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12. Are you failing to PLAN?
I received an email from someone who had bought a domain name and was trying to decide what to do with it.
Whoops! That's getting things backwards.
First you have to decide what you want to do. Here are three main options for affiliates. They all work.
Option 1: "Go where the money is," says the highly successful Marlon Sanders.
Do research on what is popular and sell that. Do a survey, find out what people want and sell it to them.
Want to know what's hot? Here's a really fast way. Keep an eye on Yahoo! Shopping - http://shopping.yahoo.com/ . Yahoo! has done lots of research and endless experimenting. It knows what sells.
Look at the "What's hot" list, where you'll find such things as digital cameras, MP3 players and Razor scooters.
Option 2: "Follow your passion," says Ken Evoy. Choose a topic in which you are passionately interested and build a site around that theme. That way, you'll enjoy what you're doing and derive a great deal of satisfaction from it. It won't seem like work.
"Everyone, absolutely EVERYONE, has a special interest... a passion," he says.
Having trouble choosing a topic? See Ken's free "Affiliate Masters" course. It shows you how to brainstorm your concept.
Option 3. Become passionately interested in something. Immerse yourself in all the little details about a topic and suddenly you'll become so absorbed that it's like a hobby, not a business.
That's what affiliate programs have become like for me. Perhaps for you it could be digital cameras.
If you become passionately interested in products which are hot sellers with little competition, that's even better!
To learn how to find those HIGH PROFITABILITY topics and products, see the "Affiliate Masters" course.
Download the 10-day free course here
Plan first, set your goals, and then act.
... and have fun.
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Your Host

Learn from an affiliate veteran.
Your host, Allan Gardyne, has been earning a good living from affiliate programs since 1998.






This is a truly wonderful site i am greener than green when it comes to internet marketing thank you very much i will use this site as the bench mark.
Regards,
Chris
[Chris, Sorry about the faulty link. I don't think Kate's book is available any more. I used a redirect to send the links to another good book on email marketing. Thanks for the good idea on the comments box. Much appreciated! We've done what you suggested. Allan.]
Many Thanks,
Cindy Harris
[Cindy, You can join affiliate programs and you can set up your own affiliate program. A really good place to ask questions is on our affiliate forum. Allan.]
Makes sense to me. I have a team of Sitesell sub-affiliates, too. Let's just say, if I could borrow Zorro's whip for a day, I'd put it to good use. :-)
But it's my own fault of course. I think to succeed with sub affiliates, it helps if you act like a good sales manager. Perhaps those of us that don't, can't expect much.
And all this is with "internet marketing" - that dubious arena where it's oh so easy to confuse affiliates with customers in the first place. In many niches, 2 tier programs are even less impressive, from my experience.
[Thank you! I'm glad you found it useful. Allan.]
Just wanted say your site is very helpful and I am going to follow your directions. I am a newbie but had a small business for 25 years. Looking forward to building this one. I have got things off the internet for years.
Thanks for the info
Joe
I really like your site. I'm a new affiliate and would like to know what is considered a small or large site? For example, I have a new site that has 387 articles/content so far and I keep adding more every day. Some is my own writing, though I do use articles from ezine. I have clickbank, adsense, ebay, searchfeed, and amazon ads on my site. Is 387 pages considered a big site? Also, is it okay to write a short but descriptive endorsement about affiliate products that I'm promoting on my site? How much word count does it have to have?
Thank you,
Liz
[A site of 387 pages is a very useful size. However, what's much more important than the number of pages is the quality of the articles, and the quality of the links to your site. Writing an enthusiastic endorsement of a product is one of the most effective ways to achieve sales. If you write a 300 or 400 word page on a product, that will give you useful content for the search engines to find, but even a short paragraph added to an existing page can be useful. Our affiliate forum is a good place to ask questions. We have lots of friendly, helpful forum members. Allan.]
[If you're new to affiliate marketing, I suggest you click on the "Beginners" link at the top left of this page. Allan.]
[Excellent point. When we revamped this site, I spread a few of the articles over several pages. You're right - it was a mistake. Allan.]
