The feedback that I received the most regarding the A2 Web Hosting affiliate program has been that we need more standard sized banners. We have listened. I just uploaded 4 banners sized 125×125, 468×60, 728×90 and 120×600. Below is the 468×60 banner that was uploaded.
Make sure to log into your A2 Web Hosting affiliate account to take a peek at the other banners that were uploaded.
Yesterday I spoke of what an RSS Feed is, why I think they are convenient, save loads of time and how to subscribe to one. Today I will explain how to create a feed that broadcasts your site’s information.
Broadcasting your RSS feed is as easy as pie. Merely visit Feedburner.com and type your URL into the designated box. You will have to register, which is a very quick process. Your feed will be live after registering and you will be given a feed URL, probably something similar to http://feeds.feedburner.com/YOUR-URL. After registering, you will have the opportunity to Analyze, Optimize, Publicize and Monetize your feed. You can do all of them if you so choose, but I would definitely choose Publicize first so you can put a Chicklet onto your site. No, a chicklet is not some sort of new space aged chicken nugget. An example of a chicklet is the image below. When placed on your site and clicked by a web visitor, your web visitor will be able to subscribe to your feed.
There are a number of chicklets to choose between and each chicklet will allow your users to choose which web aggregator they will want to add your feed onto. On the left hand of this page, you can see that I have only added the standard feed chicklet as well as the Google chicklet. It is up to you which ones you want to put on your site. Whichever chicklet you choose, Feedburner will give you the code to put on our site at the bottom of the page. Copy and paste the code onto your site. This will allow your web visitors to subscribe to your feed with the web aggregator that is shown on the chicklet.
There you go. Your site now has an RSS feed that anyone can subscribe to. Make sure to come back tomorrow and I will explain how to promote your feed and you would want to.
Just a quick note to make sure to subscribe to the A2 Web Hosting Affiliate Program blog’s RSS feed so that you can have the most up to date information regarding the program. For those of you who are unfamiliar with how to go about subscribing to RSS feeds, I have included information below.
To subscribe to Adventures In Hosting’s RSS feed, there are 3 locations on this blog that will allow you to do so. They are the blue button in the web browser bar, as well as the orange button and Add to Google below Archives in the left-navigation bar. I would simply click the Add to Google button which will prompt you to select “Add to Google homepage”. This is where you will need to sign up for a free Google email address or sign in if you already have a Google email address.
Imagine if there was a way to put all of your favorite news sources onto one page so that you wouldn’t have to visit each individual news source. Think of the time you would the save. What a convenience!
Last week, I spent some time researching the capabilities of RSS, what it is and how it can help my site. I am still learning about RSS, but my understanding is that it is simply a way for web readers to subscribe to a website’s content.
Why might this be useful? Here is a perfect example. Adventures In Hosting is split into two sections, a web hosting for beginners section and a news section for the A2 Web Hosting Affiliate Program. Say you are a member of the affiliate program and you want to have the most up to date news regarding the affiliate program http://www.a2hosting.com/affiliate_program.php. Instead of sitting on this blog and all day, hitting the refresh button, you could just subscribe to Adventures In Hosting’s RSS feed. How?
I would suggest using Google Homepage. Everyone has heard of Google. But what is Google Homepage? Google Homepage is a place for you to put all of your favorite news sources (including Adventures In Hosting) into one place with the help of RSS. For example, my Google homepage has the weather forecast, local news and local sports information. I can get a wealth of information .
To subscribe to Adventures In Hosting’s RSS feed, there are 3 locations on this blog that will allow you to do so. They are the blue button in the web browser bar, as well as the orange button and Add to Google below Archives in the left-navigation bar. I would simply click the Add to Google button which will prompt you to select “Add to Google homepage”. This is where you will need to sign up for a free Google email address or sign in if you already have a Google email address.
You don’t have to use Google Homepage, Yahoo has a similar page, as well as some other similar services. I prefer Google Homepage because I feel as though Google has the best search engine and I love having all of my favorite news sources all in one place. It really saves time not having to visit each individual page.
Back in “the day”, one of the best ways to get your site noticed was to leave valuable comments on blogs relevant to your web site. Not only did these links give you some free exposure to your site, but they also played highly (they still do) in Google’s ranking equation, meaning that you would have higher search engine rankings because of the increased exposure.
The problem with this today is that many blogs have added a code to their site called a no-follow tag meaning that they will still allow you to put a link on their site, but they do not want Google to count it their search engine rankings. This is not a bad idea because many sites would comment spam on those blogs just for a link back. However the main problem with no follow tags is that it completely reduces the interactivity of a blog because it doesn’t give readers much incentive to voice their opinion on the blog’s post. One of the best things about blogging is that everyday people get their own voice, which is becoming a larger voice than what large companies are delivering to you in the form of advertising.
Adding a page to WikiPedia with a link back to your site used to be a great way to increase your search engine rankings. Unfortunately WikiPedia has recently added no follow tags as well. Take a look at this McDonald’s Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdonalds. Right click on the “MCD” link at the beginning of the article and select properties. You should see “Relation: nofollow”. This is what a nofollow tag looks like. I’ve had a time finding places where I can leave useful comments and then link back to this blog.
