An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

This past weekend a friend was at my house and was asking about what I was doing regarding Affiliate Marketing. I showed him a few of my sites and listed my recent commissions from one of my eBay affiliate sites. I had a very good commission on a guitar that someone had bought through the site. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was probably about half of what many people make working a real job.

Although I had talked to my friend several times about getting into Internet Marketing, he was never really interested. This time though, after seeing that one sizable commission, he was all ears. As soon as I started talking about ‘setting up a site,’ he immediately gave up before he even started. He said, ‘I don’t know anything about setting up websites, don’t you have to be a programmer or something ?’

Obviously times have changed very much. If you had to be a programmer there would probably be a tiny fraction of sites that are presently up and running, and none of them would be mine.

I showed my frined how easy it is to install WordPress, and he was definitely impressed. I don’t have any statistics, but I would guess that the vast majority of the sites being set up regularly for marketing are WordPress installations. With nothing more than a shared hosting account, you can be up and running with more free software at your disposal than most people could probably ever afford to buy to get started.

The one issue that my friend brought up, which was a valid point, was the fact that the new WP installation looked horrible. It did too, it was the default theme that is used when you install WP. He said, ‘I guess you have to pay a programmer to make it look good ?’ I said, ‘nope.’

That’s when I popped open Artisteer and showed him the best software that I’ve purchsed recently. Just the included themes had him ‘ooooing and ahhhhing.’ When I showed him how easy it is to make the themes your own by customizing them, he was sold…literally.

Though I will probably live to regret it, I sold my friend a hosting account through HostGator, Artisteer through an affiliate link, and even XSitePro2 also.

When I showed him XSitePro2 he was again amazed at the power and ease of use that the software offers.

My point of this post is this – don’t let anything stop you if you’re wanting to get into Internet Marketing. I know very little about programming. I don’t even know much about marketing in general. There’s many things I didn’t know when I started a little over a year a go, and there’s many things I still don’t know now. There’s nearly an endless supply of information to help you in your marketing endeavor, usually free if you look hard enough.

I made my mind up I would stick with it until I was able to earn my living solely from marketing online. I’m not there yet, but I will be, and it will be this year.

Setting up websites shouldn’t even be something that you let slow you down, much less stop you. Whether you choose to use only WordPress, XSitePro2 or even just HTML sites, there’s software and information available to get you to the point of creating your own attractive, functional, impressive websites…use it.

What Is Clickbank Gravity And How Does It Help You As An Affiliate?
By: Ray Johnson

One of the easiest ways to get started marketing on the internet is through affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is sending leads to a sales page and getting paid for everyone of your leads that buy.  But how do you select an affiliate product?  How can you tell which affiliate products will sell and which won’t sell?

The process of choosing an affiliate program to become involved with, is not as hard as it may seem as long as you know what to look for and what you want.  You need to know how to search for affiliate programs and how to compare one to another.

The first thing you need to know before you pick an affiliate program is what market or what niche do you want to sell in.  For example do you want to sell Internet marketing information, self help information or gardening information?
There are so many products you can sell, you need to narrow you choice to start with by answering that question.  You will be most likely to succeed in an area you either know something about or are interested in.

Once you pick your niche you are ready to start looking.  The largest collection of information products with affiliate programs is Clickbank.  There are thousands of products in dozens of categories and hundreds of sub categories listed for affiliates to choose from.

Go to Clickbank and look around a little bit to get a feel for the site and read some of the information about getting started.  If you do not have a Clickbank account, you need to sign up for one.  It is through this account that you will be paid, so it is important to sign up.

Once that is done go to Clickbank marketplace.  There is a link to marketplace at the top of the main page.  Marketplace is where you can search for affiliate programs.  They are organized by categories which is why you need to have an idea about the market or niche you want to sell to ahead of time.

There is a simple search engine there that will allow you to search by category, keyword, and sub-category.  Once you enter the search parameters the system lists your results.  There are some statistics that are shown for all each of the results.  The key ones are gravity, total earned per sale, percent earned per sale and percent of sales by affiliates.

The most important number is gravity.  Gravity is a score that Clickbank assigns to each affiliate product according to their secret formula.  It has to do with how many sales and how recently those sales have occurred.

Suffice to say that high gravity means that affiliates are making a lot of commissions on sales.  Low gravity means that there has not been many sales at all.  So the gravity is an important measure of how successful a product is.

You do not want to select the product with highest gravity because that also means that there will be the highest number of competitors selling that product.  It would be very difficult for you start with a product that has so much competition.

You would be much better off looking for a product with a gravity somewhere between 75 and 150.  That way you know that the product sells fairly well and you won’t have as much competition as the top products will have.

Once you find a number of products you might be interested in based on the gravity and category you can then start looking at the other factors such as total paid and percent paid.  Always start with a good number of possibilities and narrow it down from there.

You can be more confident in picking the right affiliate product by understanding how to use the gravity numbers at Clickbank.  That is a great start to picking your winning affiliate product.

To find out how you can successfully make a living online, and follow a successful and highly profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson – Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson.co.uk/

Article Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/41354/what-is-clickbank-gravity-and-how-does-it-help-you-as-an-affiliate

[EDIT: Although this is one scholl of thought on using Clickbank, another idea is to target lesser promoted Clickbank products. Often when a new marketer attempts to market the very high gravity products, the huge amount of experienced affiliates also marketing these products makes it difficult to get adaquate traffic. Try different methods and use what works for you.]

