Bill McRea

Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins Thousands, if not millions, of online webmasters and marketers are turning to affiliate marketing to earn extra money from the web. Affiliate marketing offers the perfect way for the ordinary person to cash in on the billions of sales made online each year. But is Affiliate Marketing right for you? Is it something that you should investigate and pursue further if you truly want to monetize your site or content? As a way of an answer and to get you thinking about affiliate marketing; I would like to offer some of my own experiences as a full-time online affiliate marketer. I would also like to give you some marketing tips and a few pit-falls you should try to avoid. Truth be told, I didn’t plan to become an affiliate marketer. It just happened, mostly by accident, as I was struggling to promote my first site on Internet marketing some 10 years ago now. My original plan was to re-sell some software products with hopes of making my fortune on this new thing called the Internet. Well, to make a long story short, most things don’t quite turn out as we originally plan. Instead of selling my own products, I became much more interested in studying “how to market online” and examining “how marketing systems worked” than actually selling my own stuff. I was much more fascinated in the “nuts & bolts” or “marketing tools” behind these online marketing systems than earning a few pennies. I was particularly captivated by a new search engine called Google. Yes, there are many marketers around who have been studying Google since it first started. And I believe it was Google and its adsense Program in particular that sort of legitimized the “whole idea of making money online” for me. I turned my attention to other ways of monetizing my sites, especially with affiliate programs. And the rest as they say is history… But enough about me, what about you? Do you have a website? Are you interested in earning extra revenue from your site? Are you trying to earn a full-time income online? More importantly: Is Affiliate Marketing Right for you? First, you have to realize Affiliate Marketing is when you promote and sell affiliate products from your site or sites. Actually, selling is not quite the right word because you DON’T actually sell anything from your site. You merely refer or send customers/interested buyers to the affiliate sites you’re promoting via your affiliate links. Believe me, sometimes this concept is very hard to explain to close family and friends. You don’t have anything to sell? How can you make money? To repeat, with affiliate marketing you don’t sell anything directly online… you send clients and customers to online companies or merchants where they buy stuff and since they’re coming from your site’s affiliate links you get credit for the sale. I don’t directly sell Dell Computers on my sites, I merely send prospective customers to Dell where they can buy Dell products and since they came from my affiliate links I get credit, plus a small commission in return if they buy something. Same goes for Amazon or hundreds of the other companies and products I promote with my sites. Now Affiliate Marketing Fits Me to a Tee! Here’s why… – You don’t handle any sales transactions – You don’t handle any delivery of products – You don’t have to deal with customer complaints or run customer support – You don’t have to manage employees or operate a business – You don’t need an office, stock, or any physical products With Affiliate Marketing all the selling and business operations are done by the company you’re promoting. This saves you from a lot of head-aches and problems that arise from running your own company or developing your own products. It’s all done for you. Furthermore, online Affiliate Marketing does have some great advantages: – Your sites and affiliate links are working for you 24/7, 365 days of the year. You earn sales/commissions while you’re sleeping, eating, watching TV or doing anything we humans do! – You earn money even when you’re on Vacation. This happened to me last year when I went to Florida to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. Unfortunately, a band member died so I didn’t get to see Springsteen but I did make more than enough online to pay for my whole trip WHILE on vacation. It was also the first time, I didn’t have access to my sites for more than a few days, but they still made me money. – Once you get your affiliate links set-up, they will continue to earn you revenue automatically. All your online marketing can be automated and run from your home office or from anywhere you choose. – Keep in mind, your content and sites keep building and growing. Work you did writing that great article two years ago is still bringing in affiliate sales today. – Plus, with Affiliate Marketing, all your marketing materials (banners, sales copy, videos, ads, links…) are all provided for you by the Affiliate Network or Company. – There’s little stress with affiliate marketing mainly because you’re your own boss and you can work at home. No office politics or all that foolishness. No commuting. In addition, there is very little capital investment, for a few hundred dollars or much less, you can have a site up and running on the web. However, Affiliate Marketing does have some real disadvantages: – You can often earn much more if you develop and sell your own products. You’re not really getting the highest return on your site’s content by selling other people’s stuff. The profit margin can be much higher if you sell your own products. – There is also the issue of lost commissions and theft of sales, you can never be sure you’re getting credit for all your traffic and referrals. In most cases you’re not. – Many times there’s stiff competition from other affiliates selling the same stuff and using the same marketing materials… although many top affiliates create their own marketing materials so they stand out in a crowded marketplace. Since I am a full-time online affiliate marketer the benefits far outweighs the few downers associated with this great lifestyle. Mainly because it is just that: a lifestyle rather than a job. I never think of it as a job or working. Maybe, that’s because I am my own master, I can work from home and set my own hours. I can take time off, I can go on vacations or I can live anywhere in the world where there’s Internet Access and these days that’s just about anywhere. The sense of freedom is truly intoxicating to say the least. If you do find Affiliate Marketing is something that you would like to pursue, even part-time if not full-time, here are some of my best tips for increasing your affiliate income and sales: – Focus your marketing efforts and attention on programs and products which give you recurring or residual income. Make one sale and get paid for years to come. – Develop your own sites and marketing materials so that you stand out from the other affiliate marketers. Create your own unique selling position even if you’re not technically selling the products. Give extra bonuses if they buy from your links or site. – Build your own list of customers who are interested in the products you’re promoting. Grow your own list, as well as that of the affiliate company you’re promoting. You will always have these subscribers and you can promote other similar products to them. – Concentrate on targeting “long tail keywords” with your content and sites; these multi-worded keyword phrases are easy to rank high for and usually have better conversion rates. – Cloak your affiliate links to cut down on affiliate theft. For example, ClickBank has a simple HTML code that will hide your link. Use it. – Internet users and especially shoppers want simple helpful information to make their buying decisions easier. Provide them with valuable information they can use in their task and they will reward you with a sale. Also giving away coupons and online discounts will increase your sales and commissions. – Use the major affiliate networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, ClickBank, Amazon, Shareasale… I have found these networks very simple to use and very effective. Plus, their checks never bounce! – Keep a close eye on your monthly sales, with many of the companies if you go over $25,000 or $50,000 in sales for the month, you get extra bonus incentives. I have found these bonuses can dramatically increase your monthly income. If you do find that Affiliate Marketing is right for you, chances are almost 100% certain that you will never regret it. Affiliate marketing offers one of the least stressful ways of earning a living on the planet and the lifestyle can’t be beat. Anyone can change their lives with affiliate marketing. I did and you can too!

