Finding Affiliate Programs

There are three basic methods for locating good affiliate programs…

1. Conduct searches based on a particular niche market.

2. Sign up to use the services of an affiliate marketing network.

3. Search through the categories of affiliate program directories.

The first option will require a considerable amount of time, but it’s definitely worth the effort. Assuming, of course, you’ve completed all the necessary preliminary work which would guarantee a positive outcome.

That would include things like determining your exact target audience, choosing specific and highly relevant keywords, and establishing what criteria would constitute a fair and equitable affiliate program.

The search itself would be conducted in two stages…

The first stage would involve the keywords. You would first need to select a list of search phrases that are highly relevant to the product. Then you would conduct searches using each of those keywords. This will lead you to niche markets and their products.

The second stage would involve any given keyword plus the word affiliate. For example, “dog training affiliate” or “affiliate dog training“. What this will generally turn up is either an affiliate program for products that are associated with that particular keyword or a content site that is already an affiliate.

Either way, it allows for further action with regard to becoming an affiliate for a specific keyword or product niche.

With the second option, you simply open the main account with the affiliate network which in turn entitles you to promote any of the products that are included in their listings.

Although these affiliate networks might not always be as capable of giving you exact matches to what you’re looking for, they can be incredible time savers.

Affiliate marketing websites like Commission Junction ( http://www.cj.com ) and Click Bank ( http://www.ritarecommend.com/cbsignup) make it extremely easy to locate good affiliate programs. And generally, for products and services that are highly compatible with the niche or target audience, you’ll be reaching.

Be aware, however, that only Commission Junction offers all ranges of products, services, and programs - both digital and tangible.

ClickBank, on the other hand, only handles digital products such as ebooks and software programs. If it can’t be downloaded or delivered electronically, you won’t find it in the ClickBank Marketplace ( http://www.ritarecommend.com/cbsignup ).

The third option allows you to search for affiliate programs by category, just like you can with networks such as Commission Junction and ClickBank. The only difference is, you’ll be signing up for any of the programs you choose independently (through the product owner‘s affiliate process). All the directory does is provide a convenient method for locating affiliate programs. The rest is up to you.

Here are several popular affiliate directories…

Associate Programs

http://www.associateprograms.com

Affiliate Match

http://www.affiliatematch.com

Affiliates Directory

http://www.affiliatesdirectory.com

Affiliate Programs Directory

http://www.affiliate-programs-directory.com

If you need more resources, simply conduct a search using the term “affiliate program directory”.

Affiliate Marketing In’s and Out’s.......How To Choose The Right Products

When you consider all the products and programs that are capable of generating affiliate income, it can be mighty difficult choosing which ones have the most potential.

In most instances, you won’t know for certain until you actually start promoting any given product. But there are factors that can help diminish the risk of choosing products that have little or no potential.

1. First and foremost, you need to establish whether or not there’s even a viable demand for a product. Aside from determining if people want the product, you have to find out what type of people would be interested and if you can easily reach that target audience.

2. How good is the product sales page? If it doesn’t look as though it can convert visitors into buyers, you have to decide how much work it will take on your part to override that particular drawback. Then you need to decide if it’s worth the extra effort you’ll invest.

Overall, you have to decide whether the website will help or hinder your ability to make sales. Go with your instincts. If you don’t feel comfortable with the look, the sales copy, or the order process, chances are the average viewer won’t either.

3. Can you make enough profit by promoting the product? Some owners reward their affiliates by giving them generous commissions while others merely offer a very small percentage. For the most part, those differences are associated with two very specific categories… digital and physical products.

For example, you can usually make at least 50% commission selling ebooks and software products. With physical items such as vitamins, print books, and pet products, an affiliate commission can be relatively low (on average, somewhere between 5% and 10%).

Although the percentage is important, it also depends on the price of the product. If you’re selling an exercise machine that retails for $1800, even a minimal 10% commission will gain you $180 for each sale that you make.

On the other hand, if you’re an affiliate for Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com ), you’ll be dealing with items that most often carry a very low sales price. In order to gain any substantial level of income, you’ll need to move an incredibly large volume of products.

4. The quality of the product is extremely important. If you yourself don’t feel confident about how good it is or how well it performs, it’s going to be difficult for you to launch a successful promotional campaign, much less maintain it over an extended period of time.

5. You need to have the ability to track and monitor everything related to your affiliate activities. That would include things like the number of visitors you send to each sales page, how many of them actually made a purchase, and running sales and refund statistics.

Make certain that you can do that, either through the program or using your own independent tracking device. This will keep you abreast of each product’s performance, allowing you to determine which campaigns need to be tweaked, increased, or dropped altogether.

In's And Out's of Affiliate Marketing

IntroductionTo Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has always been one of the most popular methods of making money.

