Getting Started With Affiliate Programs

Getting Started With Affiliate Programs

The Affiliate makes a pile of money from promoting these lucrative web-products after
researching Keywords, writing ads, and then posting those ads in classifieds, Search Engines and E-Mail Campaigns, then finding ways to promote the sites they have decided to sell.

Once your ads are up and have been adjusted for maximum performance, the affiliate marketer may go play golf for a month straight and make thousands, even millions during the vacation.

You can be an Affiliate Marketers and make millions without EVER making a product. You can also do both, or find your own balance between the two.

There are unlimited, easy ways to promote these sites, and that is the power of the internet. That is why the Internet is a billion dollar industry, made up of affiliates and vendors.

Affiliate Marketing is a lot more popular than you think. Everywhere you go on the Internet you end up seeing a flashy colored banner or even a little game where you click on something to win free gifts or Ipods etc. The people that are responsible for putting those kinds of ads are “affiliate Marketers”.

The concept is, you join a marketplace like clickbank.com for example. Then you are given a digit code, and you choose which products to promote. You then take your clickbank id or code and put it in the URL address of the web site or product you are going to sell or promote. This way the product that you are selling knows it was you that sold it.

The standard format for an affiliate URL address complete with tracking code: Clickbank’s hop link: http://hop.clickbank.net/?XXXXXX/productnamegoeshere (Replace the XXX’s with your Affiliate Nickname)

It’s all about Affiliate Marketing.

1. The first thing to do is to sign-up for a clickbank and a Paypal account.

2. You have to find programs to promote;

3. If you want to increase the number of potential customers visiting your website and make your site a success getting listed in these search engines is a must! For a one time fee of just $49.95 their search engine submission specialists will get your site listed on over 100 of the top search engines on the internet. They will submit your website instantly, so you will see the increase in visitors immediately. Start Getting Visitors To Your Websites: Get-Visitors-Now.com

Where To Sell

The first thing you need to do is have a place to sell your products from. It doesn't matter what you're selling, but it does matter where you sell it from. Let me explain. When you plan to run an online business, treat it like one! You'll make much more money this way, believe me. Sure, you'll have some out of pocket expenses, but that's part of doing business. I cannot stress enough the importance of having your very own domain name and web site space.

There's a big difference between a department store and a yard sale. Think of your business as a specialized department store, and give it a place to "stand". If you try and do every single thing for free, you're business will suffer for it in the long run. You need complete control over your business. After all, you are the boss and not just the manager. That's why you need to steer clear of free web hosting sites.

Yeah, they give you your own sub-domain and a limited amount of space, but more importantly, these hosts hinder your earning ability with permanent banner ad placement and file upload limitations. Keeping everything as simple as possible will benefit you in the end and make your job a lot easier. Don't waste your time or energy. It's not worth it.

So, do yourself a big favor and pay for good web hosting. Let me add this, many web hosts are steering away from allowing certain files to be hosted on their servers. This includes .zip, .mp3, .exe, and in some cases .pdf files. Not good for an information business. Most of these web hosts who ban these types of files are offering "shared" hosting. Shared hosting is simply multiple web sites that share the same server.

While this isn't a bad system, it still limits what you can do. But, if you are comfortable with that and have found a shared hosting plan that fits your specific needs with a good price, then go for it. But be sure to check their terms of service before you finalize your choice and pay.

Before you set up with a specific web host, you need a domain name. That is an easy enough task. Where you purchase your domain name is just as important as where you purchase your web space hosting. A good company to go with for domain name purchasing is http://www.bluehost.com/ . They've been around for a while and they have top notch customer service. Plus, their prices are affordable.

When selecting the right domain name it's a good idea for you to add at least one descriptive word pertaining to your online business. Say for instance you want to sell soccer equipment, you might choose www.waytogoalsoccer.com, or www.soccersupplier.com, or http://www.yoursoccersupplies.com/, www.justsoccer.com, etc.

The reason for adding "keyword" in your domain is that when people use search engines your site will come up more frequently. And that means more traffic, which means more sales. Plain and simple.

There are several different places that you can pick up your own merchant account. PayPal being my top choice due to the fact that it's free. Plus, this is one of the payment system that clickbank uses. Now, If you have the money and can afford it, there are other merchant account systems out there too. ClickBank being the first on my list. It will cost around $50 to set this up. But don't worry, it's just a one time fee.

Now that you know where you should be selling, it's time to decide: what to sell.

What To Sell

1. Information Products

This type of selling is probably the easiest way to make fast money without huge overhead costs. And you also have the ability to sell unlimited amounts of information products to as many customers as you can sell them too. But, you must make sure that the information products that you have in stock come with something called Master Resale Rights. Master Resale Rights makes it possible within the product terms to resell not only the product itself, but also the rights to resell it to those customers you sell it to.

While there are also Standard/Basic/Full Resale Rights, the definition of this is much different. These types of resellable products only give you, the original purchaser of the product to resell it, and not those you sell it to.

Even though Standard/Basic/Full Resale Rights is not a bad thing, having the Master Resale Rights will most certainly bring in more profits based on the fact that your customers can also make money with them as well as learning something at the same time.

