Getting Started In Affiliate
Marketing
Affiliate marketing is probably one of the easiest,
straightforward and cheapest businesses to start online. You
won't have to develop a product, carry inventory or deal
with customers. You simply find a niche that interests you and
promote products related to that niche. You do this by
partnering with an online merchant by promoting their
goods or services. If you make a sale -- you receive a
commission.
Is affiliate
marketing a real "honest to goodness business" and can you
really make money at it?
Here's some additional information that will help you
get started:
ABSOLUTELY, I do it every
day!
10 Steps to
getting started in affiliate
marketing
Why Choose Affiliate Marketing as Your
Business?
When someone starts out in
a business of their own there's a LOT of work and
risk involved. You're responsible for investing time and
money in developing a product, there's research, marketing
materials, getting established, branding and the list goes
on. However with affiliate marketing there's less
risk because all that work has already been done by the
affiliate merchant.
All you need to do is
promote the product and collect the commissions.
What's more, a good
affiliate program will provide you with all the marketing tools
and materials you need to promote it, things like banners, ads,
email salescopy and free ecourses or materials branded
with your affiliate link (my favorite). These are all
things that make you a much more effective
affiliate marketer, helping you make MORE sales.
The benefits I
appreciate about Affiliate marketing the most
are:
- No Production
costs - No costs to make or purchase
products.
- No product
inventory - There's no inventory to stock or
maintain.
- No merchant
accounts to set up - No payment
processing.
- No order
processing or shipping - Your merchant takes the orders and
processes them.
...and what's best of
all, you can do it
without:
- Any
programming or website design knowledge or
experience
- Being a Search
Engine "guru"
- A having
single product of your own.
The types of products you
can promote as an affiliate are endless. But beware, don't get
caught up in promoting everything and anything. I suggest
starting small. Start out creating one website around a
specific topic. Promote a few GOOD products with
GOOD affiliate programs that complement your site's
topic. Once you’ve established a system and understand
how to make it work, then you can duplicate that system
over and over again. The more sites you build, the
easier it gets and your income each
time.
Don't worry either about
web design knowledge or being a search engine guru.
There's plenty of help and tools available.
So what does it take to be successful
at affiliate marketing?
It takes a few things all working together.
1. You need a product or service that sells well on
the internet
This is where you need to do your homework. Do your keyword
research, make sure what you are selling is something that
people will buy. For example, people consume millions of
Hostess twinkies a year, but they don't buy many off the
internet.
2. You need a website that is appealing and where
people can find what they want.
How your website looks and feels is important. I wish
I still had copies of my first websites, they were pretty
funny. Lots of bright colors, flashing and dancing graphics. I
wanted to stand out and I thought being flashy would do it --
well it didn't.
It's not the flash that gets attention, it's your
words. A good test is take all the graphics off
your page and simply look at the text. Would a person be
able to get to the meat of your website. Could they navigate
easily finding what it is they're looking for? Would they be
able to find products that solve their problem? Can you
convince them that what you have to offer will really help
them? In other words, whatever you do with your site,
stay focused on your visitor, what's in it for THEM. Don't be
too anxious to get them to buy, that's focusing on YOU.
3. You need lots and lots and lots of
traffic
In order to make one sale on the internet you have to scurry
up about 100 visitors. Now if you're selling a product that has
a commission of $15 and you're only getting about a 100
visitors a day, that's $15 a day -- not much! But if
you're getting a thousand visitors a day with your $15 product,
that's $150 a day and that's much better.
...The moral of the story is get as much traffic as you can
each and every day.
How is it done? There are lots of free ways to bring
in traffic and they all work very well, but free traffic still
limits you a bit. To get the kind of sales that allows you to
quit your day job or at least supplement your income in a big
way, you need to add paid advertising, specifically search
engine pay-per-click advertising. It's the cheapest,
quickest and easiest form of online advertising and it brings
you the visitors most interested in what you have to offer.
However, pay-per-click advertising isn't for the faint of
heart. You must first understand how it works
and tread lightly. Very important! There's nothing that will
drive you to the poor house faster than using PPC advertising
without knowing what you are doing, on the other hand it's an
extremely powerful and
effective tool if used correctly.
I remember just spending $10 a day on an ad campaign would
keep me up worrying all night. But if you've started out
getting free traffic to your website and you can make that one
sale per 100 visitors then that's a good test that beefing up
the advertising should work. If you find the keywords
that pay and write ads that attract, you'll be getting those
1000 visitors a day ...and more!
Information and resources for
affiliate marketers
Software and
tools - These are tools and resources that
will make your life as an affiliate marketer easier. Some will
help you research topics and keywords, while others will help
you work with affiliate product data feeds to build your sites
lightning fast!
Resources for starting your own
affiliate Program
How to start an affiliate
program
Affiliate Management
Tools
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