Why I Love Affiliate Marketing - Part 1
NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.
Why I Love Affiliate Marketing - Part 1
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliate Payraise”
Do you find yourself “starting” to create your own product to sell online, but never finishing” it?
One of the things I love about affiliate marketing is –
** You don’t need to create your own products **
Many people find the idea of creating their own products to be an overwhelming and even paralyzing task.
- I don’t have any good ideas!
- I’m not a writer!
- There’s too much competition!
- I don’t know how to set everything up!
- I can’t figure out where to start!
- It’s too hard!
These are just a few of the valid reasons many people give when it comes to not creating their own products to sell. I’m sure with a few minutes of brainstorming, we could come
up with a list of many more.
With affiliate marketing, you don’t need your own products. You simply promote someone else’s already proven successful offer for a commission.
And, truth be told, even if you ARE a writer and you DO have lots of ideas and you CAN figure it all out…
** Nobody wants to create new products all the time **
As good as you may be, you don’t know everything! Why try to create a product on every topic imaginable in your market when you can earn just as much money by simply
promoting someone else’s really good offer as one of your profit streams?
That’s why I love affiliate marketing.
You don’t need to create your own products.
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Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliate Payraise”, teaching you a whopping 27 ways to increase your affiliate commissions! Tired of “tiny” commission checks? Grab your copy today at… http://freeinfo-zone.com/affpay/
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That Was The Week That Was II
OK, that’s better! Now where were we?
Oh yeah! I was talking about stolen commissions and affiliates in the first half of this post.
Do you like sneaky? I like sneaky! Not black hat or anything nasty, just sneaky.
I’m referring to the use of iframes to link to other peoples products. Using iframes totally hides where the link has come from. It does way more than just that though.
With an iframe you basically display the target site within your page this means that you can put your own page title with keywords of course. Talking of keywords you can also put your own keywords into the page and therefore go after your own ranking in the SERPs.
See why I say this is way more than just simple cloaking. There’s no way you could hope to rank for a normal cloaked link and with an iframe no one would even guess that it was an affiliate link.
I’m now going to contradict myself and tell you about another free service for cloaking your links! Why would I do that when I’ve just pointed you to a better way?
Well, this one has a couple of useful advantages that don’t relate to affiliate type links. It’s similar to the old tinyurl in that it shortens your links. It’s also reputed to help with backlinks, never a bad thing.
Where I use it mostly is in emails to my list and in Twitter posts. You need to keep things short in Twitter.
So what is it? It’s a new service from Jonathan Leger. How does he keep coming up with stuff? Offto.net is his latest brainchild. Here’s an example of a link http://offto.net/rufolx/ which just happens to take you to offto.net to find out more, all totally free!
Just drifting off subject for a minute with the mention of Twitter. I have been on Twitter for a while but I’m still not sure that I get it!
I’ve read a few books. listened to a few people so I guess I’ve covered it all but I still don’t quite get it. It seems a bit like a free for all. Like the traffic exchanges where you have to look at everyone else’s links and everyone else looks at your links and you hope someone clicks on them.
Everyone’s putting links in Twitter with the same hope. Apart from a few people with big reputations and big lists already I don’t think it happens. Still, I suppose, you’ve got to be in it!
On the subject of getting ranked in the SERPs, it’s a well known fact that Wordpress blogs get ranked a lot easier than normal sites, Google likes ‘em.
It therefore makes sense to use Wordpress to create your sites instead of standard HTML. I’ve been doing this for a while with some good results but in keeping with not wanting to re-invent the wheel and tell you how I do it, last week I found a really handy little guide to doing just that. Caroline Middlebrook has produced this free guide and you can get it from her site at http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/.
While we’re on Wordpress I just found a salespage theme for it. It’s template driven and you can create a very professional looking salespage in minutes at $5 it’s cheap as chips.
