One major problem with article writing is getting conversions, firstly in terms of someone clicking on your resource box at the end of an article, and secondly making a purchase of whatever product the article is designed to promote. 

Many new marketers make the mistake of assuming volume = traffic, and bang out dozens of crappy ‘airy fairy’ articles which fail to address a concern, interest or inquiry the reader has.  We’d all rather have 5 articles getting 1000 views and 200 click throughs a week than 25 articles generating half that much traffic.  We can do ‘more’ with ‘less’ by making sure our articles are relevant, and pique the interest of our readership.

So where do we go for some good info to base our articles on?

Forums should be our first stop.  Say we want to write an article on panic and anxiety attacks.  Do a forum search on panic attack, and there are around 1,750,000 results.  By visiting any one of those forums for just five or ten minutes we can see what people are talking about and what problems they have, and get a swag of recurring issues that people are talking about.  Finding the answer to any one problem or concern or interest can form the basis of an article. 

You can also find Frequently Asked Questions at FAQ.org and Groups.google.com or Yahoo Answers

I recommend trying to find at least a dozen questions (and the answers) and then set about writing each article with:

- An introduction stating what the article will cover
- A summary of the problem
- The solution
- A resource box leading to our opt-in page where we offer to show them more

Obviously do some keyword research to include relevant keywords in the body of our article to ensure SERP rankings and traffic. 

This is a great way to generate some sales when we discover a great clickbank or affiliate product we want to promote, and it’s dead easy and largely fool proof. 

If you’ve spent any time researching affiliate or online marketing you’re almost certain to have heard the maxim that ‘the money is in the list’.  So what’s this list you keep hearing about? 

A ‘list’ is a database of people who have subscribed to a mailing list we run which relates to a certain topic or interest (usually based around something we are promoting). 

“Hold on, I thought all I needed to do was point a customer towards the merchant’s sales page, and my job was done?” I hear you say.

Well, on one view that’s right.  As long as the customer, or prospect, makes a purchase, you’ll get a nice little commission.  That’s not bad, but it’s a little short sighted.  Even though we might be promoting a certain merchant’s product right now, why shouldn’t we get to build a little investment on the side which can serve to earn us massive income down the track?  I mean, we’re going to put in a lot of work to get people’s attention. 
How is a list an investment?

Look at it this way.  Imagine your are a marketer who specializes in products in the health and wellness industry.  Now imagine having a list of thousands of customers who you already know share your interest in that very same topic. Let’s assume that for at least a few months you’ve been writing to them.  They know you.  If you’ve done it right, they trust you.  Some of them might have even purchased something from you before.

Now…lets say you (or a merchant you are promoting) have just developed a brand spanking new product aimed at satisfying the needs of people in that very industry.  Which do you think is going to be easier…going out and trying to convince thousands of complete strangers to buy your specific product, or saying to your list ‘Hey…I’ve found this great new product I’ll bet would be of interest you…’

I’ll give you the tip…your list is going to eat that product up a heck of a lot faster than you convince ten times as many strangers to even take an peek. 

In affiliate marketing, your list is your biggest asset. 
It is the key to having money on demand.

And the best part is, we can use a merchant’s product to help build our own highly responsive list, and continue to earn income from that list even if we stop promoting that merchant’s products.  We might promote someone else’s, or we might even promote our own. 

Here’s the rub.  Most if not all new affiliate marketers don’t have a list, right?  So at some point, it means we’re going to have to generate this wonderful list of customers.  That’s going to take some time, right? 

Well, it can, but it doesn’t have to…and in any even the reality is that list building is an ongoing process.  However, there is a way we can build large, multiple lists of customers in different markets…and make money at the same time! 

What we want to do is have a system designed not only to enable us to build our primary asset but to put cash in our pockets whilst we do it.  It’s a process of back end selling large ticket products after establishing raport with our customers after selling them small ticket items.  That way, we generate income and an asset. 

Now that’s a smart way to build a list.

Power Effects Version 2 is the new software tool which completely transforms any website into a must see extravaganza!   Don’t want to spend money on flash presentations?  How about a dynamic sales page heading that plays like a movie?  Want an easy point and click way to implement lightbox or greybox effects instead of complicated scripts?  How about slideshow links without the hefty load times?

