Affiliate Marketing A Lucrative Way To Make Money

Have you given a thought to affiliate marketing? If not, then it's time to think about using this for your benefit. When a person joins affiliate marketing they get to choose products that they want to sell. The seller offers a unique affiliate link that can be used to make the commissions in return of the sale. It is a simple process where when an interested visitor checks the product on your website and clicks the link, they get redirected to the product site and if they buy the product, you as a referrer will make a commission.

Many people think why be an affiliate? Well, it is the fastest growing technique to make money. It offers a cost-effective solution where one does not have to worry about the production cost as the products are already developed by the seller, no need of a physical business location or to hire any employee. With online marketing one gets an opportunity to reach people all over the world, easily. You do not have to pay anything to become an affiliate. A regular job gives a fixed income and requires fixed working hours, but by becoming an affiliate one can create a steady flow of income without the need to sit in front of the computer.

Affiliate marketing will not make you successful overnight. It is an excellent way to make money while it is competitive too. In order to make the best use it is necessary that one knows the market needs, learns how to promote products, and should know what works and what doesn't.

Following are a few tips that can be followed to achieve better results with affiliate marketing:

1. Choose a handful of products and try not to promote everything. As pursuing this path may turn overwhelming and you might land up promoting nothing properly.

2. Use different sources to promote products - you can put up ads, as the more you target a product the more visible it is. The Social media sites can also be used as a medium to promote products simultaneously.

3. It is always good to use different product promotion strategies so that one knows what is working and what is not.

4. Before you choose products that you wish to sell, it is necessary that you research the demand of the product. It is a good idea to spend some time researching and finding out whether the product you are promoting is required by buyers or not.

Affiliate marketing is a very competitive field and people are always looking for new and improved techniques to do better. You cannot simply sit and wait for visitors to come and buy products; you need to take necessary steps to set up everything, to carefully start making money.

Glee’ loses UK court battle, may have to change name

LONDON: Fox's musical comedy 'Glee' may have to be renamed for UK broadcast after losing a high court battle with a Midlands comedy club.

Earlier this year, the US network lost a legal battle against UK comedy chain Glee Club, with the court ruling that the series breached a trademark held by the chain.

The high court has now ordered 21st Century Fox to 'cease naming' the series 'Glee' in the UK, and awarded 100,000 in damages to Glee Club owner Comic Enterprises Ltd, reported Daily Mirror.

"I find it hard to believe that the cost of the re-titling and publicizing of the new name would be so prohibitive compared to the value of the series," Judge Roger Wyand said in a written ruling.

However, the judge went on to order that the name-change injunction cannot be enforced until the case has been considered by the Court of Appeal. Mark Tughan registered the name 'The Glee Club' as a British trademark in 1999, ten years prior to the TV show's first season.

He now runs four venues under the brand in Birmingham, Cardiff, Nottingham and Oxford.

"It's a relief because you can't get any more David and Goliath than this," said Tughan following the victory back in February.

Gunmen kill 21 Egyptian military border guards near Libya

CAIRO: Gunmen killed 21 Egyptian military border guards near the frontier with Libya on Saturday, highlighting a growing threat from an area that security officials say has become a haven for militants seeking to topple the Cairo government.

Security officials said the assailants were smugglers. But an army spokesman said on his Facebook page that "terrorists" — the term authorities use to describe Islamist militants — were behind the attack.

He said a weapons storage facility was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade in an exchange of fire, killing the soldiers and wounding four others.

The attack took place in Wadi al-Gadid governorate, which borders both Sudan and Libya. Two smugglers were killed in clashes with the guards, security officials said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly expressed concerns about militants who have capitalised on the chaos in Libya and set up operations along the border.

Sisi met with top Egyptian security officials after the attack, state news agency MENA reported.

Security officials say militants pay smugglers to transport weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to comrades in Egypt, which is already facing an Islamist insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula near Israel.

Sinai militants have stepped up attacks against policemen and soldiers since then-army chief Sisi toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last summer and launched fierce attacks on Islamists.

Hundreds have been killed in shootings and bombings.

Security officials say militants operating from Libya are trying to forge ties

with Islamists in the Sinai, an alliance that could prolong Egypt's instability and scare away investors that are badly needed to help fix the battered economy.

Tribal smugglers told Reuters they charge up to one million Egyptian pounds ($140,000) to move weapons in four-by-four vehicles along desert routes.

Five border guards were killed in a similar attack in the same area a few months ago.

Security officials say militants along the Libyan border harbour ambitions similar to the al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized large swathes of Iraq — they want to topple Sisi and create a caliphate in Egypt.

Sisi, who has warned that Islamist militants ravaging the Middle East pose a threat to everyone, has said Egypt will not allow Libya's turmoil to threaten Egypt's national security.

Egypt considered launching a crossborder offensive several months ago in a bid to crush the militants, according to two Egyptian national security officials.

