AFFILIATE MARKETING

With your new website up and running, you’ll need something to sell. You may have your own products, if so, fine and dandy, but even if you’ve just re-invented the wheel, you shouldn’t overlook the marketing possibilities of affiliate partnerships. There are literally thousands of products for sale on the Net where the sellers will offer you a slice of the action for every sale made through your website or affiliate link, or both. Their commissions vary from program to program, and product to product, but don’t ignore them. If you’re running on a really tight budget, and don’t want to spend money until you’re ready to launch, then an affiliate website will cost you a good deal less, and usually free.

I deal in detail with affiliates later on, but here is a brief summary of how it works:

Assume you have a website selling recipes for the best potato salad in the world, so you set up affiliate links to other sites selling similar products.

When a visitor comes to your site in search of potato salad recipes, and sees other similar products, hopefully he’ll buy your product and other affiliate products from your website.

Affiliate programs link direct from your website to their product with the click of a mouse, and with your affiliate link bedded into your website, when the visitor buys the affiliate product, you’ll get a share of the sale, at an agreed commission. It’s good business for you, and good business for them.

And there’s no reason why the process can’t be done in reverse. You invite other websites offering similar products to link in to yours, and in return, when they send visitors to your website who buy your product, you give them a share of the sale. It’s ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’!

You’ll need to make sure your products and theirs are similar. It stands to reason that when visitors come to your website, they’re expecting to find recipes for potato salad. If your affiliate programs are selling scuba diving equipment, there’s little chance they’ll follow the affiliate link, and all you’re doing is taking up valuable space on your website that could be put to better use.

A word of warning – don’t smother your website with affiliate links, otherwise your visitors won’t be able to see the wood for the trees! The main purpose of your website is to showcase your own products, and if your visitors are confronted with too much choice, they’ll leave. Don’t forget that the attention span of the average surfer from one site to another is very short, so if they don’t see what they want at first glance, they’ll be off! So much to see, so little time!

SELLING YOUR PRODUCTS

If you want to make good money online with as little hassle as possible, then information technology is the place to start. Basically, this means anything that can be delivered as an attachment to an email, or downloaded straight from the Net in e-book format. For the seller, once you’re up and running, it’s easy, painless and cheap.

You may have your own products to sell, in which case you'll need to load them onto your brand new, all singing all dancing website.  But if you don't have your own products, then you'll need somebody else's to sell, and e-books are by far and away the favourite to start building your empire.

If you don’t have your own e-book, and can’t be bothered with the time and effort of writing one, and who can blame you, then selling somebody else’s e-book by buying the master rights is the best way forward. Type e-book master rights into your search engine and check out the many e-books on offer. Make sure it suits your marketing strategy, and that the price is right. Of course you’ll have to pay for the master rights, but think of the money you’ll make by selling it over and over again, using my marketing strategies.

You can also give “Money Back Guarantees” as a marketing tool, but be prepared to honour your guarantee.  For the most part, this won't happen, especially if you price your e-books competitively, but if it does, then bite the bullet and refund the payment.  The last thing you want in your career as an online marketer is a bad reputation.  Worse still, if you are blacklisted by the search engines. 

Here's a tip!  If you buy two or three e-book master rights, you can always offer one as a freebie.  Freebies are a great way of pulling in the punters, as everybody wants something for nothing.

GETTING STARTED

In this post, you’ll find a thumb nail sketch of the basic essentials to get you started. In later posts I’ll give you a more detailed analysis, together with recommended links for you to play with. Forewarned is forearmed in this business!

1. Setting up your own website:

 

If you want to sell online, whether it’s your own products, or somebody else’s affiliate products, you’ll need a store window to display your goods to maximum effect, and with maximum impact. So it must be the best you can afford. We’ve all been window shopping, and as we walk along, there are store window displays that positively jump out at you, inviting you inside, and successful store owners pay their window dressers a small fortune to tempt you inside. Then there are other stores where the display is so tacky and uninteresting, you walk on by.