Power Effects v2 provides a user friendly alternative to custom animated web graphics and can be the missing ingredient in your sales page.  It’s dead simple to use, easy to implement, and won’t tax your visitors patience even if they have snail paced Internet connections.  It’s the easiest way I know to create some pretty awesome effects that can help your web page rise above the sea of ‘ordinary’ sites. 

Best of all, this product comes with Master Resale Rights, which means you can recoup the cost of the purchase in a single sale!

Find out more info and grab your copy at our Power Effects Version 2 Sales Page.

COST: $3.95

Know what used to frustrate the bejesus out of me when I was new to affiliate marketing? eBooks which made everything seem easy, but happily left you hanging when you needed the all important details of how to turn the hypothetical into real money making strategies.

You know what I mean, stuff like ‘All you need is adwords for instant traffic’ or ‘pick a keyword and write an article’, or ‘choose a hungry niche to create your own product’.

That’s all well and good buddy, but how do I know what my niche is hungry for, and how do I get my article off page 793 of Google, and why is my freaken adwords campaign costing me a fortune when I haven’t made a single sale?

Now you can have the answer…

What’s the 7 Step Super System all about? It’s a step-by-step affiliate marketing ebook which sets out in a series of foolproof modules the exact information that any new marketer simply can’t succeed without. It is specifically designed for new to intermediate marketers who don’t want their online business to be a guessing game, or a lucky dip, and want to avoid the pain of continuous trial and error.

The 7 Step Super System covers both sides of the affiliate marketing equation in one handy eBook, from making quick cash marketing other people’s products, to having an online troop of affiliates promoting your very own material.

It’s 150+ pages of practical, results driven content. Any fluff? Puh-lease! This is meat and potato info, and if there’s anything which isn’t covered in the system itself, it tells you exactly where to find the best free online resources to keep up your money making tempo.

What Can You Get Out Of The 7 Step Super System?

Here’s just a sample of what’s covered…

• Affiliate Marketing fundamentals…you’ll discover how the entire process works…in order to dominate it!

• Your own Affiliate Marketing profits blue-print. The exact steps you need to take to get started - forget procrastination or writers block, you’ll fast track your business starting today.

• Delve deep inside Clickbank and other Affiliate Marketing services to find out what really matters in determining which products are worth your time.

• How to build a list of hungry prospects for money on demand every single time you do something as simple as sending them an email.

• Find out exactly what your competitors are doing and how to beat them to the affiliate marketing punch.

• Discover the three essential elements that must be present to make certain you’re selling to a market that wants to buy.

• How to build a fully automated profit pipeline - so you can focus on taking your online business to the next level.

• You’ll discover dynamic techniques for generating free and paid traffic, giving you the freedom to cater your marketing needs precisely to your budget…whether it’s big or small.

• The four elements to any converting squeeze page, so your traffic generation results in leads and sales.

• How to use pay-per-click traffic to start generating leads in under 20 minutes, and know immediately whether you are on to a winning market (without loosing your wallet).

• 20 steps to a successful Adwords campaign. Don’t get lost in the CPC, CTR, CPM, ROI forrest…just take these steps and build a profitable campaign to swamp your site with visitors.

• Hot Tips which provide you with actual samples and templates to put to use, so you’ll never be stuck wondering ‘why?’ or ‘how?’.

• Want to avoid tumbleweeds appearing on your products purchase page? Discover the three elements to look for to make certain your niche market is willing to pull out their wallet.

• Insider strategies for finding super profitable markets and ’stealing’ them from under your competitors noses…or better yet, becoming the authority figure that other people turn to first.

• Discover 12 rapid fire methods to create highly sought after products your customers will love you for, some of which won’t even cost you a dime (but still have you looking like an expert in the field).

• Learn to wield the product creation tools of the trade like a pro, and find out where you can get them for FREE.

• How to write words that people want to read, and buy! This is one of the most important skills you’ll need to learn to successfully sell things online (yet most people get it wrong). This mini-system is the closest thing I have found for copywriting without having to pay expensive pro’s or purchase software.

