It always surprises me how much money you can make by
selling other people's stuff on the Internet. Eight years
in and the numbers still shock me. Always.
More than the numbers, what really amazes me the most is
the lifestyle one can achieve from online marketing. You
can be your own boss, work your own hours, carry out your
business from anywhere in the world you want to live. You
can create automatic marketing systems that work 24/7/365
days of the year. Earn money even when you're sleeping,
vacationing or out enjoying a gourmet meal at your favorite
restaurant. Total freedom.
So is it any wonder then why I am constantly analyzing my
whole marketing structure to figure out what is working and
what is not working? Finding out just what strategies are
giving me the best returns on my efforts and time. And I am
constantly trying to discover ways to increase my affiliate
sales and online traffic.
It basically means breaking down your online marketing into
its core elements and examining each one with close
scrutiny. What can be improved? What can be eliminated?
What needs to be redesigned? Any serious online marketer
must be actively working on these core elements to stay
competitive in the affiliate game.
With these thoughts in mind, here are some simple marketing
strategies that can affect and contribute to your success
for selling affiliate products on the web. Marketing
factors that should always be at the back of your mind,
influencing your every move.
Quality Content
People use the web to find quality content or information.
Always remember this fact and apply it to each step of your
marketing plan - give your visitors quality content and you
will succeed online. There are no ironclad guarantees, but
get this one step right and you will probably make money
online.
Design your website and your webpages around quality
content. Useful, relevant content will give people a reason
to come to your site and also give them a reason to return.
Provide good information first and let the sale or selling
be secondary. People do not like a pushy salesperson, not
in real life and not on the web. Develop a friendly,
helpful relationship with your potential customer and you
will succeed.
Keyword Driven
The Internet is keyword driven. These are words or phrases
people type into search engines to find what they're
looking for on the web. They are also your keys to online
success if you're going the SEO route, picking the right
keywords will be your main starting point.
Professional marketers use keyword software like Brad
Callen's Keyword Elite to research and find their
profitable keywords, but there are many free tools/sites
which you can find online to help you do your keyword
research - Seobook.com is a good one. Daily monitoring of
your major keywords is also important to keeping them in
the top positions. Any movement downwards should spark more
link and/or content building immediately.
Keep in mind, Google, which controls 60 percent of the
web's search traffic, is also a great source of information
on your keywords. Use Google to search the sites in the top
10 spots for your keywords; also check Google for the Paid
Ads related to your keywords and monitor these ads over a
period of time to see which ones are profitable. Do your
keyword homework and your affiliate marketing will be a lot
easier.
Niche Focused
If you're into affiliate marketing, you must concentrate
your efforts on small niche markets where the competition
is not too stiff. Choosing the right niche markets is vital
to your affiliate success. Demand should be high and/or
you're selling a high-ticket custom item.
Once you have chosen your particular niches, concentrate on
dominating these in all the search engines. But don't
forget that the fastest and sometimes the most profitable
way to tackle a niche is through PPC (Pay Per Click)
advertising - especially if there is little or low bidding
on your keywords. Google Adwords, Yahoo Marketing,
MicroSoft AdCenter... should be explored and tried.
List Building
The power is always in the list. Make sure you collect the
contact information of your site's visitors. Offer free
ebooks, guides, special deals or bonuses... to get your
prospects to opt-in to your AR follow-up systems. Studies
have shown that people usually don't buy until the six or
seventh follow-up.
I like building hundreds of micro-lists for all my major
promoted affiliate products. These follow-ups with
specialized information and special deals, coupons and
bonuses will increase your sales.
Traffic
Obviously, traffic is one of the key elements to earning
money online mainly because without traffic you're dead in
the water. You must explore all avenues to generate
targeted traffic to your affiliate links. These sources are
always changing; blogging and social bookmark sites are
very important now. So too are video and audio formats so
make sure you use them in your marketing.
Article marketing has worked extremely well for me and it
is, along with search traffic, the main reason I can earn
income online. A simple marketing technique that still
works because articles will bring targeted traffic to your
site or sites.
Conversion Rates Are Crucial
In affiliate marketing or in any kind of marketing, your
conversion rates are crucial to your success. You can get
all the targeted traffic you want but if you can't turn
those visitors into a sale, it's game over.
Your sales pages or content must convert into a sale in
order for you to succeed. With affiliate marketing it is a
little trickier because not only do your pages have to
"pre-sell" the affiliate product but the landing page/site
where you send that traffic must also convert into a sale.
However, I have discovered one of the keys to high
conversion rates has nothing to do with landing pages,
sales pitches, etc., but has to do mainly with which
products that you decide to promote. You must thoroughly
research your affiliate products and ONLY promote the top
quality brands in your niche and you will have much better
success. Also choosing products that are only available
online will increase your conversion numbers; so too will
promoting products that offer special discount coupons and
deals.
Multiple Streams & Residual Income
Any serious online marketer will leverage their traffic and
marketing by promoting many different products and
services. They will develop different sources of income
from their sites with affiliate links, Google Adsense, paid
advertising, partnerships... are all used to develop
multiple streams of income. It one should dry up, there are
countless others still producing income.
I have found the major third-party affiliate networks like
Commission Junction, LinkShare, Shareasale, Affiliate
Window, Amazon are really good for finding and promoting
products online. These sites will handle all the record
keeping and sales stats for you. Plus, they send your
monthly checks to you like clockwork. All you have to worry
about is providing quality traffic to your affiliate links.
However, like any professional marketer, I save my special
promotions and efforts to affiliate products or services
that will give me a high return on my marketing efforts.
Mainly, I only promote high-ticket items or products that
will give me residual income. Make one sale; get paid time
and time again. I also like forming partnerships with
companies so that I get a percentage of the sales for the
life of any client I refer. Those arrangements have special
priority for the obvious reason they give me long-term
residual income.
Testing Will Show You The Money
Perhaps, like in those multiple-choice exams, there is one
sticking point. You can check-off "None of the above" if
you don't apply one thing for all of the "success
strategies" listed above.
You Must TEST Everything.
You must constantly test and track what is working and what
is not? Which traffic is converting? Which keywords are
converting? Which products are converting? Which niches are
profitable... you simply must TEST and KNOW which factors
are working in your online marketing structure? Unless you
test and track everything you will be marketing blind, and
that's no way to run an online business.
I have found Google Analytics to be extremely helpful for
testing and improving your conversion rates. I am also a
firm believer in the daily reading of your traffic logs and
stats... these places will show you where the real money is
hiding. Use this information to improve your traffic and
sales.
Like any endeavor, the more knowledge you have, the more
successful you will be in reaching your goals. This is
especially true for affiliate marketing on the web. And
always remember, affiliate marketing does take some work
and time to set-up, but the rewards are extremely
rewarding. I hope you will use some of the marketing tips I
have given you so you can experience these rewards for
yourself.
----------------------------------------------------
The author is a full-time web marketer who owns and runs
numerous websites, including two sites on Internet
marketing. He contributes his online affiliate success to
using the best Internet Marketing Tools:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com and his proven strategies at
List Building: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/opt-in.htm 2008
Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if
this resource box stays attached.
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