An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

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.

When I started my blog at JeffreyNorris.com, as most people are, I was somewhat anxious to get some readers. I read everything I could find in order to speed things up as much as possible to acquire visitors.

Read the rest of this entry »