Affiliate marketing in Sri Lanka

Posted August 19th, 2010 by Nishadha | View Comments
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During three years of blogging I have yet to find a Sri Lankan company that is using affiliates to promote there products online. There are some companies that promote there products through affiliates but they rely on affiliate going to the customer and showing leaflets and placing the order thus limiting the number of sales an affiliate can generate. Oriflame is a company that comes to mind that generates sales this way. This method do have some advantages, since you are more likely to buy from someone you know the likelihood of a repeat sales increases. If anyone of you know a similar company like that please feel free to mention in the comments section. Just remember it has to a Sri Lankan company. When it comes to affiliate marketing with online dashboards and all the other facilities for affiliates E-Soft pathways is the first company that has offered those services. The process is not fully automated since there is a slight interaction required from the user in the way of he mentioning your affiliate id when registering for a course. But mentioning the code does give the user a 5% discount so they are providing the user an incentive to mention your id. They are promoting degree programs and other educational programs which are in high demand in Sri Lanka so join quickly and start earning.Its free to join as well ;) Join E-Soft affiliate network

Its rather surprising more companies are not using affiliates to promote there businesses. Having an army of people promoting your product can have a huge impact on your sales. Not only on your sales but it has a huge impact on your brand image as well. If someone is an affiliate promoting your product you will rarely find him saying negative thing about your product. So hundred affiliates mean hundred more people singing praise of your product or service and they don't necessarily have to buy your product to sing praise. If its a digital product like an e-book it becomes even more convenient because you just need to create copies of the product while earning sales. I'm doing some more research on affiliate opportunities available for Sri Lankans and hopefully can put up a post on some more companies offering affiliate opportunities. Make sure to subscribe if you don't want to miss out on the next posts :) . In the meantime join E-Soft affiliate network

Online Jobs in Sri Lanka

Posted August 13th, 2010 by Nishadha | View Comments
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I have being writing about how to make money online in Sri Lanka for quite a while now and my preferred method has being creating niche websites and adding affiliate links and adding Adsense in those blogs. But everyone doesn't like blogging, even I don't like the necessary but tedious tasks like upgrading software, managing hosting etc. In this article I will take a look at few other online jobs in Sri Lanka which is much more attractive to normal internet surfers. Although I'm listing down few more online jobs I still believe that if you are looking to generate a long term passive income online then blogging and affiliate marketing is the best option. Internet is a place of countless opportunities and although opportunities for Sri Lankans are limited because of reasons like limited Internet crowd, Paypal send only there are still quite a few Internet jobs for Sri Lankans.

Doing Freelance work

A very attractive option especially for university students. When it comes to freelance work in Sri Lanka it is mostly about designing websites. But if you are good at other programming languages then there are lots of opportunities available for you via the Internet. Check out my article about freelance work in Sri Lanka and where to find freelance jobs to learn about websites that offer freelance work outside Sri Lanka. Make sure you follow the steps about creating a good profile with proper descriptions etc before bidding for optimum chance of getting jobs.

Data Entry work

For people who don't have the programming skills and designing skills but who have some free time to earn some money then data entry work might be a good choice for you. Keep in mind though that just because you have a Internet connection and some free time you cant do data entry jobs. You have to have some basic English knowledge, satisfactory typing speed and the ability to deliver on time. Most data entry work advertise themselves claiming you can do your work at your leisure but this is not always the case, once you accept a job you have to deliver withing a certain time period. Check out my article about Data entry work and where to find free data entry jobs in Sri Lanka.

FOREX trading

One of the most profitable methods to make money online but can lead to significant financial losses if done without proper knowledge and experience. This isn't somethings you can learn in a day and start doing straightaway. More than the computer knowledge what you need here is sound understanding of how the currency markets and financial markets work. If you are willing to invest some time to learn the methods this could be a great income source for you. If you are still interested then check out FOREX trading in Sri Lanka.

