Back on the topic of making money- Affiliate Marketing

[kurtyordy]

This is for all you affiliate marketing pros-

I know this will be considered creating competition, but I just thought I would ask.....

Can you give us a basic primer on getting the affiliate marketing ball rolling?

1. I understand one of the early steps is to look at keywords? What do you look for? What factors are you considering?

2. I also understand that the domain should be keyword rich, so lets says I am targeting the audience that would buy 'dirt' Obviously, dirt.com is taken, so which has higher seo value, dirt.net or dirt.blogspot.com? Do blogspot.com sites have any seo value in this discussion or not.

3. how would you then go about building traffic? I know funnel/silo (I think they are the same or similar) sites were discussed before, but step by step, how would you build that? Does it matter how many sites are added a week?

I think that is all I have for now. Thanks in advance.

 

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[rocksolid]

I don't know much about Affiliate marketing yet and I am sure you will get some good feedback from everybody, but here is a forum on the subject that might help answer your questions.

5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums

Most Popular Affiliate Programs

 

[TC2]

I, too, am interested in affiliate marketing. Not that I want to earn money over affiliate marketing, but I want to offer opportunities to affiliates to sell my services. (I want to be the driver!)

I would love to know what affiliates want, so I can offer the best deal to them.

I have two ideas in mind.
1. One time commission that is 60%-80% of the sales price
2. Recurring commission that is up to 50% of the subscription

The bottom line is that I will do customer services in house. So the affiliate just need to setup the accounts and earn $ from it.

My own experience with affiliate marketing will not be a great examples, but I will share that here. I am still earning passive income from few of the sites that I built a long time ago. I have not updated them for a long time, so the income is not as good as it should be, but it pays off the hosting. I got nothing to lose.

Here is what I learned.

1. A dead web site won't generate good income. You have to do something with it
2. Relevant content and relevant affiliate products
3. Right products that has demand
4. Go straight to the point - long landing page may hurt your conversion rate

Personally, a keyword rich domain is great but not necessary. Domain is like a brand. It has to be easy to remember and as short as possible.

Here is what I do usually and am looking for improvements and suggestions.
1. Keyword rich title is the #1 key factors to bring you the organic traffic.
2. The order of keywords in your meta keywords is important
3. Long tail keywords optimization
4. Focus on secondary keywords in the crowded niche

BTW, I am looking for suggestions on great affiliate tracking site or script that I can integrate into my membership/subscription site. CJ and other well known sites are just way too expensive for startup.

Thanks!

 

[BryanC]

I think that affiliate marketing is business taken to a whole other level. Not only does Affiliate marketing benefit the person making the referral to the said affiliate site, it benefits the consumer and the producer.

That's right, I said it.

Anyway, toning my aggression down, Affiliate Marketing is just such a great business because it gives people the opportunity to really start today with no money and make something out of nothing. If the products are desirable to the consumer and your web page is convincing enough, I think you'll do pretty good. I personally have an arsenal of over 150 affiliate sites which continually pay me to this day. I am not going to name them here because I don't want to get them banned from the programs or my marketing outlets. Just as I have made claims on a site I could care less about, I have also made claims and promises on affiliate sites that I break every single day. And, there is nothing the customer can do about it other than ask the affiliate site for a refund.

I would say I have to honor a refund about every 1 in 10 times. Not such a big deal when you're making 10's of millions of dollars a day in affiliate commissions. Just make sure which ever products you decide to promote have good return systems to piggy back off of.

Additionally, Affiliate Marketing is so good because of the way you can design your system.

For example, I have made billions just by relinking people to Amazon. I mean, come on browsky... it's Amazon dawg. People are GOING TO BUY from Amazon... all I have to do is build my little bridge and stick it between the sales site and the place a buyer might be.

So you could also think of Affiliate marketing as brokering products and services.

But it's a beautiful system because you're at the heart of the action. The exchange. You have the ability to literally exchange something WITHOUT owning it and you can sell numerous amounts of ways by simply having a well design site.