• How to get a loyal and motivated affiliate army working for you 24/7 so you can focus your time on doing…well…just about anything you want.

• Taking it to the next level - how you can use your online product to tap into the 90% of people who don’t shop online, and multiply a $1,000 per month income by 10 or 20 times.

Still need more info?

Check out the official 7 Step Super System Sales Page

WAIT! I know what you’re thinking…you’re thinking ‘Geez, another system? Everyone has a system and everyone says theirs is the best…why the heck should I spend time and money looking at this one?’ It’s a fair question.

I didn’t want to create another crappy ebook to churn out to the masses. Check out the sales page, for sure, but don’t get too caught up in it.  Understand…this is an ebook designed with fellow marketers in mind, and will provide you with the info you need to make your next (or first) online sale. It’s written to save you the countless hours I’ve spent researching and testing the myriad of affiliate marketing methods. That alone is worth the purchase price. If I could pay a few bucks to get all those hours back…I would in a heartbeat! But I can’t, and the reality is neither can you once you’ve lost them. But you can save yourself that time starting now.

Want a guarantee anyway?

If You Don’t Find At Least One Gold Nugget Of Information

To Help Make Your First (Or Next) Affiliate Marketing Sale…

I’ll Give You A Hassle Free 30 Day 100% Refund

In fact, if you’re not completely happy for any reason, don’t sweat it, just drop me a line and I’ll get you sorted with a refund. Savvy?  

I want you to get value from this ebook. The only reason I’m even putting a price tag on it because it took freaken ages to put together! I did it myself to ensure the content wasn’t some regurgitated drivel, and because I’m looking to take things to the next level to keep offering hot content and dynamic products.  I hope you’ll come with me!

 UPDATE:  For a limited time only you can grab the 7 Step Super System for a massively discounted price.  This is available exclusively to members of the Warrior Forum, so click on the link below to sign up and grab your copy.

Affiliate Marketer 7 Step Super System

Special Offer

Those of us looking to take or increase our market share must therefor not only ask how to create ebook products, but how to write an ebook product that sells. Keep in mind also that the concept of ‘ebook publishing’ which has typically involved selling information products in the form of a static pdf document, now incorporates more adventurous media, such as audio tutorials, video compilations, and interactive education such as webinars.

Let’s take a look how to write eBook products or information products using 12 easy methods.

1. Write an ebook – ok, perhaps the most obvious, but a tried and tested format which has demonstrated lasting success. Your ebook can really take any form, but where possible break it down into easily discernible parts, lessons, or modules which go together to make up the whole. Your topic of choice needs to be presented in easily understandable parts that engage the reader, and it helps to have a product aimed at solving a problem or providing an answer to a solution. Liberal use of images is encouraged to add that extra flare to a product (it also enables us to increase the price tag). Do the hard yards in the research, find some gems of information, and price it reasonably. With a hungry market, you’ll have a winner.

    

2. Get other people (including experts) to provide the content for us. Ok, so we can’t all be experts. Sometimes we’ll need expert opinion or advice. So go and interview an expert! Compile our interviews into an ebook with some helpful commentary. We could even sell a series of ebooks, each with an interview of a different expert in our chosen area of interest.

   Tip – people love cheap little reports or products that are packed with value. Creating a series of 5 or 6 mini-reports is a great way to get and keep customers (and often they will wind up spending more money with you than if you offered a full ebook with all of the reports at once). It also means we can start making money selling our first report whilst we write the other reports in a series. This is an excellent method of ebook writing which helps cultivate a dedicated readership.

    

3. Don’t think you are any good at interviews face to face? How about engaging with an expert via email? The ‘question & answer’ format is a great way to get some inside info which makes for excellent content in an ebook. Head over to AllExperts.com if you need someone with expertise in a particular area. Alternatively, find your expert through outsourcing sites such as Elance or Guru and post a job request specifically looking to interview something who has extensive expertise in your chosen market area.

    

4. Run a tele-seminar of interviews with experts or people in the field, which you can then have recorded and distribute as an audio product, or have transcribed into an ebook.

