What was your first commission cheque, where was it from and how did it make you feel?

Like a tiger? Like an internet money making master? Like you need to make more?

Here is mine.

1st cheque was from Amazon affiliate program for selling books online roughly in 1997. I was selling books online, mainly computer related while still in College.

Example:

1st affiliate commissions : $130.00 USD

If you are wanting to build a money making website, Flash animation or Flash based websites should be the last thing on your mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-flash, but some of the methods people use to build their website, especially with Flash is outright wrong.

Little Story …

I like to peruse the local Craigslist ads for interesting web design projects (Most are wildcard ads and the expectations are unreasonable, but it is still fun anyways!).

What I do see quite a bit recently is people posting ads where they want a website built in Flash!

Here are some recent examples:

“Flash web designer needed for brand new ______ based clothing company. We will need someone who is able to create a “shopping cart” from which customers can purchase product from the site. It will be fairly simple … “

Time will go by when this company realized that very little pages will show up in the search engine results. Plus, try to find a flash developer that can create a flash based shopping cart.

Here is another one ..

I am looking for a flash web designer to make a website for my company. What I need is for you to design and setup the full flash website. Also you will need to show me how to upload and move content on the website.

Ok, what we are asking for here is a flash based content management system.

A bit more …

Just this week I had an inquiry from a local company that had their site built in Flash a few years back and here is how part of the dialogue went:

Me: “How often do you do updates to your website?”

Them: “Not often because I cannot locate the website designer”

Me: “Do you have the original source code flash files?”

Them: “What is that?”

Me: “How much did you pay for your website?”

Them: “Around $3K, but every time I wanted to make changes to my site, it cost me money, if I could get a hold of the designer! I would like to make changes to my site, but now I can’t find the designer”

Why Flash can be bad!

• Money making websites are not built in flash, unless you are Gucci shoes or some multi-million dollar name brand.
• Once you build your website in Flash, it can be a bit more difficult for other developers/designers to go in and make changes.
• Whenever you want to make changes to your site, you have to contact your designer and pay more and more.
• Flash is not search engine friendly. Meaning, the search engines have a hard time indexing the various flash based pages you have already created. Some seasoned SEO people will disagree with me here with comments like “Google can index flash”, but I disagree. So if you have a site built in Flash and scratching your head wondering why visitors are not coming to your site from the search engines, this is why.
• Flash sites tend to be bandwidth hogs! Yes you may have an unlimited web hosting account or something similar, but the fact is, why keep someone waiting 10-20 seconds to view your ‘Hello, welcome to my cool website’. Plus the people still on dial-up (yes they’re out there!) will thank you for wasting their time.
• Flash is so ’90s in terms of web design. It’s like walking around with a mullet thinking it’s so cool as you drive off in your Camaro!
• Search not available. Unless there is some serious programming, flash sites are hard to search.
• Not quite Web 2.0! Limited interactivity with your website visitors puts flash based websites in the ‘my message, no feedback category!’

Want more proof?

Here are some sites discussing the limitations of Flash based websites:

• Lisa Barone’s post on not building your site in Flash
• Here is a funny Flash Flowchart for SEO site builders

How Flash is good!

As with anything in life, all things in moderation.

Flash, used as an enhancement, can be a powerful tool.

If you website is build the ‘regular’ way (i.e, HTML, XHTML, etc) , adding a touch of flash animation can bring life to your website.

It can also assist in the message you are trying to get accross to your visitors as well, but more and more, we’re seeing flash based videos being used for this purpose.

If you plan on build a gaming or video based site to make your riches on the Internet, hire a professional flash developer with experience, the programming types work well.

Function vs Design

Define your purpose for build a money making website.

If it is to spread the benfits of your products or services on the Internet, stick with a standard, content based website.

Better yet, build your own website, control the content and be in control of your marketing message online.

Personally, I get very weary of clients that are currently selling online that are too focused on the deisgn and ‘eye-candy’, where they should be more focused on the marketing message and how it is received with their valued website visitors.

Invest your time and money in content development, when time and budget permits, invest in the perks later.

That’s what a new affiliate made by sending an email to his opt-in list.

I recently set up an in-house affiliate program for a client in the financial services industry because they were launching a new product and they wanted to get the word out with through their partner channel.

When I say ‘in-house affiliate program’, I mean a system where they compensate their referring partners with a commission for every sale that is generated from the website.

In this case, the affiliate program was not made public and only offered to a select number of existing partners who are already in the industry.

The most interesting part about this story is that the commissions were made with one single mail-out.

Keep in mind, $3,800 may not be much to a seasoned internet marketer, but to an affiliate beginner or newbie, this sounds great!

