Just what is affiliate marketing you may ask? Well, it’s merely a way to ‘share the load’ online. That means you have a product or someone else develops a product for sale. You then have others sell it for you, or you sell it for them. Digital products are the best medium for doing this. It is all done online and no stocking is needed. By selling this way commissions can be very lucrative. So, how do you find these people to share with?
CLICKBANK.
Clickbank is a company that acts as a ‘go between’ for various product vendors and affiliates. It is absolutely FREE and is a great source for products to sell online. You have the option of being an affiliate and selling other people’s products OR if you have a product to offer, there are literally thousands of others just waiting to sell it for you! The great thing is that Clickbank handles all the sales, commissions, and returns! AWESOME!
Affiliate Marketing: Is It Easy?
You just join Clickbank, search for popular products to sell OR become a vendor and offer YOUR products for affiliate sales. It’s just that easy… well not QUITE that easy.
Affiliate Marketing: Sales
Now we get to the meat of selling. You need a website to sell from and you need visitors to sell to. Follow my other blog post tutorials and learn how to:
If you are serious about getting your new online business noticed, you need backlinks ASAP! Backlinks sound simple, but quality backlinks can be tricky to get!
A backlink is literally a link on someone else’s website pointing back to your website, but proper backlinks are more than a simple link or link exchange with another website. You need links from quality sites.
The best kind of backlinks
To get the best results, you need a mixture of backlinks from .com, .org, .edu, and .gov sites. You also need sites with good Google page ranks as well. Sites that cover similar content to yours. So, If you have an online business site selling dog collars, a backlink from a site about breakfast cereal would not be as good as a link from a site about dog walking services. Does that make sense?
Google’s ranking formulas look at backlink keywords as well as related sites. A backlink “best dog collars” is better than just “dogs”.
So how do you find good related sites to place backlinks? You need to do several things, first get the google toolbar then enable the pagerank option.
Next you need to search for related websites using Google’s special search options… You need to search for blogs with comments enabled, that also allow you to leave html comments so you can put your link in your comment. *BEWARE* This can be considered SPAMMING if done improperly. Do this too much and Google will SPANK your site and you get your rank dropped fast!
OK – now we use the special or ‘secret’ Google search option code:
site:.com inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
Cut/paste this into Google’s search box. Substitute .com, .edu, etc at the beginning where it says .com, and your keywords where it says ADD YOUR KEYWORD (i.e. best dog collars) leave all the rest of the text as is (including the quotes). Hit enter to search for this keyword phrase.
Where to put your backlinks
NOW, go to the different site results and check the pagerank in your Google toolbar. Try to find sites with a rank of 3 or above. NOTE – you will rarely find sites above a 7 or so. Rank 3-5 are pretty good. 6-7 are outstanding, Above that are pretty hard to find.
OK, now you must make an on topic comment like “Hey, I love your site’s selection, but for the
best dog collars, try my website!” (make ‘best dog collars’ your link). Now this is a simple way of explaining it.. you don’t want to be that obvious about your backlink! I usually link with my user name. I end my comments with Chris at The Online Business Guide.
The FINAL thing to do is to ping your comment. Pinging is when a pinging site spiders the site where you commented so it shows up in search engines. This final part takes a little while. You need to confirm your comment was accepted first. Reload the page, see if the comment shows, or if it is ‘waiting for approval’ (this can take a few days) Once your comment is approved and shows up on the page, NOW you ping it. Copy the full URL of the page you commented at, then go to Pingler.com and submit the site for a ping. Wait until it finishes and there you go! It may take a little while for Google to spider the page you commented on, but get enough of these backlinks and you’re on your way!
REMEMBER! Don’t overdo this. Spamming is bad! Quality comments with your backlinks are GOOD!
Studies have shown that ‘popover’ or ‘lightbox’ subscription forms get the best results if you want to increase your subscriber list. If you are new here you will be seeing *my* popover subscription form to join my mailing list in a few seconds. I highly recommend you join so you can be the first to get updates and learn all the techniques to start your own online business. Wait for it… wait…
OK! Now that you’ve joined my subscriber list, here’s why you need a popover subscription form. IT WORKS! Sure, you could put a simple subscription form in a column or widget to the side of your new website, but popovers are so much more effective! Studies show that using a popover form can increase subscription rates 30% or more versus a static form. I highly recommend an Amazing New WordPress Plug-In that Transforms Traffic Into Red-Hot subscribers In Less Than 3 Minutes
Subscriber lists are where the money is at
Hopefully, you have been following the advice of my earlier tutorials and already have your FREE ListWire autoresponder. If not… you need to CLICK HERE NOW. After all, what good is a subscriber list without an autoresponder?