Article writing

Article writing is pretty similar to blogging but the key difference here is you don't have to worry about the tedious tasks of upgrading software, managing hosting, designing layout etc. There are sites out there that offer you all the tools you need to write articles. With those tools it is very easy to add links, images and videos to your articles and by maneuvering the blocks you can format the article so it will look much more pleasing to the eye. In each of those articles Adsense,Infolink and various other affiliate links are shown and you get a share of the earning for writing those articles. For example a website like Hubpages shares 60% of there ad views with you so you can make some decent money through them.Join Hubpages for free.

Another website that I use is Squidoo, they are a bit picky about what you write but if you are writing good relevant articles that are full of useful information then you want have a problem with them. The great thing about these article sites is because of there internal linking you get a boost for ranking in search engines which in turns bring your more traffic and more money. Join Squidoo for free.

Blogging

Along with article writing my best source of income. It is not easy to start a blog write content and build it up to a profitable blog but once you achieve that it is a great source of passive income. You need to learn a bit about search engine optimization, managing hosting etc for you to be successful using this method. If you are looking for some quick money then this is not the thing for you. Although I make well over 200$ per month now during my first month way back in 2007 I made less than 3$ from Adsense. If you are pursuing blogging then you need to be passionate about your blog as well and if you start it only for the money then I doubt you will make much from it.

Affiliate Marketing

Another very profitable way to make money online. In very basic terms affiliate marketing is selling someone else product and making a commission from it. Pretty similar to marketing with the only difference being everything is done online. You do need a way to get traffic to your affiliate link and having a blog helps a lot in that regards. Otherwise you can choose alternate methods like paying for advertising similar to Google Adwords. There are few affiliate programs specially for Sri Lankans where you have a higher chance of succeeding. E-Soft Affiliate network is one such opportunity. Read this post to learn more about affiliate opportunities specially for Sri Lankans.

PTC and PTR sites

This is popular among Sri Lankans but unless you have lots of referrals then you want be earning much. Usually you get about 0.01$ per click so for you to make at least 1$ you need to click 100 ads or read 100 e-mails. Of course if you can sign up few more people under you then you can make some money but I wouldn't recommend using this method unless you can sign up few more people under you. The only program I use is Hits4Pay and it is free to join. Join Hits4Pay for free.

Filling surveys

After three years of doing various things to make money online I still haven't found a survey company that actually have surveys for Sri Lankans. Most of these sites require you to pay some money to join and even the free ones are mostly scams that are notorious for not paying up. I would stay well away from survey sites.

Listed above are some free online jobs and Internet jobs that you can do to make money online. Visit the given links if you want to learn more about each opportunity and to find out websites which you can join for free and some more free resources.

PS - Please don't leave your mobile phone no or e-mail address in the comments section asking me to find a data entry or similar job for you. If you cant follow this simple instruction then you have very little chance of making money online anyway :-) .

e-biznessworld.com Internet marketing agency that relies on spamming

Posted August 11th, 2010 by Nishadha | View Comments
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E-mail marketing in Sri Lanka done by e-biznessworld relies purely on spamming the hell out of there e-mail subscriber base. In there page about e-mail marketing they boast of having an e-mail subscriber base with more than 100,000 e-mail addresses but they don't mention how they got hold of such a number. They boast of having CEO's, Company directors, Senior managers in there list but I doubt any of them bother reading there e-mails. The only way someone can subscribe to there list is by replying to there e-mail messages with "Add Me" in the subject line. There is an option of unsubscribing by replying to there messages with "No" in the subject line but it doesn't work because the e-mails keep on coming how many times you reply with "No". There are plenty of spam compliant E-mail marketing software, with Aweber being the most popular software, but the leading E-mail marketing agency in Sri Lanka is still relying on very old methods that depends on user doing all the work manually. Other than being a nuisance there are ethical and legal issues as well because whatever you do you cant stop receiving those mails and just about the only thing you can do is mark them as spam so they will go to the spam folder. And I'm pretty sure most of those subscriber has already market them as spam.

