Newbie Affiliate Marketing

Archive for April, 2009

When it all comes down to it, making money online starts and ends with the market you decide to enter.

These days, all you hear is about “finding your niche” or you need to “find a profitable niche”. Well, I happen to agree as do all other successful internet marketers.

But how exactly do you find a niche to get started in?

First of all, let’s clarify what a niche is. A niche is like a sub section of a broad market. For example, a broad market might be dating, but the niche you might discover would be Over 40’s Dating in North America.

Do you see the difference? Clearly, the niche is targeted to a certain type of people within a wider market (which is Dating in this example).

So, your job is to find a specific set of people who are looking for information, products and services or that generally have a burning interest in that subject. Here’s your checklist before you go out and start looking for a profitable niche to get started with:

1.  Make sure they are buyers.

There’s no point targeting people who aren’t interested in buying anything related to that niche.

2. Make sure they are active online.

There needs to be forums, groups and other communities that congregate online so that you can target these people and get to know them properly.

The next thing to do is actually start your research. You can go to Dmoz.com and start looking around at categories listed there. Drill down to find small topics that you’d never think about. Then once you’ve found something of interest, go to eBay and Amazon and see if there are books/products/services that are selling which are related to this topic.

Then take some keywords that you think are related to the topic and do a search for related forums and groups. You can do that with a search like this:

“your keyword” + groups
“your keyword” + forums

Just replace “your keyword” with the actual keyword you have in mind, and then hit search in your favorite search engine.

Once you’ve established that there are products that are selling and people gathering actively online in forums and groups, you know that you are onto a winner.

The next steps are to find out what information people want and to start creating some simple articles on your own new domain which relates to this topic.

Then you can focus on monetizing the website and of course, the most important part is getting some good traffic to your site, which is the make or break part of the entire internet marketing process.

It’s also far too much to go into detail in this article, so make sure you check out this website to find out how to drive a lot of traffic to your site, plus more ideas on how to find even more wildly profitable niches and ways to shortcut your way to online success..

The reason so many people fail online so quickly is because they don’t get traffic, at least not enough of it.

The problem is, people end up spending money on advertising without making much (if any) profit back, or they simply spend too much time trying to get free traffic and burn themselves out.

Of course, once you’re successful you can pay someone to get you the traffic, but how do we get out of the never ending cycle of trying to get traffic without wasting time and money?

Well, I am going to start with the fundamental tasks that you should focus on first, then we’ll take it from there…

1. Directory submissions.

This can be achieved using automated submission software or can be done by hand. It’s a little dull but will result in lots of back links to your website for better visibility in the search engines. This is pay off as you add more content and back links to your site.

2. Social bookmarking.

This is about submitting links to the major Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Propeller and Reddit (to name just a few). The great thing is you can use software such as socialmarker.com to make the process far easier. You can also buy inexpensive software to automate the whole process.

The benefit of social bookmarking your content is so that you gain back links from these authority sites (which is essential for being found in the search engines) but also, if you content is worthwhile and interesting, you increase the chances of your submission being passed around other readers really quickly, which can of course result in a lot of traffic to your website.

3. Back links.

Back links are the backbone of getting your pages listed high in the search engines. The more people link to your site naturally (i.e. without being paid or listing your site in some sort of link farm where the site linking to you is junk), then the better your rankings will be in the search engines. Not to mention the direct traffic that will come from the actual links from other sites too.

4. Collaboration.

Most people want to be the “one person wonder” or the sole entrepreneur in their business, which is fine. However, don’t underestimate the sheer power of teaming up with other well established websites directly and offering your content, help or other services in exchange for some exposure to your own website.

The classic “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” effect comes into play here and trust me, it works like a charm providing you genuinely approach people to help them first.

There are of course, many other ways to start getting traffic to your site such as writing articles like this one, or getting involved with many of the Web 2.0 properties out there online today. The more social you become with your website at other people’s parties, the more people will come to your party when you come to tell them about it…just like real life isn’t it?

I’ve only scratched the surface of getting heavy volumes of traffic to your website. If you’d like to know more about using the new wave of traffic inducing methods to really get your business off the ground, then check this out: Free Web Traffic

With the ever growing popularity of social media, internet marketers now have a massive tool box to grow their free online business. These sites allow webmasters to reach a lot of people on the internet in a very efficient manner. Web 2.0 platforms now include blogs, video and audio multimedia like podcasts, social bookmarking and tagging sites. This post will outline a strategy to attract multiple visitors for your web site business. The following Web 2.0 sites will be used:

video.yahoo.com
Squidoo.com
Technorati.com
Google Notebook
Blogger.com
MyBlogLog

Although we will only review the above social media platforms, keep in mind that there are thousands of Web 2.0 sites. It is strongly recommended that as you use this strategy to promote additional sites, change which sites you use and even add more.

One of the biggest challenges with this Social Media strategy is the time it takes to create accounts at each of the platforms. This initialization phase is critical because each account you create must appear to be valid and authentic. Remember, you’re trying to establish expertise while you promote your websites. You shouldn’t spam. This process takes time, but it works. As you promote your sites, you’ll find that it gets easier as you learn to navigate each Web 2.0 platform.

The strategy with Web 2.0 is to market your free online business within the niche specific social community. Be careful not to spam these sites, otherwise your efforts will be wasted. If you can become an accepted member of the “social network” then as you build your reputation, you may be considered an expert, which helps you grow your home internet based business opportunity.

To effectively make this strategy work, you’ll need some quality pages on your website or blog that you will promote. I recommend the following 3 quality pages.