Internet marketing is still a complete mystery to a large majority of Internet users. For many users, internet marketing is seen as some foreign area of the web, populated with silly get-rich-quick schemes and unsavory characters ready to rip off the innocent and uninformed consumer at the click of a mouse.

In reality, Internet marketing is populated mainly with hard working professionals promoting and selling high quality brand products by many of the world’s Top 500 companies.

Worldwide there are now over a billion Internet users, representing one large global consumer base or marketplace. The total amount of goods sold online has been steadily increasing each year as the Internet gains in both popularity and familiarity. Studies have shown people shop online because of lower prices, a wider selection of products, easier comparison shopping, and many just prefer not having to travel to stores to make a purchase.

Still Internet marketing has gotten a raw deal.

If you mention to any group of professionals that you’re an Internet Marketer and that you work full time on the Internet… you will receive some very skeptical looks and more than one arched eyebrow of disbelief.

Regardless of this lingering skepticism, Internet marketing has become a viable alternative for many disgruntled professionals dissatisfied with their working hours or conditions. It has become a viable alternative for many people from all walks of life. From the college student to the bored housewife to the retired doctor… all are enjoying a part time or full time income from the comfort of their homes.

And since the Internet is now practically available to everyone, anywhere in the world – Internet marketing is a level playing field. There are many forms of Internet marketing. There are many online business models you can follow. There are countless ways to earn a good honest income from the Internet. Which path you take will be largely determined by research, work habits, and the time you are willing to put forth.

Here’s a quick rundown of the most popular forms of Internet Marketing:

1. The Brick and Mortar Store Online. Most major companies and retail stores have created online versions of their brick and mortar businesses. Even if consumers don’t buy online, many use these sites for gathering product information before buying in the real world. A factor many savvy businesses are exploiting in their overall marketing strategies.

2. Online Services. Many service industries have moved online, everything from travel to banking to dating! Again, the Internet can be a profitable extension for any service company.

3.Internet Gurus… Internet marketing has a whole history of pioneers who have forged the methods and techniques of marketing online – opt-in lists, mini-sites, article marketing, pay-per-click advertising, joint ventures… a brief history populated with such names as John Reese, Marlon Sanders, Ralph Wilson, Yanik Silver, Corey Rudl, Ken Evoy and countless others.

A whole new industry has grown around ‘How-to’ market online, info products, workshops and web seminars – teaching people how to market on the Internet. A marketer creating his own product can prove very productive – as seen by John Reese’s 2004 launch of Traffic Secrets, which earned over a million dollars in one day. (Without a penny of paid advertising!)

4. Online Advertising and Pay-Per-Click advertising such as those offered by Google Adwords and others, presents another viable marketing route. Keywords (the exact words typed into a search engine) fuel a large portion of the web’s activity. Keyword marketing has become a major driving force behind most of the economic transactions on the web. This is a very lucrative sector for those Internet marketers who know exactly what they’re doing.

Then there is the whole section of SEO experts and consultants who command high prices for positioning companies or products in the top positions on the major search engines. Acquiring organic Top 10 search results will greatly determine the profitability of your online product or company.

