Learn about affiliate marketing
Affiliate Marketing – You Too Can Make a Killing!
So there you are; sitting in front of your monitor while the others are all watching the latest soaps. Ad's are filling your screen as you click through them one by one looking for that perfect business opportunity that is going to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.
Each sales page promises more than the previous and it is really becoming a difficult decision as to exactly how rich you want to be. The headlines scream at you, "Make One Million In 6 Months", "Write Your Own Paycheck", "The Secret Of Earning Multiple Streams Of Income" and so it goes.
You become so excited with your new found wealth that you give the dog your prime beef steak; which you bought an hour ago knowing that after starting up, you will never be looking back while the money pours into your bank account.
If this were true we would have an awful amount of extremely happy dogs not knowing the meaning of dog food, but in reality affiliate marketing is not what it seems.
However; that which is stated is not entirely untrue. You can achieve all or many of what is mentioned, but you are not going to do it in 15 minutes per day and on autopilot.
Now, back to reality. How do I do it?
The easiest way starting out as an internet marketer is by being an affiliate for other people's products. The reasons are quite simple and obvious, you do not need your own website and all the technical jargon associated with it, and you don't have to spend money and time creating your own product. All you need to do is drive traffic to the affiliate site, they make the sales, and you just pick up your cash.
Side Note: As you start getting the "hang-of-it" you will want to build your own list of clients and will create your own site to capture their emails so that you can let them know of new and exciting products you have available for them. I will write more about this is future articles.
To find products to promote as an affiliate is not difficult. There are thousands available for you to choose from. Some will charge money to join but most will be free. However; you need to really do your homework. For instance, you do not want to pick a product which is being returned by most of the buyers.
As an affiliate marketer the aim is not promoting one product only, it's like putting all your eggs in one basket. Choose about 5 or even more in different areas; chose those you find interesting and which you think might be good sellers. Take your time when choosing and read through everything, remember at the end of the day it will be your money and or efforts driving traffic to that site, make your money and or efforts work for you.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing your affiliate products.
*Have a look at when and how they pay commissions.
*The percentage commission they will be paying you.
*Their customer support offer.
Preferably choose those that pay a high commission and pays into your account as soon as the sale is made. That will keep you from losing money from sales because in many instances you will not be able to track any sales activity. But there is a different thought on this; you see, people will change their minds and return your product - the dreaded buyers remorse - so you may want to wait at least the time offered in the money back guarantee before you cash in your commission.
All that said and done, you are now armed to the teeth with affiliate links; the dog is happily eating a prime beef steak, so let�s get on with it.
Generating Traffic
The most common way to generate traffic fast is PPC (pay per click). Google Adwords is the big dog in town but there are a few others which you can easily find doing a simple search. It's quite easy to sign up and then you are ready to go.
Now if you have selected the "right" affiliate programs you will find that they have already done a very important homework for you and that is "keyword" research. Yup some of them will give you keywords that you can just copy and paste into your Google Adwords. Now all you need to do is copy and paste them, make your bid and the money will start rolling in.
Here's the bad news, unless you are in business to lose money, this is all you will be doing and the dog will have to revert back to dog food and you to bread and water. Your advertising is going to cost you much more than your income.
This said, you can make it as an affiliate, and you can make a lot of money, you are however going to have to do some work.
Your main aim is to find cheap and underexposed keywords. Let�s take a example of Google Adwords.
If you copy and paste the keywords given to you, the chances are good that a lot of other affiliates are also using the exact same keywords. So for you to get your ad into the top 10 or first page you will need to bid high. Let's say you end up bidding 50 cents for a pretty broad keyword. The product you are selling is selling for $47 of which you receive 50% commission, $23.50 less banking charges. In effect that means that for every 47 clicks you receive you must make one sale to just break even. I can tell you now that on a �broad� keyword you will get 47 clicks but you will not get one sale. To find out how a keyword is performing and converting into sales is to base it on 200 clicks. When reaching that target take a look at the conversion rate, how many clicks per sale. If you have made no sales, or just one, you need to refine your keywords because you are hitting the wrong target market.
