From the category archives:

How To’s for Affiliates

Today on AffiliateABCs Shawn Collins joins Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly to talk about taking photographs for and using photographs on websites. They cover topics like what camera to chose, how many megapixels, when to use a tripod and how to resize. In addition they talk a bit about video, green screens and when you might need to use a stock photo service. Feel free to post questions here that we can answer either here or in a future podcast!

A little background (or “why you should pay attention to Deborah”): Deborah has been a professional photographer for 30 years, including photographing weddings, other social events and conferences, on location cat shows, as well as a fine art photographer. She has been creating websites for 15+ years, that all included photographs optimized for the web, because back then they had to be since we were all on dialup! A selection of her photos hang in a hotel here and there, homes and offices, and are published in several cat breed books, as well as being scattered all over the web and some newspaper publishing along the way.

Sites and products discussed in the show:
Sony Alpha Series DSLRs (Deborah’s Camera)
Casio Exilim Card Line (Shawn’s current camera)
Casio Exilim EX-FH20 New camera for Shawn? Looks like a nice all around camera.
Fugifilm S Series Another nice alternative for a general use camera.
Flickr Camera Finder – Click on a camera brand and search for images taken with that camera to help you see the image quality and decide on a camera to purchase

Recommended Tripod (It is less expensive than I stated in the podcast! Yay :) )
Targus Tripod

Photo Editing Software:
Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 or 9 – do a search on Amazon or Ebay for copies of this older software. (Sorry Shawn, version 6 doesn’t even show up on searches! :) )
GIMP Free Image Editing software

Green Screen Software

If you need stock photos of subjects you don’t have images of:
iStockPhoto You can choose from pay as you go or subscription.
ShutterstockSeveral plans from a few images yearly to a LOT on a monthly subscription. Good selection, midrange cost.
Jupiter ImagesPricey, but great if you are a publisher that needs a lot of high res images.

If you are looking for an alternative to stock photos check out Flickr and images licensed under Creative Commons:
Creative Commons on Flickr
Creative Commons Licensing
Example of a search for images licensed for use with Attribution and Share A Like License from Affiliate Summit Social Media event.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a comment or email Deborah at dc at teamloxly.com

Brian Littleton and Carolyn Tang from the Shareasale Network had a presentation at Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston about the how affiliates and merchants can use Shareasale effectively. There is good information here for affiliates new and experienced, and the merchant information is good not only for merchants but also to give affiliates a peek at the merchant side of things.

Team Loxly Merchants with Free Shipping Offers

by loxly on September 9, 2008

Shoppers LOVE free shipping, so be sure to highlight that these merchants offer free shipping for their purchases. These are also listed in the Shareasale Deals Database, so you can grab the codes there to promote them. Or just make a text link with your tracking code that lands on any page on the sites, with your own anchor text that includes the wording “free shipping” (hint: use the Shareasale Make a Custom Link feature).

Free Shipping at TechEngraver
Free shipping on all orders placed at TechEngraver . Laser engraved personalized iPods and USB drives, great gifts!

Free Shipping at JournalEngraver for orders over $50
Free shipping on all orders over $50 placed at JournalEngraver . Laser engraved moleskin journals, great gifts!

Join the Tech Engraver and Journal Engraver Affiliate Program

Free Shipping at Loxly Gallery for orders over $200
Loxly Gallery – Free Shipping on orders over $200 Art and Photography prints on fine art papers by select artists and photographers. Decorate your life with prints from Loxly Gallery!

Join the Loxly Gallery Affiliate Program