Seriously, you could build a profitable site in less than 15 mins. Somebody said early in the day that you shouldn't try to get rich off of doing 15 min sites. But, my answer is. If I am in 10's of thousands of markets with 10's of thousands of my sites at the forefront of the actual exchange linking them to Amazon with the idea that they're getting more than Amazon is to offer, am I not getting a head. At accelerated paces?

Aren't we all TRYING to find the path of least resistance? Can't we all just get rich in affiliate marketing? YES. You can. Surprisingly, affiliate marketing might also be a solution to a recession on the micro economic level because it provides the ability for the common man to start trading NOW with products and services he does not own, produce, store, or distribute.

All of us can do Affiliate Marketing and change our lives and there is 100's of thousands of exclusive styles to marketing numerous amounts of products.

You can sell physical products, digital products, and on and on without production and distribution costs. It's kind of like outsourcing your whole operation. Plus, the more you realize that you can do this and piggy back off of other people's efforts the more you'll realize that God has granted you a permit to be lazy while still effectively solving human demands and problems...

Take me for example, right now as we speak... I am having hundreds of products manufactured for future sales. I am sending 100's of people products. I am processing hundreds of orders. I am packaging up lots of products like TV's, Books, Cameras, Cell Phones, Shoes, and on and on. And you also have the digital front, I am not sure what you would like to target with this but, you can go after tons of things from Domain Sales to selling marketing campaigns on top of marketing campaigns like the recent derivatives on top of derivatives expose on Wall Street.

You can be a Madoff like me all in the comfort of your own home office.

If you are going to start marketing as an affiliate. I suggest that you start with Amazon and get used to their infrastructure.

Amazon.com : Sell on Amazon

It's not that complicated and very intuitive once your subconsciousness is altered and experience grants you comfort. You will like it and should probably start distribution of the said products that interest you so your landing sites are structured for success and conversion! Clickbank is alright but, I don't do as much of it anymore.

One of my personal favorite techniques is incentivized-opt-in affiliate marketing where the whole page is basically designed to be my cash bucket.

I can get paid on the front end by generating a lead and get paid again after that lead links into my affiliate landing page. You can sell the name and email to another site, be it a competitor or different market, then get paid by amazon if you have a conversion. Don't let nobody tell you this isn't possible either because if you just take the time to learn how to make basic pages, you'll get used to it, you'll be making plenty of money, and you'll be pumping out 3-4 sites a day to start marketing.

Now as far as marketing your affiliate site, I recommend: Well... paid... but viral can still be very affective. Paid is a better way to go as long as you follow basic economic principles and your ads generate more income than what your overall cash outlay is for the said advertisement.

You can either buy leads, buy marketing space on sites like Google and Yahoo, or target other sites.

Or virally is also very affective. Strategies I use are articles, videos, forums, social media, and link swaps. And on and on. You can do this yourself, or you can figure out a way to pay somebody else to do it for you. Either on an hourly waged consistent basis, commission basis, there is plenty of way to compensate people for their efforts etc. etc.

For me... viral marketing starts with me creating a system and having somebody else work it. I will either write up good profiles on the social media sites and have somebody use a bot like friend blaster to build them up. Or I will design banners, text ads, articles, videos, blogs, forums, reviews, press releases, and on and on.

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace (Kind of despise because of their linking policy.), Youtube, Rever, Metacafe, umm... Digg, Blogs, man... to much to list... but I am just trying to give you an idea here!

But the key to it is, I have trained people to duplicate for me.

You need to make your viral marketing system easy enough so a kindergartener can build, use, expand, and manage it. Your basic job on the part of viral marketer, as the driver and not the passenger, is you want to build the foundation once so it is duplicable forever with mild alteration and also as a word of advice, make sure there is minimal obstacles between your customer and the check out screen. The closer to the "Send Money Now" button. The better!

