Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing
How affiliate marketing programs work:
Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing venture between a website owner and a merchant. The website owner will place advertisements on his website to either help sell the merchant's products or to send potential customers to the merchant's website, all in exchange for a share of the profits.
There are three ways to earn money through affiliate marketing:.
- Pay Per Click (PPC)-Every time a potential customer leaves the affiliate website or search page by "clicking" on the link or ad leading to the merchant's website, a certain amount of money is deposited in the affiliate's account. This amount can be pennies or dollars depending on the product and amount of the commission. (Google Adsense, Google Adwords and Yahoo Marketing Solutions).
- Pay Per Sale (PPS or CPA)- Every time a sale is made as a result of advertising on the affiliate's website a percentage or commission is deposited into the affiliate's account. (ClickBank, Commission Junction)
- Pay Per Lead (PPL or CPL)- Every time a potential client registers at the merchant's website as a result of the advertisement on the affiliate's account, a previously determined amount is deposited into the affiliate's account. (Commission Junction, DirectLeads)
These PPC, PPS or PPL programs are usually remarkably easy to join. I recommend that before signing up you get a separate email account such as GMail or Yahoo so that all of your program emails will go to this account. This will save having to look through all of your personal emails for your affiliate marketing information.
After carefully reading the terms and conditions, which vary from program to program, you will place your exclusive affiliate link on your site or newsletter that links back to the vendor. When someone clicks on your link and buys the product or service from the business you earn a commission.
Get Passionate
I laugh when I see "experts" proclaiming that their way is the only way to make money on the Internet. There are dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different ways for imaginative people to launch an Internet business.
One way which works well for many people is to concentrate on a small niche. Choose a topic in which you are passionately interested in, and create a website around that theme. Then select affiliate programs which closely fit the theme of your site and blend them into the site using your text links.
If possible, write about the products from first-hand knowledge, so that you become a respected, credible source of reliable information.
The more targeted your traffic, the more likely it is that people will buy.
The huge advantage of basing a business on a topic in which you are very interested in is that you will enjoy running your business.
Select your target
Here's how the professionals do it. Before they do anything else, they decide WHO WILL WANT TO BUY THIS PRODUCT they are going to sell. You can start with the product first and then do research to find out who your target audience is, but it is generally much easier to find the audience first and then find products to sell. Be precise. Zero in on a group of people with a particular interest or problem. Now ask yourself: Where do they gather? What magazines or ezines do they read? What websites do they visit? What email discussion groups or forums do they subscribe to?
How do you approach them?
How do you approach them?
Is it easy to get in front of their eyeballs? You're looking for an easily identifiable target. There's no sense in building a website and then trying to figure out how to attract your audience. Do it the other way round. Decide who your audience is and then build your site.
Find a HOT Topic or Niche
Instead of setting up a site based on your favorite hobby or interest, delve deeply and become a specialist in a subject which is hot right now. How do you find hot topics you ask? Well you can go to Google Trends to find out what the hot searches are and you can also check out Ebay Pulse to find out what the hot products are.
You'll find that as you immerse yourself in the topic, delving deeper and deeper, you'll become intensely interested in it. The more you learn, the less your business will seem like work.
Promote products which are in high demand. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? In fact, it's so simple it's very easy to overlook. Sell things that people want. Information products are good to sell because that's mainly what people use the Internet for - to seek information. Digital products have high profit margins and often have high commissions. Cell phones are a part of our everyday lives and ring tones have been a hot market for several years now. Bargains are always in demand. Coupon sites which offer the latest bargains are labor-intensive but have proved profitable. Jumping on new products and the latest fads can also reap rewards for the agile.
In some cases, your visitors don't even have to buy anything. If they fill out a survey, ask for a free report, ask for a free sample or perhaps download software to try, you get paid. Some affiliate networks have dozens of such offers you can promote. You're sure to find some that suit your site's theme. These are pay-per-lead programs.
Good networks providing pay-per-lead offers include:
Theme Your Site
You can choose almost ANY topic to be the theme for your site. However, before you begin, look in the AssociatePrograms.com directory and make sure there are suitable affiliate programs which fit your theme. You can also setup a ClickBank account and look for products you can sell within your theme. Make sure you stick to your topic or theme on all of your website sections and pages, if you go off topic the search engines will penalize your site for not being relevant.
Aim to be the most knowledgeable person on the Net in your small niche. If you build a really useful site, people will recommend your site and link to it, giving you wonderful free publicity.
Bring On the Traffic
If you already have a busy site and the product you choose to promote is attractive to your visitors, you should start earning money straight away. If you have a new, low-traffic site, you have a lot of work ahead of you.
Several times I've seen suggestions that to make reasonable money from a website you need at least 500 unique visitors a day. That seems about right If you have a very tightly targeted audience - and also have a newsletter which gives you more income and helps remind people about your site.
Some website owners laugh at the 500 visitors a day figure and say you need at least five times that figure. Numbers alone aren't enough - you need to build trust and credibility. Merely attracting traffic isn't enough. You have to learn how to encourage people to click on the links and buy something. So make sure you promote really good products.
Summary
You can make money in the Internet world but it isn't a get rich quick scheme. It takes a lot of work, research and knowledge before you can really earn a living online. If it were easy everyone would be doing it.
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