Associate Programs Newsletter #237

Today's article, "Picking the low-lying fruit" Part 2, is based on five years experience earning a full-time living from affiliate programs.

I recommend the two best approaches you can take.

They both work. You can choose the one that best suits your interests and skills.

CONTENTS:

1. Picking the low-lying fruit, Part 2
    How to avoid getting mired in the affiliate mud
2. Step-by-step instructions for building successful sites
3. Thanks for the overwhelming support
4. This newsletter is taking a break
5. Six popular pages
6. Are you new to affiliate programs? Start here
7. Useful resource: Articles database
8. Thought for today: Making it great

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1. Picking the low-lying fruit, Part 2
    How to avoid getting mired in the affiliate mud
=============================================

In Part 1 of Picking the low-lying fruit last week I explained why I believe the simplest way to promote affiliate products - and attract revenue from AdSense - is to build a keyword-rich, information-rich site.

I probably don't have to spell this out, but just in case...

When I say "easy pickings", I mean RELATIVELY easy.

To succeed you have to work. Only dreamers think you can succeed without work. You have to research things carefully, write useful articles, put the time into building a business, just as you would if you were building a business offline.

It's only after the checks start coming in that it seems easy.

After you've built your first successful simple site, what should you do to increase your earnings?

Conventional wisdom suggests you should add things such as a newsletter, a forum, a section of the site that is obviously updated daily or weekly, perhaps a news service, a regularly updated directory, a chatroom, or perhaps a section where your visitors can submit articles, tips, recipes, etc.

All those things should help you attract repeat visitors, help turn your site into a community and - if handled well - boost your revenue.

Owning a large site has definite advantages.

It makes it easier for you to build a reputation and easier for you to attract links to your site.

Also, Google gives large, popular sites preferential treatment. When you add a new page it's much easier to get a high ranking than it is on a small site.

However, I suggest that before you rush into any additions to a simple site, you should ask yourself a few questions, such as:

Who's going to handle each of these? Who's going to write the newsletter, moderate the forum, do the regular updates, process submissions to the directory, etc?

How many hours a week will each of those take? For example, the http://www.AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory has just passed the 6,000 programs mark. Glennys spends about 20 hours a week processing submissions to it and submissions to http://www.LifetimeCommissions.com and keeping the directories up to date. It's a big job.

If you're the only person on your team, what will happen when you take a holiday? Will you write three or four newsletters in advance? Who will moderate the forum? Wally, who moderates the Associate Programs Forum - http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php - does it seven days a week, part-time, and has for years.

Will you just pretend to take a holiday, and spend half your time working, with your spouse or friend saying: "Why can't you get someone else to do that?"

For a sane life, YOU should run your business, not own a business that runs you.

One way to do that is build a keyword-rich, information-rich, site on one theme. Make it as simple and maintenance-free as you can. It might be 20 pages or 200 pages.

Stop as soon as it's successful - that might mean anything from $100 a month in revenue to $2,000, $5,000, or even more. It depends on your skills, the value to AdSense of the keywords you choose, your conversion rate, each merchant's conversion rate, your search engine optimization skills, the number of good links to the site ... all sorts of things.

Then, instead of adding bells and whistles, consider building a second simple site.

When it's successful, build another one.

Bank the checks.

Go for a walk. Read a book. See a movie.

Take a rest and have a holiday whenever you feel like it.

Now congratulate yourself on building a sane business that gives you the freedom that so much of the Internet hype talks about but rarely delivers.

Rupert's case studies describe two successful affiliate sites -
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/138/1/Web-affiliate-programs-experiment-2

One usually earns a few hundred dollars a month. The second has now sold more than $308,000 worth of hard products for one merchant, without paying a penny for advertising.

Critics might look at these sites and see dozens of ways in which they could be enhanced and their revenue raised - IF a lot more work was done on them.

However, they're simple to build, and they're low-maintenance.

That's where the easy pickings are.

Start there.

Start with simple, successful sites.

Here's how...

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2. Step-by-step instructions for building successful sites
======================================================

If you want to avoid making lots of mistakes and avoid wasting a lot of time, you need clear, precise, step-by-step instructions.

Based on my five years experience in earning a good full-time living from affiliate programs, here are the two best places for affiliates to get precise, step-by-step instructions on how to build successful, revenue-generating sites...

For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend James Martell's "Affiliate Marketers Handbook".

James is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.

His instruction manual shows you how he builds sites using web authoring software.

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 doesn't merely show how to do all this, with 40,000 words and 107 helpful illustrations. He also shows you his own network of more than 50 successful affiliate sites.

My only criticism is that he's a little brief in one aspect - researching and writing articles. I'd prefer to see more emphasis on building USEFUL sites rather than sites designed to be found in search engines.

For long-term success, that's what I believe affiliates should do.

As one observer noted, James comes across as a friendly shopkeeper.

The most important fact is that James is highly successful, and shows you how exactly he does it.

You can learn more about James's affiliate manual here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/james

[UPDATE: These days, I think Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/rosalind - offers better value than James' book. It's cheaper, too.]

For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It.

SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.

Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part - creating useful, interesting content.

When you use the SBI brainstorming tools, remember that you're using software which relies on data from third-party sources and may occasionally churn out rogue results. So double check your keyword research by also using some of the research methods I recommend in "How to boost your AdSense revenue" - 
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/129/1/How-to-boost-your-AdSense-revenue

SBI is the tool I give my assistants.

Rupert used it to build his DJ site, which usually earns a few hundred dollars a month, and his computers site, whose recent monthly revenue has varied from $2,326 to $3,444.

