If so then here is a quick checklist for you.

• Is your ad or product link featured prominently ?
• Is your ad / affiliate link getting clicks ? (Use a tracking system such as Google Analytics )
• Try to improve and optimize your website so that you get more click thrus and sales.  ( Use split testing software )

Here is a run down of some of the best split testing software out there.

1. Google Website Optimizer – In first place and also free, we have GWO or Google Website Optimizer.  GWO is not easy to use but, once installed, it does function well. I could explain it here but really Google does a much better job  – so check out GWO here.  Google Website Optimizer is free however you will need a Google Adwords account to get signed up. ($5 one time charge). One negative about GWO, is that it mangles your HTML code a bit.
2. Splitgenie - In second place, and almost free ($27) we have splitgenie - I like this software because it is EASY to use and install.  Its a one time payment and as the picture shows here it’s easy to install just edit a little php code on the page to test and the thank you page and you are done.  Here is what it looks like when you are finished .
3. Splitest Accelerator -  For advanced affiliate marketers, there is splittest accelerator -  I haven’t tested this myself but at a $900 price and looking at the documentation (it looks complex) I think its better to start off with GWO and Splitgenie.

Check Out Split Genie or Check Out Gooogle Analytics

Another interesting blog post — that I found out in my research was on how to split test wordpress themes to see which theme will get an improved meaning lesser bounce rate –  http://www.leewillis.co.uk/how-to-split-test-wordpress-themes/ -  how to split test wordpress themes – something I have been waiting for myself !

One final suggested practice is to name all off your outgoing links similarly and set a goal in Google Analytics for all simliarly named link as I have explained here — http://fieldsmarshall.com/8-tips-for-tracking-with-google/ – and then either use the gocodes plugin or the pretty link plugin for wordpress – to track clickthrus.

Check Out Split Genie or Check Out Gooogle Analytics

1. You can have the apache webserver install it automatically on the fly http://ballade.cs.ucla.edu/~kirill/analytics.html The downside here is that this requires CPU power and can slow things down a bit if you are not using modperl
2. Search and replace all instances of the body tag with your analytics tag. You could use perl or sed on the unix command line to do this. Some ideas here
3. Or just use this script from http://gleamynode.net/articles/2230/

Usage Tips

• this will search and insert Google Analytics code for ALL .html files so if you are in the master directory with multiple websites below be careful.
• Set your filetype to unix if you are uploading this script  otherwise you will get errors
• Be sure to put in your own analytics ID
  

If you are tracking clickthrus, events, conversions using Google Analytics here are a few tips, ideas and hints for tracking and then later on improving your webpage using Google tools : analytics, adwords and Google website optimizer.

New to Google Analytics is something called event tracking. Google events are slightly different than goals in Google analytics and while Google suggests that you track using events – I could find no easy way / interface to see which keyword is generating a desired event – like a click thru or a sale with events. This leaves  us with a  doing both tracking events and generating goals to have the best desired result.

1. Here are some ideas for best practices for click tracking on an affiliate website.

1. Install Jquery – this is easy to do ( 1 line of  lightweight javascript) . Why ? Because you can use jquery to track all similiarly named outgoing links. See how tiny jquery is by clicking here.
2. Redirect / rename all affiliate link simliarly -  I am using a plugin called gocodes - it seems pretty good and I am sure their are others. But the point is that you want to track every click thru and you want all the links you are tracking to look the same.  So you want all affiliate links to look  like /recommends/ or /go/ , etc. To be consistent but also because of the tracking code provided below and because of Tip number 3
3. Setup goals for click thrus on Google Analytics – If you are following point number two above you can easily set a goal for all links that match  /recommends/.+ ,  /go/.+ or whatever syntax you use.
   

   analytics goals

   Even better if you can track both click thrus and goals but for right now – just do clickthru tracking -  An article to reference — http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-setup-goals-in-google-analytics.html

4. Install this tracking code to track all click that match  your syntax.
   jQuery('a').click(function(){
   var $a=jQuery(this);
   var href=$a.attr('href');
   if(href.match(/go\//))
   {var category='outgoing';
   var event='click';
   var label=href;
   pageTracker._trackPageview(href);
   pageTracker._trackEvent(category,event,label);}}
   );

   This kind of tracking code matches all outgoing links with the keyword /recommends/ and will generate a goal proivded you did the previous steps for 2 and 3. To change this syntax to another naming convention is easy enough. This code also generates both a goal and an event in analytics.
   Thanks to  these contributers listed- for this idea — rebeccamurphey , think2loud and css-tricks
   If this is too complicated then manually insert page tracking – http://www.johncow.com/google-analytics-creating-goals/

5. To track conversions in adwords or to assign conversions to click thrus you could just click add this code snippet below
   var image = new Image(1,1);
   image.src = "http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/XXXXXXX/?value=1&label=Purchase&script=0";

   This just initiates an image pixel so that a conversion in adwords is generated.