With that said, you need to be selective on which resale rights products you buy. What you need to be looking for is a product that is 1. newer, and 2. unique. These criteria usually make for the best sellers. The reason for this is quite simple.

Lots of people jump online searching for an opportunity that will make them some fast cash. The information product business excels in this capacity. That's why so many hop onto the resale rights information selling bandwagon. However, many fail at running a successful information e-business because they have no clue as to what they need to be selling! Or even how to go about selecting a killer product that will generate excellent profits for them without costing them an arm and a leg.

As I said before, you have to be extremely picky. And be wary of "hyped" up sites. Just because the site says that the product is A #1, doesn't mean that it is. There are lots of stinkers out there. Remember that the owner of the website that is in essence "pushing" a specific product are in the same boat you are. They want to earn money. Things like "I'll be raising the price soon", "Time Sensitive Offer", countdown clocks, and similar are all marketing tactics to get you to purchase right away by creating an urgency.

It's a good tactic and it works like you wouldn't believe! But being aware that these are simply techniques will help you in choosing a good product as opposed to one that totally sucks eggs.

Along with those urgency techniques, also understand that not everything presented on a "sales page" is what it seems on the surface. Take for instance testimonials. It's important for you to know how some businesses get these and why. First, let's discuss how they get them. A lot of times, authors of products will offer a free copy of their product in exchange for a testimonial.

And who wouldn't love something they had to pay nothing for? In some cases, getting that free copy and providing a positive testimonial is a requirement, and not a request. Still yet, other times, the author will ask for feedback to perform final "tweaks" on the product before the official release, and then as a follow up, will ask those that participate for a nice little testimonial to which they offer the participants a "link back" to their own page. It's free publicity.

And another darn good way to gain your trust and get you to believe more firmly in the product so that you purchase it. Furthermore, the reason why those in the online business need these testimonials is to gain your trust in them and their product. Word of mouth carries a lot of weight when it comes to customers purchasing something from you. Again, another marketing tactic that works, and works well.

Always remember that everything you see isn't always so cut-and-dry. There are little things going on "behind the scenes" that you don't know about. Are these things dishonest, maybe. To a certain degree. But there are those that offer testimonials that are completely genuine.

Are there sales pages out there that actually speak the truth about the products they are selling? Sure. The unfortunate part is that it's very difficult to know the difference. And the reason for this is that some internet marketers really know what they're doing.

Now, where can you get high quality products for a good deal? One of the best places is through private membership websites. These types of sites are stocked with plenty of resale right information products to get you up and going. Plus, they almost always have quite a number of products that are up to date, or just released recently available for you to download.

Collecting your information products this way will most definitely save you a lot of money and time in the long run.

Add to this the fact that there are products you can actually choose from and decide which you feel are worth selling to your customers. Plus, when you resell these products, which most, if not all, come with resale rights, you stand to make 100% profits from them, excluding selling fees from companies such as PayPal, eBay, etc.

With packaged information products, you have to again be very selective. Many resellers the method I like to call "recycling". This is where they will take a bunch of older products and repackage them giving the overall effect of this package being something new. While in essence it is something new, the outer package, what's inside is just the same old stuff.

The best way to avoid buying those information product titles you already have is to read the sales page and look for a list of products included within the package. Most will have this information up there, including an image. If it doesn't, skip it and move on to the next one. If all it has is a title, skip it. You need an honest description of the package so you can determine whether or not you have those exact products already so you're not "double buying".

And to help you out, I want to provide you with a few outstanding titles that won't cost you one red cent. Consider it a gift for purchasing this guide :-) This way, you'll know what to look for by having an example provided to you.


There is one other additional way that can bring you in some pretty outstanding profits. And that is writing up and creating your very own information product. It's really not as difficult as it might sound. And, everyone has a story inside them just itching to get out. Even you!

2. Physical Products

Of course, you can always sell physical products through the internet too. A great way to begin this is by looking around your own home for items that you want to get rid of and sell them using an auction site such as eBay.

Practically anything can sell and fetch a pretty good price on eBay. In fact, one person was able to sell nothing! Yep, it's an honest to goodness fact. I don't recommend you do that personally as there are plenty of rules you must follow, and doing something like this could get you permanently banned from buying or selling on eBay. So just make sure that you have a product to offer ;-).

Also, when selling a physical product on eBay, you'll want to be sure that your descriptions are accurate. If there's a defect with what you're selling, explain it. Put it out there. This won't necessarily hurt your chances of making a sale, but not adding important information like this can.

Remember too, that since you are selling a physical product, it will need to be shipped out to the individual who bid highest or "bought it now". So, you'll need to add those costs into the price. eBay allows for this, but don't go overboard. Only charge what is necessary to ship the product. Don't be greedy. It will bite you in the end! And having over-excessive shipping charges will sometimes make it harder for you to sell your product. Then you'll be stuck with not only the item you were trying to sell, but also the fees to list it.

It's important to add here that any type of information, or digital product you have, that has the resale rights of course, can be converted into a physical product by placing it on a CD. In fact, eBay encourages you to sell information products in this way.

Now, I'm not going to delve into all the specifics of how to do this as that's not my area of expertise.

Okay, we figured out where to sell our products from, and what we should be selling. So now we need to understand who we should be selling these products to.

Watch out for that post soon!

Getting Started With Affiliate Programs