    

5. Like doing powerpoint presentations? Grab a copy of CamStudio (it’s free) or Camtasia Studio and do a video recording of your presentation and create a video product. The perceived value of video products helps justify a juicier price tag.

    

6. Got a web cam and aren’t afraid to use it? Get your mug some airtime and do a video tutorial series on your topic of choice. Better yet, if you already have an ebook, add some audio or video modules to create a higher end product. There is a larger perceived value in audio and video products, and it’s easier for the purchaser to make use of them. Let’s face it, it’s easier to watch a video or listen to a recording than it is to read a book right?

    

7. Don’t want to create your own ebook?  For a really lazy product solution, grab some private label rights (“PLR”) products and combine them or reconstruct them into larger, more fulsome product packages with a special report you prepare on how to get the most out of the information provided (be sure to check the terms of the rights you have to the PLR products first). Again, expand on an existing PLR product by creating a video tutorial showing how to put theory into practice. People love being shown step-by-step how to deal with a problem or find solutions to burning questions.

    

8. Got personal experience in a niche or topic? Write about the adversity you faced and how you overcame it, and provide tips to your market to ensure they avoid the same pitfalls you encountered.

    

9. If you have any unique skills, you can offer a training program, so that in effect you are the product. You’ll be amazed at the value you can offer to clients with one-on-one training or group tutorials in any market area.

    

10. Run a membership site, providing regular quality content to your subscribers.

     

11. Run an online survey to find out exactly what your market is looking for. Set up a single page site offering some bonus or mini-product for those who join in the survey. The servey can ask something like ‘What’s your most burning question about (your niche topic). Drive traffic with Adwords for fast results, you only need about 50 questions. Find the solutions to those questions (or pay someone else to) and you have an instant ebook. It’s a fabulously easy way to get content for an ebook or other package.

     

12. Already written an ebook using any of the methods above? Upsell the product (ie. Offer a more expensive version to our market) by having it converted into audio and/or video (we can outsource this, or do it ourselves if we are comfortable with audio and video editing).

These are just a dozen examples to get you thinking about the various ways there are to write an ebook, or the methods of information product creation. Often the hardest part is making the decision and actually moving forward. If you’re writing your first ebook, I’d encourage you to select the method you are most comfortable with, and having done your market research, stick to completing that product before moving on to anything else. You’ll be amazed as to what you can achieve with online marketing, provided you can maintain focus, and follow through a project to completion.

We can often ascertain which keywords our competitors sites are optimized for.  Right click on their page and select ‘view source’ from the drop down list.  This will show you the ‘html’ code for that web site.  At the top of the page, many sites have ‘meta tags’ which tell you exactly which keywords are relevant to the site.  Look for code like this:

<meta http-equiv=”Keywords” content=”

The words which appear after that section of code are the relevant keywords in use for that site.  Consider whether we can use any of those keywords also.

Alternatively, check out Keyword Spy which provides keywords being bid on by a domain for their AdWords campaigns.  It’s a quick easy way to see what the other side are up to.

 Yeah ok, this isn’t ‘really’ a secret two tier affiliate program, but a lotta people just don’t think laterally enough to make use of the obvious.  If you have a bit of nouse though, this can be a handy little way to generate some income using a two tier affiliate program.

Firstly, head over to Affiliate Programs or Associate Programs and find a decent affiliate program that pays two tier commissions.  Altarnetively, just Google ‘affiliate programs + two tier’.

Look for sites online which are related to the subject matter of the affiliate program we selected.  For example, lets say we’re going to promote a web hosting service where we get paid 25% of the monthly membership cost for people we sign up directly for web hosting, and 10% of the monthly membership cost for every member that our sub-affiliates (second tier) sign up.  We might look at sites which provide products or services that compliment a service like web hosting (such as a site selling computers and computer components, or repairs).

Go to Alexa traffic section or Archive.org (for historical records) and find out how much traffic the sites we found in the above step are getting.  If they are getting a large volume of traffic, send an email to the manager or owner of the site (if the site doesn’t offer contact details, use WhoIs.com to find out the web site owners details).  In your email, explain to the owner that you’ve noticed their site is getting high volumes of traffic, and that you can help them make money from that traffic if they are prepared to promote the affiliate service which compliments their market (in this example, web hosting).   Explain to them that they can earn 25% of the monthly membership fee for every person they direct to the web hosting service and who becomes a member.  You don’t even need to tell them that you also make a profit from them doing so, although often honesty will be the best policy. 