5. Affiliate Marketing. One of the least understood, yet one of the most profitable forms of Internet marketing is affiliate marketing. An online marketer can join any affiliate program and promote its products or services on the Internet. You market the products, find customers for the company and receive a commission for each sale you make from your marketing efforts. These commissions can run anywhere from 2% to over 75%. One affiliate click can earn you anywhere from a few cents to several hundred dollars.

Major third party affiliate programs or companies such as Commission Junction, Clickbank, LinkShare, Amazon, Shareasale… acts as a brokerage or go-between representing thousands of Top Brand companies such as Sony, Apple, Dell… to online affiliate marketers. Marketers can join a program such as Commission Junction or LinkShare and be able to promote and market hundred of top quality products or services online. They can consolidate their affiliate marketing through these third party programs.

Perhaps the most common business model for the majority of online marketers is the last example, or a combination of advertising and affiliate sales. Many work-from-home professionals have adopted this business model. They have created a site or sites on the topic that interests them and of which they have or have gained some expert knowledge.

Once these sites become established and gathering a large amount of targeted web traffic each day, making a nice income can only be a matter of putting the Google Adsense code on their pages and placing a few appropriate affiliate links on their sites.

The more traffic these marketers deliver to their sites, the more income they earn. The more unique content they create, the more income they earn. The more web sites they design, the more income they earn.

What many people outside of the web marketing field fail to realize, the Internet is a 24/7/365 business. The Internet is always on and working for you. It is automatically producing income for you 24 hours of the day, while you’re sleeping, while you’re enjoying a nice meal with friends, or even while you’re on vacation.

Internet marketing can provide you with a lifestyle that is totally liberating – you can live and work anywhere in the world. You can be your own boss, set your own hours and work from the comfort of your own home. Plus your whole online Internet business can be automated so it basically runs itself.

Internet marketing is totally flexible. You can adjust your workload to suit your own work habits. Internet marketing is scalable, once you have learned how to make your first dollar; it is only a simple matter of repeating and scaling up what you did to earn that dollar. Computers and the Internet make it just as easy to handle a thousand sales as it is to handle one sale.

As Internet marketing becomes better known, it will gradually earn more and more respect. It will become a well recognized profession that many will aspire to and follow as a life long career. Mainly because Internet marketing will give you the freedom rarely seen in any other profession.

It offers you mobility, a high standard of living, and a working environment that can’t be beat. It gives you the freedom to follow your own interests and hobbies; all the while turning those interests into viable revenue streams that supports the lifestyle of your own choosing.

When it is all said and done , earning a living just doesn’t get any better than this.

The internet is one of the best place to make money, but choosing where and how to do so can be quite difficult. Among the choices, the quickest and fastest way to do so is perhaps through affiliate marketing. However, with so many great affiliate marketing programs on the net, picking the right one can be hard.

Anyone can practically profits from affiliate marketing. You don’t need to be a techie or have a big booming website just to do so. Some HTML codes and a little interest in marketing can already take you further than many people. Here’s a quick preview on some of the more popular affiliate marketing programs that you can choose from.

Find Out About Best Online Affiliate Program Here?

Clickbank.com

Clickbank.com is one of the web’s leading affiliate marketing website. It allows as high as 75% commission for some sales done. But Clickbank.com doesn’t just offer any kinds of products, though. This site focuses on digital products.

Now, You may wonder how to make money through Clickbank.com. You start by opening your own free account. Then, with your account, you can access Clickbank Marketplace and select the products that are relevant to the content in your website. After that, you recommend these products by advertising them on your site. Each time your website generates a sale, you earns money through commission.

So all you really need is good sales pitch. By continuing to promote other products, your income will increase. Some people has even made this as their full time job. All you need to remember is that Clickbank.com is just for digital products.

www.cj.com

CJ.Com or Commission Junction is among one of the best affiliate programs around. By focusing on physical products, as well as services, there are a lot that you can choose from in Commission Junction. Like Clickbank, the accounts are free, but the merchants will want to approve you before you get to promote their services or products. Since products are expensive and high end, most merchants will want to look at your website first. They will want to make sure your web sites are professional and relevant.

If you’re a newbie, starting at Clickbank.com would be a better idea. When you start making waves in the affiliate world, or at least when you get yourself a legitimate looking website, you can step into the big waters where CJ.com is. Just keep note that their products are usually physical products as well as services.

LinkShare.com

Linkshare is another huge affiliate marketing website, it has millions of partners including a couple of Fortune 500 companies. Merchants from these sites can get to choose to process their own payments and commissions directly to affiliates. Thus, as an affiliate, this means that you get paid directly by the merchant for any commission you make.

This is a risk to you, but can be avoided by looking at merchant’s paying history as well as doing some research beforehand. Linkshare is the best program to choose if you don’t want to go through the ”middle-man” affiliate network and get bigger share of the commission directly from merchants.

These three companies rank top among all the other affiliate marketing websites out there and they all have their strong points. So which among these affiliate marketing companies is the best? Only you can answer this question. Each has their own strengths and drawbacks.

Find Out About Best Online Affiliate Program Here!