But let’s say that you have already created your product and that you have started to generate a good income from it. You are obviously satisfied with the results you’re getting but still ? if you could just get more traffic to your site, if you could just send your offer to more subscribers, if you could only get more exposure, you know that your income would skyrocket.

Well, if you want all that then there’s a great way to get it: by using an Affiliate Management Software. Here are 5 great benefits of using one:

1. Gather an army of motivated affiliates.

These affiliates will work 24/7 to promote your business with no risk to you whatsoever. Whenever they send you a paying customer, you reword their work with commissions.

2. Increase Your Sales With Recommendations From Third Parties.

These are much more powerful than your direct promotion. Customers will be more eager to buy your product when other people recommend it ? it just gives you more credibility.

3. Never spend a dime on advertising again.

Your affiliates will promote your product so that you don’t have to. You’ll get free traffic to your site and you’ll only pay when someone makes a sale.

4. Save hundreds of dollars you used to spend on ezine solo ads.

Your trustworthy associates will send your offer to their own list of subscribers possibly generating thousands of dollars with zero effort on your part.

5. Never struggle to get your site a top 10 position in the search engines.

You get all the exposure you could ever dream of by convincing the sites that already rank high to become your affiliates. This way your product will appear on the first page of results for all of your keywords without lifting another finger.

These are just some of the great benefits an Affiliate Management Software brings, so you should take advantage of them immediately.

In deciding that, consider what a web site really is to a business. A well designed site can give your business exposure to a much larger group of potential customers. That makes it a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.

In today’s hyper-competitive business environment, marketing experts tell us that having a successful marketing strategy is essential to the growth of your business. Effective use of a web site can draw in new leads and turn leads into conversions. Now these new customers (your best market) can be further wooed through follow up online newsletters, automatic appreciation e-mails (auto-responders), special offers or any number of tactics. All the while building a mailing list which is like gold to anyone’s marketing efforts. With this almost limitless and relatively inexpensive marketing tool in the form of your web site, your profits have an even greater ability to soar.

A web site does need to be well designed. Also, in addition to targeted, effective content, your site needs to be regularly maintained and updated. Using its full potential requires someone in your company continually coming up with new online marketing strategies. But these efforts, if thought of as marketing investments, can mean big rewards in the form of increased profits for your business.

In this information age, the internet is key to making innovative marketing decisions that build a successful business. Your competition knows this and he/she probably has a web site. If they are savvy enough to realize its marketing potential, then they have a competitive edge. But you can make up ground and pass them up with a well designed web site of your own.

(For Part 2 of this article “What is a well designed web site?” Please visit my web site.)

Purchasing a web site is a form of advertisement for your business. Would you pay for the development of a radio or television commercial if you were not sure you would get a return on your investment? Why risk your professional reputation by trying to get the cheapest site possible just so you can put the www.yourbusinessname.com on your business card? If you have seen the work of a web site developer and the pages look great, do they contain keywords, titles, and descriptions to help search engines like Google and Yahoo find them?

These are some of the basic questions a professional business web site developer should be able to answer:

1. How will you measure my ROI (Return on Investment)?

2. What information will be included in my monthly web site analytical reports? The reports should answer these questions at a minimum:

..a. What time of the day do most people visit?

..b. What search engines are they using to go to my site?

..c. How long does someone stay on my site?

..d. Which pages do they visit?

..e. Where do they go when they leave?

..f. What are the demographics of my typical online customer?

..g. Has my search engine ranking changed?

3. Will my site be monitored 24/7 with guaranteed 99.8% reliability?

..a. Are all links checked every day?

..b. Are broken links corrected?

4. What is my conversion rate (how many potential online customers have turned into actual customers)? Also,

..a. Why did they visit my business online?

..b. Were they happy with their purchasing experience?

..c. What would they change about my site?

5. How will you help me increase my business over time?

If you are having trouble finding a web site designer, visit the sites of your competitors or other local businesses. Most reputable web site developers list themselves and include a link in the small print at the bottom of the sites they have created. Call the businesses whose sites you like and ask the owners if they are satisfied with their Internet presence. Consider using a web site developer who is not local. They should be able to gather the information they need over the phone or through a web conference. Finally, ask for proposals with price quotes from more than one web site developer. The quality of the proposal will be a good indicator of the professionalism of the business.

Ms. Davidson is a Certified Internet Business Consultant with WSI Advanced Internet Solutions. She specializes in developing Internet Business Strategies for small and medium size business owners with the objective of providing a positive return on their Internet investment. Contact Ms. Davidson at rmdavidson@premierwsiwebmarketing.net or visit her website at www.premierwsiwebmarketing.net.