1) – “Link Bait” Page – this is a unique page on your website that should be a great resource for visitors. The content of this link bait page is informative and reinforces your site’s expertise. The link bait page should help to initially drive traffic to your free online business. Promote one of the keywords identified in your market research.
2) Index Page – very important to promote a high traffic “Power Keyword” phrase that you identified in your niche research.
3) PreSales or Sales Page(s) – These pages will contain your second, third and fourth level keywords. You may have heard of these keywords being referred to as “long tail.” If you’ve done your promotion the correct way, people who land on this page will be buyers.

Once you have posted these 3 pages, promote them using the following Web 2.0 strategy.

First, you’ll have to develop new articles to submit on these Social Media platforms for your target market. Your social media marketing plan must include quality content throughout the network of sites to which you post. I recommend developing at least 10 unique 400+ word articles. Much like SEO for your blog or website, you should optimize your site for social media. Remember that these Web 2.0 sites are crawled frequently by search engines. There’s a good chance your content on these pages will be initially be visited more often than the blog or website that you’re promoting. As you develop your unique content, always include links and RSS to your website. In some steps you will include links and RSS to some of the social media sites with which you have previously submitted content. Instead of simply promoting your home, main or index page, you should promote three different pages on your site and you should also promote your video on YouTube and your Squiddo pages. The reason you want to promote
these Web 2.0 sites, in addition to your website, is that these sites see more traffic and it may be easier to rank on one of the search engines for a target keyword.

Create A Short Video to promote your Link Bait Page and post it on video.yahoo.com. This video that relates or reviews the content of your link bait page. Keep the video to 2 – 3 minutes. Video sites are highly visited. People use video sites as “how to” sites. A short video can give viewers a quick “taste” of the resources available on your website. Your video could be a slide show where you speak of about main points on your resource page. Just remember, don’t make your video too long.

With all the written content you submit, make certain that you have the correct links. Also, it’s smart to ensure you include your links in the top portion of the content, before the fold. This ensures that when visitors look at your page with their browser and before they scroll down at all, the most important content, including the links that they see are above the fold.

Create A New Account At Squidoo.com – add different modules to your lens. Take your time when you build your lense. You’ll see that you can break up your content and really make it unique. You can even add video from one of the sites above where your video is hosted. Include on the Squidoo page the RSS feed from either your gather.com or hubpages page (discussed below) using the RSS module

Create a Blog At Blogger.com – make a couple of unique posts with a keyword link to your link bait page. Also include RSS from your website to ensure more quality content. If you have internet home business opportunity (seo web services), you can easily add more content.

Create An Account At MyBlogLog – If the site you are promoting is your own blog then you can submit it here. If not, then submit your Blogger.com, Wordpress.com and Yahoo blogs. I recommend you include the MyBlogLog code on your blog to allow for others who are familiar with this service to further explore the blogs you submit to this service. As with other social media sites and platforms, you’re trying to establish your expertise within a niche. If your content is good, your network or list will be curious to explore and recommend to others the links on your blogs.

Claim Your blog home page At Technorati.com – You should also claim your Blogger.com, WordPress.com blogs plus, promote your squiddo lense and hubpages post. This helps generate traffic to any of the sites where you are promoting yourself.

Create An Account With Google Notebook – Do NOT use your main Google account when you set up this account. Instead, create a new account. You’ll want to submit a full version of your content. I also recommend that you include an image of the product or niche you are promoting.

You can further increase your website traffic and enhance your home internet based business opportunity by submitting links to many more Web 2.0 sites like Ma.gnolia, Bibsonomy and Del.icio.us. In order to offer your visitors outstanding resources, add RSS from other niche specific resources like Business Week, Travelocity or a healthy and fitness website. Of course, which RSS you include depends on your niche.

Though it takes some work, Web 2.0 sites are a great way to “kick start” your internet marketing online business. In order for your plan to really work, you must make a sincere effort to interact with your network. Social media is like a co-op. You’ll get what you put in to it and possibly more if you’re content and interaction are strong.

You can click the link to get more helpful strategies to grow your internet home business opportunity.

Amid the tough economic times, everyone is looking for an extra stream of income. Opportunities are everywhere during difficult periods and the internet is a haven for cash cow seekers.

On the internet, a popular way to earn money is through affiliate networks. There are programs which will pay you for convincing people to purchase goods or services. There are also networks that will compensate for clicks made on specific advertisement. What is best of all these are the cost per action networks that pays you for every action completed by a consumer.

No required sales. You don’t have to push a product or service real hard to anyone to make any money. CPA or cost per action will give you the profit when you convince people to give bits of information like their zip code or email address.

The information collected by the advertisers are crucial for the long term goals of their companies.

CPA Ads are Consumer Magnets. What can you say about free gifts like vouchers, discount cards, or freebie items? No one can resist them in exchange for some information about you. Consumers take down their guards when they see these things online.

The CPA programs attract people and all you have to do is show consumers where these CPA programs are online.

Easy Money. No one will deny that CPA profits are quite more lucrative than most sales commissions online. Since visitors really do not have to spend their money to buy, they are easier to convince to put in their information. In effect, profits are sent to your bank account.

Big Businesses use CPA Networks. CPA profits are cash cows of a lot of people because big businesses know that it is the in thing of online money making. Aside from these, big advertisers know that CPA networks have very strict rules in accepting affiliates. Best of both worlds— their businesses protected and you take home a chunk of their earnings.

No websites needed. Websites are not a requirement to gain CPA profits. Most of the CPA networks provide excellent landing pages. You can use social networking or email campaigns to bring traffic to these landing pages and the system will be working for you.