So where would you use Dropbox?well suppose you had a great day out with friends and wanted to share the photos you took with them, simple open a Dropbox account and invite them into the shared folder.  If you own or run a business and you need to share large files between your sales team for example or maybe a potential customer wants pictures now of that great car you’re selling.  All this can be accomplished through Dropbox I cant recommend it enough, and what is more the service is FREE.

You heard it correct Dropbox works on a freemium basis so they offer a free account of 2GB and of course you could have a paid account of upto 1TB, everytime someone joins through a referral link you gain an additional 250Gb of space on your account, thus encouraging users to share – as I have done here.

You can visit the Dropbox site clicking on this link here as I said I cannot recommend it highly enough so go on try it out, its FREE!

An aStore you say what is that? Well to put it simply and aStore enables you to create (for free) your own online shopping facility through the Amazon affiliate product and it really is that simple.

So how easy is it to create and setup one up?

Firstly you need to sign up to be an Amazon Associate.

When you are ‘in’ either by using your exisiting Amazon login or a new account you will then have a variety of tools you can use, be it tweet links, book code to embed into your blog or news post. In this case though we are talking about the aStore link in the top tab menu, click on this and you will start on the process of building your aStore.

With the tool you can create category pages, shop pages and then choose which items will be seen on your account and which won’t feature.

Then choose the sidebar widget which will help prospective customers actually find stuff in your store.

Finally you will get an aStore URL which will be the link from your website to your store, this wil contain your unique store ID so any sales you will get the commision.

It really is that easy, a couple of stores i have created are below;

Online Marketing Books

WesternRunner aStore

So there you are, simple and easy to build and tailor as you want, and it enables you to sell product without holding the items or handling the monies, and then gets my vote.

Resources

Amazon Affiliate Income, Make Money Click Here!

Amazon Associates sign up (UK)

Yes, it is true you can use the internet to not only spend money but also save – that is on what you spend!

So here is my top 6 websites that will save you money.

1.    We all need food to live so why not find the cheapest supermarket where to get your weekly shop from I use the price comparison website MySupermarket this lets you compare the big four supermarkets with online shopping and price check as well as compare offers, its fast easy and free.

2.    I have written about this previously  (link to post). Simply put if you shop online you can get paid to shop using a site like QuidCo.  It really is simple you register (so they know who to give the cashback to) then using QuidCo you simply search for the shops you want and then make sure that you buy through the QuidCo links.  You make your cut through the cashback that QuidCo gets from the retailer, you may also want to consider TopCashBack, this is another great site.

3.    Freecycle does exactly what it says on the tin, the Freecycle groups match people who have things they want rid of with people who can use them, check it out yourself at http://www.uk.freecycle.org.

4.    I love getting a discount on my shopping so I always use a cash back site AND search for voucher codes, most retailers offer them for regular shoppers and they then share them with others.  I like to use www.myvouchercodes.co.uk or www.vouchercodes.co.uk

5.    I do believe that deregulation of the UK energy market has had a really great effect for all UK customers, we can shop around on our Gas and Electricity for the best deal.  Unfortunately water is not included in this but even so it pays to look around and see if you are on the best deal, so try a site like www.uswitch.com.

6.    Sick of high phone bills, or even just a phone bill? Then you need to use Skype, this lets you make free unlimited phone calls using the internet to other Skype users and also offers really good rates on calls to all landlines and mobile phones. The software you need to run Skype is free to download, you don’t have to pay a subscription fee and what I like best is that if you have a Three phone you can call from Three for free.

So there you go my top 6 websites where I think you should be looking to save money on all the necessary stuff you do anyway, why pay more than you need to, I don’t?

I bet that got you reading didnt it, can i really get cashback for just being me, shopping online, free money? well the answer is yes, a 100% honest yes!

The website called QuidCo allows you to buy a huge range of products and services by following links through this site so that you will get a kick back, bascially a % of the purchase price or a one off fee, you can also get printable vouchers to take in store and the choice is massive.

So how does it work well lets use some examples, say you need broadband and cable in your house well do a few searches on QuidCo and you find Virgin Media, you will see they are currently giving £165 cash back if you order through the QuidCo site, yes £165!

Their are loads of different stores on QuidCo, from Npower (£140 cashback) Sainsburys (50p for every online shopping order) to Halfords  (4.5% cashback) the choice really is amazing.

You can even get vouchers to print off and take in store with you, QuidCo is one of those sites you’d be crazy no to be on and check every time you go shopping, i know i do!

In the short time i have been a member over £165 cashback is winging its way to me for just doing as I normally would, no change in habit, buying more or anything, i really dont think a user has anything to lose at all.

Anyone else got any good tips and experience with QuidCo they would like to share?

To give a great example of financial returns in 2009 Ryanair had ancillary revenue of €598 million, compared to a total revenue of €2,942 million. You only need to look at their website to see how important this is to the business model, on the screen capture (below) you can see both paid adverts and ‘affiliate’ links. The paid adverts will be simply that – a company paying for its advert to be shown on the Ryanair website – and dont be surprised by this British Airways have also been carrying Jaguar Car adverts for quite a while now. The affiliate links however will see Ryanair getting a commision on items sold, be it car hire or hotel bookings.