Without ANY knowledge of HTML you can quickly get one of the 8 styles of the salesletter on your blog. The theme is done very professionally and has lots of nice, neat design elements. You can see it here: http://offto.net/09jiak
Well, this half of the post has gone on a bit as well! I’m sure I’ve given you lots to look at and be going on with. I’ve got a few more but I’ll leave those for next time.
If you have any useful tips or tools you found I’d be glad to hear about them so feel free to post a comment. It’ll get you a backlink and every little helps.
That Was The Week That Was
Wow, what a week I had last week!
I can’t say that it was the most productive ever but it came pretty close. What it was exceptionally good for was the discovery of tons of free tools that are going to take my business to the next level. And, I want to share them with you! So, grab a drink and sit back there’s quite a bit.
First up. We’re all aware that one of the most critical factors in getting you’re site ranked is backlinks. Generally it’s not easy. It needs you to contact, basically, your competitors in your market and request that they link to you’re site. Very time consuming and frustrating ‘cos you’ll not get replies and you’ll get knock backs.
You can join a service like Linkvana which is excellent but expensive, $147 a month I believe.
What if you could get Linkvana for free? Well, you can’t but you can get something which is practically the same, for free. I’ve never used Linkvana so I can’t say this is identical but I’m told it’s very similar.
The Free Traffic System. Totally free, no hidden costs, no OTOs. It works like an article directory except that your articles are posted on relevant co-operating blogs with your links in your keyword anchor text. There are two links per article and this can get you up to 60 backlinks for each article and no limit on how many articles you submit. Pretty cool, huh?
There’s a lot more to it than that but that gives you the basic idea. Go here and get into it!
Next. Even if you are not into article marketing and you should be, we all have to produce content. Now the duplicate content debate will go on forever, whichever side of it you’re on it can’t hurt to vary your content. I have two tools that will help you with this one free and I’m afraid the other one will cost you a bit, not a lot.
To easily compare content there is a fantastic free tool - Dupefree Pro - I can’t believe this is free, it’s a very classy piece of software.
It’s all for free, get it here Dupefree Pro.com.
Now here’s the one you are going to want to get your wallet out for. Magic Article Re-Writer. As the name suggests it helps you re-write articles, duh! I know, most of them are crap and I’ve shied away from them in the past also, despite having paid over $100 in some cases. I refunded them. One would have been good but it would have taken about a year before it was useful as you had to build your own thesaurus over time!
This one you can use straight out of the box and intelligently re-write/spin content in minutes, up to a 1000 copies! I’m not sure about that, it could be more but who cares, would you want that many copies? It produces good English no more crappy grammar.
I said I was busy last week, this piece of software is one of the reasons, I’ve been re-writing content and spinning articles like crazy. It really is brilliant and not expensive.
There’s the usual money back guarantee so there’s no risk. Seriously, you have to try it, - Magic Article Re-Writer.
This post is going on a bit and I’ve still got more, quite a bit in fact, so I’m going to take a break, grab a coffee, go to the can, too much information? OK, delete that bit. I’ll be back a bit later and carry on in the next post.
You will not want to miss it. If you operate as an affiliate the next tool will knock your socks off! Ever had commissions stolen? Yeah sure, you’ve heard of cloakers etc. but not like this. This one can also help your ranking in the search engines!
Tune in later, you won’t be disappointed!
Mysterious Ways?
A mate of mine sent me these two stories in an email. They may be doing the rounds but I found them so………I don’t really know what I found them, they go beyond interesting, I just thought I’d share them.
Story Number One
Many years ago, Al Capone virtually owned Chicago. Capone wasn’t famous for anything heroic. He was notorious for enmeshing the windy city in everything from bootlegged booze and prostitution to murder.
Capone had a lawyer nicknamed ‘Easy Eddie.’ He was Capone’s lawyer for a good reason. Eddie was very good! In fact, Eddie’s skill at legal manoeuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time.
To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well. Not only was the money big, but also, Eddie got special dividends. For instance, he and his family occupied a fenced-in mansion with live-in help and all of the conveniences of the day. The estate was so large that it filled an entire Chicago City block.
