Affiliate marketing is without doubt one of the easiest ways to make money online today. This article is an essential blueprint you can use to quickstart your affiliate profits. Make sure you read every word of this article to guarantee you start profitably in affiliate marketing.
1 – Choosing An Affiliate Network
There are 2 main types of affiliate networks. Ones that pay commission based on a sale, and ones that pay commission based on an acquisition (lead submission).
Without doubt the best affiliate network which pays commission based on a sale is the Clickbank Network. You can sign up for free in 5 minutes, and are provided with the most detailed analysis and performance of the products themselves. There is a large variety of niches, so it should be simple to find an appropriate product.
Commission Junction pays for both sales and acquisitions. Once again there is a great variety – just less statistics on the performance of each products. ClickBooth is the leading commission based on acquisition network. It takes longer to sign up, but the rewards are well worth it.
2 – How To Choose Products To Promote
Keyword research is crucial to finding an affiliate product to promote. What you want to do is firstly isolate some products/niches that you are interested in and/or have some knowledge about.
Next you need to inf keywords in relation to people searching for your affiliate product. What you want are keywords with high search volume, but low competition.
3 – Creation Of Your Affiliate Review Site
Once you know the keywords you want to target its time to start building your site. This is basically a 1 page site or blog which reviews the affiliate product you are promoting. You have to include a catchy and compelling headline, and give the reader a reason to find out more about the product you are promoting. You must include your affiliate links. The absolute minimum you should do is give away a free report which links to your autoresponder. This gives you the chance to get more leads, and sell the product again via your follow up emails.
4 – Creating A Product Focused PPC Campaign
PPC sure does play a big role in affiliate marketing. There is a lot to learn with PPC and you really want some experience before getting involved. I advise if you are new to affiliate marketing and PPC to avoid bidding on any terms other than those related to the product to start with. I would not use any other ad network other than Google – this is another topic in itself.
5 – Create Content Based On Keyword Research
The next part of this affiliate marketing blueprint is to generate content based on the keyword research you completed earlier. You should be focusing your content creation solely on the product name – create an article or a blog post. Squidoo and hubpages are examples of powerful web 2.0 sites where you can submit your articles. Once you have created your content you should bookmark it with social networking sites such as digg and delicious.
6 – Track & Refine
You should definitely set up Google Analytics on your review sites. This will allow you to clearly see which keyword search terms are driving traffic- and which terms are causing people to leave your site (bounce). This is really useful info and allows you to improve your landing pages. A brilliant feature of clickbank is that it allows you to include tracking ids – where you can see which keywords lead to which sales. This is the holy grail of affiliate marketing – and ultimately ensuring you optimise your campaigns for maximum profits.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing requires little ongoing work and maintenance while still being highly profitable. The upside is that you dont need to chase payments, refunds or provide support. Hopefully I have given you some inspiration to get your affiliate marketing underway.
Michael Mathieson is an internet marketing entrepreneur with over 5 years experience. He will show you the exact techniques you need to make money online including: affiliate marketing, adsense, seo, free web traffic, blogging and more.
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