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Declan
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:14 pm
Post subject: What do the affiliate pros recommend?
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Hi,
I have recently started as an affiliate with some of the top affiliate programs but seem to be one of the 80% that makes bugger all! So I have a question or two for Allan Gardyne or anyone else who is a succcessful affiliate who would like to share their experiences and get me out of the RED!
How long did it take before you were successful as an affiliate?
What were the things that you implemented early on that contributed to that success?
In other words what is your daily method of operation? (Apart from opening your letterbox stuffed full of cheques!)
Declan
Melbourne, Australia |
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Debs
Joined:
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4296
Location:
NY
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:21 pm
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I know how you feel, been there done that 
1. DON'T promote IM (internet marketing) products, promote real world stuff ... less competition ... besides, if you aren't a successful affiliate, how do you convince people? Can you win trust and credibility which are essential to making money?
2. Find one successful method/guru, and stick with it. Don't chase after every Tom, Dick & Harry guru style, it just doesn't work;
3. Get motivated and if you get discouraged, visit the motivation thread on here
4. Make sure you are preselling, not selling, unless it is your own product, then sell!
5. Make sure your site offers a USP (unique selling proposition);
6. Make sure your pages focus on your MWR (most wanted response) for that page.
Do a search of the forum for some of the keywords above to get some great ideas.
Just a few thoughts,
Debs
_________________
Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!" |
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Sean Burns
Joined:
11 Oct 2003
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232
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Sydney
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:51 pm
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Hi Declan
The first thing that you need to do is follow Debs' advice. Apart from that:
| Quote: | | How long did it take before you were successful as an affiliate? |
Ages. I was making income from other sources when I first started but I couldn't get affiliate sales. I even emailed Allan about six years ago asking for help. The problem I had then was the same problem that everyone has now - I wasn't "acting" on the information I had.
| Quote: | | What were the things that you implemented early on that contributed to that success? |
Early on I only implemented things that didn't work. Now, I only implement things that do work for me. Pre-sell (as Debs said) and target keywords (if you are using free search engine traffic) that get people to buy. So, I largely ignore generic keywords - I only go after ones that tell me what the visitor wants. In a way, the visitors are pre-selling to themselves before they visit my site - I just need to give them a little nudge after that.
Cheers
Sean Burns |
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Declan
Joined:
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Melbourne
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 2:15 am
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Excellent advice
thanks guys,
Declan
Melbourne, Australia
_________________
Affiliate Marketing Solutions
www.A1Home-Business.com |
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AllanGardyne
Site Admin
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6326
Location:
by the beach, Australia
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 5:48 am
Post subject: Re: What do the affiliate pros recommend?
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Hi Declan
It certainly can be confusing when you're starting out. There are so many different options, so many ways of making money from affiliate programs.
Believe me, you DON'T want to know in too much detail what I did when I started. First I launched a hobby site and became bored with it. The second thing I did was make the classic mistake: I launched a web site all about Internet marketing when I didn't know how do Internet marketing 
| Quote: | | How long did it take before you were successful as an affiliate? |
Far too long. It took me two years online before I quit my day job, back in 1998. That was probably because I was flat broke and trying to rely totally on free information.
| Quote: | | What were the things that you implemented early on that contributed to that success? |
Things I did then which still work well today...
1. I identified a fast growing niche. Back in January, 1998, that was affiliate marketing. I created a web site and newsletter covering that niche. I did exactly the same thing in 1999 when people where talking about pay-per-click search engines - http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com . Both those niches now have dozens or hundreds of competitors.
I found those niches just by reading magazines, newsletters and subscribing to email discussion lists and watching what people were talking about.
For example, in I-Search email discussion list, several people actually said: "Where can I find a list of pay-per-click search engines?" That email discussion list went out to about 7,000 people. I immediately raced out and bought the domain name PayPerClickSearchEngines.com .
Similarly, when the first few lifetime commission programs came out, I decided that programs that pay you again and again would eventually be big - it's been slower than I expected - and I bought a domain name and launched http://www.LifetimeCommissions.com .
The point isn't that I launched directories - which can be horribly time consuming - but that I launched web sites on what I identified as fast growing niches.
You can also search for overlooked niches, and non-competitive niches.
