An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

If there were any statistics on the subject, I would venture to say that probably more
than 90 percent of the people that decide to make money on the Internet go about
it in the same, predictable, usually failing way…at least starting out.

Although it sometimes takes a while before you find exactly what’s going to work for
you in your quest to generate an income online, many individuals never get to that point.

The vast majority of would-be online marketers usually follow the same time wasting,
poorly producing, depressing path. It usually involves getting some web hosting, registering
a domain, and hopefully at least getting to the point of setting a blog up. However, some never get past reading the massive amounts of ebooks, reports, courses, and all the other material that everyone of us is force-fed daily.

Even if the potential business person does manage to get a site up and running, the extent
of their marketing effort usually involves signing up for a few affiliate networks, hooking up
with a few merchants and posting some banner ads on their site. Admittedly this writer was
guilty of such methods initally.

You must get past the idea of making massive amounts of money by doing nothing more than
installing WordPress, putting up the ads, and waiting for the money to flow into your PayPal account. It just doesn’t work that way.

There are many, many individuals out there that have made a lot of money online. Some have even made it very quickly and without a tremendous amount of effort…just don’t expect it.

Reading the ebooks and other documents, especially the free ones, are a great way to educate yourself, but you’ll soon find that most are just the same regurgitated information being published by another person trying to do the same thing that you are.

I do give them credit for at least getting an ebook finished though, most never make it that far.

The message here is, as the title suggests, find something that will be different from all the others. Make it truly useful, something specific that the reader can do right now and get results. This, of course, is assuming you’re just going to take the same worn out Internet marketing trail that most others do. Ideally you should do what most people agree is the best way to success online.

Find a niche, preferrably something that you’re passionate about, start researching everything you can about the topic, and if there’s the demand to support an income for you, concentrate you efforts primarily in making this your main source of revenue. This doesn’t mean put up one site, on one niche, and never do anything else. I would recommend having as many possible streams of revenue as you can. If you find that you have a knack for writing ebooks, especially if they’re good enough to sell, then by all means do it. You can, of course, be writing ebooks, training courses, reports or case studies on just your niche, or niches. The information doesn’t have to be on affiliate marketing or making money online. There’s plenty of people doing that.

The reason for this article is because this writer knows first hand how disappointing starting an online business can be. I was guilty of all the common problems, and was about to give up until I started opening my mind to other things besides the ‘WordPress with banners and wait tactic.’
I still have several blogs, and yes they have ads on them, but even with the AdSense and everything else I can think of to make money from them, that will probably never be my primary focus for an online business. Of course there are many individuals that make lots of money from a single blog.

Luckily I found a niche that I’m already fairly knowledgeable about, has good numbers as far as supply and demand, and it’s something that I’ve always been very interested in.

So if you do have a WordPress blog going…fantastic, you’re already way beyond what most people do. If you’re just sitting and waiting for the money to start rolling in though, you’re probably in for a major disappointment. However, don’t misunderstand, if you’ve started a blog on a niche like I mentioned, and you’re continously adding quality content, you may very well succeed. Just start doing everything you can to generate traffic to the blog, and always keep your eyes and ears open, and you mind thinking of what else just might work.

Lastly, avoid the many out there only after your money. There are some very good products and services, but until you know exactly what you need, I would seek out only free information. There’s a welth of knowledge to be had without spending a cent. When the time comes to buy, you’ll then be better prepared to make an informed decision on your purchases.

Probably most people getting into affiliate marketing don’t have lots of money to spend on advertising. Although pay-per-click advertising can be very effective, free, targeted traffic is much more attractive, and can be obtained many different ways. Here are 3 very good methods.

1.) Twitter -

Probably most regular Internet visitors know of Twitter by now. I actually new of Twitter for some time before I decided to see what the fuss was all about. I was somewhat reluctant because there seems to be ‘the next big thing’ every other day online.

I’m glad I took a look though. The 5 minutes or so that it took to set my account up (now 2 accounts), was time very well spent. It was just a short time after launching my account that I got my first follower, then my second, third, and so on.

You don’t have to think very hard to realize the importance of this. When I have something to promote, or update, I have a targeted audience waiting to get the ‘Tweet’. I mentioned affiliate marketing in my profile, so everyone that follows me on that account knows what it’s about.

I don’t use it a lot, so as to not wear it out, but if there’s something with potential, I Tweet it. This is fairly powerful stuff here.

2.) Article Marketing -

I didn’t give article marketing the attention that I should have early on when first getting into affiliate marketing. If I had, my traffic would probably be many, many times what it is now. Article Marketing, in my opinion, is the ultimate in free, targeted, viral traffic generating options.