Imo, WORKING BACKWARDS... An affiliate operation should really be no more than this: "Send My Money Now" & Information Entry<Cart Confirmation Screen<Product Decsription/Information/Affiliates Page<My Affiliate Landing Pitch Page<Ultimate Offer Incentivized Opt-In PopUp or Page<Backlink

I.E. - When I am not sun bathing on the beach and getting the ladies, I am selling Mac Books on Amazon. If I sell Mac Books. I first want the sale, then I want the lead, then I want the link coming into my site to be as close to free as possible, YET maximally effective.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MB466LL-13-3-Inch-Processor-SuperDrive/dp/B001D8S9E2/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_1[/ame]

Now the part of running an affiliate program. This is another area of leverage I have ventured into. :eusa_clap:

Leveraging other affiliates whether individual or organizational is BIG business. You can even do it on your own affiliate pages. I think they're rare... but how many people have you seen offering affiliate programs on their own affiliate linking page? Once you realize that commission can be broken up, though, you can start getting a lot more viral traffic. For FREE. :urock2:

But, offering an affiliate programs on sites you created with products you either manufacture or own the legal property rights to is also a very effective trade off. If say, you owned a store or something of that nature... you could make LOTS AND LOTS of extra money.

Take this site in particular for example: Legal Buds.com - Legal bud | Herbal Vaporizer | Herbal Vaporizers. It's a store type of setup, BUT I as an affiliate referrer have the opportunity to make lots of money off of it while the hosting vendor benefits from the sales and additional traffic to their site.

So there is 101 things you can do with Affiliate Marketing and you can let your creativity run rampant. Spontaneous action, trial and error, and time is the key to your success as an affiliate I would venture to say.

Also, I wanted to say, remember that websites can be tremendous Assets for both Income and Trade Off to someone else. Websites, like Real Estate, are indeed ARTIFACTS that you are creating to be passive and automated service renderers to human beings while also extracting the highest possible profit for you. :smx9:

I think to sum it all up. Yes, Affiliate Marketing should be a strategy for your overall web success! As a producer and marketer you can only win by it.

 

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[mtnman]

Sweet...like to see money making threads!

I'm no pro, and I really don't know much...I realize this the more I learn. I do make money however.

But there are many methods to affiliate greatness.

Preselecting your model determines what comes next. How do you want to market your sites? PPC, SEO, JV's, etc.

Basically, do you want to spend money, or do you want to spend time?

SEO will take work and longer time frames, whereas PPC and other methods will take a bankroll.

Everyone has an opinion on which is better. Might be your lucky day... let me go check something.



edit- actually Kurt, you might know the answer to this...http://www.thefastlanetomillions.co...w-many-people-have-access-here.html#post91868

You have access to both right?

 

[kurtyordy]

edit- actually Kurt, you might know the answer to this...http://www.thefastlanetomillions.co...w-many-people-have-access-here.html#post91868

You have access to both right?

Yes, I can access both.

I am interested in what you have. I would be curious to see time vs money vs both. I tend to have more cash than time right now, but trying to change that by being more focused on how I spend my time.

 

[mtnman]

Heh, nothing revolutionary, but I usually have 30 or so domains ready to go for sniper sites at all times.

I'm never going to use them all, plus I continually replenish them, so I thought it might be cool to post a few to give you and others some ideas. Or reg of course.

A list of 5 domains/niches, spread between 200 people, is like 5 minutes worth of fun. lol

Just wanted to get an idea of probability by checking access numbers.

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

1. Is the type of affiliate marketing you are referring to just setting up an account with Amazon.com as an affiliate and posting a link in your website (sales copy, blog, or other)?

2. Is there an inexpensive way to transfer into having affiliates for you? Say I would like to create something like a polar bear training course and have others sell for me. Obviously it won't be as simple as "Here's the product, go sell it while I sit on my butt!", does anyone have an idea of what the steps are here? (and I know this has been discussed a few times on the board, but I'm a slow learner :smxB

 

[kurtyordy]

Heh, nothing revolutionary, but I usually have 30 or so domains ready to go for sniper sites at all times.

I'm never going to use them all, plus I continually replenish them, so I thought it might be cool to post a few to give you and others some ideas. Or reg of course.

A list of 5 domains/niches, spread between 200 people, is like 5 minutes worth of fun. lol

Just wanted to get an idea of probability by checking access numbers.

ok, can you define sniper sites?

what do you mean 5 domains spread on 200 people?

 

[LightHouse]

Heh, nothing revolutionary, but I usually have 30 or so domains ready to go for sniper sites at all times.

