Affiliate Marketing
The internet is nothing more than a huge marketplace. Loaded with free information and products that solve every problem under the Sun, the World Wide Web provides income opportunities for tens of thousands of average people. We know that and yet when we begin working online we often miss the big picture.
Jumping into the fray new affiliate marketers choose a popular product and run ads that say “buy from my link”. The resulting lack of sales and commissions leads them to cry “it doesn’t work”. They’ve missed the big picture – affiliate marketing is a process, not a one time slam bang that leads to cash in the bank.
Target Audience
The most common error is choosing a target audience that is too broad or too large. A huge target market such as weight loss or dating is too general to be effective. You will be competing with large, established authority sites in those topics and have little chance of affiliate sales or of gaining good search engine position for your site or blog.
As with any business you begin online, start with a plan of action that ties your efforts together for maximum results in the end. This will be more work in the beginning but more income once you implement the entire plan. Instead of weight loss, dig deeper into the category to find targeted keywords for the topic. How about “vegetarian weight loss” or “weight loss for kids”? Narrowing the topic can yield results even in a niche filled with competition.
Affiliate Marketing Campaign
A better approach is to plan a multi-pronged affiliate marketing campaign that will tie together related product areas. You might promote a product about “scar removal” and build a small website or start a blog with information about reducing the appearance of scars or discuss a product that promises to remove scars. By adding an email signup form to your site you can build a small list of people who want more information about the topic. You provide that information to them by regular emails with links to helpful sites, and occasional product promotion, etc.
You start another niche site focusing on “acne scars” and following your affiliate business plan you add content and reviews to the site and build traffic and search engine ranking for it. Once again you have a signup to a list where you give more information about the problem of acne scars. The list gives you the opportunity to promote other affiliate products solving acne problems.
Targeted List building
With sites 1 and 2 running smoothly you build a third site based on a product that removes warts and go through the same plan for that site and build a list.
What do you have now? You have three sites promoting affiliate products that are well positioned and bringing in regular sales. You have three mailing lists. But you have much more than that. You have three lists of address for people with skin problems. Cross-promotion anyone?
Affiliate marketing is an easy internet business to start. There is little cost, no product development is needed and it’s a simple matter to find areas where the public is clamoring for a solution to their problem. By creating a long term plan for affiliate marketing you can earn as you establish your collection of related sites and increase your income drastically when you are able to tie your niches up with a bow and start cross promoting to them.
Learning online marketing with you,
~ Julie