Where and how do you find and implement these seemingly elusive keywords. I mean there are only so many words in the English language!
Keyword Research
Step 1
Take a good look at the affiliates website you joined, and see what it is that makes this a unique product that customers should have, and want to pay for. Please understand that this answer does not lie in the first words you read on the page, the headline or sub headline. Read through the entire affiliate sales page and find your own unique ideas, be different.
Step two
Now that you have the idea clearly in your mind, think up a few keywords that fit this idea and will relate well to the product you are trying to sell. Come up with a few single words and some two word phrases. Write all of these down until you have about ten or fifteen.
Step three
Now that you have found the keywords which convey the reasons why your target buyer should buy your product, it is important that you find other keywords which are related to your product. You see, the client you are looking for may be using a related term, and not your primary keywords specifically. Let me give you and example. Let's say your site sells apple pie recipes; well you may want to include such related key words as fruit, apple, Washington apples, etc. Get the idea. Not only is this important in order for your client to find you, but the search engines will rank you page well above the competition who is not using these related terms. In the industry we refer to these related keywords a Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI.
Step Four
By now you should have opened your Adwords account, open the keywords tool, get familiarized with it. Follow some of the tutorials Google has provided. Learn to use this tool. You can download Good Keywords for free and it will provide you with an enormous amount of information.
Take your single and two word phrases and combine them into three and four word phrases. Test these in your tools to see how many searches take place and test different combinations of these words until you find the "right" combination.
Once you have determined a good combination of keyword phrases, add them to your keyword list in your account. Chances are that you will be able to get into the top 10 easily with the lowest bid.
Target your market with specific targeted 3 and 4 word phrases; they will get you quality clicks, cheaply, with the target market generating sales.
You have heard the term find your niche over and over, but believe me if you are going to try to hit broadly you are going to lose money.
You can be a successful affiliate, but you need to put the time and effort in finding the right target audience for your product. Getting the balance right is the ultimate goal of your business.
To Your Success!
So there you are; sitting in front of your monitor while the others are all watching the latest soaps. Ad's are filling your screen as you click through them one by one looking for that perfect business opportunity that is going to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.
Each sales page promises more than the previous and it is really becoming a difficult decision as to exactly how rich you want to be. The headlines scream at you, "Make One Million In 6 Months", "Write Your Own Paycheck", "The Secret Of Earning Multiple Streams Of Income" and so it goes.
You become so excited with your new found wealth that you give the dog your prime beef steak; which you bought an hour ago knowing that after starting up, you will never be looking back while the money pours into your bank account.
If this were true we would have an awful amount of extremely happy dogs not knowing the meaning of dog food, but in reality affiliate marketing is not what it seems.
However; that which is stated is not entirely untrue. You can achieve all or many of what is mentioned, but you are not going to do it in 15 minutes per day and on autopilot.
Now, back to reality. How do I do it?
The easiest way starting out as an internet marketer is by being an affiliate for other people's products. The reasons are quite simple and obvious, you do not need your own website and all the technical jargon associated with it, and you don't have to spend money and time creating your own product. All you need to do is drive traffic to the affiliate site, they make the sales, and you just pick up your cash.
Side Note: As you start getting the "hang-of-it" you will want to build your own list of clients and will create your own site to capture their emails so that you can let them know of new and exciting products you have available for them. I will write more about this is future articles.
To find products to promote as an affiliate is not difficult. There are thousands available for you to choose from. Some will charge money to join but most will be free. However; you need to really do your homework. For instance, you do not want to pick a product which is being returned by most of the buyers.
As an affiliate marketer the aim is not promoting one product only, it's like putting all your eggs in one basket. Choose about 5 or even more in different areas; chose those you find interesting and which you think might be good sellers. Take your time when choosing and read through everything, remember at the end of the day it will be your money and or efforts driving traffic to that site, make your money and or efforts work for you.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing your affiliate products.
*Have a look at when and how they pay commissions.
*The percentage commission they will be paying you.
*Their customer support offer.