So how does this work for your business? Make no doubt this isnt a one size fits all for sure, I have listed 3 different types of business and ancillary income you ‘may’ wish to consider.

Small B&B – maps, guide book links of the area – Amazon is great for this, you’ve booked your stay now read more before you come. Also holiday insurance is applicable for all overnight stay websites….

Checkout my online shop for WesternRunner – built for free using Amazon

Car Repairs/Mechanic – motorsport books, motoring clothing, historical prints/artwork, maps – again all from Amazon.

Checkout my online shop for WesternRunner – built for free using Amazon

Estate Agents – links for insurance (you’d make commission), maps of the area – amazon again, possibly hotels and B&B’s if people are coming a distance, restaurants and eateries, bascially thinks that your clietns probably do already BUT you have an opportunity to make some ancillary revenue from.

Do bear in mind that a customers wants the product they are buying to work before they will go onto trust a company for buying any other services. Then a huge part of making this ancillary offering work is to involve your own staff in designing, developing and delivering the offerings. This measn getting your staff on board with what you offer in house and what you offer only through your website. There is nothing that will destory your well intention efforts faster in this area if your own staff are not aware what additional services your businesses is offering.

See also Amazon Associates, affiliate marketing made easy

Darren Rowse is one of the biggest names in the world of blogs primarily about blogging, he is the owner of a number of well respected blogs and a founder of the B5 media blog network. Consequently he is regarded as a bit of an expert in the field and he book goes through the process from start to finish, from creating a professional blog to choosing a topic and promoting, marketing and even selling your blog. A very worthwhile read and one I am sure you won’t be disappointed with.

What many people aren’t aware of is their Associate program that actually lets a website owner ‘tap into’ the Amazon success and promotes the products from Amazon on their website. The site is really simple to use and has such a wide variety of products you can’t fail to find something to link to, everything from Jewellery to CD’s even music downloads.

Product box and text links

Text links one their own.

There are also great tools for integrating into your site, from simple product links to full blown stores, yes you can create your own store, take a look at these two.

My Blog Store

WesternRunner online store

I personally use Amazon a lot I find it easy and simple, a good reporting tool and although it doesn’t make huge amount of money it does provide a small and useful ancillary income.

Amazon Associates advantages:
• there is a huge choice of products to choose from
• reliable payment system
• options for different payment types for both you and the customer
• I find it very easy to use
• a massive variety of linking tools
• Amazon are a well regarded brand and trusted by consumers

Amazon Associates disadvantages:
• only quarterly payments (many other programs are monthly such as Adsense)
• commissions can be lower than some other programs (although they have an incentive/bonus program that increases the % when you sell certain targets)
• some of their buttons and link methods can look a bit dated

I have written previously about eBay selling here

My thoughts on eBay for 2010 here
(*source Interbrand http://www.interbrand.com)

I have covered previously [tag]affiliate marketing[/tag] so I guess now it worthwhile covering why you should consider it for your site.

Advertisers often prefer affiliate marketing as a way to promote their products because they know they’ll only need to pay for the advertising when there’s a user action, usually a click OR sign up.

Publishers often prefer affiliate marketing because if they find a product that is relevant to their niche that earnings can go well in excess of any cost per click or cost per impression advertising campaign.

So is Affiliate Marketing [tag]easy money[/tag]?

While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to know that affiliate marketing is not easy money. Most people who try it on their site make very little as it relies upon numerous factors including:

• traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
• finding relevant products for the user
• finding quality products for the user
• building trust with your readers, this ensures that they continue to view your site and carry out an ‘action’.
• having a readership who is in a ‘buying mood’
• you being able to write good sales copy (and more) that keeps a user interested.

There’s also a BIG risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you push too hard or promote products of a low quality (of which you may have no experience of) you can actually lose customers and hurt your business reputation and brand.

If you like this article why not subscribe to my RSS feed ?

Lots of people ask the simplest question, how can I make [tag]money online[/tag] if I am not directly selling a product or service with a payment gateway, well help is at hand through a simple tool of [tag]affiliate marketing[/tag]. The easiest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of earning money online where you as a website owner gain a reward for helping a business by promoting their product or service.

There are numerous types of promotions but again the easiest is simply where you as website owner earn a commission for a visitor to your site clicking on a link to another site.

There are other subtle variations on this theme, maybe a user clicks on the link and they carry out an action or sign up for something, complete a survey maybe but it is all the same kind of principle.



Take the advert above this is ‘fed’ by Google and every time a visitor clicks on it I get a commission, so yes please click .

Commissions are often a percentage of a sale paid when your ‘account’ gets to a certain level (e.g. £50) but they can also be a fixed amount per [tag]conversion[/tag].

The conversion are usually tracked by the code that you have been given being embedded in your site, take the Google advert above, when you click on it Google know which site it was from (mine) and which advert they have served so the commission applicable. Other variations on the theme are when maybe a publisher gives a coupon or voucher code out to help track conversions.

I will cover in later posts more about affiliate marketing with links to some great programs for you to explore, in the meantime why not subscribe to my RSS feed to be kept updated?

7askbp6y9g