Eddie lived the high life of the Chicago mob and gave little consideration to the atrocity that went on around him.
Eddie did have one soft spot, however.. He had a son that he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had clothes, cars, and a good education. Nothing was withheld. Price was no object. And, despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach him right from wrong.
Eddie wanted his son to be a better man than he was. Yet, with all his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn’t give his son; he couldn’t pass on a good name or a good example. One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision. Easy Eddie wanted to rectify wrongs he had done.
He decided he would go to the authorities and tell the truth about Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, clean up his tarnished name, and offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this, he would have to testify against The Mob, and he knew that the cost would be great… So, he testified.
Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago Street.
But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay.
Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem clipped from a magazine.
The poem read:
‘The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time.
For the clock may soon be still.’
Story Number Two
World War II produced many heroes. One such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare.
He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific.
One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission.
After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank.
He would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship. His flight leader told him to return to the carrier.
Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet. As he was returning to the mother ship he saw something that turned his blood cold: a squadron of Japanese aircraft was speeding its way toward the American fleet.
The American fighters were gone on a sortie, and the fleet was all but defenceless. He couldn’t reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet. Nor could he warn the fleet of the approaching danger.
There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet. Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes.
Wing-mounted 50 calibres blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another.
Butch wove in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent. Undaunted, he continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible and rendering them unfit to fly.
Finally, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction. Deeply relieved, Butch O’Hare and his tattered fighter limped back to the carrier.
Upon arrival, he reported in and related the event surrounding his return. The film from the gun-camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of Butch’s daring attempt to protect his fleet.
He had, in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.
This took place on February 20, 1942. and for that action Butch became the Navy’s first Ace of W.W.II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honour.
A year later Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His home town would not allow the memory of this WW II hero to fade, and today, O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man.
So What Do These Two Stories Have To Do With Each Other?
Butch O’Hare was ‘Easy Eddie’s’ son.
(Pretty cool, huh?)
Subdomains - Whaddaya Reckon?
Now, I’m no SEO expert but I am starting to grasp some of the basics.
One of the questions that has always bugged me is the value of subdomains in terms of SEO. There are as many differing opinions about subdomains as there are people on the net, almost!
I like subdomains, that doesn’t mean to validate their usefulness but here’s a couple of reasons I like them.
- Having some Scottish blood in me I’m careful with my money, most of the time! If you’re wanting to put up lots of mini sites then a generic domain like freeinfo-site.com lends itself to subdomains like identitytheft-freeinfo-site.com and you aren’t shelling out for a new domain name every time you want to put up a new site. Once you’re making squillions of dollars it probably isn’t a problem but when you’re starting out it can be a killer of an expense.
- Financials aside one key SEO strategy is to have your keywords in the URL of your site. What better way than to use a subdomain? Try and get a TLD of makemoney.com whereas makemoney.freeinfo-site.com you can have for nothing. BUT does that mean it’s useful?
There are so many other factors involved in getting ranked in the search engines that it’s difficult without extensive testing, over a long period of time, to isolate one individual aspect’s effect.
I asked Jon Leger this question and he has had subdomains that have ranked highly. He also pointed me to a post, Google to Begin Treating Subdomains as Folders: Max 2 Results Per Search, which he believes has made people think subdomains aren’t as valuable. Where, in reality, if you read that post, it is just Googles continued mission to provide the best variety of results to searches.
By implication a single domain name wasn’t getting ranked multiple times, for that reason, so webmasters tried to circumvent the algorithm by using subdomains to get their TLD listed more often. The change there just brought subdomains back in line with domains.
My personal opinion, I can’t see any logical reason why subdomains shouldn’t be as effective and I certainly have two positives for using them.
I really am interested in other people’s opinion on this so please leave a comment. At the very least you’ll get a link to your site. Always good for SEO and feel free to link to here.
