Affiliate Marketing Facts You Need to Know
Building a basic website is not a difficult task. It does not involve a huge financial or time investment. Once you have decided on a topic and registered a domain name, along with choosing a hosting company, the fun part starts.
The preceding is usually done after deciding the purpose for building a brand new website from scratch. It might simply be a blog for a topic of interest or a hobby and to make a little money to cover your hosting costs.
Perhaps you have a more serious intent and have your own product to promote and sell online?
You may be one of the millions of people that have a full time job and dream of working from home and becoming your own boss. But how?
Answer: Affiliate Marketing
A method of marketing someone else’s product rather than your own by selling products for commission.
A short summary of how this works is as follows.
How affiliate marketing Works
A visitor arrives on a web-page and clicks on an advertisement or link. This action takes the visitor to another web-page containing information about the product and the option to buy.
If the visitor chooses to buy one or more of the products, a commission is paid to the owner of the referring web-page
It is the merchant who handles the sale in every way. They will obtain the all the information from the customer required to complete the transaction.
Once the sale is completed and verified, you will receive a commission according to the criteria as agreed between your self and the merchant. Sales are tracked using cookies and are generally paid even when the visitor returns to the merchants site months later.
The period of time will vary and is something that needs to be confirmed when the affiliate signs up.
Sales and Statistics Management
Sales tracking and commission payments are most commonly managed by companies that specialize in this area. They provide a facility that offers all you need to setup and maintain a relationship with the company or companies that you promote.
Benefits
- Work from home or anywhere
- No need to stock or ship products
- No product support headaches
- Work your own hours
- Minimal costs and risk – build up your business in the evenings after work
The Reality
It is not a get-rich-quick system. That said, there are plenty of genuine success stories from affiliates who have done very well financially and realized the dream of working anywhere in the world using their laptops.
It is the freedom from being tied to a traditional bricks and mortar business that attracts many people to this type of online business.
Stay the Course
Like any other business, it takes hard work and self motivation to succeed, along with a learning curve. There are plenty of resources to guide you through the early steps of how to setup a website and choosing a niche.
Success is a measure of persistence that many are not willing to apply. They often give up when their dreams of making easy money in a short amount of time is not realized.
Plan Before You Act
Failure is always due to the lack of a full and complete understanding of the business, and unrealistic expectations of what is required to succeed. This is true of any business venture, regardless if it is an online business or a more traditional brick and mortar type. The reality is that many new business ventures are doomed to failure because of ignorance and the lack of a clear understanding of how the business works. A proper business plan is an absolute must.
Choosing Products
Pick a product that you are passionate about and is not overly competitive. It is much easier to rank a web page by picking a niche that is a specialized interest and not all ready covered of by a multitude of strong websites.
Find a subject that you know or enjoy. Write supporting information that is helpful and informative yet unique. Promote the information.
Traffic
- PPC advertising
- Natural search
For any online business to succeed, you need targeted traffic to the web-page you are promoting. Tt is the core of the an online business. The two most common ways are:
A) Google Natural Search, a method that requires a thorough understanding of SEO. Search engines display web-pages in order of relevancy for the key word being searched. A competitive keyword will be very difficult with which to rank .“Work from home” compared to “book about eggs” for example..
The redeeming feature of this method is that it is free, although learning how to rank a web-page involves a fairly substantial learning curve.
B) Pay Per Click Advertising, a method employed by many online marketers which can work very well if you get it right. Get it wrong, and it is a very quick way to max out your credit card for a very little return..
On Page Promotion
There are many ways of presenting a web page that offers an opportunity for the reader to click through to the seller, and make a sale. It might be a simple as displaying a banner or text advertisement somewhere on the your web page, or providing a link somewhere within the text of an article.
Learning the Business
There plenty of resources to help you learn the business. Start by reading relevant information published by reputable authors who have proven and up to-date strategies to help make the decision as to whether the business is for you.
Amazon.com offers a number of choices when buying books which are not limited to traditional paper books.
Choices extend to digital books that may be downloaded as ebooks and read in an electronic book reader or listening to them in a mp3 player using audio books.
Recommended Reading
Rosalind Gardner is a well known name in the world of affiliate marketing and has a proven track record not only as being a well known success story, but for her training that offers all the information needed to succeed.
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