, therefore more websites will be pleased to publish it.

5.Optimize your web site for better SE rating

From creating your web site keyword rich, you can significantly improve the SE ranking of your web site. Remember the keyword density is one of the most significant elements that SEs apply when deciding the search engine ranking of web site. Nevertheless, you should at all times offer relevant, usable and appropriate information. Keep away from the temptation of overusing keywords merely to acquire a high ranking as this might put off many internet surfers. Relevancy plus quality is always the most crucial thing to think about whilst writing articles and it will be twice as valuable to your web site if you create these articles SE optimised.

6.Builds a Good Impression and Reputation

By composing first-class, original and relevant articles, you not only get your web site exposure but you are also making a good impression on your visitors. Encouraging additional people to visit your web site and do business with you by building an impressive reputation by your articles. Be viewed as an expert in your area and you will in the end acquire more clients enthusiastic to do business with you.

7.Raises your credibility by references and testimonials

Your articles are bound to receive feedbacks and testimonials once you publish them in e-zines and on free article websites. Record these positive feedbacks and remarks and employ them as promotional material on your website and/or within any of your advertising campaigns. Your credibility can be significantly enhanced by this feedback, because it will make a great impression on your visitors in addition to your present clients. In this extremely competitive world, first-class credibility and trust might be the only things you require to draw in fresh clients or make loyal supporters out of your existing clients. Original, valuable and relevant articles are all important tools that you should employ to improve and explode your business

The first thing is for you to run your own website. It’s imperative for you to own your own website when looking at affiliate marketing as your paid work.

Secondly, prospective clients in the first place go to sites where they can search and sometimes buy the products that they were looking at and for this reason it is much easier for them to remember a simple URL that you are using rather than a clumsy affiliate link and from that URL you can just direct to your prospects to the affiliate page that is on your website.

Another thing to remember is to have your own advert. Often affiliates marketers publish the same ad being used by other advertisers. In which case, you could email the owner of the affiliate program requesting permission to make your own ads. This way, people may not be as immune to the advertising, as sometimes seeing the identical adverts time and time again, may just make your potential clients skip over your advert all together. Besides, your main aim is to draw in or encourage people to click on and read your ads and then be interested enough to click through your website.

The next step is to have some products of your own that are exclusively available via your site. When you have your website running, it’s useful to have a few products or services which your clients can’t locate on other affiliates web sites. You want your clients to keep on returning to your web site and the best means to do that is to deliver something on your web site which they can’t locate from other people.

Being an affiliate marketer you must then decide on a certain market section where you are able to get either potential leadership or at the least a solid challenger role.

So, as an affiliate marketer, where and how can you bring people to your website? Below are some free and proven ways that you can use to drive laser-targeted traffic to your website. Use them and see the results.

Method 1. Relying on search engines. You can submit your website to the top three main search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). As these search engines are popular and used by most of the people, you can get loads of free targeted traffic. However, there is a catch. In order to get the free traffic, your website must be at the top position on page 1? If you cannot achieve that, then this method will not be suitable for you for a start. For your website to be indexed by the search engines, it can take months at times. Can you wait? However, you should not totally ignore this method since it can really drive massive target traffic to your website once it is at the top of the search page. Nevertheless, submit your website to the search engines and move on to the rest of the Methods.

Method 2. The link exchange method. This method is basically asking other webmasters to put your URL on their website. There is no free lunch! In return, you will have to put their URL on your website too. This is called link exchange. Basically, what you are doing is exchanging traffics with each other. To do this, your website must first be of acceptable standards. You will then try to find webmasters that have similar business with you. You should not find your competitors! You should find websites that have business which are complementary to yours.

Method 3. Writing your own articles. This may sounds like a very difficult task to some whom do not like writing. Nonetheless, for those who have the aptitude of writing, you should make use of this remarkable method to drive targeted traffic to your website. This one method is used by many successful Internet Marketers promoting their website. When you write and published an article, you are entitled to have your website URL at your authors bio section. When someone reads your article and if they find it interesting, naturally they will want to visit your website via your URL at your author bio section. In this way, you drive traffic to your website. Simple and effective method.

Method 4. This method is about using other Internet Marketers traffic or joint venture marketing. This is another effective ways of driving targeted traffic to your website. The deal is, you request the other party to promote your product to their list of subscribers at some agreed price. By doing that, your product is instantly exposed to a lot of visitors. The number of visitors will depend on how big is the list. Recently, I was approached by an Internet Marketer asking me if I would like to share my free download website with his list. He asked me for a small sum. I gladly agreed. My website site will be exposed to his 100,000 or so subscribers.

Method 5. This method is having your own affiliate programs. Assuming that you already have your own product, you can list it on some of the major network like Clickbank or Listdotcom. If you product is interesting, you will have a lot of affiliate marketers promoting for you at their cost. You do not need to pay them unless they make a sale for you. This is also another very effective method. If 100 affiliates are promoting for you and each of them have 100,000 subscribers, you can imagine how much traffic you will get.

Method 6. Build a list of you own. The advantage of this method is that, you can email them as and when you like at no additional charge. However, building up a responsive list takes time and effort. This is a long term method. However, if you abuse your list, they will unsubscribe in no time.

The above suggested methods are all free and proven methods used by successful internet marketers for their affiliate marketing. These methods are not difficult to implement. Bear in mind that driving traffic to your website is the number one thing that you must do in order to success. If no one visits your website, no matter how good is you product, you will not make a sale. This is akin to no want visiting your shop!

Since driving traffic to your website is so crucial to the success of your affiliate marketing, it is only prudent that you put intense attention on this. As a start, chose a method that is most suitable to you. Once you have decided which method to use, you will have to test it out. You will get the best results if you try a combination of them. Finally, remember, you will need to get people to see your website. There are other paid methods as well. Try these free methods first. You can get more information on working at home.