"Internet marketing" has advantages, but it's a fiercely competitive field - a real toughie for a newcomer to tackle.
2. I went public, as public as I possibly could. In the early days of AssociatePrograms.com, I worked frantically, making what I hoped were interesting, useful - and perhaps a little controversial - posts in a lot of different email discussion lists.
As a friend said to me at the time, "You're everywhere!" Well, not exactly, but I was trying to be. It worked. Fairly quickly, I was so busy I didn't have time to do more of that sort of publicity.
| Quote: | | In other words what is your daily method of operation? |
What I'm doing now is totally different.
The project which interests me most and I believe has the most potential for big success, is a site a new employee of mine is building using Site Build It. She's done an awful lot of very careful research using SBI, and checking with Overture and Worktracker. When you're building a new business, I believe it's important to do very careful research - just the way you'd do careful research if you were launching a new business offline. Fortunately, it's a lot cheaper to launch a new business online.
We've identified a niche which although extremely competitive has many junky sites and so we're creating a site which aims to be absolutely top notch, and make us stand out from the crowd. The reason: We want to own a site that is good enough for people to want to link to us. Never overlook that, if you're aiming for long-term success.
The niche has valuable keywords - people pay high prices per click on AdSense and on Overture.
We're being perhaps hopelessly optimistic in some of the tough keywords we're aiming for, but we're also aiming for much easier keywords too. It's going to be a BIG site, with lots and lots of keyword-rich articles - lots of fodder for the search engines. We have many long pages but we also some some very short ones, too, because sometimes they can rank surprisingly well in search engines for very little work.
What we did back in 1998 might be interesting, but Google and AdSense didn't exist then.
I firmly believe that in today's climate, Google's AdSense is far too good an opportunity to ignore.
The best chance a newcomer has of succeeding online today is to identify a small niche, aim to be the best you possibly can be in the niche, build a useful, interesting (many people overlook that!) keyword-rich site. Keep the site very simple and aim to generate revenue mainly from AdSense, with a small sprinkling of affiliate programs.
There are many other ways to make money online but if you keep it simple like that, you'll have the best chance of success. You can always complicate things later when you've learned to make a success of a simple site.
Ken Evoy is a strong advocate of niche sites and has written a lot of good, free advice on how to go about finding a topic and building a site the search engines will love.
If you've read Ken's free Affiliate Masters Course, I urge you to go back and read it again. Do what he suggests. Print it out, find a quiet spot and read it through carefully several times and think about it.
You can download the whole free course here:
http://AssociatePrograms.com/search/affiliate-masters.shtml
Of course Ken will try to sell you his stuff, which is very good, but remember that his tips work with any affiliate program.
When you've built your keyword-rich, useful, interesting niche site, promote it heavily, using all the free techniques you can possibly find - including using signatures in forums.
Allan Gardyne - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com
The Complete Site Build It! Reference Center...
This Link Directory May Change Your Affiliate Business
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/reference-center.shtml |
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john2698
Joined:
08 Nov 2003
Posts:
709
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 2:06 pm
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I also know how you feel. I have been doing affiliate marketing for just over 3 years. The first year that I was doing it I did not make a cent. The first year was were I was building my site and also learning about affiliate marketing.
I found it best to start of with pay per click affiliate programs which had a low minimum payout. This is because I didn't have to sell anything to earn money from them. This meant that all the money that I quickly earn't could go back into my sites advertising. Once I kept pumping money back into my site, my visitors were increasing. As my visitors were increasing, I then started to get enough visitors to start generating sales. I only received a few sales at first, but they slowly increased as time went by.
I also found I best to also refer other affiliates to these ppc affiliate programs so that they can also earn you money.
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Affiliate Programs Directory - Over 2,000 Programs
140+ Affiliate Networks - Lists some of the best networks online |
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edburdo
Joined:
14 Jul 2003
Posts:
1760
Location:
Bangor, Maine
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 2:56 pm
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Allan, thanx for that post. It helps me out a bunch...
I am kinda in the place where I have several ideas, many already in motion, but not sure what to do next. And your advice is what I was looking for...
And I just downloaded the affiliate course from Ken to read (again). It has been a while since I read it...
_________________
Eric D. Burdo
They Made $6,513 a day With Clickbank Doing This... |
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