Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Seven Tools For Sucess in Affiliate Marketing

When I first started fantasizing about affiliate marketing(just like the  other newbies), I thought to myself "I could make tons of money from this business and vacation at the Carribean, Venice, you name it." But I came crashing down back to earth when I realized affiliate marketing is not fast food. You must dress it, steam it, amd then cook it until it's ready to come off the stove. In other words you must be in it for the long haul. You need serious persistance determination and hard work to succeed. Let me show you seven tools for sucess in Affiliate Marketing

Focus On Topics You are Passionate About
Do not choose your topic about Affiliate Marketing soley because everybody is doing that. Affiliate marketing, as a topic is quite competitive and unless you can come up with extraordinary content you will be blown off the search charts. Instead, Focus on topics you are passionate about. Brainstorm  on about 2-3 topics and then focus on one topic that you know you can run with.   It could be on Laptops, Forex, anything.

Get A Domain Name
You will most certainly need to get  a  domain name to host your affiliate site.  Make sure the domain name is something that is catchy - something that will not cause people to twist their brain cells.  Dont spend no more than 20 minutes choosing your domain name. Just make sure it bears relation to your topic area. You'd be better off starting with a registration package of one year as it frees you to spread your finances to other things. Most importtantly, if you decide, the domain sucks, you can go look for another one. One popular domain among most affiliate marketers is GoDaddy  where you can get a  dot com domain at less than $10.00 a year.

Find A Good Host
You definitely need to find a good host to host your affiliate site. Most importantly they must reliable uptime. Meaning the host company should be able to keep your site up 24/7, absolutely crucial for any online business.. One hosting company on the lips of most affiliates is  HostGator.  They are described as one of the best around. However if you are contemplating Dedicated Hosting, where your site is the only site being hosted , HostGator  can also accomodate you in this regard as well.

Subscribe to a Reliable Email Service
Email Marketing is one key method for driving traffic to your affiliate site. To accomplish this you will need to subscribe to a reliable email service that allows visitors to opt-in or sign up at your site to get  information such as updates on your product or site, newsletter, e.t.c by email. And the email service provider being mentioned by most affiliate marketers is Aweber. Besides managing your opt-in lists and email messages, Aweber also gives you the option to sign up visitors to subscribe to your blog via email as well as newsletters, and follow up emails on various topics.


Lots of Patience
Oh yes you are going to need to lots of patience if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing. Not only is  patience the most important tool in affiliate marketing, it is also the cheapest. It wont cost you a dim eat all. Don't expect to see money any times soon.  Expect to grind this out for a while until the cash flow starts. Of course, the temptation to slap your affiliate site with tiles of banners is quite strong. No, resist this with all your might. Instead focus on useful content to give readers a reason to visit your site over and over again. And when the time comes for you to stick those ads, don just go for ads that pay the most money. Get relevant ones. It does not make sense to get ads for ipads when your site is about dog food. Your readers have dog food on their minds not the look and feel of ipads. As a matter ask most veteran affiliate marketers and they'd tell you that you have a better chance of making money from text links. Just incorporate them in your articles and you have a much higer click rate and a better chance of making money from these clicks. The banners are a mere distraction. You only get impressions or maybe a a click here and there.

So if you are writing about a product, provide the link to the product as to where it can be purchased rather than just slapping a banner on your blog/site. Let's say you are writing about Super Affiliate Rosalind Gardner's award winning Super Affiliate Handbook or Ken Avoy's Affiliate Masters Course  you dont just slap a banner about these products on your blog. You provide  links to the products for people to click through and follow to the merchant sites like i've just illustrated.

Get a Voice
When I say get a voice I dont mean sing like Luther Vandross (May he rest in peace). I mean you need to find your writing voice. Just be yourself and express yourself in your writing. Write the way you talk and your visitors will gravitate towards you. Don't get too academic as your readers will think you are showing off. Write in language that they will understand and they will keep coming for more.. If you have a hard time coming up with topics to write about just jot them down in advance that way you have a writing schedule to work with. So that you have a set number of topics for each week instead of scratching your head trying to figure out what to write about.

So apply these seven tools for success in affiliate marketing, and you will be laughing all the way to the bank..  Affiliate Marketing is not instant gratification. It takes hard work, persistence and desire to reach the promised land. It takes months of hard work and determination to achieve financial success.  If you keep your eye on the prize, you will do just fine.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Why You Should be an Affiliate Marketer

If you are not into Affiliate marketing, you are missing out big time. I mean, consider this. You are basically your own boss as an affiliate marketer. You have no irritating boss to worry about- you are your own boss. While you are on vacation in Cancun or the Caribbean, the cash keeps rolling in. Nothing beats this. What is so amazing about affiliate marketing is that it is so simple. Because you are selling other people's products, you don have to worry about customer rage, fraud or any of these headaches. That's for your merchants(or those whose products you are promoting) to worry out. Let me give some more reasons why you should be an affiliate marketer.


No Need to Worry About Product Development
You have no need to worry about product development.Trust me! it might expensive developing and producing a product. And the amount of money you pour in to R&D is massive. To make matters worse, your product could be a success or a huge bust. But you needn't worry about that as an affiliate. All you have to do is choose a product out of the zillions out there and promote it on your blog or website and earn your commission each time a customer purchases the product through your affiliate link.


