Affiliate marketing can be a powerful way to earn income from the internet. Unfortunately the majority of affiliates make very little money and most simply give up believing that it does not work.
The truth is that affiliate marketing works very well and is actually a growing industry so the time to get in is now. However you will need to learn certain skills in order to succeed as an affiliate and there are certain things only experience can teach you so make sure you take action.
The first step in affiliate marketing is selecting an affiliate product to promote. You need to pick a niche that has lots of buyers so doing keyword research is the first step. The free Google keyword tool or the overture keyword tool which is also free are ideal for research purposes.
Type in some of the major keywords in your niches and check how many results come up. If there are more than 50,000 searches for a month then there is a good chance that the niche may be profitable.
Once you have decided that there is a market for that niche, now you need to find the best affiliate product for that niche. Do a search for 'niche affiliates' to locate some affiliate programs for your niche. You can also use the popular affiliate networks like Clickbank, Commission Junction or Linkshare.
Clickbank is a leading digital products retailer and selling digital products online can often be a great thing to start with. Many people like buying digital products like e-books and software because as soon as they pay they get immediate access to the product so this is a growing market.
When choosing products at Clickbank look for ones that have a gravity higher than 30 which is a good indicator that it is a quality product. Also be sure to check out the sales letter and make sure it looks convincing and professional. The commission rates at Clickbank are also very good usually at least 50 percent for most products. It is a good idea to pick an affiliate program where you will receive at least 20 to 50 dollars or more per sale.
Commission Junction and Linkshare offer some good affiliate programs too. The pay per lead programs may be a good option to start with since it is not too difficult to get people to fill out a form versus selling them a product. These kinds of programs usually are offered by credit card, mortgage and loan companies. Also you will find many fortune 500 companies offering affiliate programs here too. When applying for these programs make sure you have a site that is closely related to their program otherwise you may get rejected.
The important point at the start is to pick one quality affiliate program and focus on that. Once you have selected your affiliate program the next step is to select a promotional strategy. There are many ways to promote your affiliate program and your budget really dictates which strategy you should go with.
If you have money to spend then it is a good idea to learn how to use pay per click advertising like Google adwords to market your affiliate products. With pay per click advertising, selecting the right keywords is very important. Do not pick too general keywords but rather look for the most relevant keywords in your niche and bid on those.
Also if your are using Google adwords then make sure you create small adgroups that are tightly focused on specific keywords. Put the keyword in the title and body if you can as this will help to improve click through rates. Also add the keyword as naturally as possible to your landing pages. These steps will help to improve the quality score of your ads and good quality score means less cost for advertising.
If you have little or no money to spend then do not worry because there is still a way for you to make money with affiliate marketing. The best approach in this case would be to write and submit articles. There are hundreds of article directories eager for content so all you need to do is write an article around 700 words or so and then submit it to these directories.
Each article will have a link back to your site so this will help to build traffic to your site from the article directories and from search engine traffic as the ranking of your site improves over time. Submit a unique article roughly once a week and make sure it is of good quality too. Be consistent and in time you will see the results you desire from affiliate marketing.
Roger is an online researcher and regular contributor to a site that shows people how to make money online. Be sure to visit and also learn more about affiliate marketing as a way to increase your income.
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