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Give yourself a flying start in affiliate marketing by getting at least one of the following affiliate marketing manuals.
Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook
What does it take to be a super affiliate?
You'll find the answer to that question and hundreds more in Ros Gardner's "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 In One Year Selling Other People's Stuff".
Rosalind's success as one of the major-league super affiliates and the success of the Handbook is all in the details. She writes in a clear and concise style and presents the facts in a down-to-earth, no BS manner that enables an absolute beginner or a seasoned veteran of affiliate marketing to learn what it takes to become a super affiliate.
She knows her stuff because she's been there herself.
She teaches other affiliates a multitude of marketing methods including PPC, email and list building, so the Super Affiliate Handbook is as much about what NOT to do as it is about what to do to boost yourself into the super affiliate stratosphere.
Her focus is on choosing affiliate programs carefully, building simple but professional sites, writing compelling text and building trust from your visitors.
Ros makes it very clear that you have to get the details right first time, every time - that's how she generates over $1,000 a day in affiliate income.
She describes her systems and how she manages to generate conversion rates of between 2.5% and 6% (and higher!), when the average affiliate considers 1% a successful conversion rate.
Whether you are just starting out in the Internet marketing industry or have been around for a while waiting for that magic formula that is going to drive more traffic and more sales conversions to your site, don't do another thing until you've read the Super Affiliate Handbook.
James Martell's Affiliate Marketers Handbook
James is one of the real been-there-done-that super affiliates.
His instruction manual shows you how he builds highly successful affiliate sites. He used to mainly use FrontPage software. These days, he concentrates mainly on teaching you how to use a web-based website builder.
One particularly useful feature is his explanation of how he uses an innovative page-linking strategy to concentrate Google PageRank and send visitors to a small number of selling pages.
He shows you how to do all this, with 40,000 words and 107 helpful illustrations.
You get 40,037 words of easy to understand text, 107 helpful illustrations and 245 pages to guide you through the EXACT process of building high-traffic websites as an affiliated publisher for some major companies.
My only criticism is that he's a little brief one one aspect - researching and writing articles. I'd like to see more emphasis on building USEFUL sites rather than sites designed to be found in search engines.
James has come under criticism because some of his sites have been hit badly by Google algorithm changes. He has had to modify his techniques.
(One of the best ways to avoid being clobbered by search engines algorithm changes is to build high quality, genuinely useful, interesting sites, and get links from "authority" sites - ones which have lots of high quality links to THEM.
The most important fact is that James is still very successful, and shows you exactly how he does it.
See how 12 super affiliates earn their living
Super Affiliates Confessions Revealed shows what 12 super affiliates do.
For example, Al from New Jersey uses autoresponders to earn a residual income by promoting cigarettes. A subscriber automatically receives seven messages in a month, so Al has seven chances to make a sale.
You can easily use Al's system to sell other products.
The book is worth getting just for this one step-by-step interview. There are 11 more chapters, including one by me.
[UPDATE: You now get two really good bonuses with Super Affiliates Confessions Revealed. The site looked a bit wonky when I checked it recently. I suggest you ignore this. The book IS a really good one. It will get you thinking beyond affiliate marketing 101.]
Make your Site SELL! 2002This is THE absolutely essential manual for anyone selling anything online.
Although it's not about building an affiliate business, it does describe in step-by-step detail the three things anyone selling anything on the Net - and that includes affiliate marketing - needs to know: How to develop a product; how to create a web site that sells; and how to lure targeted traffic.
It has over 1,500 pages. It's much better than courses that cost 10 times as much. Incredible value. UPDATE: It's now free!
Mini Site Profits
Phil Wiley calls himself a "no good high school dropout". For a dropout, he's really clever. He's now a full-time Internet marketer. In his book, "Mini Site Profits", Phil provides a step-by-step guide to building a money-earning mini site in under an hour for less than $10. Highly recommended.
Associate Program Marketing Handbook
Marlon Sanders, author of the hugely popular The Amazing Formula That Sells Products like Crazy has created a manual for affiliates describing 25 cutting-edge techniques that work. In simple language, he tells you precisely what successful affiliates are doing to achieve exceptional sales. No fluff, no nonsense, just the detailed descriptions you need to achieve sales with affiliate programs. Excellent value. Highly recommended. Only $20. An absolute bargain.
