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by Jeff Casmer

As long as there are internet businesses, there will be people trying to steal your income. Affiliate theft and fraud are on the rise. More than ever merchants need to monitor the actions of their affiliates and arm themselves against fraud. Especially if you consider that the FTC is now making merchants responsible for the action of their affiliates. While good affiliates can make you money, naughty ones can cost you a lot.

The first action to take is to find out what type of frauds your affiliates may be capable of. Below are a few examples.

Typosquatting: Also know as URL hijacking. Typosquatters register several variations of a high traffic domain names and then sign up for that same merchants affiliate program to sell them what should have been their own traffic.

Spammers: Affiliates who send unsolicited e-mails featuring a net marketers product, this can essentially tarnish the product. Spammers also make it difficult for the legitimate e-mailers to separate themselves. In many cases complaints have gotten the merchant’s domain on blacklists.

Fraudulent and Fake Transactions: This can be in the form of the fraudster creating scripts to generate phony clicks, leads, or transactions. Or they may sign up as affiliates and then make large purchases uusing a stolen credit card.

Malware: Some affiliates use adware that is inadvertently installed on a person’s computer is designed to steal traffic from legitimate affiliates by replacing their links with new ones. Thus legitimate affiliates don’t get paid and eventually move on.

Once you are aware of the types of frauds out there, you will want to screen all your affiliate. Yes, you may have hundreds or even thousands of people signing up for your affiliate program, but among these may be unserious hobbyists, spammers and sophisticated con artists. It is important to weed people out in order to be left with serious marketers. You can not afford to be lazy.

Below are some screening tips.

1. All affiliates must have an active website. A lack of one may mean theyre spammers

2. The affiliate site content must relate to your products and services. Having back links that do not relate to your site can harm your search engine ranking.

3. The site should be optimized with content.

4. Make sure your affiliates understand the policies surrounding the use of content from your site.

Most importantly you must communicate with your affiliates. A new product is not needed as an excuse to contact them; often a quick note to see how their doing, if they need anything, and to check up on them works fine.

The important thing is that you know what they are doing, how they are performing and what means they are using to make sales. You may feel as if you are annoying them but this is your business, the more control and organization you have the better you’ll do.

About the Author:
Jeff Casmer is an award winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and internet marketing consultant with career sales over $25,000,000. His “Top Ranked” Work at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to Earn Money in the 21st century.

There’s a fascinating article on MSN about 25 web sites to keep your eyes on. They’re being pegged as the next Big Thangs, even being mentioned in the same breath as YouTube. Talk about walking in tall cotton!

Click HERE to check them out when you get a chance - you could be witnessing the birth of a phenomenon.

I’m actually smack right in the middle of a web design project at the moment, but I just found a website I wanted to let others know about asap.

Have you ever wondered what a certain font was…..maybe you wanted to use the same font on something you were designing…..but you didn’t really want to spend 30 minutes or more in Paintbrush or Photoshop trying to unlock the mystery?

I’ve been there so many times I can’t even tell you! Today was one of those days. I was googling a few different fonts that I didn’t have downloaded onto my computer - trying to determine which was used on a particular business card. I found a really slick website that helped me out in less than 3 minutes.

What The Font is a free resource on My Fonts.com. It’s an online tool that honest to goodness will solve the mystery for you. I scanned in the card, saved it as a .jpg, uploaded it to their site (you could use an image’s url instead), then watched as they solved the mystery for me!

There’s a forum on the site, as well. Apparently if you can’t get a result using the above technique, they have experts that’ll tell you what font you’re looking at.

Needless to say, I bookmarked this baby and will put it to very good use.

by Leva Duell

What if someone told you that if you made one simple change to your web site you could dramatically increase your sales, perhaps as much as 200 or even 300 percent, would you do it?

In fact, just adding a quality header image to your web site can accomplish that kind of sales increase.

Because it sits at the top of the web page, the header is the very first thing visitors will see when they arrive at your site. It is your first opportunity to make a positive impression, to let them know what your site is about, and to invite your visitor to go beyond the top of the page.

Your header has to clearly communicate what your web site is about. To have a positive impact, your header images must be relevant to the topic of your web site and the products you are selling. Your images must also be high quality to convey professionalism and trust.

Just like an effective headline, a header must catch the attention of your targeted audience immediately and invite them to explore the rest of the site.

A poorly designed header graphic will suggest to your visitors that you are not professional. If your visitors are turned off by your header graphic, it’s unlikely that they’ll continue reading your home page, view the rest of your site or buy your products.

Conversely, if your header gives them a positive impression, it will help to instill a sense of trust and confidence that your visitors will take with them as they read and explore more of your site. This, in turn, usually translates into an increase in sales.

Here are some options to get a quality, professional header:

1. Design a header graphic yourself. Creating a credible header on your own requires time, skill and software.

2. Purchase header templates. The better header sets include a variety of professionally-designed, quality header graphics. Some come as Photoshop files that you can change to suit your needs.

3. Use specialized header software such as Header Generator that makes it easy to create good-looking headers for your web sites without graphic design experience.

4. Hire a professional graphic designer who has experience in creating web graphics. This option allows you to focus your time and energy on generating your web content and marketing your site.

Revamp your web site with a stunning header image in just minutes and get the winning edge over your competition. It’s an easy change that will have a huge effect on your credibility and sales.

About the Author:
Boost Credibility with Images! Header templates - FREE 34+ clipart resources http://www.QualityHeaderTemplates.com - Copyright Leva Duell 2007