For anyone who is just starting out, there’s no easier or faster method of generating income. For anyone who already operates their own online business, selling other people’s products can create a substantial boost to the income they’re already receiving.

The primary appeal comes from the fact that the only task the affiliate has to perform is promoted whatever product or service they believe has substantial sales potential. The owner of the product or service does everything else.

In theory, you don’t even need a website in order to make money as an affiliate. You can simply promote your assigned affiliate link and then send prospective buyers to the owner’s sales page.

Of course, the obvious drawback is that almost every other affiliate will be doing the exact same thing. If all you’re doing is directing targeted traffic through your affiliate sales link, you’ll be competing on an equal level with countless other people who are promoting the same product.

The only way to break out of the pack is to market and promote the affiliate product in a more intelligent and aggressive manner. Those who are referred to as “super” affiliates, make a great deal of money selling other people’s products. That’s because they market and promote them in the same way they would their own products.

Even though there’s a sales page associated with each of the affiliate products, they create a page on their own website. The purpose of that page is to pre-sell the item. In other words, they get the prospect primed and ready to purchase prior to sending them to the owner’s sales site.

They also use pay per click advertising to gain targeted prospects. They know that in order to make money, they have to spend money. Of course, most of them have become masters of pay per click. They know exactly what works, exactly how much to bid, and exactly how to attract the right prospects.

And because they’ve learned how to play the game so well, they most often generate a great deal more money than if they had simply used free advertising methods. But pay per click and using their own website to promote products are only two of the methods they use. Others include…

·Writing product reviews and personal endorsements, recommendations, and testimonials.

·Operating niche blogs that are directly associated with the products they’re promoting.

·Writing and distributing articles that contain information that’s related to individual products (which includes their affiliate link).

·Offering a special bonus that is only available if the product is purchased through the affiliate’s own sales link.

·Giving away free tips and information, either on their website or distributed through ebooks or autoresponder messages.

·Capturing prospects names and email addresses for future contact and ongoing follow-up.

·Using their own marketing and promotional materials.

Although each of those methods is both valuable and effective, the last one is extremely important…While every other affiliate is simply copying and pasting solo ads that the owner of the product has made available, the super affiliate is developing their own unique and original sales content.

Instead of delivering the same old message every other affiliate is handing out, they can put their own personal spin on it. That means they can make the offer seem more valuable, more appealing, and more original. And of course, they will ultimately generate more sales.

But that’s not all they do…

They also ensure their success by making certain they’re off to the right start. Rather than jump on every program, product, and service that comes their way, they carefully pick and choose ones they’re confident can be marketed and promoted effectively.

Although a certain degree of instinct and past experience works well in that regard, there are basic factors which will help anyone choose the best products. Things like…

·determining the level of interest and demand

·evaluating whether or not the sales page is capable of converting the prospects you send there into buyers

·verifying the overall quality and value of the product

·having sufficient information about the product to market it effectively

Super affiliates don’t gain their status overnight. They work hard at what they do and put in whatever time and effort is necessary in order to outsell everyone else in their affiliate arena. And the ultimate payoff? A substantial income that is generated over and over again, month after month and year after year, for as long as they wish to continue marketing and promoting affiliate products.

Getting Something Valuable For Free

Summary

The best thing about free traffic is that you don’t have to worry about failing. After all, the worst thing that can happen is that you don’t get any traffic and you’ve wasted some time.

But for most of the examples mentioned above, you will still have your E-products with you!

You still have your articles, blog posts, E-books that you can reuse for another website!

Here is a recap of what we’ve learnt:

• Viral marketing is one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic. Make sure you find the right ‘carrier’!

• How to make use of fire sales and generate lots of paid traffic to your websites.

• How to become a contributor to high traffic blogs and increase your credibility, exposure and traffic!

• How to use one simple article and drive traffic from hundreds of article directories online

• How to make use of content membership sites by submitting your E-product and leveraging on resellers everywhere to promote your book for you!

• How to drive traffic from forums using signatures.

Make sure you take action and get started immediately!

To Your Success!

Flooding Your Site With Forum Traffic

Your Signature

A signature on the forum is something like a P.S. at the bottom of a forum post and it used as an advertisement for any website you are promoting.

The signature is automatically inserted into some emails but it works very well in high traffic forums as well.

This is one of the best sources for free traffic that you can utilize. Here’s how:

Write a one-liner description about yourself and place the URL of your site right beneath it.

e.g. Jimmy Sloth – Internet marketer and free traffic expert.

http://www.jimmyslothmarketingtips.com

 The Right Niche

One of the best ways to search for the right niche is to do a simple search on Google.

Find the niche you are targeting and enter the keyword followed by the word ‘forum’.