Another of my assistants, Ros, is busy building another keyword- rich, information-rich site using SBI, aimed mainly at AdSense revenue. With a bit of luck, this will be our best-performing site yet.

We keep using SBI because we've found the SBI formula works so brilliantly.

Judging by questions asked in the SBI section of our forum, some affiliates have problems get started with SBI. Nearly always, they've been too impatient and haven't taken the time to read the Action Guide that comes with SBI. Nearly always, answers to their questions are either in the manual or in the built-in help sections included in the SBI tools.

Like Rupert, Ros has had extremely minimal instructions from me, because I've been too ill recently to help her.

Like Rupert, she didn't know a thing about affiliate programs when I hired her. I just gave her a copy of SBI - http://AssociatePrograms.com/buildit - and told her to study the 600-page step-by-step Action Guide that comes with it.

After a bumpy start where she had to get help from Support to solve an incompatibility problem on her computer, her new site is now coming along beautifully.

Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and now it's teaching Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site.

You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process.

It helps us pick the low-lying fruit.

If you like the sound of using this technique, a technique that really works, now is the perfect time to get started, because you can...

Buy-1-Get-1-Free.

Ken is having a special "Buy-1-Get-1-Extra" offer. You don't get an extra copy of SBI. You get extra time - a whole extra year.

So you have an extra year to prove conclusively to yourself how brilliantly the SBI method works.

This is an amazing opportunity.

Check it out now...

http://AssociatePrograms.com/buildit

[UPDATE: The Buy-1-Get-1-Free Holiday Promotion has ended. SBI is still superb value. I use it and highly recommend it. See the amazing proof that SBI works: http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/ultimate-proof ]

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3. Thanks for the overwhelming support
==============================================

I've been overwhelmed by the hundreds of kind, generous messages of support, best wishes, health tips and prayers I've received while I've been ill over the past few months.

Thank you. I'm deeply touched. Your messages mean a lot to me in these trying times.

I know you understand that it's been impossible for me to answer them all personally, but I've read them all and taken them to heart.

It was awesome to discover I have so many friends I never knew I had.

I was specially touched by emails from both friends and readers I've never heard of before who asked: "What can I do to help?"

Well, yes, there is something you can do ...

Many readers have told me how much I've helped them and their affiliate business, and told me that AssociatePrograms.com is the best resource for affiliates on the Net.

I love receiving emails like that.

However, AssociatePrograms.com has slipped down to No.3 in Google when people search for "affiliate programs".

Here's what you can do to help...

Let's get AssociatePrograms.com back at No.1.

To do that, I need more links to the site.

Is there somewhere on your site where you could slip in a link - a friendly recommendation? On a Good Resources page? Or perhaps in an article where you could insert another sentence?

Something like the following cut-and-paste link would be perfect, but of course you can word it anyway you like...

<B><A HREF="http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/">AssociatePrograms.com - best affiliate programs directory</A></B><BR> Allan Gardyne's top-notch resource for affiliates. Subscribe to the newsletter. Read the articles. Ask questions on the friendly, helpful forum. Highly recommended.<BR>

It would mean so much to me to see us hit No.1 again. With your help, we can do it.

Thanks for your help.

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4. This newsletter is taking a break
==================================

This will be the last issue of the Associate Programs Newsletter for ... I don't know how long. Perhaps a few weeks, perhaps a few months.

I'm taking a break to concentrate on getting back to full health.

My health is slowly improving but inevitably after a bone marrow transplant it's a long journey with many ups and downs.

Yesterday I posted a new health update on the friendly affiliate forum...

http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/viewtopic.php?t=1765

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5. Six popular pages
================================

Save these links in your Favorites. You'll want to refer to them again and again...

How to boost your AdSense revenue:
Build a simple, keyword-rich site, preferably using valuable keywords. That's the key to earning good revenue from AdSense.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/129/1/How-to-boost-your-AdSense-revenue

Affiliate marketing experiments using Site Build It:
Rupert knew nothing about affiliate programs when I hired him. Now one of his sites earns more than $3,000 a month.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/138/1/Web-affiliate-programs-experiment-2

Best affiliate programs:
Our top 10 favorites, and why. These are the affiliate programs which consistently perform best for AssociatePrograms.com.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/160/1/Best-affiliate-programs

Affiliate programs directory:
More than 6,000 affiliate programs in a searchable database that is usually updated daily. You can search by category, by keyword or alphabetically.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/directory/

Associate Programs Forum:
The friendly, genuinely helpful affiliate forum. Ask a question
or help someone else succeed.
http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php

Good resources for affiliates:
Tried and proven affiliate resources for affiliates and affiliate
merchants. These are tools and books I use.
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/categories/Affiliate-Resources/

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6. Are you new to affiliate programs? Start here
=============================================

The 10-day free "Affiliate Masters" course is simply superb. It tells you how to become an affiliate champion.

It's about 100 pages of excellent information - giving clear, high-quality, step-by-step, day-by-day content that lays out a process that really works.

You can download the whole course in one PDF file.

Get started on the right track today...

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/302/1/Free-Affiliate-Masters-Course

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7. Useful resource: Articles database
===============================================

Doing research for an affiliate site? Here's a good place to start.

The recently relaunched FindArticles database is a fabulous resource that won't cost you anything. It offers access to 3.5 million articles from more than 700 publications.

http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml

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8. Thought for today: Making it great
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"If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great." - Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own.

All the best

Allan Gardyne