I got a kinda funny email yesterday from some girl (Linda, I’m not making fun of you, I just liked your approach!).

She said she had decided she was going to work from home because she didn’t like the job she had now. The only requirements were, that she didn’t want to spend any money to get started, and she had to be making at least as much (within one month!), as she was now on here present job! It was about $25,000/year.

I searched high and low, but I must have misplaced my magic-money-making link.

We ended up talking via IMs, and I told her that I had been doing marketing online, in a very lazy sort of way, for almost a year, and I wasn’t making that much yet. The problem with all of this is, I have no doubt, zero, that if I had actually worked, really worked, even half of the time that I was online, I could be making a very good income from my efforts. So it is there for anyone willing to put forth the effort.

Anyway, this wasn’t about me. She said that the last person she had talked to recommended (5) five different products or services that she needed to buy in order to make a decent income from her Internet Marketing. Actually, all of the products that she mentioned were products and services, like Web Hosting, that I would have recommended too. They were some of the ones that I know to be worth their cost. They would have definitely made her job faster and easier.

However, when I mentioned that some people will recommend anything and everything sometimes because they’re earning a commission on all the sales, she seemed to be shocked. You would have thought someone had held a gun to her head and was trying to rob her. That’s just the way it (usually) works. There are some good people around that I’ve emailed for help, that went out of their way to help me, but it’s not always the same with everyone.

To make a long post shorter, I guess it’s too late for that, I ended up telling her that if you willing to work, I honestly believe anyone, anyone can earn a decent income…even a very good income, from Internet Marketing, without spending more than just a few dollars per month. I guess the bottom line is-regardless of how much money you spend, if you’re not willing to put in some work, you’re better off not getting started. If you’re willing to work, and spend a little money, you can make things much easier on yourself.

Obviously if you’re willing to spend a little more you can make it a lot easier on yourself. I would say that getting a decent Web Hosting account is probably the best money that you can spend, initially at least. I’ve still just got two shared hosting accounts after almost a year ( 1 is obvuisly enough), and I really don’t need to upgrade yet. I’m using Bluehost and Hostgator and could honestly recommend either.

You can get an account for less than $10/month!! If you can’t, or don’t won’t to spend even ten bucks per month, I would seriously consider not even trying to get into Affiliate Marketing. You can start a blog totally free of cost at Blogger.com or a few other places, but a hosting account gives you the freedom to do so much more too. You’ll also, out of necessity, become proficient at FTP (file transfer protocol), and many other of the things that will eventually enable you to do anything that’s ever needed in order to maintain your online business.

If you’re totally new to everything Interent, I’d think about getting someone to help you get started. Probably most people aren’t though, and seeing how cutting and pasting is one of the most complicated activities that’s required, I think Internet Marketing is the best opportunity for many people to earn a living from home, without having significant startup capital, or even a technical background.

So, if you’re ready to do a lot of reading-a LOT. Get a shared hosting account with Bluehost or Hostgator, then prepare to do your homework. The only other necessary expense will be your domain(s), but if you just start building a single site (recommended), it’s another nearly insignificant expense.

Everything (as far as information) that you could possibly need (or probably want) is available for free somewhere online. Get real used to Google, you’ll be using it a lot.

The bottom line is this…you’re wanting to find just a small ‘niche’ that you can become very competitive in, hopefully even dominate. If it’s something that you really like or have a lot of knowledge on, so much the better. Just research any niche that you’re considering to become active in. I’ve seen people making serious money in tiny niches that I would never have considered. Those are the ones that can make you a lot of money, sometimes very quickly and for a very long time. Just make sure the traffic (and products or services) is there before you start promoting anything.

One other thing-if you want to make it a little easier on yourself, I’d consider trying to find a good, stable, long-term niche. By that I mean something that isn’t just a quick fad that’s hot for a week and then it’s totally dead. Some people make a lot of money jumping on the profitable ‘fad’ niches, but you have to be quick and able to get your site/ads in front of a lot of eyes quickly. I definitely wouldn’t advise it if you’re just starting out.

Also, if you’re wanting to get started on the cheap, I wouldn’t even remotely think about trying PPC (pay per click) advertising. Again, there’s a lot of people that have, and continue to make huge profits, but it’s not for the beginner. I’ve made a few dollars here and there, but the bottom line is…I’ve lost overall, and that’s all that matters.

Oh, in trying to do things will  the least expenditure possible, I would recommend a WordPress site. WordPress is free with Hostgator or Bluehost, and is an idiot-proof installation using Fantastico, it’s part of your cPanel within your hosting account. With all the many free themes and plugins available, you can have your WordPress site looking nearly any way you want.

My most productive site to date is a WordPress site that I setup using the phpBayPro plugin. The ‘pro’ version of the plugin isn’t free though, but it definitely works if you’ve done your homework on finding a profitable niche.

Some products and services that I can recommend just to get started are:

Google Keyword Tool (free)

SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool (free)

WordPress (free w/ Bluehost or Hostgator accounts)

Clickbank Account (for products to promote) (free)

Affiliate Networks for Products to Promote (free signup) (Many links on this page, Commission Junction, NeverblueAds, Linkshare and Pepperjam to name a few)

WordPress Goldmine (this isn’t a free one, but if you want to get the most from WordPress in the shortest time possible, it’s a good one)

Other than those to help you get started, remember that Google, Yahoo, MSN and some of the other search engines will be your best friend to get you to the information that you’ll need. It’s all out there, most of it free. It’s just a matter of doing it.