astralgirl
Active Member
I'm a blogger and a graphic designer. Its been a year since I moved my blog from Inmotion hosting to A Small Orange. The reason I switched was because Inmotion's server was not secure (Blog was hacked twice). Its been about 4 years since I started blogging and I have experimented with popular hosting companies like Hostgator, Inmotion, iPage but I had problems with each and everyone of them (may be its just me). Also, I signed up as an affiliate with almost every hosting provider I chose.
Problems that I faced with Hosting Providers:
HOSTGATOR:
Everything was fine with Hostgator expect the constant CPU usage and suspension threats. In the earlier days traffic was really low, I only used 8-12 essential plugins, Images were Optimized but still I used to get CPU resource usage warnings. What hostgator does is, they host too many websites on their server beyond its capacity, which increases server load.
Hostgator never record all the affiliate signups. There were many instances when my friends signed up using link but still it never reflected in my affiliate dashboard.
iPage
Don't even think about it. I was fooled by their $1 strategy :D . Yes, they offered me 1 year hosting for just $1/year and I fell for it. iPage is too slow, they don't allocate resources properly, when you raise a ticket they give you a bit more ram but again reduces it whenever they feel like. Too much down time.
InMotion
I was happy initially, I though finally I would stick to IM but then my blog got hacked twice and I was having a hard time dealing with them. I never bothered to promote their affiliate program as I didn't like them in the first place.
Why I Switched to A small Orange?
It was my friend who suggested me to sign up. He seemed to be positive about ASO and I trust him. Hence, I signed up via his affiliate as a way of thanking him. When I contacted sales, they offered me free migration and setup. My blog was up and running it loaded quickly and everything was fine but still I wasn't confident of promoting their affiliate program. I believe that my readers of anyone who buys from my link should be benefited. After patiently waiting for about a year, I was certain that ASO would be my hosting provider for a long long time.
As I was happy with their service, I signed up as an affiliate and started promoting.
How to promote your affiliate link?
Take a look at my commissions screenshot. Oh yes, they are real. If you have doubts, I can share my screen via Skype
Here are some Golden rules that I followed and it worked for me.
I hope you guys found my thread useful. Wow! It turned out to be long. Thank you for reading and Happy Minting
Problems that I faced with Hosting Providers:
HOSTGATOR:
Everything was fine with Hostgator expect the constant CPU usage and suspension threats. In the earlier days traffic was really low, I only used 8-12 essential plugins, Images were Optimized but still I used to get CPU resource usage warnings. What hostgator does is, they host too many websites on their server beyond its capacity, which increases server load.
Hostgator never record all the affiliate signups. There were many instances when my friends signed up using link but still it never reflected in my affiliate dashboard.
iPage
Don't even think about it. I was fooled by their $1 strategy :D . Yes, they offered me 1 year hosting for just $1/year and I fell for it. iPage is too slow, they don't allocate resources properly, when you raise a ticket they give you a bit more ram but again reduces it whenever they feel like. Too much down time.
InMotion
I was happy initially, I though finally I would stick to IM but then my blog got hacked twice and I was having a hard time dealing with them. I never bothered to promote their affiliate program as I didn't like them in the first place.
Why I Switched to A small Orange?
It was my friend who suggested me to sign up. He seemed to be positive about ASO and I trust him. Hence, I signed up via his affiliate as a way of thanking him. When I contacted sales, they offered me free migration and setup. My blog was up and running it loaded quickly and everything was fine but still I wasn't confident of promoting their affiliate program. I believe that my readers of anyone who buys from my link should be benefited. After patiently waiting for about a year, I was certain that ASO would be my hosting provider for a long long time.
As I was happy with their service, I signed up as an affiliate and started promoting.
How to promote your affiliate link?
Take a look at my commissions screenshot. Oh yes, they are real. If you have doubts, I can share my screen via Skype
Here are some Golden rules that I followed and it worked for me.
- Stick to one hosting affiliate. Do not sign up and promote every other host. If you want your friends, followers or people of social media to take you seriously, stick to one.
- Make sure you are using their service. If you are happy with their service, your referrals will also be happy.
- Do not focus on highest paying affiliate. There are many affiliate programs that pay you $100+ per sale buts its not worth it. In my case, A small Orange pays $50 but the important thing is that they record each and every sale.
- If you have a blog, write a detailed review about your experience with your hosting provider and insert your affiliate link. Also makes sure you tell your readers that you have an affiliate link in the article. earning trust is really important
- Use promotional content such as banners effectively. I use a 300 x 250 ad banner on the right hand sidebar and one 728 x 90 ad banner in the article body. You can use ad injection plugin to make your job easier.
- Write 10 - 15 posts related to hosting,WordPress, blogging on high traffic blogs and link each blog using a specific keyword to your article (the one published on your blog)
- Use Just retweet to promote your tweets. Use proper hash tags
- Send emails to your email subscribers once in a month. Don't just start promoting, first give them some real value.
- Promote your links in Facebook groups. Target groups with over 10000 members
- Offer free wordpress installation and blog setup service. Ask your client to buy hosting via your link. If they do, they will be eligible for free WordPress installation.
- Create a beautiful email signature and promote your affiliate link with a coupon code
I hope you guys found my thread useful. Wow! It turned out to be long. Thank you for reading and Happy Minting