More Free Traffic
No matter what it is you plan to do on the the internet you will either need or want traffic. If it’s a business site then you need traffic whereas if it’s a social site like a sports club or some other non profit organisation you may want traffic but it’s not crucial.
Non profit and social sites will get traffic by their very nature. The sites are there to fulfill a demand as people are already interested in what they are about. If you have a business site unless you are a branded corporation no one will know it’s there. So, assuming there is a demand for what your site offers you need to let people know it’s there. You can pay for traffic or work at getting it for free. There are heaps of sources for free traffic.
There are, of course, all the evergreen methods for free traffic. Article marketing, link building (exchanges etc.), Ezines and Newsletters, Forum marketing, SEO, Press releases. All these methods are still valid, article marketing particularly so but the world of Web 2.0 is taking over.
So what is Web2.0? Lots of people have different ideas on what constitutes Web 2.0 but here’s a quote from webtrends.about.com which I reckon comes pretty close.
Web 2.0 is the move toward a more social, collaborative, interactive and responsive web. It is a change in the philosophy of web companies and web developers, but more than that, Web 2.0 is a change in the philosophy of society as a whole.
Probably the beginning of web 2.0 type sites has to be traced back to blogs. In the beginning they were pretty much diaries or soapboxes where people would write about the life, happenings, hobbies or rant about politics and things that concerned them.
Now they cover every subject imaginable, like this one! A few years ago the other type of web 2.0 sites appeared, the social sites. Facebook, Myspace etc. Then Squidoo, Hubpages, blogger and many, many more.
So now we have an idea of Web 2.0 how do we use it? There are reams of books on using these Web 2.0 sites but the basic premise is to be sociable. Join these sites put up your own pages on the subject of the market you are in, provide quality content and interact with other people with the same interests.
It’s necessary to establish credibility before you can start marketing to these groups and even then it should be done in a helpful way rather than an in your face fashion. Direct people to sites, like your blog, that also have information relevant to the subject and of course affiliate links or links to your products.
The idea is to lead people rather than push them.
The one thing about all these sites is that they are free to join and participate and, therefore, so is the traffic that originates from them.
As I said there are reams of books on Web 2.0 and Social site marketing, if you would like a quick, free, informative 5 part e-course on Web 2.0 traffic you can access one at http://web20traffictricks.com. There is also a free report ‘Social Networking Exposed’ which gives a concise but detailed, no fluff, how to get started with the social sites.
As always I am very interested to learn your thoughts on the information I provide so please feel free to leave your comments.
Build Your List For Free
Over the last couple of weeks or so I have increased the optins to one of my lists by about 500%!
OK, it wasn’t a huge list to start with but never the less you’ve got to be happy with that. I am!
So how did it happen, bearing in mind that it didn’t cost me a cent?
No big secret really, it was a giveaway. I signed up, contributed a gift and the optins followed.
At the moment there are a ton of giveaways on the go. Ordinarily you’d think that they’d be full of the same old stuff. It’s true that some of the same products pop up in all of them, mine will.
I’m going to make the most of this while I can because as everyone knows if you want to really make it on the internet, business wise, you need a list! Although everyone kept saying that, it took a long time for it sink in with me but the last couple of months have proved it’s true beyond any doubt. You need a list!
It goes a little further than that though, in that having a list is how you reach the people you are trying to help.
This is really the subject for another post but briefly your list is the group of people you are trying to help, not just bleed money out of. You make money when you help others with what they want or need. No deep philosophy there, it’s just the way the World works.
So back to the giveaways. As I said there are a lot on the go and I really recommend you get into them. I’ve listed a few that I have checked out and they have a good variety of good products on offer. There’s software, ebooks, templates, graphics, videos….all sorts of stuff.
I want you to be able to take part as a contributor. For that you need a product. It doesn’t have to be your own, anything that you have giveaway rights for can be used.
