Lake Alfred

What does it take to become a successful Affiliate Marketer? What are the ingredients of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to Affiliate Marketing glory? All these questions play around in the minds of affiliate marketers who want to make it big in this business.

Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it is not as easy as it sounds. The wise affiliate marketer plans every action and executes it the best way he can. He should also maximize the potential to earn by utilizing the right tools necessary for a successful Affiliate Marketing business. If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer, you have to treat it like a business. We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and below are the top three necessary tools for a successful affiliate marketing business.

Important Tool #1: Domain Name and Web hosting

The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and service you are promoting and make a purchase. Therefore, you must first concentrate your efforts in building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.

The most important thing you should consider is that almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. People will love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, in the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a good step in building up a loyal consumer base.

Highly Recommended Web Hosting: Site Build It

Important Tool #2: Professional Autoresponder

A professional autoresponder is one of the lifelines of your business. Even if you go to the super cheap route on all your other tools, do not settle for a cheap, low quality autoresponder.

Yes, there are free autoresponders available online, but I guarantee you they’ll cause more headaches down the line (and lost profits) than you want.

To read more about responders click here

Important Tool #3: Link Popularity

The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important entities in the internet world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you should carry out. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive reciprocal link campaign.

One of the best ways to do this - at no cost at all - is by submitting articles, with your website’s link at the resource box, to e-zines and free article sites. You will not only gain exposure, you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, just include a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity is. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick it up and post it.

These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential.

Refine your marketing skills with Donny Gamble, a top affiliate for thousands of affiliate marketing products. For more affiliate marketing tips and tricks, and to learn other affiliate sales secrets, please visit http://www.AffiliateMarketingJournal.com.

Following are the detailed instructions on how to install SharePoint 2007 Beta 2 on a clean version of Windows 2003. These instructions were done by completing the installation on a Virtual Server 2005 machine that was NOT joined to a domain. I have seen a lot of articles that say the server has to be joined to a domain but that is not a requirement. Below are the detailed installation instructions for SharePoint 2007 Beta 2 on Windows 2003 using SQL Server 2005 on the same machine:

Install Windows 2003 and update the machine with the latest Services Packs and hotfixes from Microsoft by using the “Windows Update” utility.

Create a local machine account to run SQL Server and SharePoint with. Make sure that this account is set to be an administrator on the local machine and that it is set to not have the password expire or to change the password on the first login.

* If you are doing the installation on a server joined to a domain you can use a domain account that is set as an administrator on the local machine

* To create a new local machine account go to Start and right click on “My Computer”. Select “Manage” from the list that appears and the “Computer Management” snap-in appears. Expand “Local Users and Groups” and right click on the “Users” folder. Select “New User” and fill in the appropriate information.

Insert the SQL Server 2005 into the machine and make sure that “Autoplay” is enabled so the initial installation screen appears.

From the initial screen select “Choose to Install components”

Click the “Accept terms” checkbox on the license screen that appears and then click “Next”

Click “Install” on the next screen that appears.

Once the process to install “Native Client and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 setup support files” has completed click “Next”.

Scanning of the system hardware will occur next.

On the screen that appears after the hardware scan is complete click “Next”.

When the system configuration check has completed click “Next”.

On the registration page enter the Name, Company and product key and click “Next”.

Select the components that should be installed.

You will need SQL Server Database Services, Workstation and Client components; and may want to install Books Online and development tools.

You can click the “Advanced” button and select the specific components that you would like to install. Click “Next”.

Click “Default instance name” checkbox on the instance name screen and click “Next”.

On the next screen choose what account will run SQL Server 2005. Specify the information for the domain/local account you created earlier to run SQL Server in the appropriate boxes. Make sure the “Use a domain user account” radio button is checked.

Click SQL server and SQL Server Agent check boxes at the bottom of the screen. Click “Next”.

On the next screen choose to use Mixed Mode authentication. You can change this after the SharePoint setup is complete.

On the collations screen leave the defaults and click “Next”.

On the “Error and Usage Report Settings” screen leave the defaults and click “Next”.

On the “Ready to Install” screen click “Install”.

The setup process will run and you will see the setup progress screen.

When the setup completes click “Next”. Then click “Finish”.

Set the Sharepoint account that you created earlier, it can be the same account that is used to run SQL Server, to be have Database Creator, sysadmin and security admin rights on SQL server.

Next install Windows Workflow extensions. You will need to make sure that it is version 3807.7 build or higher.

The 3807.7 version can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5c080096-f3a0-4ce4-8830-1489d0215877&DisplayLang=en#Instructions. You need to make sure that you install the Runtime Components download that is appropriate for your system if you don’t have Visual Studio 2005 installed on your machine.

Double click on the install file for Windows Workflow.

Click “Ok” on the license screen that appears.

Install IIS on the sever and make sure ASP 2.0 is installed on IIS. If you are not sure you can run the aspnet_regiis -I from within the 2.0 folder. The default install location is C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\V2.0.50727.

* To install IIS on the server go to the “Control Panel” and double click on “Add\Remove Programs”. Click on “Add/Remove Windows Components” and in the window that appears check the box next to “Application Server”.

Highlight “Application Server” and click on the “Details” button. Make sure that the check boxes next to “ASP .NET” and “Internet Information Services (IIS)” are checked. Click OK and then click “Next”.

Insert the SharePoint 2007 Beta 2 disk into the server.

If the disk doesn’t autoplay, run setup.bat on the disk.

Enter the product key on the appropriate screen. Click “Continue”.

Click the check box that you except the terms of use. Click “Continue”.

You will need to choose if you are going to install SharePoint 2007 as standalone single server, this will install SQL Desktop Express, or the advanced version which can be for a single server or a server farm.

You will need SQL Server 2000 SP3 or SQL Server 2005 for the Advanced version. We will do the advanced version in this process on SQL Server 2005. Click “Advanced”.

On the next screen you can choose from three options. We will be installing on a single server and SQL Server 2005 so we will choose the first options “Complete - Intall all components. Can add servers to form a SharePoint farm.” because the last option will install the desktop database engine which we don’t want to install. On the file location tab you can pick the installation location on the server.

Click “Install Now”.

Make sure the “Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now.” is checked and click “Close”.

When the Configuration Wizard appears click “Next”.

Click “Yes” on the pop-up window that appears about restarting services on the server.

Click the “No, I want to create a new server farm” as we don’t have an existing 2007 SharePoint installation.

On the Specify Configuration Database settings screen specify the name of the server. If you used above the options above in the SQL Server setup this will be the name of the server you are installing SharePoint 2007 on.

Leave the configuration database name as it is.

Enter the username and password of the account that you created earlier in the setup process.

Click “Next”.

Leave the default options on the screen that appears and click “Next”.

On the next screen that appears click “Next”.

Sharepoint will then complete 9 configuration tasks.

Once the tasks are completed you will be redirected to the Sharepoint Administration page.

Click http://www.totalproductivitysolutions.com/ProgrammingTips/Steps to install Sharepoint 2007.doc to download the word document version of these instructions.

http://blogs.msdn.com/harsh/archive/2006/05/31/611133.aspx

Jason Fortner is co-founder of Total Productivity Solutions. Total Productivity Solutions is an Atlanta based compan that provides custom SharePoint, webpart and .NET development; and solutions to common software development issues are also provided on the site.

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