(For example: if you are looking for visitors to check out your cooking website, do a search for the word cooking forum).

You will see a list of forums that you can tap into. Find the topic that everyone is talking about or asking a lot of questions.

These people are your gold mine! The reason why they keep asking these questions is because answers have yet to surface and this will be your chance to show them what your website has to offer!

Sign up as a forum member and start contributing as a regular. After awhile people will start noticing you and they will start replying to your messages. Some of them will click on your link and it will lead them to your website.

Certain forums also allow forum members to post their offers on the forum as well.

Content Membership Contribution

Another Source Of Massive Traffic

If you have your very own E-product, you can easily submit your product to a high-traffic membership site that provides quality content.

The concept is also similar to blog and article contributors except that it takes it up a notch to E-book creation.

The nature of these content membership sites requires new content to be added in from time to time.

What better way to get your own product in front of the eyes of thousands of resellers and Internet marketers who can’t wait to sell YOUR product for their own profits (assuming that your product has resell rights to it of course).

 The Members Are Your Resellers

If your E-product has master resell rights or unrestricted private label rights, you can be sure that your products will be all over the Internet in no time.

Resellers are always looking for products with a complete sales letter to it. If you have drafted out a sales letter that converts well, you can be sure that a lot of resellers will ‘cut-and-paste’ your sales letter and your E-book and sell it to their mailing list.

The same goes for certain PLR products as well.

The most important thing for you to remember is this – your books must constantly lead the readers to your websites.

Your links must be placed strategically in the E-books and as your E-books are duplicated all over the Internet, you can be sure to drive plenty of new visitors to your website – even if they are not in your circle of influence!

Article Directories

Find A Relevant Topic

Have you read the newspaper only to get the feeling that the very article that you are reading is already published all over the Internet for a long time?

Those articles are probably taken from article directories from the Internet, and yet it is a viable source for information on any niche!

If you want to drive tons of traffic to your website using a free or low cost way, then article directory submissions are the to go!

Why article marketing is so lucrative is because of the following reasons:

• Famous article directories have LOTS of targeted traffic. Thousands of people go to article directories to source for content (e.g. for your local newspaper).

• Similar to high traffic blogs, article directories also allow you to brand yourself as an expert.

• Some article directories rank high on the search engines – it allows your author bio to rank high on the SERP (search engine result page) and it even passes the PR (page rank) juice to your websites.

Write an article about product or something related to your website. (If you can’t write, don’t worry… you can pay someone as low as $5 to get a quality article written for you).

Once your article is complete, do a search on Google for the search term – “article directory”.

You will find a list of article directories.

Choose one of them and register as an author or an article writer and contribute your article to the directory. It might take a few days or even a week to get an article approved, so make sure you are patient enough to wait.

Once your article is approved, it will remain on the ‘front page’ of that particular niche for a couple of days before it is ‘pushed down’ by newer article submissions.

                   Rinse And Repeat

One of the advantages of article directory submissions is that you can take the same article and author bio and re-use them over and over again.

What you can do is to ‘cut-and-paste’ the article and post the article to a list of article directories (when in doubt – use Google).

Occasionally, you may find the process too tedious; you can outsource it to someone else for a low price of $27-37 dollars to submit that article for you to a few hundred directories.

If your article is well written, employing this outsourcing method will send a HUGE surge of traffic to your website so you must be prepared. This will not last forever because the articles do not remain on the top page all the time.

Make sure that you are not too ‘sales pitchy’ about your product or your website because some article directories are particular about the quality of the articles. They are after all, looking for quality content, not another sales letter.

Blog Barrage

Find A High Traffic Blog

How does one maximize from a high traffic blog when that blog doesn’t belong to you or when your own blog has little traffic to begin with? How does one cope when he is new to Internet marketing?

Well, one of the fastest ways to get started out is to search for blogs that are constantly looking for content from contributors like the blog on the previous page.

Contribute Relevant Content

The Marketing Blog Zine talks about Internet marketing and making money online. It provides targeted traffic for anyone who wants to learn about Internet marketing.

If you want to divert traffic from blogs like these, what you can do is to contribute your own blog posts as a contributor.

Talk about topics that are relevant to their blog as well as your own. This is a good way to capture the reader’s attention.

You will reap the following benefits:

• You get to tap into their traffic and drive traffic to your website.

• You get to build your credibility online because you get to leverage on their ‘authority’.

• The blog post remains there for a certain period of time ensuring that you will get maximum exposure

Contribute Relevant Content

As mentioned above regarding credibility, there is one section that you must take note of because it is really valuable.

Beneath every article that you contribute, there is a section called the author’s bio. This bio books allows you to ‘sell’ yourself and brand yourself as an expert in whatever niche that you are in.

A sample bio looks something like this: