The Basics of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is something that many "Guru" types know how to do. They know what it is about, and what it takes to be successful. However, if you are new to this world, you may just be wondering how you can get into affiliate marketing and making income on the side for yourself. Doing so is not that complicated, and I have created this guide to get you started.
First of all, let's cover just exactly what affiliate marketing is. Affiliate marketing is when you sell or get leads for someone else's service or product. You are going to find that there are so many people that do this. When a company needs some help making sales, and they allow people to sign up as affiliates, they are willing to pay a commission or a flat rate per lead or sale. Depending on the company, this percentage or flat rate will vary.
Affiliate marketing can be used to make a decent income several ways. You can use a website, a blog, newsletter, email, ads, etc. The list goes on and on. However, the most popular form of affiliate marketing is done with a website. When you choose the market that you want to promote, be sure that you choose one that you are somewhat familiar with. At the beginning of my business... and yes, this is a business, more times that I'd like to count, I was swept away by some "Get Rich" quick deal, in a niche (market) I knew nothing about.
You must research. These days, it's just a matter of popping a few keywords in your browser, and 'Voila!'
Check out: www.clickbank.com, www.amazon.com
Don't neglect this step, whatever you do.
This way you can become an expert on the topic, and everyone will know that you are the king of that market.
Once that is done, it is time for a URL. There are many places that you can get your own domain from. Once you have decided where you will purchase that from, choose a URL that has the topic you are selling in the URL for the best results. For example, if you want to market cat food, you won't use a URL that has dog in it. Make sure that everything is relevant.
Now that you have your market and your URL chosen, you will want to determine the hosting that you will use for your website. You need dependable hosting for the best results. A hosting company that has more up time than down time is best, because during the down time, your website will not be accessible. So, get some recommendations from others who have tried a few, and use the best that you can find. It is worth it to pay for good hosting.
(I recommend HostGator for hosting and Go Daddy for purchasing your domains.)
Once that is done, you are ready to get your affiliate links and website set up so that you can market the most effectively. Determine the amount of money that you want to make, and set up an outline of how you are going to make it. There are so many ways that you can get a website out there to be seen, and you will want to make the best decisions. So, finding out the best ways for you to do this in a cost-effective way is a good start.
Learning SEO, which is also known as search engine optimization, is a great idea. Using SEO to get your site higher in the search engine rankings with keywords will pay off in the end. You can learn it yourself, or you can pay someone to do this part for you. It is up to you. However, you should know that learning and using SEO yourself is time consuming. Hiring an SEO guru might be better for you.
Another great resource would be (Yup! This is my affiliate link): http://www.seobook.com/#a_aid=bigkingink
Write articles about the market that you are promoting from your website and submit them to all of the article directories. When you include a link back to the site that you are promoting, this will help you as well with the search engines.
Affiliate marketing is not something that you can make money with overnight. You need to be able to build up and keep adding to your website daily or weekly, and keep it going. You can do it; just don't give up.