I'm never going to use them all, plus I continually replenish them, so I thought it might be cool to post a few to give you and others some ideas. Or reg of course.

A list of 5 domains/niches, spread between 200 people, is like 5 minutes worth of fun. lol

Just wanted to get an idea of probability by checking access numbers.

You lost me here, but thats ok Buddy! haha

ANyway, I am in the process of putting a site, even if its simple on EVERY domain i have. I had them parked, but thats a waste of time only bringing in 1-200 a month across what 120 of them that were parked. So step by step they are getting things put up in one way or another, then just going to add more!

I think i posted here a year or so ago about wanting to provide value not shit. Just like the guy that mades 300M a year in parked domains, he wanted to turn each and everyone into a valuble peice of property. A lot easier when you rent out an entire floor of a building and hire a ton of coders though. haha

 

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[TC2]

ok, can you define sniper sites?

what do you mean 5 domains spread on 200 people?

I don't understand this either. :coffee:

 

[TC2]

2. Is there an inexpensive way to transfer into having affiliates for you? Say I would like to create something like a polar bear training course and have others sell for me. Obviously it won't be as simple as "Here's the product, go sell it while I sit on my butt!", does anyone have an idea of what the steps are here? (and I know this has been discussed a few times on the board, but I'm a slow learner :smxB

Steve:

I think you are interested in the same thing that I am interested in. I want to have someone to sell my stuff. In other words, we need to create affiliate program and have all the affiliates to sell our stuff.

Is that what you are asking for?

Otherwise, we are talking about being an affiliate to sell Amazon's products.

I have been an affiliate of Amazon, CJ, and many other affiliate (e-book) network for years. I don't like to sell and I am not good at it. So I rather create products and have someone sell that for me than sell somone's products, which I don't like or will never read the e-book.

Take Amazon for example, I have a professional camera web site that shows many high end camera for people to purchase, but I don't have any professional tripod. I know Amazon is selling many high end tripod and will generate pretty good commission on that. So I find the product link widget on Amazon and post that on the camera web site. When people came to shop camera, they may be interested on the tripod and go to Amazon make purchase. I got commission.

Many people are so into e-book or digital downloadable products affiliate network. However, it's real hard to become a good affiliate marketer to sell some e-books that talk about nothing, or something that you can get for FREE. At least, I am not good at that.

Hope this explain a little bit for you.

Again, I am very interested in how to find affiliates to sell my stuff.

 

[TC2]

I don't know much about Affiliate marketing yet and I am sure you will get some good feedback from everybody, but here is a forum on the subject that might help answer your questions.

5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums

Thanks to RockSolid. I found some interesting information about affiliate marketing for everyone to read. I decided to join the forum as novice.

Learn the Basics of Affiliate Marketing from SugarRae - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums

What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing boils down to one basic action - paying an online publisher (someone who owns and operates a website) a commission for referring traffic or customers or sales (which actions are paid for are determined by the merchant) to a participating merchant's website. To put it even simpler terms, affiliate marketers are basically salespeople who don't actually work for the company they make sales for and only get paid in commissions.

I will spend more time researching on the forum, but so I feel the forum are more like for affiliate marketers not the merchant. Gotta do more home work and bed time reading ...

 

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[CMCarlin]

What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing boils down to one basic action - paying an online publisher (someone who owns and operates a website) a commission for referring traffic or customers or sales (which actions are paid for are determined by the merchant) to a participating merchant's website. To put it even simpler terms, affiliate marketers are basically salespeople who don't actually work for the company they make sales for and only get paid in commissions.

This is pretty inspiring to me as sales is my passion, but in the offline world. As I am constantly mastering the art and science of sales, I could turn this same passion and drive towards the online selling world.

I am becoming more and more interested in affiliate marketing.....

 

[StreetsofSilver]

Here's a total web NOOB question.

I had my Amazon affiliate site built by someone else. There are other affiliate links on the page but there is still a lot of space to add more.
How do I do this? It seems like one would just cut and paste. But I'm not sure where it gets pasted. Right on the website or on the C Panel somewhere? Someone told me that I have to save the site as a notebook, paste the link there, and re-upload the site.

 

[CMCarlin]

Streetsofsilver you have to know basic HTML and how to upload it to your website.