I started out using the simple autoresponder supplied by Bluehost. I discovered this can be a risky way to maintain contact with your customers. Why? Because you are assuming all the spamming risk! Also, you might risk triggering website throttling if your site begins getting a massive amount of subscribers in a short time. ListWire is seen as a ‘white hat’ autoresponder. They maintain this status by working with agencies that monitor spamming sites to assure your emails aren’t blocked as spam by all the major ISPs!
Your subscriber list is your main priority
One of your first priorities is to build your subscribers list. Sure, you want to make sales as soon as possible, but you need a hot mail list full of subscribers eager to buy your products first. Just having links or ads for your products on your website isn’t enough. Get your autoresponder, get your popover plugin, tweak your copy, and then worry about sales.
Well, enough for now. Are you working on your new online business? If not, then GET MOVING! Only you can do it! I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks, and have a GREAT day!
Here are some of the free sources I use that can help you create your new online business… (links will open in a new window)
First off, you need to develop your page content and theme. I use the free theme “Third Style 1.1.1″. It is in the WordPress theme installs. I like it because it is fairly clean and has only 1 column with 1 sidebar. You don’t want a page that is too ‘busy’ looking. Keep it simple. Your message is what’s important! Choose a theme you like without too many distractions. Search your WordPress themes gallery for something you like.
Free tools
Second, you may need to do some page tweaking, or to add functionality to your page like tables or forms. I HIGHLY recommend the free KompoZer HTML editor. In my opinion it is better than NVU. I read that it is a fork or derivative of the Mozilla or NVU editors, but it has a lot of the bugs fixed. I tried NVU but it just kept crashing on me.
Third, and VERY importantly, is an autoresponder to grab subscribers and create a mail list. This is the MOST important part of your new online business. I use ListWire. This is a very full featured autoresponder, and best of all it’s completely FREE! Studies and split testing show that a good popover subscription offer gets the best results. Remember, without a subscriber/mail list you don’t have potential buyers. No buyers means NO sales. You want buyers and a mail list is your golden ticket!
Next, for marketing materials (i.e. PDFs, visual presentations, etc.) I use OpenOffice. I use it to make the ‘slideshow’ format for my video tutorials. OpenOffice has the functionality and features of Microsoft Office, except it’s totally FREE! It has great online support, free templates and free addons. I love it, and so will you.
I use Camstudio for screen capture and video creation. Now this isn’t actual ‘editing’ this is how I make the tutorial videos on my computer. I make a presentation, record it with Camstudio, then I edit it before uploading to YouTube. You CAN use Windows Moviemaker for free… I happen to use Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD (I did pay for this). You can use the built in editing tools in the Youtube Video Editor as well. Anything to keep your initial cost down.
Sadly, not everything is free
Well… I’ve saved the ‘worst’ for last. I hate to say it, but you will have to pay for something. BUT, I have found the best deal I could. You need a quality web host. Sure, you could choose a free WordPress hosting site, but they often throttle your bandwidth or won’t let you post ads or affiliate links. Not good! You need full access, unlimited bandwidth and domains, and reliable service. I HIGHLY recommend BlueHost. They guarantee 99% uptime, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, and awesome 24/7 tech support. If you’re lucky, you may catch a coupon code for discounted hosting as low as $4.95 a month. It’s normally $6.95, but if I get a special code, You will be the first to get it!
Well, that’s it for now… you WILL need these free tools to get started, but we’re not done yet! Here’s your rough order of business:
Get a web host and set up WordPress
Choose your WordPress theme
Set up your autoresponder
Create your content and marketing materials
Don’t procrastinate! Only YOU can do it!
Feel free to comment with links to other free sources. If they are good, I’ll leave them in. PLEASE no spamming! Thanks, and have a GREAT day!
Here is the first video in my FREE video course: “A Beginner’s Guide to Starting an Online Business”. Feel free to comment and check back often. I will be posting new chapters as soon as possible. Be sure and subscribe so you get all the latest updates. Thanks and have a GREAT day! Chris @ CCGSales.
Just what is affiliate marketing you may ask? Well, it’s merely a way to ‘share the load’ online. That means you have a product or someone else develops a product for sale. You then have others sell it for you, or you sell it for them. Digital products are the best medium for doing this. It is all done online and no stocking is needed. By selling this way commissions can be very lucrative. So, how do you find these people to share with?
