Do Affiliate Marketers Really Need a Website?

by David Cooper

Your main goal as an affiliate marketer is to increase your stream of income without having to become a product owner yourself. Do you still need a website of your own if you’re just pushing other people’s products?

The answer is – yes and no. It’s not a necessity, but having your own website can be a boon to your online affiliate sales. Technically, you can be an affiliate for someone else’s product and promote your link through article marketing, blogs, forum posts, and other non-site specific methods.

But each time someone follows your link directly to the product owner’s pitch page, you’re allowing them to opt out of a lifetime of future sales through you. You’ll be working longer and harder for each sale because for every new sale, you have to cast your net all over again.

If you have a domain of your own, you can set up a simple opt-in form where people can subscribe to your list and cater to their needs week after week, without having to return to the ‘net each time to find new prospects.

Instead, you build a list of people interested in your niche topics, and then find other products to promote to them. It’s much easier to visit ClickBank for a new product to promote than it is to drum up new customers to buy a single product.

In order to build a list, you need a simple domain (or even a blog will do), with an autoresponder tool you can use to capture the contact information and store the names for you. This is known as a squeeze page, where your primary goal is to get the contact information in hand.

You have to know how to convince your target audience to opt in to your list. Grabbing their attention and keeping it brief is key. Don’t require them to read through a 25-page sales letter only to find out at the end that all they had to do was enter their name and email address in a box to get their hands on some sort of freebie.

Some affiliate marketers even have larger websites that house lots of reviews of the various products they promote. Sometimes they’ll pit two like-products against one another, giving an evaluation of each one’s strengths and weaknesses, but each review includes their affiliate link for possible commission earnings.

Is a website a necessity? No. But if you want to increase your affiliate sales and work less, then you at least need to develop a simple opt-in form on a domain that you can brand within your niche.

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Where Are the Best Affiliate Products to Promote?

by David Cooper

If you’re one of the many who’ve chosen to jump onto the affiliate marketing bandwagon, you’ve made a wise decision. The Internet is constantly growing with no sign of an expansion slow down anywhere in sight.

One of the most commonly asked questions about affiliate marketing is, “Where do I go to find the best affiliate products to promote?” You want to promote products that are sold through a secure billing environment.

You’re looking for a good return on your investment of time (and sometimes money), so commission percentages are important, as is the price of the product itself. Some sites that offer tangible goods, such as Amazon, require you to work harder for the money you earn because the price of the products is low to begin with. Compare a $14.95 paperback book to a $49.95 digital eBook – which one do you want a 50% share for promoting?

One of the most important things as an affiliate is to build a list. So regardless of what site you use to find products to promote, you want to make sure you feel comfortable recommending it so that you don’t tarnish your reputation.

Many affiliates start out promoting ClickBank products. They have a database with thousands of products you can choose to push in any niche. Plus, the commissions are generally between 50-75%, with a higher price tag.

But why you would limit yourself to only one network, when there are many you can use to generate a flood of sales from? LinkShare, PayDotCom and Commission Junction all work with the same basic concept as ClickBank does, but each one operates slightly different.

At PayDotCom, for example, it’s up to the product owner to pay the affiliates, whereas ClickBank pays all affiliates directly. Some sites, like Commission Junction, give product owners the ability to pre-approve affiliates, while they have no control over who sells what at ClickBank. They each have their own network of top-notch advertisers.

As an affiliate marketer, you’ll want to try each system out and see what you like about each one. If you’re blogging about the travel niche, for instance, then you might recommend luggage from a Commission Junction advertiser you promote, an eBook on how to speak a foreign language from ClickBank, and an entire travel package from someone advertising on LinkShare.

Using a combination of affiliate networks allows you more flexibility in how you make money from these sites. As your affiliate marketing skills improve, you’ll find some you prefer over others and weed out those that don’t cater to your personal preferences and needs.

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Affiliate Marketing Start Up Plan

by David Cooper

If you're ready to get started making money online with an affiliate marketing business, then you'll need a solid plan of action to help you get started successfully. Starting an affiliate marketing business is not difficult, but without a proper plan of action in place you may find yourself struggling to make any money from it.

Now, there are several different affiliate marketing plans you can follow, so this article is meant to help you think about which steps should be in your own personal plan, and help you to not forget some that might be important.

Step 1: Research the Markets. The first step in creating an affiliate marketing plan is to research the market you'll be selling products to. You'll want to look around the web and find out what people are talking about, what they're asking for, or what they can't seem to find. If you can find people talking about things they desperately need, then that is often an excellent market to go in to.

You see, by finding out what people want first, you set yourself up to make much more money in the long run. If you were to choose a product first and then try and figure out who to sell that product to, you'll make things more difficult for yourself.

Step 2: Research the Products. Once you have at least one or more markets in mind that you'll be selling products to, the next step is to go out and find a selection of products that meets the market's needs. Refer back to your research at this point... did the market want something they can't find? Are people desperate for something? Are they just constantly asking where to go for X product or service? Choose your affiliate products based on what they wanted, and sign up as an affiliate.

Step 3: Plan Your Approach. Once you have one or more affiliate products in mind, you'll now need to choose your particular marketing approach. This part can get a bit confusing because there are so many options, but don't let it scare you. The primary approaches to affiliate marketing include:

• Build a blog on the topic.
• Write articles for your own website or to distribute around the web.
• Start an email list about your topic.
• Advertise the products from somewhere online such as Google AdWords.

Now your approach can be multi-pronged. In other words, you can use more than one of the above marketing techniques at the same time if you'd like. New affiliate marketers however, are usually better off starting with just one marketing approach to begin with though, and then adding others as they feel more confident in their promotional abilities.

Step 4: Get started. Regardless of which approach you chose, it's now time to put it all into action. Don't forget to be careful with your funds while you're just starting too. Unless you have some funds in reserve to use, it could be several months before you actually get your affiliate commissions as cash in your bank account. So plan for those cash flow restrictions right from the start.

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