Affiliate Marketing is Very Cheap.
When i say affiliate marketing is very cheap, I mean the cost for setting up doesn't shoot through the stratosphere. All you need is a laptop or PC, Internet connectivity, and a desk and you are in business.


You Can Join Affiliate Programs From Anywhere 
It doesn't matter which corner of this planet you are hiding in, you can join affiliate programs from anywhere. The wingspan of the Internet is such that you could be in Afghanistan and still sign to any affiliate program of your choice. The exciting part of this craze is that affiliate programs are free to join. your only limitation is your inability to promote your website.


You Have Thousands of Products and Services to Choose From
Probably the fringe benefit of being a affiliate marketer is that you have thousands of products and services to choose from. You have mundane products like screw drivers and canned sprays to bigger products like laptops, Internet marketing products, e.t.c to choose from- the choice is yours. Fortunately popular affiliate networks such as Commission and amazon make it relatively easier for affiliates to choose products related to their websites.


You Don't Need a Merchant Account.
If you are wondering whether you need a merchant account to get into affiliate marketing, Let me allay your worries. You don't need a merchant account to start your affiliate business. The only account you need is an affiliate account on your merchant's affiliate program. Besides, a merchant account comes with its own headaches like fraud, payment processing, charge backs and so on. You don't need  to pull your hair out over these headaches. That's  the responsibility of your merchants.


You Don't  Need to Store Inventory
Unlike your merchants you don't need to store inventory. That is because you are promoting all that inventory online. You don't need to carry any of the products home. All of them are store in some warehouse and all you have to do is to  promote the products online. So it doesn't matter whether you live in a rat hole(joking!), you have no need to worry about inventory.


No Shipping Costs
Again, unlike your merchant, you have no shipping costs to worry about. You don't need to scratch your hair over supplies and postal rates. That's for your merchant to worry about.


No Customer Rage
Isn't it annoying dealing with irate customers over just about everything including the way you say hello? Well, you can watch from a distance while your merchant  struggles to get them to calm down.  You have no customer rage to concern yourself about.


Make Money While in Dreamland
By 'Make Money While in Dreamland' I mean make money in your sleep. The Internet is such that you don't have to be up all night unlike our offline brethren. While you sleep the cash rolls in. You must understand that while you are asleep,  other corners of the globe are still awake. Besides, the Internet operates 24/7 which makes for a nice trade off.


Huge Money to be Made
Of course there is huge money to be made in affiliate marketing. How much money you make depends on your effort, desire and your creativity. Don't blame your boss if you fail. You are the boss this time around.


So now you see why you should be an affiliate marketer? The sky is the limit as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. And the low set-up costs makes it that much easier for anybody to start an affiliate marketing business. So if you want learn affiliate marketing from a super affiliate, in plain English without your technical mumbo jumbo Download Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook. She shows readers how  to succeed in affiliate marketing in plain but fun language.













Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Why You Need to Learn from the Experts

 You are a newbie so excited about affiliate marketing that you dont know where to start from. So you ask a friend of yours about your dilemna and he says How about  Learning from the Experts?" And you are like" Why would I want to do that when I could find quick ways of making money as an affiliate"? That is the trap a lot of newbies fall into. Instead of learning the affiliate marketing the right way they fall for those numerous scams making the waves online these days. When things dont work out  they play the ostrich by blaming the scam artists for the failures. Let me show you why you need to learn from the experts.?

 Access to Vast Knowledge

You may not know this but you have access to vast knowledge - you just have to seek for it.  A lot of these affiliate marketing courses are designed by veterans who have spent years in the field and have come up top of the food chain. And, they are willing to share their expertise with   and help those who want to be masters of their own destiny. One such course that comes highly recommended is Ken Evoy's Affiliate Masters Course.  It's an intensive 10 day step by step course which take you through everything you need to know about Affiliate Marketing, and you can study the course at your own pace. Even better, it's free. So go ahead and download it.

You Avoid Making Mistakes

Yes, by taking a course in affiliate marketing you avoid  mistakes that a lot of affiliate marketing newbies make. This is absolute important because those who have made those mistakes can show you how to avoid those minefields and give you the right answers instead of wasting time and money on the the trial and error route. 

Save Yourself A Lot of Time

By taking a course you save you a lot of time. One thing you will come to realize when you take an affiliate marketing course, if you havent done that already, is that affiliate marketing is a process. It is not an express train situation. You move frome one stage to the next, and once you know what each stage entails, you can save yourself time, stress, and tears.

You Will Receive Insider Tips

Probably the fun part of learning from the experts is the  little secrets they give you concerning how they suceeded as affiliate marketers .  These valuable secrets are insider tips that these experts give only those who are determined and passionate about succeeding as affiliates.. And most importantly, they break the information down in plain English such that you dont feel you are reading a PHD thesis. One highly popular book  that teaches you how to crack  affiliate marketing in layman's terms is super affiliate Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook .  Rosalind shows you how she made over $400,000, in one year in a clear but fun way. As a matter of fact industry insiders have dubbed it the 'bible of affiliate marketing' . Even better it costs only $27.00. So  You dont have to blow a hole in your wallet to buy the book.

Now you know why you need to learn from the experts. Just remove the word 'scam' from your mind and learn affiliate marketing from those who can and are willing to help you. Affiliate marketing is a process and once you've figured out the different stages in the process you will start laughing all the way to the bank.