It’s better if you have your own for obvious reasons. You won’t be competing with someone else with the same product. It’s not hard to do that, rework a PLR product it’s really not that hard and shouldn’t take that long. Open Office is free and you can open word documents in it and output them as PDF’s.
Turn a PLR PDF into a slide show, make the slide show into a video and give that away. It will definitely be yours and unique. Again Open Office has a Powerpoint type app that creates slideshows. You can get a free copy of Camtasia 3 here. It’s not the latest version but it works fine. In fact it’s the version I’m still using.
Anyway, here are the giveaways:
I really like this one. It’s being run by Scott Case and Scott has stipulated that all products for the giveaway have to be less than six months old. So no chance of it being full of old rehashed stuff. Last I heard there were over 200 products. It starts on the 6th April.
Another great givaway. This one runs until 20th April. The link above will take you to the contributors signup if you just want to join to get free stuff go here.
Some really good packages in here too. This is open until the 21st April. Again if you want to sign up as a contributor use the link above, otherwise you can just join here.
I’ll leave it at those for now. Try and join as a contributor, with a unique product if you can. It really is a great way to increase your subscribers.
Is This The Product of the Year?
I’m not given to promoting many products here but I have, in the last few days come across what I believe will turn out to be the Product of the Year for 2009.
I bought this product a couple of days ago because I’m always open to new ways of market research. In the past I’ve bought tons of information on this subject most of which has been the same old stuff with the odd extra little bit.
In truth I’ve spent a small fortune on it. Being the perpetual optimist I keep believing and looking for that product that will give me more. I always knew there had to be more to it than I’d already seen. This time I believe I’ve struck gold!
Kim Roach, a lady from Kentucky has come up with the most complete method of getting going on line from start to finish, especially if you’re just starting out. I wish I’d had this a couple of years ago!
Now, I only mentioned market research but that’s just the start of it, throw in Squeeze pages, Traffic, Link Building and Email Marketing. 30 Videos and a 182 page instruction manual.
I’ll let Kim explain it to you, she can do it a whole lot better than I, just press play
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So far I’ve only watched the first 2 videos on market research and I’ve already learned a heap of new techniques. I’ve also watched the first traffic video and ditto, picked up so many new great ideas.
This is either stuff, the so called gooroo’s have been keeping quiet or Kim is just brilliant. ‘Course I may just be a bit slow and some of you may have figured some of this stuff out but I now know a helluva lot more than I did after just 10% of the content.
There is one drawback to this. There is so much stuff that you will have to watch the videos over and over to get it all to sink in.
Now I didn’t tell you this but if you exit the sales page you’ll pick up a discount, shhhsh! I had heard that the discount was to finish a few days ago but when I just checked it’s still there. Kim also offers her 8 week ‘Love It Or Shove It!’ money back guarantee, you cannot lose! You owe it to yourself to try this, really, it’s the best thing I’ve seen, ever!
I’m off to watch some more videos.
How To Make Money On The Net!
First up, let me apologise for that heading. I’m not going to be able to give you a 3 or 4 hundred word, nipped in the bud definitive answer to that statement. Hell, if I could I’d probably be out on my $50M boat soaking up some rays while the captain plotted a new course and tanned ex models served me cocktails!
Now where was I?…… Sorry, I drifted off there, I sometimes give in to that day dream too easily!
Oops………. it happened again. What I hope to do is to give you a feel for how to approach the whole thing.
There are numerous ways to approach making money on the internet and just as many different ways of approaching each of them.
Before you decide on the method of actually making money you need to decide where you are going to make money. In other words you need to find your market. Which brings us to market selection and more targeted, to niche selection.
You have more than likely heard the phrase ad nausium but it really is crucial. I have wasted hours of time and not a little money in the past on bad niche and product selection.
I don’t believe that niche selection was so important in the early days of net, like 6 or 7 years ago when a lot of the big names made their names but as the internet has increased in size it is now critical. To define what it is, a market would be something high level like ‘Golf” and a niche could be ‘ladies left handed nine irons.’
Now, at this point I could take you through a niche discovery tutorial for the rest of this post but I’m not going to, pretty mean huh?
One other lesson I learned a long time ago is not to try and re-invent the wheel so I’m going to point you to a free download.
‘How To Uncover Red-Hot Niches With A Simple, Step-By-StepFormula’ otherwise known as ‘The Niche Inspector Formula‘ by Myleena Phan creator of the Niche Inspector software. The information in this ebook was the formula behind the Niche Inspector software which I used for long time, it was brilliant.
Sadly, it no longer works. The software used to validate users when it was started up. The validation no longer works as it appears the database behind it no longer exists. Even sadder, it appears that something may have happened to Myleena as she was always very responsive with her support but nowadays is not contactable.
Bee in the bonnet time. I believe every product owner has the right to protect their work but this sort of protection is flawed as there are now hundreds if not thousands of people, me included, who can no longer use a product that they paid good money for.
Anyway I digress, back to the book. There are some links and references including a video about Niche Inspector which are obviously redundant so you can ignore those.
Myleena used to use the Overture Inventory Tool although later versions of the software moved to Google as Overture became defunct. So references and links to Overture are also useless. I think it takes you to Yahoo Search Advertising.
Apart from those little issues the bulk of it is still an excellent grounding in Niche selection and this is the first skill you need to master whether you’re just starting out or have been at it for a while.
No opt in or sign up you can just grab it for free here.
Can You Really Make Money on the Internet?
Yes, you can!
That has to be the shortest post in blogging history!
Tempted as I am to set a new record, I really can’t leave it there.
If, like me you’ve been nutting away at this thing for what seems like years and probably is, there will have been times when you wonder if it really is possible.
When I start to think like that I look at the numbers. It is a numbers game. According to the latest statistics, globally, there are 1,574,313,184 internet users. Asia has the most at 650,361,843. Europe is next then North America with 246,822,936 online.
How many of those do you need in order to give up your job? 1000, 2000? 5000 is .00002% of the people online in North America. With 5000 customers at only $20 you would have an income of $100,000.
So, you really don’t have to grab much of the online population to make decent money.
However, what’s the percentage of those users who are also trying to make an income, your competition? I don’t know!
When I get to thinking about that aspect of it I look in the Yellow Pages. Go on take a look. The Yellow Pages is usually two volumes, if you live in a reasonably sized area and pretty thick too. Check out vets, plumbers, electricians you’ll find hundreds of them and they must all be making a living and paying for Yellow Pages ads which aren’t cheap! OK, one aspect of the Yellow Pages is location within the larger area but the larger area, a decent size city is what, maybe a couple of million. A pinhead in comparison to the internet!
What if you had a $97 product for your 5000 customers? That’s $485,000. $97 products aren’t that unusual and plenty of them get sold. Frank Kern just released Mass Control 2.0. I believe there were 500 copies, I know there were at least 500 copies, it cost $1997, that’s $998,500 from only 500 sales.
Now I know we’re not all Frank Kerns but we don’t have to be. Do you see what I’m getting at. The numbers, it’s a number’s game. you only have to capture a small, heck, a minute, part of the online population to make substantial returns.
Easier said than done, I know but then isn’t everything?
Obviously you need to do a lot of stuff to get there but before you get to do all that stuff you have to believe it’s possible.
That’s been the point of this, I’m not there yet, I’m starting to do OK but I really believe it’s possible if only because of the numbers.
My biggest failing is I keep wanting to learn something new and I get distracted. Unfortunately that was the nature of my job, I had to keep learning and getting certified on the latest OS or network gear, it’s become ingrained and I have to resist it and get on with what I’m doing at the time.
Surprisingly, whenever I focus and see a project through it’s usually successful.
So, here’s my advice, FOCUS and PERSISTENCE, don’t give up and believe it’s achievable, believe in the numbers.
