Affiliate Marketing - Part 1 - Why the heck are you not doing this?
Author: Joe Whyte
Do you share my dream of sitting on a beach with a nice cold refreshing beverage watching the waves crash down on the reef of a beautiful island? Are you sick of doing the 9-5 routine? Wouldn’t you rather make money by sitting on your bum? Then Affiliate Marketing is for you! The greatest part about affiliate marketing is that once you put up a successful affiliate site you will virtually never have to touch it again and it will be a constant source of income for you. Its fast, easy and affordable and there is simply NO reason why you should NOT be doing this.
The definition of Affiliate Marketing is:
The method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying a finder’s fee for the introduction of new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay per click), registrant (Pay per lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay per sale), or any combination. (wiki)
Now the first thing you might be saying is COM’N Joe it cannot be that easy. Yes.. Yes it is and here are the simple tools you need to get started on making millions. (please remember me when you make a million and repay me for this information ;-))
Affiliate Marketing Startup Kit.
1.Hosting Plan that host’s multiple Domain names.
2.Domain names
3.Free templates and/or design software
4.Affiliate Membership
5.Traffic Source
6.Paypal account
7.Hawaiin Shirt
I will touch on each of these points to help guide you.
1. Where do you find the best hosting Deal for your affiliate marketing? Lunarpages offers some great web hosting packages that are very well suited for Affiliate marketing. Large bandwidth and massive storage space with the ability to host multiple domain names under one account for an affordable price which will help you get maximum (ROI). If you already have a hosting account then transfer to Lunarpages and you will get a transfer CREDIT on your hosting account.
2. Where do I get my domain names? You can get a free domain name when you purchase your hosting account with Lunarpages.com. Add additional domain names for a low price. It helps to keep your domain names with whatever hosting company you are hosting with that way you stand less chance of renewal problems.
3. A sites design makes the difference. The better the design means the more reputable you are. Its your first impression on the viewer so there are free templates but it would probably be worth paying a few bucks to get a nice one. Check out Flash Template Design for some affordable but Quality designer templates. You can upload these and have a live site in a matter of minutes.
4. Where do you sign up to become an affiliate marketer? Check out this list of affiliate marketing sites in order of importance. Sign up for all of these and start joining affiliate programs that you think you can make good money at. (later post’s will cover this more in depth)
5. So now that I’m affiliated how do I get people to purchase these products through me? Simple, you just need to start driving traffic to your sites. There are many ways to do it and to be honest you should not just do one but do all suggestions as it is best to tackle a problem like this from all angles. You can start with doing some on and off page SEO. Write your own content and get some relevant inbound links. (advanced SEO will be covered in later post’s). Then start with some SMO (social media optimization).
Here are some sites to aim at when considering SMO.
Digg.com
Reddit.com
Netscape.com
StumbleUpon.com
Myspace.com
Shoutwire.com
Craigslist.com
There are a ton more. If you would like to contribute anymore please do not hesitate to post them in the comment section.
Then you also have PPC (pay per click). Major ad networks that you can trust are going to be:
Google Adwords
Yahoo Search Marketing
MSN Adcenter
ContextClick
Again there are a lot more then this but these are the major ones that you can trust and will most likely see a better ROI on. Do not leave out blog commenting and forum activity. If you are a web hosting affiliate then get in tune with that industry and start posting comments on web hosting blogs and web hosting forums. You have to find your market and target them.
6. How do I get paid? Go to paypal.com and setup an account and use that email when you fill out your affiliate network applications.
7. Now what about my hawaiin shirt? Go here to find your hawaiin shirt.
If you are really interested in making money online then you need to start with the basics. If you want to try and make money online this upcoming year then follow my post’s on affiliate marketing and together we can reach your goals.
December 27th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Forget making money online! I want one of those Hawaiian shirts Joe!
Nice article btw.. can’t wait to read part 2!
December 27th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Affiliate marketing eeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? wink… wink!!???
Great idea!
December 28th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Joe, can you help me make so much money that I can change it into gold dubloons and swim in it Ducktails-Style?
December 30th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Well, maybe not an house full of gold coins like Uncle Scrooge, but it’s possible to make a living. First a tough one, and someday maybe a better one.
I’m an affiliate for almost 7 years now. I even promoted Google when they where in taking their first steps.
I’m not rich, but I can afford to do some unusual things. I’m also gathering some money to donate to Unicef, because I really believe that we must share our wealth. And I hope to have a lot to share ;)
Bye and I wish you the best year ever!
Nuno
January 4th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
[...] Utilize your social media. Social media is highly trafficked and by placing articles and or pages within them you can start driving traffic to your site for FREE. Check out affiliate marketing part 1 to see a list of social media. [...]
January 30th, 2007 at 11:05 am
SMO (social media optimization) is a new one on me! Is this just clever social bookmarking? Not that I really know what that is. I’ve just been doing Article Posts to the usual Article Directories.
Is SMO easier or more effective?
By the way, the shirt thing is wrong. The shirt just has to be Australian!
:=)
Alex
February 13th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
[...] My first post was Affiliate Marketing - Part 1 - Why the heck are you not doing this. I talk about what affiliate marketing is, how lucrative the business can be, I created a simple and essential Affilate Startup Kit and gave an outline for future posts. [...]
April 12th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Thanks for the guidelines. Especially thanks for the hosting tips. They look like a good host. I agree, that it is not likely to be easy to succeed but the opportunities are definitely unlimited online. Good luck to you all.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Affiliate marketing is a slam dunk option, you don’t need a website, list, or product to get going.
Simply put all you really need to do is…
1. Find a big list owner in a very profitable niche
2. Buy a resale rights product that has an extremely high perceived value
3. Make sure the product is not competing and very complementary to the list owner
4. Develop a relationship and become indispensable to the list owner
5. Structure a deal that is a no brainer for the list owner with your resale rights product
6. Sit back, collect an instant list of buyers, cash you check, repeat the process
Now there are some very subtle steps involved inbetween the lines of each steps where that is the inside secret to making real income online.
Ask me about it sometime.
Why struggle, when there is an easy way to do it?
April 27th, 2007 at 12:13 am
All I have to say is affiliate marketing once you understand how to do it, is one of the easiest business models to get into. For sure your not going to get rich overnight, but you will make sales once you understand the business model.
Money is to be made in affiliate marketing, and once you make money you can pretty much dominate any niche market you want as an affiliate
August 25th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Great post Joe! I hadn’t heard of the term SMO (social media optimization) before and hadn’t dived deep into this method of marketing, but definitely sounds like a winner. I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for many years now with other traffic methods and definitely is the way to go. Half my income comes from aff. marketing alone. I liked how you hit a lot of affiliate marketing key points right on the head. Thanks