[It sounds as though the notification email is being dumped somewhere between us and you. Try signing up for a Gmail account with Google and using it. Allan.]
First I have to say, your site is incredible. I've been spending several hours here just reading and lurking and hopefully learning. In fact I don't seem to be able to stop reading! I finally just had to copy some of the page links in an email to myself, so I can come back to them, later to avoid overload on my brain. I'm new at affiliate marketing, and new at trying to blog, so I appreciate all the helpful info you're providing here. I hope to visit back here often, and I may need to now write an article/blog post, promoting your site! Thank you so much for all the helpful info you're providing here!
Jan
[Glad you're finding AssociatePrograms.com useful. A link would be really appreciated - I love free publicity. Allan.]
i am from africa, now in the usa and new to the internet world. through a lot of research and reading i found out that the affiliate marketing is good business. i came across your website.. when doing research about this marketing bussiness and i see how you have explained and solved some asked questions.. pls mr allan ..how do i start and become a pro like you? in the affiliation marketing cause i dont know my left from right
thank you
[As with any business, you start by learning the basics, and you don't move on until you've conquered the basics. Your first goal should be to earn $1. That's the hardest step. I've written a free Affiliate Programs Tutorial for people who are starting out. Click on the "Beginners" link at the top left of the page to find it. Allan.]
Some of the links in your google adsense advert is broken, can you check your main data feed to be sure all is well?
Thanks.
[Thanks for the alert, but if links in an AdSense ad are broken, that problem is caused by the advertiser. Allan.]
I would first like to comment on mr anonymous 11 I found the comments absurd, we all have freedom of choice, any helpful information of this nature is bound to give you confidence to get started, and besides if someone offers you a piece of fresh toast you don't throw it back in his face because it's got no jam on it!
Help please, I am 56yrs old and run a small business with my wife, but we need another income when things are slack. I recently learned to use the computer from scratch, I am not very good but would like to get started as an Affiliate and hopefully improve as I go. I saw an ad for Affiliate Junktion and decided to join up. I accepted and paid for a domain and hosting package. At that point, with all respect to them, I changed my mind and decided not to send in the receipt but use the site myself. They of course don't know, so I have not wasted their time. I have only three pages Allan! I have chosen a great theme close to my heart, so the site will contain products I really believe in, and I am customising the site right now.
Can I get anywhere with that size of site, and if so how many products can I hope to promote. Is there some kind of connection between the
wording in the small ads, like the ones you have at the side, and the product links that earn you the commission. How on earth do you collect e-mail addresses from people clicking into you site, or can you only do this by encouraging people to e-mail you for further information.
Thanks Allan, Jerry.
[A 3 page site would have one advantage - it should give you plenty of time to promote the site. However, it would have a HUGE disadvantage - it would contain very little content to attract free traffic from search engines. Very small sites are often used by affiliates who buy advertising to attract people to their site, but I don't recommend that approach for beginners. Over all, the larger the site, the more visitors you are likely to get. When building a site, you have to ask yourself: "Why would someone want to link to this site?" Links to a site are the lifeblood of a site which gets free traffic. Links help you get ranked highly in search engines. If you simply write about products you like, you probably aren't creating a site other people will want to link to. When deciding how many products to promote, try to see things through the eyes of a typical visitor. Your job as an affiliate is to help that person decide what to buy. Your job is also to provide useful, helpful information that person is actively looking for. Google AdSense, which is free to join, provides contextual ads. They are automatically relevant to the content on the page. We have an AdSense section on our forum. The simplest way to collect email addresses is to have a newsletter and use a service like Aweber or GetResponse or SBI which will provide the form you can paste into your page where people can sign up for your newsletter. Another way is to have what is called a "squeeze" page on which you give away a free report and people have to hand over their email address to get it. Aweber or GetResponse make this easy. If you click on the "Beginners" link at the top left of this page, you'll find a lot of introductory affiliate information. Start with my free Affiliate Program Tutorial. Allan.]
Hey, awesome tips. I plan to have my own affiliate network.This would help a lot of people :).
Just a quick post to holler at ya Allan. Your article was an awesome refresher course in affilate marketing. Brushed away a lot of cobwebs. Awesome posting.