Amazing.

How does this affiliate thing work and how can I make some money at it too?

Affiliate marketing is the simple process of driving traffic to a particular website for a commission based on a particular action. A commission is awarded for a sale, a lead or in some cases a click to the site.

With your own website, you simply direct traffic to the affiliate website and if your visitor performs a certain action, you get compensated (i.e., paid, rewarded, etc…) for that particular action in the form of a commission.

Review out affiliate programs overview to get more information.

So how does one make $3,800 USD in one mail-out?

When selecting an affiliate program there are a number of factors to keep in mind.

How much does the company pay, how often do they pay, when do they pay, who are they with, is the program in-house or with an affiliate network and more.

In this particular case, the affiliate payout was 50% of the product value.

So doing some math, 50% commission of a $200.00 product would be a $100.00 commission.

To generate over $3,800 in commissions, one would need only 38 sales.

38 sales would be a challenge if your list only contained 50 people, but what if your list was over 8,000+ people.

It turns out to be a numbers game. Sales is a number game.

Do companies pay that much in commission?

You bet!

Years back, I worked in an industry where it was not uncommon for commission payouts to be in the range of $60.00 to $120.00 per action. Many of these companies were on-upping each other every other month on who had the best offer for the affiliate. It turned out, the affiliates were driving the majority of sales to the company website.

It was the affiliate publishers that were spending money on Google PPC advertising (AdWords) to generate leads, interest and sales for the company products or services. This still happens right now, although many affiliate managers keep an eye on trademark bidding and such.

So what is this program?

First off this program has not been launched as of yet. Due to the success of the in-house affiliate campaign, the company is considering launching the program on one of the big networks (Commission Junction, Shareasale, Pepperjamm, Linkshare, etc …).

The company is also evaluating what type of offer to present: percentage based, flat rate, two-tier sub-affiliate commissions and more.

Keep in mind, this affiliate program may be for you or not. This company is involved in the financial investments market where there is a lot of attention due to the recession, job losses and people concerned about their investments.

Enter your name and email address below for our ‘top producing affiliate programs’ and we’ll notify you when the program is launched.

So what would you do with such a commission?

Would you re-invest back in to your online business? Spend it on yourself, your family? Spend more for online advertising?

Do you have a Internet money making tip you would like to share with others? How about an online business opportunity that has made you income in the last couple of months? Post and submit your money making ideas here.

It could be anything from a successful affiliate program to an income producing program on the Internet that works.

Yes there are so many money making ideas out there and it is always nice to see how others are making out.

How many websites about making money on the Internet have you been to in the last few days?

There seems to be a common theme with many of these sites “I make so so much money and here is my fancy car to prove it!”. On top of that, you’ll see posts like “I can’t post right now because I’m on a plane heading off to Las Vegas because I’m part of some money making club -wish you were here, and oh, this is what my airplane food looks like!”

Back to earth people!

There is a recession in out midst with some people getting a bit concerned about looking for ways to make additional income for the real basic things like car insurance, or mortgage payments or even baby diapers.

In addition, some may have been recently unemployed and now do have some extra time to explore internet money making opportunities.

If you are at this site, you may be one of them.

Some earthly advice … if your plan is to sit at home and make money, I commend you!

In addition, I also warn you.

Internet riches or getting rich quick online does not happen overnight.

I will say this throughout various parts of this websites, it takes time, effort, learning and more.

1st post to get something out there!

I am so excited about putting all this together, but time is very limited. Life at work is busy, life at home is busy and finding extra time to put this out there takes more time, caffeine and candles burning at night. Hence my post to put something out there to set up this blog/informational website. I have customized this WordPress website as a content management system (CMS) and Blog and need to do a few more things to optimize for traffic and the search engines. I hope to share thing information with you in the near future.

Why another make money on the Internet site?

Because I feel I have information to share, plus sometimes it can get redundant explaining the concepts in conversation. This way, I can send you to this site and hopefully you will have more questions.

I also want to put this post out there because I run an internet consulting business that does everything from website development to search engine marketing where I get asked various questions about “How do I make money on the Internet”, or “My wife’s friend is making money on eBay, how is she doing this?”

So this is to be a collection of my thoughts, experiences, case studies on what works, what does not and what you should simply avoid.

You see, the firm I am involved in also provides services where we assist website owners in driving more sales, more leads and more traffic to their web site. They see what works and what does not.

In the meantime, settle in, thanks for visiting, push some of the links on the top navigation menu, subscribe to our RSS feed and if so inclined, subscribe to our newsletter for new offers, tools and tips for earning an income online.