Italy says 19 boat migrants die, thousands rescued this week

ROME: Nineteen people died trying to reach Italy on a boat packed with hundreds of migrants, probably poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes from its engines, said the Italian navy on Saturday, which has rescued more than 4,000 migrants in the last three days.

Eighteen bodies were found in the hold of the boat, said a navy spokesman, along with three very ill men who were rushed to the Italian island of Lampedusa but one died en route.

The two surviving men were taken by helicopter to a hospital in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, the spokesman said.

He said carbon monoxide fumes produced by the boat's engine likely caused the deaths. A similar incident last month killed 30.

Italy is struggling to keep up with the number of migrant boats this year, which mostly depart from the coast of increasingly unstable Libya, and is seeking more help from the EU in both the rescue mission and in hosting new arrivals.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that more than 500 migrants have died in the Mediterranean so far this year, compared to 700 during the whole of last year.

AGI news agency reported on Saturday that as many as 40 people could be missing after an incident on Friday when a migrant boat capsized near the Libyan coast. The Italian navy could not immediately confirm the report.

More than 70,000 migrants have been rescued by Italy's "Mare Nostrum" or "Our Sea" mission in 2014, the spokesman said, surpassing the previous record of just over 60,000 for the whole of 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings fuelled arrivals.

Calmer summer seas have prompted a recent upsurge in boats trying to reach Italy, where immigration centres are overloaded. Interior minister Angelino Alfano on Saturday said military bases might be temporarily used to house new arrivals.

Italy's navy has been patrolling the waters between Africa and Sicily since October, when 366 people drowned after their boat capsized just a mile from the Italian coast.

That tragedy focused international attention on the desperate risks taken by many migrants, whose plight has been highlighted by human rights groups and Pope Francis.

SHARING THE BURDEN

Italy has long attracted sea-borne migrants from Africa, and most move on almost immediately to other EU countries.

Over the past year, most of the migrants have been refugees fleeing Syria's civil war and Eritrea's harsh military service, according to the UNHCR.

Italy - along with Spain, Greece and Malta - have been left mostly on their own to manage the growing number of migrants, partly because increasing anti-immigrant sentiment in countries like Britain and France makes it unpopular to help out.

Alfano has begun talks with EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom about sharing the burden of rescuing migrants in what she described as a "scaled-down" version of Mare Nostrum earlier this month.

"We are taking important steps to make sure that all of Europe is present in the Mediterranean, and not just Italy," Alfano said on Saturday.

Obama to sign orders protecting gay employees in govt

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama plans to sign executive orders on Monday prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers in the US government and its contracting agencies, without a new exemption that was requested by some religious organizations.

Obama's action comes on the heels of the US supreme court's recent ruling in the Hobby Lobby case that allowed some religiously oriented businesses to opt out of the federal healthcare law's requirement that contraception coverage be provided to workers at no extra charge. Senior administration officials said Friday that ruling has no impact on non-discrimination policies in federal hiring and contracting.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.

Since Obama announced last month that he would sign the orders, he's faced pressure from opposing flanks over the religious exemption and given no indication of where he would come down. Many religious leaders and conservative groups wanted him to exempt religious organizations from the order, while liberal clergy and gay advocacy groups adamantly opposed such an exemption.

Until last month, Obama long-resisted pressure to pursue an executive order for federal contractors in hopes that Congress would take more sweeping action banning anti-gay workplace discrimination nationwide. A bill to accomplish that goal — the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — passed the Senate last year with some Republican support, but has not been taken up by the Republican-controlled House.

The senior officials said Obama's action planned for Monday at the White House would amend two executive orders. The first, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, prohibits federal contractors from discriminating based on race, religion, gender or nationality in hiring. Obama plans to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protections, and order the labour department to carry out the order. The officials said that means the change will probably take effect by early next year.

President George W Bush had amended Johnson's order in 2002 to allow religious groups to hire and fire based upon religious identity. Churches also are able to hire ministers as they see fit. The senior administration officials said Obama will not change those exemptions.

The second order Obama will amend was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969 to prevent discrimination against federal workers based on race, religion, gender, nationality, age or disability. President Bill Clinton added sexual orientation, and Obama will include gender identity in a change to immediately take effect.

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin said: "With two strokes of a pen, the President will have a very real and immediate impact on the lives of millions of LGBT people across the country."

The administration officials said the change for federal contracting will impact some 24,000 companies with 28 million workers, or one-fifth of the US workforce. Many large federal contractors already have employment policies barring anti-gay workplace discrimination, as do 21 states. However, the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School estimates that the executive order would extend protections to about 14 million workers whose employers or states currently do not have such non-discrimination policies.

While few religious organizations are among the biggest federal contractors, they do provide some valued services, including overseas relief and development programs and re-entry programs for inmates leaving federal prisons.