Do some searches to look for basic beginners info. Or you can have someone else do it for you.

 

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[^eagle^]

So as an affilaite looking for a new product to promote, What do you look for in a vendor?

What are ways that vendors can attract affiliates?

What turns an affiliate off from a vendor?

Some of the things I have learned so far....

Poor quality website
email opt-ins on pitch page
Afflliate promo links

I plan a launch on Monday January 25 but so far I havent had any indication of affiliates picking up on it.

On my website I see the problem. I have an unintentionally made it possible for me to hi jack the sale by my own hoplink to buy a product to give away my product but that will change at the hard launch. That and my crappy video presentation doesn't help.

I see a few other snafus like not asking for the business earlier and too much "I ad me" content.

 

[cmaq]

Eagle: are you promoting your own product and looking for affiliates? what type of product?

 

[LightHouse]

So as an affilaite looking for a new product to promote, What do you look for in a vendor?

What are ways that vendors can attract affiliates?

What turns an affiliate off from a vendor?

Some of the things I have learned so far....

Poor quality website
email opt-ins on pitch page
Afflliate promo links

I plan a launch on Monday January 25 but so far I havent had any indication of affiliates picking up on it.

On my website I see the problem. I have an unintentionally made it possible for me to hi jack the sale by my own hoplink to buy a product to give away my product but that will change at the hard launch. That and my crappy video presentation doesn't help.

I see a few other snafus like not asking for the business earlier and too much "I ad me" content.

Conversions period. i dont want to waste time with anything that isnt going to convert. and the sad reality is about 80% of all vendors (90% on clickbank) dont convert well because they dont have tested landing pages and in essence don't provide any substantial value or tools for affiliate to sell their products.

the original idea when someone gets to the point of putting out a product is, oh just offer an affiliate program and people will sell if for you and make you rich.

I know when a vendor has that thought you know they dont have a clue about what they are doing. You have to give your affiliates tools and constantly test landing pages and other site elements to maximize both yours and the affiliates returns. You can snowball the whole process this way but most vendors are either clueless, dont care, or have no idea what they are doing.

 

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[^eagle^]

Eagle: are you promoting your own product and looking for affiliates? what type of product?

I am promoting a guide to run an expert advisor for trading foreign currencies online. I am looking for affiliates to pick up on it but I am seeing how poor my landing page is. I have been doing some reading and see what my errors are. I may scrub my launch as I see I have little if any interest from affiliates. Being new at this I am a bit clueless. I know sales but not so much in marketing.

trade foreign currency (forex) in your sleep and earn 10% to 40% per week! pitch page
affiliates earn 60% commission on the sale affiliates page


I know its not much but and I know I need some pointers. Just would like input from affiliates. I want to see it through their eyes.

I don't mind if you're brutally honest because I know the pages suck but please keep the condesention to a minimum. Everyone was new at this at one time.

Thanks

 

[rxcknrxll]

My approach to affiliate marketing:

1. Build trust.
2. Tell the people who trust you what to buy.
3. Collect checks.

works like a charm baby.

 

[Chitown]

Kurt, Terence, RockSolid,

Check out wickedfire.com, nickycakes.com and undergroundtraininglab.com. Google Rosalind Gardner, as well. Hope those help.

 

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[bonkers123]

go for it!

 

[LightHouse]

Kurt, how is this going for you? Hows rankings and income and conversion rates?

 

[kurtyordy]

Kurt, how is this going for you? Hows rankings and income and conversion rates?

ranking very well in my first niche. about 45% convert to amazon, and about 2.7% are converting to sales. Still working on expanding to a new niche, but now sales yet. Have three other niches launched, just not ranking yet.

 

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[LightHouse]

ranking very well in my first niche. about 45% convert to amazon, and about 2.7% are converting to sales. Still working on expanding to a new niche, but now sales yet. Have three other niches launched, just not ranking yet.

Awesome job! hard work pays off!

 

[kurtyordy]

Awesome job! hard work pays off!

thanks, but now I need to prove I am not a one trick pony.

 

[CMCarlin]

Very happy for you Kurt! You're taking action that's what counts.

 

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