Affiliate marketing is a part of online marketing the same as email marketing and video marketing is. It is a great way to earn a few bucks in your spare time with the Internet.
Here is how it works. The website owner places links on their website, for each product they sell, to other companies. These companies in turn place links on their websites to the owner’s company. These links provide the means for customers to click onto the website and make a purchase. The affiliate is paid a commission for the entire sale made by someone clicking on their link.
The concept is very easy to understand and it’s a good business strategy also. The website owner is promoting the company who offers the product and not the other way around. The website owner only promotes products that they are convinced will fulfill a need for many people. They will not promote products to put people out of work.
If you are new to online marketing, you may find it hard to find a lot of free information about the topic. Most of the books and courses you will come across will have an associated membership fee. Do not believe every advertisement you read, you may find that you will gain knowledge but pay for it with your income (like us).
What is Affiliate Marketing?
* It’s a method of promoting a website or product via referral or association
* It provides a very cheap and easy method of promoting
ClickBank is one of the best places to find products that you can promote as an affiliate. They are trusted and they have a huge database with thousands of products ready to get you started. It’s free to join and there are millions of products to promote. It’s a marketplace like Amazon but instead of selling books, you can promote products in ClickBank.
ClickBank has a simple registration process. You will be asked to give your name and email address. Once you are approved, they will send you an activation link. This link has a special tracking code that identifies every visitor who clicks on it as a referral. You can then follow up with him or her if you like. ClickBank takes a small percentage for signing up as an affiliate and sending traffic to the site.
If you have never done marketing before, it is recommended that you see a knowledgeable mentor who can give you some tactics on how to put together a campaign.
* Website Design – The design of the site is extremely important. It is essential that your site be visually appealing, easy to navigate, and also search engine friendly. Remember you are promoting someone else’s product, so make it attractive and professional. A poor niche website design will affect how well you will do in promoting it. You want people to come to your site wanting to buy what you are promoting. Make your site easy to navigate so that people do not get confused.
You will want to have the design and content optimized for search engines. Make it so people want to come to your site because they want to buy what you are promoting.
* Web Content – If you are a beginner, it is recommended that you take some tutorials on how to build a web content niche website. A website without good content will not do you any good. And the content should be SEO optimized so that people searching for products similar to yours will find your site and be interested in what you are selling. Also, you may need to take some tutorials on how to optimize your niche website for search engines.
* Email Marketing – There are a lot of email programs out there and there are a lot of free ones. Make sure you go with the one that has a money-back guarantee so that if you do not get the response you expected, you can switch to another program and not lose money. With a money-back guarantee, you do not have to pay any money if the offer does not work.
As you can see, your website can be completed in a matter of hours. So do not get discouraged if you do not see the money coming in right away. It takes time to build a successful internet business.
Finally, one thing you need to keep in mind is that your success depends on your persistence, effort, and commitment. Do not get discouraged if things do not seem to be going well. Keep going and do not give up.