Two initial steps:

1. 
   
   Register your website, otherwise known as your domain.
2. 
   
   Get it hosted.

Again, you will need the help of the search engines to register your domain.  There are literally millions of websites out there, and many of the most popular are already taken.  It is obvious common sense to choose a domain name that relates to the product you are selling.  If your preferred name is already taken, many of the companies offering you a domain will suggest alternatives.  They may also offer you a design facility, taken from one of a number of 'templates' stored on their system.  The market leader by a mile is http://www.godaddy.com/, but big is not necessarily beautiful, so check out the competition, and take your time. 

You're looking for a catchy domain name with excellent visual impact. Depending on the region or regions you are targeting with your website, the suffix is important.  As a general rule, the suffix .com is the best, as it has a global appeal, so if it's available, take it.

Now I’m not in the business of promoting or endorsing any products or programs in these posts, in spite of repeated requests to do so from site owners, so you’ll have to do some research yourself. If you type website designers into your search engine, you’ll get over 24 million results!!

Lord knows how much business the twenty fourth million guy is managing to drum up! But take my advice! Don’t always ignore the guy off the first page. It’s all about advertising and paying the search engines a hefty sum to move your site up the listings and into the top 100. A quick check of the top 20 should give you a flavour of what's on offer and what to look for, but have a good browse around, check out their displays and their costs before jumping in.

2.  Finally, you will need to 'host' your new website to get it out there on the internet.  Again, there are thousands of hosting companies looking for your business, so check them out.   Also check out if there are any hidden extras,  including residual costs for maintenance and support, and if there is a minimum contract period, is there a penalty if you leave and go to another provider.

Above all, read their terms and conditions before signing up.  If you don't like what you read, don't sign up.

A WORD TO THE WISE

OK, so you want to climb abroad the Internet Marketing gravy train, and make big bucks. And why not? There are thousands out there doing exactly that, some better than others, some making millions, others making a living, and still others falling at the first hurdle.

The Net is global, and it’s big business if you know how to tap in to it. But it’s dog eat dog out there, and more snakes in the grass than you can shake a stick at! There are Get Rich Quick scams pumping out onto the Net by the minute, all making extravagant claims, all promising instant wealth for doing diddly squat, and as they say, there’s a sucker born every minute.

These scammers prey on greed, or fear, or both, and they prey on the most vulnerable, those in dead end jobs, with mortgages they can’t afford, unpaid bills, credit card debts, the whole nine yards! But these scammers are clever, or most of them. They pitch their opt in fee at just the right level, nothing too pricey, somewhere between $19.97 and $49.97, just about affordable for everyone, and they sell their scams over and over, with flashy presentations and slick sales hype, to hundreds and thousands of suckers, day in and day out, and they laugh all the way to the bank. No back up, no support, no nothing!

So it’s time you took control of your own life, and instead of buy, buy, buy all the time, with nothing to show for it but further debt and shattered dreams, it’s time to sell, sell, sell! If they can do it, so can you!

Of course there’s no such thing in life as a free lunch! Believe me, if you’re offered something for nothing, odds on it’s a scam. After all, these scammers are looking to make a fast buck, and a freebie isn’t the route to instant wealth!

I’ve spent the best part of two years researching the Internet Market for these “Get Rich Quick” programs, I’ve even subscribed to some of them, and the vast majority are scams.

With my help, I will take you, step by step, from setting up your own website, creating your own product line, tapping into lucrative affiliate links, advertising, driving traffic to your website, and more, much more, to put you on the Road to Success.

Let’s face it, we all dream of working from home, being our own boss, being in control, and earning the sort of income to enjoy the good life and all the luxuries that come with it.

As I say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, so you’ll have to make affordable investments as you build your Internet business, but by following a few basic rules, these modest investments will repay you over and over again in profits as your business grows.

So what are you waiting for? Make today the first day of your new life! Start living the dream! You won’t regret it!