In other words, have the site sign on as your sub-affiliate.  They then do all the work of directing new members to the web hosting service, they get 25% commission per member, and you get a nice 10% commission without doing anything else. 

Not bad for just sending an one email. 

Righto, enough theory on affiliate marketing let’s get into some details.  In an earlier post I discussed why it’s important to understand the fundamentals of affiliate marketing to do it effectively.  It sounds pretty obvious but many new marketers really do look for the quick fix rather than learning the ropes.  It’s not like we need to know it all, or can’t start testing things as we learn them, but if we don’t get a grip on the basics we’ll be relying on others to show us the way all the time.  I don’t mind a little hand holding every now and then, but personal coaching is too expensive to need it as a precursor to taking the next step.  It would be like paying a driving instructor every time you wanted to go down to the store for a quart of milk. 

So what’s this post about?  Basically it’s about knowing the skeleton steps of affiliate marketing so we can flesh it out by doing some of our own research.  If we don’t at least understand what steps we should be taking, how on earth can we possibly complete the task at all, let alone successfully? 

Ok, before we get into it, let’s remember again that affiliate marketing is really as simple as this:

1. People have a problem, need or interest
2. They surf the net for info on how to solve their problem or satisfy their need.
3. They find an article or content we have written and it offers help.
4. Our article or content redirects to a product that will solve the problem.
5. People buy the product…happy days!

So what other elements do we need to be aware of?

Step 1:  Affiliate Marketing Overview

We already covered an overview on affiliate marketing in an earlier post, but basically we need to understand where we can find affiliate products or services to promote, and how we get paid on them (ie: per sale, per lead or per click). Once we’ve decided on a product to promote by doing some market research, we then want to promote it with a view to making some dollars.  

Step 2: List Building

If you haven’t heard it already, I’ll trot out the old maxim that ‘the money is in the list’.  Basically we need to understand the following:

A list is an important resources as it enables us to build rapport and trust with a target audience we otherwise would not be able to, and allows us to use a list of subscribers as our very own captive market to whom we can offer value, and at appropriate times promote products to.

How do we build our own list?  We utilize an autoresponder system, such as Aweber or GetResponse to capture the name and email address of prospects using an opt-in form.  You can see an example of an opt-in form on my Newletter post. 

Generally, we position our opt-in form on a ‘squeeze page’ which is a page we set up offering our visitors some bonus or item as an inducement to joining our mailing list, but we can also have an opt-in form on a content site such as a blog.  What we offer as an incentive might be a free ebook, report, piece of software, an eCourse…almost anything with a perceived value to the visitor. 

The cool thing about the autoresponder is that it enables us to send a single or series of pre-written emails to those who opt-in, ultimately inviting them to purchase a product or service.  The techniques and strategies used to convert sales with email marketing is a large sub-set of affiliate marketing, so we certainly won’t cover it here.  What is really cool about the autoresponder is it enables us to build a relationship with our prospect on auto-pilot.  We write the email series once, plug it into our autoresponder, and every time someone new signs up they get our emails without us having to send them manually.  

Step 3: Generating Traffic

Almost all forms of traffic generation are based on good keyword research practices.  Trying to generate traffic without understanding keywords is like trying to find the toilet in the dark…time consuming, unnecessary…and apt to produce messy results.  We’ve previously touched on the keyword research basic principles, so we’re aware that we’re looking to find keywords relating to our product or service that have a high volume of daily searches, but low competition so that we can have an article or content piece that ranks highly in the search engines.  This way when people go looking for an answer to a problem, we make sure we’re the ones pointing them in the right direction.