Bad investment for advertisers

I don't know how much they charge from an advertiser to send an e-mail to there list and if it is very cheap then it might be worth it because 100,000 is a huge amount and few are bound to read them. But consider these things before you are advertising

  • The e-mails are poorly targeted -  In one day alone you can get a advertisement about an Art exhibition, A conference about credit management and details about a land sale. These are three different things and it is very unlikely that someone will be interested in all three. So even if your ad is read it is not read by someone who is actively looking for it.
  • There e-mails are considered as spam - Not only are these ads irrelevant because of constantly abusing there list they are more likely to be seeing as spamming and I'm sure there are quite a few who has already marked them as spam. So although they might have a list of 100,000 the number alone could be misleading.
  • Ethical and legal issues - I'm not so sure about the rules here in Sri Lanka but it is generally not ethical to send e-mail to someone without there consent and in some countries it is illegal as well if you are constantly doing that. More than anything your company could look like spamming and could ruin your brands reputation.

If your a businessman your main concern it Return of Investment(ROI) so carefully consider those facts before doing advertising with them. It it just costs you around Rs.5000 to send to that huge list( If the numbers are actually true ) then it might be a worthy investment.

Doing E-mail marketing the correct way

Without a doubt E-mail marketing is a powerful tool to grow your business provided that you go about it in the right way. It is a great way to capture leads and to follow up on existing customers but you will your customers quickly if you start abusing the list. If you are sending two or three mails everyday to your list you will quickly start loosing subscribers and the value of the list. In one of my future posts I will show some best practices in E-mail marketing and how to setup your own E-mail list in an ethical manner.

Learn FOREX trading with Forextraders

Posted August 8th, 2010 by Nishadha | View Comments
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As I have mentioned in many of my previous articles FOREX trading in Sri Lanka is a great way to make money online and once you mastered it it is also one of the most profitable ways to make money as well. But mastering currency trading is not an easy task which is the reason why many FOREX traders fail and give up. This is where an educational website like Forex Traders comes in handy. There is so much to learn about currency trading you can spend a lifetime studying it but there are ways to focus on specific areas and strategies and find that winning formula that makes you profit. This is where you need guidance and some expert knowledge and this is what forextraders provide. Lets look at some of the useful things you can find in this website.

FOREX broker reviews and comparisons

When you start FOREX trading one of the biggest decisions you have to make is choosing your FOREX broker. When currency trading having a good broker is important because in the currency market things can change very quickly and you need the data at your fingertips to react quickly. Forextraders home page has a list of top rated FOREX brokers and you can find the complete list at FOREX broker reviews. The list clearly shows the facilities available with different brokers and separate review of each broker is provided with background on the company and a whole lot of other information so you can make an informed decision. Whats makes this list even more impressive is the definitions of the criteria are listed down below the list so even a beginner to currency trading can get an fair idea of what this is all about.

FOREX learning course for beginners

If you are new to FOREX and want a step by step tutorial about currency trading there there is a course for that as well. It guides you step by step and you are not allowed to skip it as well which could be a bit annoying if you know the very basic stuff and want to look a bit further to find out what they are teaching. Still if you are a beginner its always a good idea to follow the tutorial as it is.

FOREX strategies explained

As I mentioned before you can spend  a lifetime learning different FOREX trading strategies to do currency trading. But if you are want to test out tried and proven strategies the websites has them also. All strategies are clearly explained and guidance is given on why some traders fail when using these strategies etc. If you are looking to trade after learning the basics it would be a good idea to go through these strategies, at least you will get an idea about how to go about doing currency trading.

FOREX analysis

Market analysis is an important step and something you must master if you want to profit from trading. There are some great articles covering the general guidelines you should follow when doing two types of analysis, fundamental and technical analysis. Clear explanations are give for different analyzing methods and places where it can go wrong when using different types of analysis.

The website has all the information you need to learn about FOREX trading, from choosing a broker to strategies to try out it has everything covered. A great site to learn about FOREX trading. Don't rush into trading, take some time to learn the basics and get comfortable trading in a demo account and you will soon be making profit from currency trading.