Would you like to rake in $10,466 per month without having your own products?
1. So What Is It?
It is called affiliate marketing. It, as a matter of fact, is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start your online business and rake in thousands of dollars every month.
2. What’s Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing simply to say is promoting other people’s product and in return you’ll get certain percentage of the merchant’s item if and only people who buy the merchant’s item buy through your link.
So we can say some sort of online multi level marketing.
Why I said that? Because many of these programs have 2-tier which means you can refer another affiliate below you. Whenever he or she makes sales you’ll get certain percentage of those sales.
3. How do I get started?
Well, first off, you have to identify which niche you want in? For example if you are a maniac golfer, then the chance you’re more likely to promote golf equipment rather than fishing equipment.
Then estimate the competition, go to Google and type in your appropriate term for example “beginner golf guide” and see how much sites on that subject already exist?
For me personally, I don’t care much about the competition if you have more crowded competition that means you’ll need to wait longer to make profits and so vice versa. It’s just that simple.
However, be sure to do something you really love, because in the end it will be life and death of your business.
4. Let’s Find The “Eager-To-Give You Money” Merchant
Now you should have roughly figure on which niche you want to in. The next thing we’re going to do is find potential merchant that could bring you the potential income you always dream of. To faster the process we are going to choose them from affiliate programs directory. Affiliate programs directory is site that already does the hard-work for us in selecting which one the potential merchant, so you just need to pinpoint which one you want to embrace.
Some of the best are: www.associateprograms.com www.5staraffiliatepr ograms.com
5. Skyscraper Website versus “Mini” Content Site
As the time writing, there’re 2 current opinions:
The first state in order to get money from affiliate program you have to build skyscraper site and fill it with hundreds of content while
The second state in order to get money from affiliate program you have to build multiple stream of mini site
Which one that works?
Both work, it is ultimately up to you which one you want to adopt for example of the first one in action you can see http://www.sage-hearts.com which has been running by Rosalind Gardner while the second one you can see http://www.dominatesearc hengine.com which has been running by Anik Singal (Actually, I haven’t ask their permission to cover their web site in this article but I bet they wouldn’t mind)
Both is very respected and highly acclaimed both affiliate marketer and internet marketer.
Here’re the pros and cons:
If you decide to build mini site then you’ll have to forget the possibility of getting traffic from generic search engine.
If you decide to build skyscraper content site then you’ll have to invest considerable amount of time and energy to build it.
Don’t re-invent the wheel there’s no point in doing so just follow what already works. Examine both of their sites carefully and see which part you can adapt to your business model. (But mark my words don’t copy them words-by-words!)
6. Ready to Drive Traffic?
Now you have proven business model at your disposal, it is the time to drive traffic to your site. I’d recommend first off you start by going to build reciprocal link campaign. Reciprocal link is the act of exchanging link between two sites in hope to send traffic to each other.
Let’s put it into action…
Once again type in your keywords on search engine, next click on each of the site you found, if you like this site then examine it carefully. Are they having something like “submit URL” or “add URL”?
If they have click on the link there should be simple self-explanatory instruction to exchange your link with that website but what if they didn’t have one? Just contact them through email or phone and ask if they’re willing to do reciprocal link with you.
What’s great about this method? Here’s what will happen…
Let’s say after doing reciprocal link for one month in the end of the month you get 30 links. Each one refer one people per day to your site, now you already have 30 people visit your site without you doing a thing. In one month you will get 900 people visit your site on completely auto pilot. That’s the beauty of reciprocal link-)
What happen if you can manage to get 200 links?
7. Final Note
Like any of other endeavors if you expect some results it means hard work and persistence. Don’t expect result in a week I tell you that wouldn’t happen but expect in a year or so. Trust me though it seems long far away at the beginning but in the end your perseverance will pay off many times.
After you’ve planned the design and layout of your website, you need to decide on how you’re actually going to build the website. This will usually take up a lot of time and hard work, but once you get your site up and running, it should be well worth the effort, considering the potential profits you may reap.
There’re basically 2 options: One is to build the website on your own, the other is to hire a web designer to build it for you. In this article, we will discuss the pros and cons of each option, and help you decide which option is the best for you.
Build The Website Yourself
If you have some programming skills and are well versed in HTML or PHP, you should definitely choose to build the website on your own. The benefits are:
You have the greatest flexibility in customizing your site. This means you get full control over exactly which components you want to include on your site and where you want to place them.
Since you’ll be testing a lot and restructuring your site frequently when your business is just starting out, you can manage all the changes yourself without needing to approach your web designer again each time you need to restructure your site.
You can maintain your site on your own. Each time you need to make small updates to the product catalogues or new promotions, you can make the updates on your own without difficulties.
You do not have to pay the hefty fees of hiring a web designer.
Thus, as you can see here, designing the website on your own is definitely better than hiring a web designer to build the site for you, if you’re willing to spend more time learning HTML and building the site.
If you’ve decided to go ahead and build the site on your own, you have two choices – to learn the HTML and construct the site from scratch, or to use a HTML editor.
Some resources for learning HTML can be found here:
http://www.pagetutor.com
http://www.htmlgoodies.com
http://www.davesite.com
If you plan to use a HTML editor, on the other hand, you may want to consider the following software:
Microsoft Frontpage. This software is very user-friendly – you can get your site up and running in no time! It comes together Microsoft Office, and is readily available on most computers.
Dreamweaver. (http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver) This software contains more functionality and is capable of designing more professional-looking websites. The price is steeper, however, and you may need more time to learn all the intricacies of the software. Currently, the latest version is Dreamweaver 8.
Of course, graphics and logo design is also integral to web construction. Apart from having a HTML editor to structure the website, you also need a graphics editing software to create your company logo, navigation buttons, or banners.
The graphics editing software I highly recommend is Adobe Photoshop. (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop) It has the capabilities of creating stunning images and effects, allowing you to create professional-looking websites. However, for someone who has no prior experience in graphics editing, it is more difficult to learn how to use the functions and tools.
Hiring A Web Designer
If you’re not IT-savvy, the best option is definitely to hire a web designer. Not only do you get professional web design services, you also save lots of time designing your site and learning how to design it in the first place. There’re actually many web designers out there willing to build your site for very competitive prices.
When selecting a web designer, it’s crucial that he has a good understanding of internet marketing, for the following reasons:
Your website must be entirely focused on getting your visitors to close sales. Your web designer must understand the tricks of optimizing your sales process and delivering a professional layout focused on user-friendliness. This is definitely superior to a flashy, attractive website with fanciful graphics, but does not deliver sales.
Some web designers well versed in internet marketing may even offer to write your salescopy for you when designing the site. Salescopy are the words on your site that draws the visitors in with enticing benefits and convince them to close sales. Such salescopy is instrumental in converting ordinary web visitors into paying customers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of optimizing your website such that it ranks high on the Search Engine Results Page for your selected keywords. Much of the SEO process is done when building the website, like the keyword density, META tags, title tags, header tags and image tags. Web designers with experience in SEO can also offer added value in this aspect.
To conclude, if you choose to hire a web designer, you need to ensure that the sales process on your website is optimized for the highest profitability. If you cannot afford the extra budget of hiring a web designer, it’s usually advantageous to design the site on your own.
Ray Yee is the founder of Dropshipperscentral, a website that provides a wealth of informative articles, guides and resources on everything you’ll need to know about setting up and marketing a Drop Ship Business. Click here for the Drop Ship Directory from http://www.dropshipperscentral.com
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