Preferably choose those that pay a high commission and pays into your account as soon as the sale is made. That will keep you from losing money from sales because in many instances you will not be able to track any sales activity. But there is a different thought on this; you see, people will change their minds and return your product - the dreaded buyers remorse - so you may want to wait at least the time offered in the money back guarantee before you cash in your commission.
All that said and done, you are now armed to the teeth with affiliate links; the dog is happily eating a prime beef steak, so let�s get on with it.
Generating Traffic
The most common way to generate traffic fast is PPC (pay per click). Google Adwords is the big dog in town but there are a few others which you can easily find doing a simple search. It's quite easy to sign up and then you are ready to go.
Now if you have selected the "right" affiliate programs you will find that they have already done a very important homework for you and that is "keyword" research. Yup some of them will give you keywords that you can just copy and paste into your Google Adwords. Now all you need to do is copy and paste them, make your bid and the money will start rolling in.
Here's the bad news, unless you are in business to lose money, this is all you will be doing and the dog will have to revert back to dog food and you to bread and water. Your advertising is going to cost you much more than your income.
This said, you can make it as an affiliate, and you can make a lot of money, you are however going to have to do some work.
Your main aim is to find cheap and underexposed keywords. Let�s take a example of Google Adwords.
If you copy and paste the keywords given to you, the chances are good that a lot of other affiliates are also using the exact same keywords. So for you to get your ad into the top 10 or first page you will need to bid high. Let's say you end up bidding 50 cents for a pretty broad keyword. The product you are selling is selling for $47 of which you receive 50% commission, $23.50 less banking charges. In effect that means that for every 47 clicks you receive you must make one sale to just break even. I can tell you now that on a �broad� keyword you will get 47 clicks but you will not get one sale. To find out how a keyword is performing and converting into sales is to base it on 200 clicks. When reaching that target take a look at the conversion rate, how many clicks per sale. If you have made no sales, or just one, you need to refine your keywords because you are hitting the wrong target market.
Where and how do you find and implement these seemingly elusive keywords. I mean there are only so many words in the English language!
Keyword Research
Step 1
Take a good look at the affiliates website you joined, and see what it is that makes this a unique product that customers should have, and want to pay for. Please understand that this answer does not lie in the first words you read on the page, the headline or sub headline. Read through the entire affiliate sales page and find your own unique ideas, be different.
Step two
Now that you have the idea clearly in your mind, think up a few keywords that fit this idea and will relate well to the product you are trying to sell. Come up with a few single words and some two word phrases. Write all of these down until you have about ten or fifteen.
Step three
Now that you have found the keywords which convey the reasons why your target buyer should buy your product, it is important that you find other keywords which are related to your product. You see, the client you are looking for may be using a related term, and not your primary keywords specifically. Let me give you and example. Let's say your site sells apple pie recipes; well you may want to include such related key words as fruit, apple, Washington apples, etc. Get the idea. Not only is this important in order for your client to find you, but the search engines will rank you page well above the competition who is not using these related terms. In the industry we refer to these related keywords a Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI.
Step Four
By now you should have opened your Adwords account, open the keywords tool, get familiarized with it. Follow some of the tutorials Google has provided. Learn to use this tool. You can download Good Keywords for free and it will provide you with an enormous amount of information.
Take your single and two word phrases and combine them into three and four word phrases. Test these in your tools to see how many searches take place and test different combinations of these words until you find the "right" combination.
Once you have determined a good combination of keyword phrases, add them to your keyword list in your account. Chances are that you will be able to get into the top 10 easily with the lowest bid.
Target your market with specific targeted 3 and 4 word phrases; they will get you quality clicks, cheaply, with the target market generating sales.
You have heard the term find your niche over and over, but believe me if you are going to try to hit broadly you are going to lose money.
You can be a successful affiliate, but you need to put the time and effort in finding the right target audience for your product. Getting the balance right is the ultimate goal of your business.
To Your Success!
Author Info:
Evan James provides many free and extremely helpful information in his Internet Marketing content-rich website. To search through other helpful articles likeSearch Engine Optimization - Make Them Love Your Site, visit us at; http://www.TheWebInfoReporter.com
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