   So now you have tracking for goals, events and possibly adwords conversion events setup for your website done easily provided that you name , cloak and redirect your links in all the same fashion

6. Now if you want to try and improve your webpage - you might try this - Counting a conversion when a link is clicked with website optimizer Here is the essential code
   <!-- function ConversionCount() { _uacct = 'UA-xxxxx-x'; urchinTracker("/yyyyyyyyyy/goal"); return true; } // --><a onclick="return ConversionCount();" href="http://www.example.com/file.pdf">Download the file</a>
7. If you are looking to improve , decrease page bounce rates – then you might try optimizing pages using webiste optimizer for a version that keeps people on your website longer — Here are the details – http://www.google.com/support/websiteoptimizer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74345
8. Stuck with how to setup a landing page ? Here is a simple optin idea for lead pages – landing page generator - very simple but you get the idea here or even better monitor adwords campaigns that are working with a tool like traffic travis.

By implementing these tips you should be able to track and improve your webpage’s effectiveness with Google tracking tools.  Leave a comment below if this helps you!

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html

Or just download it here .. Great info but I didnt see any mention of having W3C valid HTML which is one additional thing to consider.

search-engine-optimization-starter-guide

References
http://www.bradino.com/javascript/ppc-conversion-tracking/

http://www.bradino.com/javascript/google-analytics-goals/

A lot more information located here — http://fieldsmarshall.com/8-tips-for-tracking-with-google/

Im mentioned this before but I will say it again. I think Winner Alert is a great tool. Right now, using Winner Alert to manage a campaign of 90,000 keywords is making my life a lot easier so I can focus on other important Google AdWords campaign issues like split testing or redoing the landing page.

With so many variable in optimizing a Google AdWords campaign, Winner Alert really makes things easier with their new campaign export feature.

Winner Alert Coupon

Click there will export a spreadsheet that you can use to change the exact keywords/ adgroups instead of finding the adgroups you need to change and then pausing the old ones and rewriting new ads. It savs a lot of time.

Any its worth checking out Winner Alert and please post if you find a coupon code.

How to Setup Putty to Automatically login.

1. Download PuTTY — Use this link or Google putty. Be sure to download.  I would suggest this version – A Windows installer for everything except PuTTYtel
2. Install Putty by double clicking
3. Run PuTTYgen following the instructions
4. Save your private key somewhere secure but also a place you will remember it.
5. Copy / CTRL -C the public key for pasting into the authorized_keys file
6. Remember dont select a passphrase if you want to login automatically
   
7. Go to your .ssh folder  in the root directory of your webhost — type cd .ssh. Almost all hosting providers have these.
8. If  you dont have a file called authorized_keys in the .ssh folder you will need create one.
   Make it readable only by you type chmod 644.
   
9. Paste the content from puttygen on a newline the authorized_keys if there is already an entry.
   
10. Then you can either use Pageant ( included with Putty Details Below ) and load your private key in memory or goto Connection->SSH->Auth and under Private-key, browse to the file you had saved earlier on your computer.   I would recommend instead using Pageant.  I know, sounds like a pain doing all of this but it will save you some serious time login .  Again  Pageant recommended see below.
11. Be sure to type in your connection name always as username@website.com.  You can automatically login but the system needs to know what user you will login as.

Details on Pageant:

Getting started with PageantTo add a key to Pageant, press the ‘Add Key’ button. Pageant will bring up a file dialog, labelled ‘Select Private Key File’. Find your private key file in this dialog, and press ‘Open’.

Pageant will now load the private key. If the key is protected by a passphrase, Pageant will ask you to type the passphrase. When the key has been loaded, it will appear in the list in the Pageant window.

Now start PuTTY and open an SSH session to a site that accepts your key. PuTTY will notice that Pageant is running, retrieve the key automatically from Pageant, and use it to authenticate. You can now open as many PuTTY sessions as you like without having to type your passphrase again.

It requires a bit more work initially but then you put this backup on a automated regular interval (cron job)

Here is How to Setup Rsync in Three Easy Steps.

1. Login with ssh to your webhost and type in ssh-keygen -t rsa Hit return twice. You should see – Your identification has been saved in xxxx
2. Send the Authentication file rsync --progress "/home/name/.ssh/id_rsa.pub" username@serverspace.com:/home/name/.ssh/authorized_keys
3. Repeat step two again - now if you a have setup this up correctly Rysnc will only ask for the password once