I did some digging on a Do Follow Blog Directory where all the blogs listed have do follow tags. I urge you to visit these blogs and if you feel there is a relevant and useful comment that you can make on a post, do it and link back to your page. It aids everyone!
You just found an amazing affiliate program, signed up and a few hours later got a rejection notice. This is a major bummer!
One of the toughest tasks of being an affiliate manager is affiliate application approvals. I enjoy it, but it is tough because I hate denying an affiliate. I think of the time that they have spent to fill out the application and hate for them to think they wasted their time. I also do work from the affiliate side and have been denied. I know what it feels like. You spend all this time on a site and it is almost a part of you and some affiliate manager comes along and slaps it with a label that it isn’t good enough for our company. I wish I could approve them all, trust me. We want you to join our affiliate program!
But there are certain circumstances that denying an affiliate is necessary, or I would put the applications on auto-approve. Auto-approval is a bad idea because I do look at each application and will deny it if I feel like it is fraudulent.
The three most common denial reasons are:
1.) I cannot access the site. If there is no site at the domain you listed in your application or it is under construction, I deny the site, making an exception only if the affiliate contacts me before I deny that application. I think that is reasonable. I have no idea what sort of site it is going to be. There are obviously things that A2 Hosting does not want to be associated with. Also, please double check to see your domain has been accurately listed in your application.
2.) If the domain is irrelevant to web hosting, I will probably deny it. The main reason is because it will be a waste of your web space and time promoting us. For example, if you have a site about kittens, your visitors are not going to be interested in web hosting. Go promote a pet supplies site. Trust me, you will have more success. This also gives me the opportunity to give more personal attention to the web hosting relevant affiliates.
3.) Third, I deny banner farms. A banner farm is a site that has lists and lists of ads, but no content besides those ads. I have never seen such a site make any money and it does not benefit us to be listed on such a site. What does it hurt? Technically nothing, except I sincerely would prefer 200 producing affiliates as opposed to 10,000 affiliates that will not do anything to promote us.
Other reasons for denial are listed below. These are pretty common in the affiliate marketing industry.
- Content with discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age
- Content with the promotion of sexually explicit, pornographic or obscene content (whether in text or graphics)
- Illegal activities content
-Content that is in any way unlawful, harmful, threatening, defamatory, obscene, harassing or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable
- Content related to liquor, tobacco, firearms, drugs, gambling, crime or death
- Content of any unlawful behavior or conduct
- Any other material deemed inappropriate or offensive by A2 Hosting, Inc
I approve more affiliate applications than I deny, I can ensure you of that. The purpose of this post is to inform those interested in the A2 Web Hosting Affiliate Program about the application process. If you are one of those people, but are unsure whether you will be approved or need help to get approval, contact us, we want you in our program. I will help you get approved!
I received a question from an affiliate today that a sale that he had referred had not been tracked in our system. Before I panicked, I checked to see if it had been tracked or not. Luckily I did find it in my administration panel. Since I am newer to the affiliate software that we use at A2 Hosting, I decided to educate myself from the affiliate’s point of view on where the pending commissions are found. It took me a bit, but I did find it.
2.) Click “Commission Details” on the left hand side of the account
3.) Choose “Commissions Pending Approval” from the drop down menu and select the View Commission button
4.) Voile! Here are the commissions that are pending approval
You will also receive an email when a sale is made. By the way, great question!
Here are a few more RSS feed directories that Adventures In Hosting are listed at.
Yesterday, A2 Hosting updated their hosting packages and made major increases to their already healthy hosting limits. A2 Hosting’s CEO said the purpose of this change was “We have done this to simplify our choices and make more options inclusive with our new packages.” The shared and reseller hosting options were the ones that were impacted by this update.
The shared hosting packages have been reduced from five options to three. The shared hosting options are now (listed with the 12 month price):
Discount – 10 GB of Disk Space costing $3.95/month
Small Biz – 250 GB of Disk Space costing $7.95/month
Professional – 500 GB of Disk Space costing $17.95/month
The reseller packages have remained the same. The reseller hosting options are now (listed with the 12 month price):
Starter – 250 GB of Disk Space costing $19.95/month
Intermediate – 350 GB of Disk Space costing $29.95/month
I have made two distinct changes in Adventures In Hosting. The first is that I added a Web Hosting Resources page to the top of the blog. This page includes what you might expect, web hosting resources. Some of the resources on that page have already been discussed throughout the blog thus far. Some haven’t. This page will be updated from time to time as I discover useful web hosting tools that I feel everyone will benefit from.
The second change is to break Adventures In Hosting into two separate categories. These categories are the A2 Hosting Affiliate Program Blog Page and another category that deals with just Web Hosting From A Non-Technical Perspective. I think that this will better organize the blog because some readers are only interested in A2 Hosting Affiliate Program news, and others will just want web hosting news and help. Now if someone is interested in both, both topics will still be broadcasted on AdventuresInHosting.com.