Want a quick example?  I was promoting an ebook on Aspergers Syndrome.  I discovered a keyword generated quite a number of searches per month, but didn’t have a lot of competition (which was actually a misspelling…asbergers…and yes I ‘discovered’ it because I misspelled it too demit!).  So I wrote an article using that keyword in the Title, intro and body of the article, then referred people to a content site where I plugged the product. I then posted the article on Ezine Articles. People would do a search on Google using my keyword, and sure enough my article would be in the number 1 or 2 position.  They read my article where I make some helpful suggestions about recognizing symptoms of aspergers, click on the link I include in the article, and get taken to my main page, where I exposed them to the product I was promoting.  Giddy up. 

It is important that we understand keyword research to make sure that our efforts to create traffic are not wasted.  Nothing sucks quite so much as writing a 500 word article only to rank on page 57 of Google. As a guide, I generally know if a keyword generates around 500,000 results in Google and there are less than 15,000 competing sites (which we check by searching for our keyword on Google with parenthesis…as in “keyword”) I can usually get my content to rank on to the first page. Any words with around 200,000 results and >5000 competing pages should be much easier to get towards or at top spot (or ideally, 1st, 2nd…3rd etc…all with different articles of my own).   

Once we have located a decent keyword we then use any number of methods to generate content which can rank for that keyword in the search engines, therefore delivering visitors to our website or squeeze page where we have our opt-in form.  What sort of methods?  Here’s a few:

Article Marketing (eg. Ezine Articles)
Video Marketing (eg. YouTube)
Blogging (your reading one…cool eh)
Content Sites
RSS Feeds
Posting on public forums
Pay per click advertising (Adwords)
Viral Marketing
Public advertising
Social bookmarking (eg. SocialMarker)
A review site, where we review the products we are promoting. 

Step 4:  Making The Sale

So if we’ve managed to get some traffic in to our squeeze page (or content page with an opt-in form) what do we do next?  Basically we want to redirect them to the sales page of the product we are promoting (if you want some examples of sales pages, head over the the Clickbank Marketplace and take a look).  We can do that on a number of levels. 

For example, if we have sent our visitors to a squeeze page or a content site with an opt-in form, when a person opts in to our mailing list we can redirect them to the product sales page.    This gives them the first look at the product on offer.  Why not just send them to the sales page without getting their name and address?  Because some folk just won’t buy the first time they see a product.  It can take a bit to convince them.   So much so that some marketers prefer not to direct a prospect to a sales page right away, but might offer an eCourse or some other information which they provide through the autoresponder email series, and raise the product they are promoting in their emails.  By using that delayed method, the prospect has the chance to warm to the idea of the product first. 

Is it starting to gel for you yet?  For anyone who has done a bit of affiliate marketing this stuff is basic, but when starting out it can be a real head-bend not to have that ‘aha!’ moment when it fits together and starts to make sense. 

Later, we’ll look at each step in greater detail, as well as the other side of the affiliate marketing coin…creating and selling our own products through other affiliates.

 I’m just going to put in a quick plug for our Guru Or Bust Newsletter simply because some visitors have wondered why I need a newsletter as well as a blog and RSS feed…which in a market renound for information overload is not necessarily an unfair question.  The answer is a pretty simple one though, and that is that I appreciate your support and loyalty and as such the Newsletter is designed to give its members the heads up about any really juicy offers, up and coming resources you can get your hands on, regular giveaways, and every now and then I’ll shoot something especially for the list which won’t be made available to the general public. I want people to have fun with this newsletter. Want an example? Recently I was able to secure a couple of copies of a popular new product to give away to a Guru Or Bust competition winner…only for this list. Just my way of saying ‘Thanks!’ so sign up today and keep your ear to the ground for more info on Internet Marketing.

Sign up for the Guru Or Bust Newsletter by entering your name and email and clicking ‘Submit’.

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The problem is to a large degree perpetuated by the ‘get rich quick’ mentality that many would be affiliate marketers adopt as their approach to learning the ropes.  This is the very attitude that already successful marketers hone in on with practiced proficiency to squeeze as many dollars as they can from we ‘wanna-be’ marketers.  No doubt you’ve already stumbled upon those sites that guarantee untold riches on autopilot.  They suggest that you don’t even need to learn how to start affiliate marketing, just purchase their product for a measly $97 bucks and you’ll have cash dropping out of the sky in 24 hours even if you are a complete marketing noob.  They offer a turnkey business and stock standard website template, and seal the deal with testimonials from people who assert to having made $13,874 in 48 hours.  Of course, what they don’t tell you is that they have a list of 42,076 people, all of who regularly make purchases on their say so.  Do these sorts of arrangements make money?  For sure…the guy selling them makes a packet! 

