Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Sales – Get Your Feet Wet Making Money On the Internet
An easy way to get your feet wet making money on the Internet, is to sign up as an affiliate and sell other people’s products. Called Affiliate Marketing, this is great way to use your website, regardless of its size, to make money. Simply because a site is small or personal and may not have much traffic yet, doesn’t mean it can't make money online.
So, what is affiliate marketing? It is a marketing practice whereby a business will reward one (or more) affiliates for bringing to the business’ website potential customers, actual sales or referring others to the site. This usually happens through the affiliate marketing the products of the business to their list.
Let’s say, you’ve decided that you want to try your hand at affiliate marketing. Now what?
• First, you need to identify a problem that a number of people have, for instance training the dog.
• Then you’ll have to figure out the solution to that problem either by creating a product yourself or promoting an established product (a product that belongs to someone who also has an affiliate program).
• Next, you’ll need to search affiliate networks such as Clickbank, Amazon or Commission Junction for products that solve the problem and are amongst those you can promote.
• Then you’ll need to build a website or blog and sign up to be an affiliate of the products.
• Now you start to market your chosen products by reviewing the item, telling your list about it, talking to anyone who will listen and sending them to the product’s website or whatever is necessary to earn commissions.
• Now comes the admin stuff – analyse your efforts: evaluate what works and what doesn’t, scale up the marketing efforts that work and start collecting commissions.
This sounds easy and it is, but so you don’t spend lots of time reinventing the wheel, learn what it really takes. Go onto online marketing forums or affiliate forums or take online affiliate marketing courses. You need to know about which products to pick, which are selling the best right now, which are the most likely trends for future sales, how to track your progress, how to market products or services, which affiliate programs to avoid, etc., etc.
Below are some links for information, eCourses, and help.
Affiliates Directory Forum
Brad Larned's Affiliate Talk Forum
Affiliates4U Forum
ClickBank Success Forum
Allan Gardyne's Associate Programs Forum
Here is our Clickbank page so that you can get started. If you need a Wordpress site and half a dozen articles and some affiliate links we would be happy to build you one. The cost would be around $250 (£170) and would be ready for you in about 2-3 days complete with website optimization. You would need to register a domain name first. See domain name registration page.
There are links added to some affiliate sites below to help you get started in the affiliate marketing arena.
Promote Your Online Store With Shareasale
Don't be discouraged if your first foray into affiliate marketing isn't terribly successful. Consider what you went though to find a career or a partner and you'll understand that not every product will sell well and not every bit of advice is going to be the best piece of advice you’ll ever get about how to make money online. Marketing online is often a process of trial and error, but more than that, it can be a steep learning curve.
But be smart and take the opportunities to learn about the process from those who know more than you do. There are many people out there who are more than willing to help. There are, of course, those who will approach the matter as though it requires a “secret recipe”, but in reality, nearly anyone can sell affiliate products online. It's simply a matter of finding the right combination of products, businesses selling those products, with affiliate schemes and targeting the people who want that solution.
Affiliate Marketing - Make Money Online - Affiliate Sales