Friday, June 13, 2008

Beginner Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Where do you start? The first step is to learn as much as you can. Acquiring a good knowledge base before you take the leap is vital to whether you succeed. Beginner affiliates can end up wasting a lot of time, energy and money if they aren’t careful and rush things. All though there are many important decisions to make, but one of the most crucial steps which must be done methodically and with care is marketing.

Since there are so many affiliate products available, the beginner affiliate marketer should base their choice on a niche which promises to be profitable but which also has minimum competition. Don’t waste your time on saturated markets or niches because this will greatly reduce your chances at making money.

Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Chose your products that relate to markets or micro niches that you want to tap into. Be very selective in the products you chose. You want to use products to target very specific markets. The products have to chosen that satisfy a need or provide a solution for your targeted audience. By taking this approach, you will attract very interested and high quality traffic to your site. The affiliate products you select must be very consistent with your theme or niche. If you need help finding a niche try Niche Inspector or MicroNiche Finder.

In choosing affiliate products you want to market, the beginner affiliate must be very careful in researching the quality and usefulness of the product you are marketing. Imagine how devastating it can be considering all the time and energy you spend in developing and nurturing you affiliate web site when the product you are promoting turns to be a piece of garbage. If possible you are best advised to sell products that you have tried yourself or can research quality reviews about the product you want to promote.

Don’t know where to look for affiliate products? 3 good places to start are www.ClickBank.com , www.cj.com (Commission Junction), and www.Paydotcom.com. Don’t forget Amazon.com and Ebay as other sources of potential products. There are many other out there as well. Many quality companies also offer affiliate programs that will tailor your niche very well, but check them out first before you join any affiliate program.

To promote your site, you always offer something that is free. Whether it be a newsletter, articles, and e-books there is an abundance of stuff that you offer for free. Links to other sites that offer free material will give back links. Again, just remember that the free offer should relate to your theme or the premise of your niche or micro niche. Keep it very consistent.

Articles are a great way to promote your site and keep it fresh. Good quality content will provide useful and valuable information to first time visitors seeking answers to problems. By adding fresh content consistently, you will be gaining repeat visitors and will find that the headings of your topics will attract a lot more visitors. Google loves content. If you need help to create content try Article Generator.

Site maintenance is also important. One bad link can cost you a lot of sales and can sour visitors fairly quickly. Maintenance might appear tedious but it is something you should not ignore.

Use a quality web host as a platform for your site. Don’t waste your time using free web hosts. Free or cheap costing web hosts often break down or annoy your visitors with pop up ads completely unrelated your site. Since they are often used by spammers, Google and the other big search engines literally ignore. All your effort will largely be wasted. My favourite is Sitesell.com

Network as much as you can through blogs and other social media such as Digg It, Facebook, Technocrati and others to help spread the word about yourself and make your site known to thousands of potential readers.

Learn as you go. Some things work well and others won’t. Each affiliate site you set will be different. What works well on one of your sites may not work as well on other sites. Mix and match your marketing programs. If one marketing strategy doesn’t work, stop wasting your time and move on to something else.

There’s no one definitive answer to what is guaranteed to work. Most sites take from at least six months to a year before they reach their optimum market potential so be patient, don’t get frustrated and have fun with it along the way. Here’s to your success!

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