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Frequently Asked Questions About The 'Genie... This section will be updated frequently as more questions arise... Jump to: Technical | Marketing | Usage & Legal • • • What is required to use Affiliate Genie? You will need a domain name, a hosting account (or webspace) and an FTP program, which should be provided by your host. To take full advantage of all the features offered by Affiliate Genie, your host needs to enable "mod rewrite" using .htaccess - and most hosting companies do. If you are unsure, you'll need to contact your hosting company. If you don't yet have a hosting company, we suggest using HostGator • • • How do I install Affiliate Genie? Now this is where it gets real easy... all you do is upload all of the files included with the Affiliate Genie package (see user manual and install guide) to your webspace using your FTP program. If you uploaded Aff Genie to your root domain, then you simply login to your admin panel from: YourDomain.com/admin.php Set the initial preferences (takes less than 60 seconds!), change your password, and you're ready to start adding content. Yes, it truly is that easy. If something goes awry, check to ensure that your folder/file permissions (CHMOD) settings are set properly according to the user guide, and that you've uploaded all the files included in the Aff Genie package. If image files seem corrupted, make sure that you only use "Binary" mode in your FTP program to upload images. • • • How do I backup or save my content? Affiliate Genie literally builds HTML websites just like an other editor, with the exception that it does so in a web-based environment. So what you'll want to do is periodically download your "content" folder to your hard disk, or whicher sort of file storage device you wish, to save your site's content. (Your host may offer functionality to automate tasks like this at set intervals automatically). • • • How does it all work? Well, for those who speak "nerd", Affiliate Genie is a flat file CMS powered entirely by PHP, where PHP code is actually written by a "parent" PHP application, and then converted into HTML counterparts as well. Translation: AG uses an online-based content management system to organize your content into an existing HTML template that you can customize online. We've built this within the context of a profitable layout structure, based on our own results. • • • How does AG compare to applications like WordPress™ or SiteBuildIt™? The primary difference is simply that AG is specifically configured to build affiliate content sites, with a layout structure that emphasizes high CTR's and conversions. In addition, the built-in product review and rating system functionality is something that is specifically designed for AG, and not simply "retrofitted" to work with it. Wordpress is designed to create blogs of any topic, nature or purpose. Therefore it's open-ended and untargeted by its own design. It's great at what it does... but it's not solely designed for commercial purposes. AG is. SiteBuildIt! is primarily designed for creating large article/content sites (authority sites) and using the "turtle" approach to creating long-term traffic and results. We certainly condone this business model once you understand your market and have a good handle on offers that perform well. The main difference with SBI in this case, then, is more about deployment speed, business model and scaling. The idea of using AG is to create many small and mid-scale websites, and then, once you have some results, creating a more "serious" site in that proven niche. What it boils down to is that WordPress and SBI are engineered for a different purpose, and a different business model, where Affiliate Genie is designed specifically for organic affiliates who want to see results a bit more quickly... • • • How does AG compare to programs like DreamWeaver®, XSitePro® or FrontPage®? These are software programs and development tools that are more geared towards web design than they are marketing. You can certainly use programs like Dreamweaver (or what have you) to create the same style of site as what AG can build... it's just that it's so much more simple with AG. Plus, there's the built-in functions like the product rating, commenting, the web-based admin publishing panel and so on that takes you into the realm of professional programming... Because you literally need to be capable of professional-level programming to build static HTML sites in industry-standard editors that use interaction tools like Affiliate Genie. In addition, it's a lot easier to outsource site creation when all your staff members or freelancers need to do is log in to your admin panel and start creating pages... • • • How does AG compare to scripts like StoreStacker™, WPMage™, Site Profit Bot™ & others like them? Tools like the ones mentioned are automated content "republishing" systems that rely on RSS feeds, content networks and other forms of duplicate content to build out all or some of their content structure for the purpose of building bigger sites more easily. These systems can work. But I would call this "gravy" traffic, and it should not be considered the meat and potatoes of your business. If these systems allow you to publish your own unique content, then that's great, and you can consider using them if that fits your business model. But with Affiliate Genie, the difference is that our emphasis is on creating sites that sell - and sites that last... • • • How secure
is Affiliate Genie? • • • I have a problem, and I can't figure it out - now what? Too bad. (Just kidding!) We're here to help, and we totally understand your frustration if there's that one little thing that just won't work... and chances are we can help you sort it out ASAP. So if you head over to our support section, we'll get you sorted out and you'll be up and running in no time... • • • Why is Affiliate Genie allegedly more effective at selling than regular site-builders? Affiliate Genie is specifically set up to display your affiliate offers in a focused, high-visibility area sitewide (the top-fold featured promo), which is statistically proven to outperform standard layouts used by CMS systems like WordPress® and other similar "site builders". The result is a higher click-thru-rate (CTR), resulting in more traffic directed to the merchant offers on average, and therefore, more referred sales in most cases. Please note, however, that the actual performance of a given site depends on the quantity and relevance of its traffic levels, the ad copy, and finally the conversion rate of the merchant's product. • • • What are the traffic advantages of using Affiliate Genie? Affiliate Genie automatically creates its own RSS feed, XML sitemap and it automatically "pings" new content to a (customizable) pinglist, just like WordPress. These features help your site to get indexed slightly more easily than a standard (static) HTML website, when you begin the initial SEO process. • • • How do I promote my Affiliate Genie sites, and get traffic? There are many strategies available, and there is honestly not enough room in the FAQ section to address this. Please see the "Big League Traffic" blueprint that accompanies Affiliate Genie. In general, we built AG for organic (SEO) marketers, although marketers who prefer or opt to use other traffic sources can also effectively generate traffic with other methods - provided that the traffic is targeted to the content & offers they create. • • • How much traffic will my AG sites receive? There is no way to quantify or estimate how much traffic any given site will receive. It depends on several factors, including: 1. The overall market/topic 2. Your keyword targets for each page 3. The quality, "unique-ness" and effectiveness of your content 4. The quantity and quality of the backlinks you accumulate from other websites (this is how search engines establish rankings) 5. The authority-level or perceived importance of your site within any given market. This can take time, and determines whether or not web users or other sites will voluntarily link to or mention your website. 6. Organic factors beyond your control. When it comes to organic traffic, there simply are no guarantees or "rules". In general, producing good, unique content and then getting as many other related websites to link to your URL as possible is what seems to work best for acquiring organic search engine rankings. (Please see the "Big League Traffic" blueprint, which comes with Affiliate Genie, for more details). But the bottom-line is that though this is what seems to work, and work for us - there are guarantees, especially in regards to SEO. Your sites may very well receive little or no traffic from the search engines, simply because it is not something you (or anyone else) can control. If you need to control your traffic predictably, you will need to consider paid advertising options such as pay-per-click. • • • How long does it take to start seeing organic search-referred traffic? Assuming that you are putting forward a concerted, motivated effort and following the exact steps as laid out in the Big League Traffic blueprint (which accompanies Affiliate Genie), the absolute earliest you can expect to see search-engine referred traffic is within 3 weeks of your link-building activities. However, search engines can take several months to index or rank a website. Aside from a few observational "laws" that seem to exist - there is no rhyme or reason to the process. The SEO community at large accepts the fact that organic traffic is not a precise or predictable strategy. In addition, there are some technical factors such as domain history, the IP address of your host (there is controversy over whether or not search engines have bias towards certain IP addresses, but without any conclusive evidence), and so on. For these reasons, there is simply no way to estimate how soon will begin to see traffic from search engines like Google. • • • Do AG sites
have a "Footprint" that Google can find? In the eyes of Google (or any other search engine), AG sites are straight HTML content sites created by a CMS like Wordpress, Joomla or any other technical equivalent. But most importantly, "footprints" don't matter with AG, because it's not doing anything that Google doesn't like. Your AG sites are built specifically to provide good, relevant unique content and a good user experience. AG sites don't scrape content, they don't exploit or manipulate any search engine, they don't participate in linking schemes or artificial ranking methods, and they don't use "cloaking" or any similar method that goes against Google's webmaster guidelines. The better question is: "Does it matter if AG sites have a footprint?". And the answer is no. Because your sites are actually providing what Google wants to index and serve up to their own userbase. Relevant, unique and helpful sites that are interactive and useful to the visitor. Note: You only have to worry about "footprints" if you're doing something Google doesn't like - such as content scraping, using on-site duplicate content, stuffing keywords, over-optimization, cloaking, distributing spyware/malware, content-spinning (dupe content), etc. • • • How much money will I make from my AG sites? There are absolutely no guarantees that you will make any money from your Affiliate Genie driven websites. This is dependant on too many factors, the most important of which are: 1. The quality, quantity and source of your traffic 2. The effectiveness of your content, ads, and promotional copy 3. The conversion rate and profitability of the offer(s) you promote If you are a beginner, or have little experience with direct-response marketing, it will likely take several months (and several sites) at a minimum to get acquainted with this business, and react to your results as they arrive. Which means that if you're just starting out, you need to understand that there is an inevitable process of trial, error and "figuring things out" that simply comes with the territory. You can only realistically expect to make money if you understand your market, what they buy, and how to sell it to them effectively. And that is something that comes with experience. Therefore... there is simply no way we can guarantee ANY results, whatsoever. (Which is how you can be assured that this Affiliate Genie is the real deal, for real marketers.) • • • How easy is doing this (affiliate marketing) in general? Affiliate marketing is a real business, and thus - it takes effort, time, patience and in many cases investment to get start seeing results. In comparison to things like starting a restaurant, producing your own products, managing inventory for online e-stores, running a traditional offline retail business and so on - affiliate marketing requres far less setup or risk. But nothing worth doing is "easy". It takes work - make no mistake. The good news is that there's a difference between working hard and working "smart". With Affiliate Genie, we've made it as easy as possible to get started, and work the smart way. It still takes time, effort and trial/error to get things rolling. Because this is a real business. • • • How well should my AG sites be performing once I'm getting targeted traffic? From our own experience, a rule of thumb that we've developed from our own results is that we like to see at least a 1% conversion rate from click-thru traffic to our promoted offers. In other words, for every 100 targeted, relevant visitors that click or respond to the ads/promotions placed on our affiliate websites, we like to see a sale. For example, if one of our affiliate sites receives, say, 20,000 visitors one month, and ends up referring 2,000 of those monthly visitors to the promoted merchant's offer, and as a result there are 20 referred sales that month - then our effective conversion rate would be 1%. In this case, the site is performing at a satisfactory level, and from this point we would focus on increasing the CTR (click through rate) to increase our average "visitor value". And if the site consistently does not perform or generate sales - even if we seem to be getting good, quality traffic in ample quantity, then we will run tests with different offers (products) and so on to see if something else will perform better. (Note: As another rule of thumb, we try not to make any decisions or conclusions regarding the performance of an offer until we see 5,000+ clicks referred from our site to the merchant's offer, and at the very least 1,000 click-thrus.) If the conversions remain low, then we either repurpose, abandon or sell that site for its unique content and traffic value. Of course, there are exceptions to the "1% rule". If the offer(s) we are promoting have exceptionally high or lucrative commission structures, then mathematically it may still be viable, even if the effective conversion rate on referred traffic is 0.5%, or what have you. Again, the key factor here is average overall visitor value, and ROI (return on investment, and/or time & effort). • • • My site isn't making any sales. What's the problem? There are several factors which may be the culprit. Here's a few of the usual suspects... 1. Traffic source, quantity and relevance. If your site is receiving less than 1,000 unique visitors per month from targeted search engine traffic, there simply is not enough traffic to make any conclusive decisions about the performance of your site. (Please consult the Big League Traffic blueprint for insights and proven strategies for driving targeted traffic). 2. Ad copy Even if you're promoting a proven product that other affiliates have success with, your visitors simply might not be responding to your offer, your copy or your recommendations. This may be due to a lack of overall trust in your content - or an offer that isn't relevent, enticing or effective. Always try to write effectively and honestly. This will work wonders for establishing trust, and therefore, effective recommendations. 3. Poor-converting product You could have the most effective ads in the world, but they still won't perform well if the product you're promoting just doesn't sell. 4. Mismatched traffic & relevance issues You have to give your visitors what they want. Convincing is nowhere near as effective as providing solutions to a problem or question. 5. Factors beyond your control Sometimes current events, market conditions and otherwise the proverbial internet "weather" just doesn't cooperate. This happens to all of us, no matter how experienced. Some sites just simply tank, for no explainable reason. Of course, this happens less and less over time and with experience - but it still does happen. • • • My site just disappeared from Google! What's happening? Welcome to the ongoing search engine dance. We call it the "Google shuffle", and it happens to everyone. In general, give it a few days/weeks and things usually go back to normal. So long as you're not outside of Google's webmaster guidelines, and your content is unique and helpful/relevant, in most cases your site will eventually reappear. You may want to use Google's webmaster tools to gain a further insight as to how your site is indexed, and what you can do to increase visibility in Google's index. In general, sites with unique content, proper navigation, no cloaking, scraping or blackhat functions and sites with an established network of voluntary backlinks from authoritative sites will not get "dropped" for long. You can always contact Google and see if you can isolate the problem and take restorative measures should there be a problem in their eyes (which is usually not the case.) • • • My site's traffic & performance seems to have "plateaued". What now? Usually, there's always ways to tweak your marketing offers and increase traffic incrementally over time by optimizing/testing offers, ad copy and adding more and more content (and building more links or exposure). There's also the option of using your traffic to build an opt-in newsletter list of visitors who wish to receive updates, offers and so on via email. This is a great way to scale up a site that's doing well (in markets where this makes logical sense). However, if you've reached a point where a site seems to have capped out, you have two options: 1. Consistently promote the site on an ongoing basis. Add new content and build new links or exposure regularly, at least on a weekly