Monday, November 2, 2009

Seven Powerful Tips for Affiliate Marketers

Guest Post by Dante Valentino

Affiliate marketing is a very interesting topic. Many people perceive it to be very easy but the fact is that it takes time and effort just like any other kind of business. It really gets lost in translation because of the many successful affiliates who are already making tons of money and showing you their Clickbank screenshots saying how easy it is. When in reality most of them had to pay their dues to become successful and that is what it's all about.

The truth about affiliate marketing is that as easy as it is compared to other kinds of businesses it really does require hard work. So follow these seven tips to ease it up a little.

1) Pick a plan and stick with it. Actually writing down a solid action plan can get you more focused rather than just going at it blindly. There are so many different affiliate strategies that you can easily get lost, so having a plan will keep your thoughts organized and be more effective in the long run.

2) Lose the "Go big or don't go at all" ego. I had this problem when I was starting out. When I built my first website I targeted a popular keyword term that I thought I could get high rankings for on the search engines but it was nearly impossible trying to beat the competition. So the point is to start off small with less competitive keywords. Remember that you need to learn how to make a hundred dollars before learning to make a thousand and so on.

3) Do thorough research. There is a lot of research involved with marketing alone. In this case there is keyword research, niche research, and even research on a topic you don't know much about. But doing a thorough job of researching is crucial because you will be basing your business on that research. So it is always a great idea to dig deep down in the keyword tools to find a profitable keyword with low competition or see how competitive the sites are that rank under a keyword you got in mind.

4) Don't sell, recommend. Preselling can be tricky because what people really like is recommendations. Not hard sells. The hard selling of a product is taken care of on the sales page. So your job as an affiliate is to "warm up" the customer by giving an honest recommendation and explaining why.

5) Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It is more efficient to spread out your business like a monopoly. That way if one of your campaigns fail then at least you will have other streams of income. Try setting up several sites in different niches. Or if PPC is more your thing then set up more ads and landing pages.

6) Training programs can really help. Success can be reached much faster by following the advice of someone who has went through the process of trial and error. Learning on your own is usually the hard way but following a proven system by an expert is much easier and less frustrating. Having actual support where you can ask questions is a very big plus in an affiliate training program.

7) Don't stop learning. This sort of relates to the last one because many affiliates have bought more than one training program. That is not a bad thing because each product was created by a different marketer and therefore has different strategies and content. But going on websites and learning everything you can about all sorts of topics like SEO is essential for your success. I am always reading different ebooks or blog posts to broaden my knowledge of affiliate marketing and making money online and it really gets my mind going.
Just remember that it takes practice to really master affiliate marketing. The more dedicated you are to your affiliate business the greater the outcome.

Author Bio
My name is Dante. I am an experienced affiliate marketer who has succeeded online. You can check out my blog full of affiliate strategies where I would be happy to help out and answer any questions. Cheers!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

How to Make Money Doing Nothing

Guest Post by Simone M

I like easy money. I hear You: "Who doesn't like easy money?" Exactly. Like I already wrote, there are some certain ways to make money doing nothing, but that isn't actualy 'nothing' it is more like something to be done initially maybe in week or month and then after some time look money that comes into your pockets. So to be clear when i teach you how to make money from nothing, I mean without any (money) investment, just some of Your initial work and patience, and of course knowledge of what You are doing at all.

Today I will explain you one of my favorite ways for making easy money that i using for years, which will take You 15-20 days to start, and then just need to wait month of two to see some great results. When I say great I mean on great incomes of course. This You gonna love, it involves some other peoples who actually works for You.

This method is related with affiliate programs. I will explain using one example, but just be creative and You will find that You can do this in various programs with various type of companies that offer affiliate and sub affiliate programs. This is one of ways that I am like I said using for years and this one makes me $1.500-$2.000 monthly and I do not work anything, actually sometime I totally forgot on this until I receive accurately monthly check :) Ok, this is a joke, I don't forget any source of my incomes no matter is it makes me $10 or $10.000.

As example I will take some good adult affiliate program which give You option to get your percent or few bucks for every new member that came using Your affiliate link and also offers You that You can bring new affiliates and have lifetime % from their commission, this second is crucial. For example that is AFF program (use Google and You will find what I am talking about.) When I signed few years ago, I put some banners on my sites, sent some mail, but all that was tight in first month, so I thought 'no money there'. But... One day when I loged in I sow that this programs offers 10% of lifetime earnings of affiliates who I bring into program. That sounds good, better than $1 that I received every time when some member sign in for service as free member with my affiliate link. Ok, I thought, first month I made about $120 sending mails, putting some banners on my sites,and using some other methods to attract people to sign under my link, it was like I said very 'tight, but I came into idea. If I found 100 people and lear them how I am making $120 monthly with only condition, to sign as affiliates for same service under my account, I will have 100 x (10% from 120 is 12) = $1200 passive income. Well,well, this is not bad. Actually what happens if I find 500 peoples and this same, it would be about $6000. Oh, this is even better You will agree.

So I decided to take 2 weeks working on this project on this way: I will create small site, and small brochure in PDF, where I will explain what i am doing to make those crappy $120 monthly, but someone who has more motivation can make $300-$400 maybe $500, and after signing as my sub-affiliate I will give them this for free. So I done all of this and started visiting forums leaving posts that sounds something like: "contact me and i will give You free method to make $150 - $200 monthly." That was the whole truth, in todays world people selling ebooks and similar stuffs and makes money but those who buying those books don't really make any money, because most of those methods and 'lessons' simply don't work, work only for authors to make some quick money. Reaction on this was great, there are some skeptical people, but today we are in contact because some of them become even my friends. So, I had great free ebook that people need just to read and start working, with real and 'live' money making method, I didn't ask money for that ebook, just to sign under me and to earn my 10% from their lifetime earnings. Obviously people trusted to this, because it was my goal to learn them to make some money because that is the only way to get my 10%. Affiliate program didn't offer me any money for attracting new sub-affiliates, just commission on their earnings.

Almost 3 years latter, or in other words today, I am making $1.500-$2.000, and that amount slowly increases each month, others work for me, I that money are just those 10% of mine. Some new people still coming on my site and fill the form to contact them with sample of my free ebook for making money in affiliate marketing, I am sending them after they sign under my affiliate link, and everything is perfect for all of us.

Conclusion is: Invest some time, don't expecting big bucks in first days, play slowly and smartly and I will make money doing nothing permanently!

Author Bio:
Simone M. explore techniques to make money doing nothing for past 5 years and he is always happy to help others to start making money on Internet on easier way.