Ebooks, courses, just about anything else that you care to produce can obviously go viral, but what else can you produce as easily, and quickly as a few 500 word articles ?

There’s people that have hundreds, and some even thousands of articles, I would guess. All it takes is for just a few of them to get around to the right places to get your links working for you.

If I had but 1 option to use for traffic generation, it would be, without a doubt, article marketing to get the job done. Of course I would also recommend adding original content (even the articles you submit to directories) to your site on a consistent basis.

Although you may receive the authority on any articles that you submit to directories because they were on your site first, if you chose to use them, there’s really no way to guarantee it, especially if your site, or those pages, were never indexed.

Submitting articles to directories doesn’t produce a nearly instant result in increased traffic, as does PPC advertising, but it’s just about guaranteed to be traffic in the bank down the road.

3.) Squidoo -

Unfortunately, even though I now realize the power that Squidoo Lenses can potentially have, I’ve been lax in getting many done. I presently only have 4, but that will be changing in the future. With even 1 lens in a high ranking position, you can generate lots of money, and help out any of your other related sites also.

If you want to get an idea of the unbelievable potential of Squidoo, search for some of the top most lenses. There are some people that have hundreds published, many in good ranking positions, and they’re adding more all the time.

The income potential can be great also, just from the lenses themselves, not only the potential income from the increase in traffic to your other sites with links from any high ranking lenses.
For a good example, have a look at ‘Work at Home with Squidoo‘, this ingenious lady is doing it right, and has the number 1 lens to prove it!!

Some of the good things about Squidoo Lenses are…1.) it’s free!!, 2.) it’s easy, 3.) it’s quick, 4.) it’s nearly limitless!!

If you don’t have the time, or desire to set lenses up yourself, it would probably be worthwhile to seek out a student, housewife, or someone else that needs some extra money, and would work at a reasonable rate, to churn out a couple of lenses per day.

I believe that if someone could get even a dozen or so quality lenses online, and consistently updated them with quality content, that the relatively small cost for paying someone to set them up, would be returned many times over.

Obviously there’s a multitude of ways to generate free, targeted traffic, limited only by one’s imagination. These are just 3 ways methods of traffic generation that work…and work well.

How to Detect an Online Business Scam
By Jim Janowiak

It is sad this article needs to be written. Unfortunately there’s lots of worthless information in this market niche. The “Black Hats” are out in every marketing niche but it seems they like the online business or work from home markets the best.

The problem is that if you get burned a few times you may think everyone is trying to scam you. This is not the case. Thousands of people are building solid profitable businesses from their home and enjoying financial freedom, not to mention freedom of time.

There are some sure fired tips you can use to spot the scam offers right up front. If you are new to the online business internet marketing niche, here is what you should be on the look out for.

The first red flag is the promise. Does it sound too good to be true? We have all seen the marketing copy that states fast money. It goes something like “You will be earning $10,000 a month in 30 days”. We all wish that were true, but it’s not. Every legitimate online marketer has spent a year or more to get to that level. Watch out for the promise. If it promises fast money and little or no work or “we do all the work for you”, forget about it. Great copywriters make it tempting, but it’s just not true.

The next telltale sign is the offer. Beware if it goes something like this, “This offer will be gone in 24 hours”. If it is a legitimate product or service, then the seller wants to sell as many as possible and certainly would allow you to take your time to evaluate the offer. Now, there can be a cut off for services but not for digital and non-digital products. At least this is another red flag.

I’m sure you have seem these offers that tell you the offer will be gone in the next five minutes. Then there is a clock counting down next to the buy/submit button. Go back to that offer tomorrow and the clock is still ticking. Red Flag.

So let’s say you are deciding whether to purchase an offer and you’re just not sure if it is a legitimate offer by a legitimate company. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers known as ICANN is in charge of administering upper level domain names. They in turn, assign regional companies to register names.

Here is what you do. Go to the whois lookup. You can just Google it. Every website has to be registered. There you will find the information on the company or individual. If the name, address and contact information is not there, you have another red flag. If you can’t find the contact information on the website or it doesn’t match the registration, you have yet another red flag.

There is no need to purchase any product or service online with a scam company. Today, there are many great online marketers that are legitimate. They will give you their full contact information.These are the ones that deliver good products and services because they want your business over the long run. They want word of mouth. The only way to build a solid online business that performs, makes money, and lasts, is to do it the correct non-scamming way. You are now armed to detect and avoid the scammers.

Article Source: http://www.affsphere.com/Business/Network-Marketing/How-to-Detect-an-Online-Business-Scam.html

Jim Janowiak is an internet business coach working with Best Internet Business Builder group. For no BS straight to the point info visit;

Best Internet Business Builder

questions@bestinternetbusinessbuilder.com