Let’s damp down our cynicism for a moment though.  It’s not that these sorts of arrangements are all scams, some affiliate marketing methods are genuinely designed to assist people by providing them with a system to make money online.  The two big problems with many such systems though are:

1. They fail to address the fundamental knowledge that we need to really be successful at marketing.
2. They create unrealistic expectations in the mind of the purchaser as to what can be achieved in a short space of time.

The effect of the first problem is that without core knowledge, experience and ability new marketers can’t grasp the reasons why the things they are doing aren’t working, and equally they lack an appreciation of what they are doing right and so can’t capitalize on them.  The effect of the second problem is that when failure almost invariably raises its ugly head, the new marketer becomes demoralized and despondent, passes the whole ‘make money online’ gig as a scam, and tells everyone how crap the product they purchased was (or more frequently, just keeps the whole sorry experience to themselves due to embarrassment). 

When I first started looking into making money online I did my Google search like we all did, and got smacked in the face with a couple of thousand sites telling me how easy it was to make money online.  If you’re anything like me, even though I was excited by the prospect, alarm bells started to go off and something started to smell a little south of cheese.  I figured it had to be bollocks…and saw the sales hype for what it is, a thinly veiled curtain designed to convince me to make a purchase.  But that’s not what I was there for.   I wanted to go behind the curtain and figure out how to sell stuff to others!  Problem was I wasn’t sure how to ‘get on the stage’ much less pull the curtains aside. 

When I first started out with affiliate marketing the hardest part was understanding how affiliate marketing really works.  The basic premise is simple, but there’s so much we can do wrong that I just wanted someone to take me by the hand and show me, step by step, just once so I could make it ‘click’.   It seemed like everyone was prepared to show me a little piece of it but I just couldn’t get the clear picture I needed to start putting the pieces together. 

That used to drive me nuts.  I’d be told ‘All you need is adwords for instant traffic’ or ‘pick a keyword and write an article’, or ‘choose a hungry niche to create your own product’. 

That’s all well and good buddy, but how do I know what my niche is hungry for, and how do I get my article off page 793 of Google, and why is my freaken adwords campaign costing me a fortune when I haven’t made a single sale?

Actually setting about learning something, like proper affiliate marketing, can feel boring.  It’s not glamorous to think of ourselves wading through pages and pages of info in a bid to understand.  It smacks of self education…that was what Uni was for and I spent 8 years getting a 5 year degree.  It’s much more fun to be attracted to the lure of fast money and minimal effort, to think of spending our time jetting along some sanded shoreline with a pina-colada in one hand and a sexy siren in the other.  The problem is, it’s just not going to happen that way. 

Learning how to start affiliate marketing is the first step on a path that leads to a very important place…leveraged and passive income.  A place where we can use the ongoing efforts of others for unadulterated self gain.  This should be the true lure and our ultimate goal if we are to embark on the journey at all.  It takes some effort on our part however, so it’s better just to get savvy with that and understand it’s the price we pay now to keep making money in the future…even if we are on a holiday.  But trust me, the journey can feel almost as good as the destination.  If you haven’t already, when you make your first sale through affiliate marketing and money appears in your bank account almost as if by magic…you’ll feel the elation, and that my friend, is what will keep you treading down the path to success.

Take the time to make an investment in yourself.  Learn how affiliate marketing works.  Avoid the hyped up get rich quick schemes.  Be smart, and treat affiliate marketing like the business that it is.  You wouldn’t open a restaurant without knowing how to manage it.  If embarking upon a campaign of affiliate marketing, just be sure those guiding the way don’t have some self interest in misleading you.

In a subsequent post I’m going to give you a little over view of the fundamental type of affiliate marketing to get started.  If you want to fast track the process, then I can recommend a resource designed specifically to cater to giving new marketers current and practical information.  You can use it to learn how to start affiliate marketing. 

Or simply stick around and I’ll do my best to take you there with me.