basis. OR 2. Sell the site. A site is never worth more from a resale perspective than it is when it's "capped out". Most buyers will want to see at least a 6-month earnings history, as well as a very in-depth look at the traffic history, traffic sources, promotional methods and so on. In terms of pricing a site, you will need to take a close look at active marketplaces (such as Flippa.com) to see what buyers are willing to spend. The current trend for affiliate or AdSense® sites is that they seem to fetch anywhere from 8 - 12+ months earnings. However, that is certainly not written in stone, and major factors that can greatly affect the resale value of a site include things like traffic, revenue, branding, "uniqueness" within a market, newsletter subscriber activity, exclusive intellectual assets, "goodwill", and so on. You will also want to consult your certified accountant regarding tax implications of selling your website(s), as some countries, states or provinces may classify the sale of a website differently than they would regular sales income. • • • My site's traffic & performance is starting to fade... What do I do? This is usually the result of not maintaining or adding new links. As new websites in your market show up and start "competing" for search placement, other sites inevitably get pushed down. However, Google seems to favor old, established websites that are clearly popular in their respective topic area. If you want to "secure" long-term organic rankings, the best chance of doing so is to create genuinely helpful websites that are directly relevant to your visitors, and then obtain as many links from other respected, well-ranking sites in the industry. If your site(s) begin to fade, in general, adding more new links and some additional fresh new content will help to reinstate your site's rankings. (Note: It's not logical to maintain or try to perpetuate every website you create in terms of SEO and organic marketing. The real business model is to establish a few well-performing sites and then build an actual business in those markets. Affiliate Genie will work well as a "market finder" for you, and can be used to scale up later on as well). • • • Usage, Legal & Other Questions Can I sell sites built with Affiliate Genie? Yes, you can - but there are conditions: We've included documentation along with Affiliate Genie that essentially gives any buyer of your sites a singular usage license for Affiliate Genie on whichever domain they purchased from you, exclusively. However, you can ONLY sell sites built with Affiliate Genie that are set up on a domain, and where the site is transferred with the domain as part of the sale. The buyer can use Affiliate Genie on that single domain only. You CANNOT use Affiliate Genie as a "template" to build websites that others can install or use on their own domains. Please refer to our End User License Agreement, and the "Selling Your AG Sites" included with Affiliate Genie for complete details. • • • Does Affiliate Genie comply with recent FTC Guidelines? The simple answer is that Affiliate Genie is a publishing tool that makes it easy for someone to build their own content within a profitable layout. It really is just like a "WordPress for affiliates". It's still up to you what you publish using Affiliate Genie. Which means that so long as your content is legal, honest/accurate and you are clearly disclosing any material connections you have with products you mention - then you have nothing to worry about. However - we've made it even easier to stay safe. Affiliate Genie has a built-in sitewide disclosure statement (which you can customize to suit the nature of your material/commercial connection) that you can easily edit from the admin panel. And we've also included an Accuracy Disclaimer statement on a product-by-product basis that itemizes the nature of any product review you publish (whether it's based on product testing, research or simply commentary) - which instills even more trust in your content. It still comes down to what you publish (in general, just be honest and use common sense), but in terms of FTC compliance, Affiliate Genie is currently much safer for affiliates than commonly-used site builders by default simply because the infrastructure for compensation disclosure and accuracy disclaimers is already hardcoded into your sites. • • • What are my responsibilites if I use Affiliate Genie to build websites? You are responsible and liable in EVERY WAY for any of the content you produce using Affiliate Genie. Think of AG as a "pen". What you write with that pen is up to you, and you are responsible for it, solely - as well as the consequences of doing so. We sell Affiliate Genie exactly as it is: a content management system for affiliate marketers. Our promises and liabilities end at providing an application that makes it easy to build websites. If it doesn't work for you as stated in a technical sense - or if you find that the business model just isn't for you - then you can take advantage of our 60 day guarantee. In terms of results - we offer NO guarantees whatsoever. And in terms of liability or responsibility for the websites that you create using Affiliate Genie - we are in NO WAY responsible for anything you do with our application. This includes, but is not limited to: promoting unethical, illegal or misleading offers, creating misleading or illegal content, using AG to infringe on someone's intellectual property rights, trademark or copyright, using AG to create libelous or damaging content, using AG to distribute or publish illegal content or devices (viruses, malware, spyware, etc.), and so on. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE IN EVERY WAY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF USING AFFILIATE GENIE TO BUILD YOUR WEBSITES, PROMOTE OFFERS AND PUBLISH CONTENT. We cannot be held liable for anything - or any consequence - as a result of how you decide to use our application. For all intents and purposes, t's just a "pen". You decide what to "write". For complete details, please see our Disclaimer and Terms of Use
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