My Buy Essay

Posts Tagged ‘affiliate marketing tips’

In my article about offering bonuses, I suggested writing your own report as one possible bonus. You could also write a report or ecourse as a stand-alone product. You may find the very thought of writing these intimidating, so I’ll help you get started.

I’m assuming you are working with a website or product in a well-defined niche area, one in which you are at least somewhat knowledgeable. I’ll also assume you have been writing web copy, articles and/or sales letters. You’ve already generated lots of information.

Whatever you are planning to write always starts with what you know, and the easiest way to get started with that blank page is to make a list. So make a list of what you already know about your topic. Do this quickly; it should be easy because you can just write down the titles of articles you’ve already written.

I’ll talk about writing a report, but the only difference between that and an e-course is that an e-course is a step-by-step process. If your information lends itself to that format, then use it instead of the report, which simply provides information; a course leads you through action steps.

I’ll use my favorite golden retriever example. You’ve decided to write a report about finding the right puppy. You’ve already written articles about puppy mills, SPCA and other animal shelters, pet shops and breeders. What haven’t you written about – maybe it’s classified ads from unknown owners, golden retriever rescue leagues, and buying purebred vs. a mixed breed. You also haven’t written about any diseases or other physical disorders common to the breed, which will come into consideration when deciding what puppy to get. There’s your list, open to being edited, of course.

That’s what you know. The next step is to research and fill in some details. You’ll also be looking out for things you’ve forgotten about and important things you don’t know, which should be included.

You’ve gotten about 5 pages in writing already done (your articles), you should write a 10-page report at least. You may want to add a few pictures, charts or diagrams, so it may end up being a 15-page report, including cover, table of contents, and resource page.

It’s good practice to add something to your articles that you’ve already written, so start your research there. You may find a picture of a puppy mill and an article by someone else that you can add a reference to, giving it’s author full credit. You can add links to the SPCA and rescue leagues, and call up a friend who works in a reputable pet shop to ask him a few questions. Quotes from experts also make valuable additions, as do new research findings or news articles.

You then tackle each of the additional subjects one at a time. Inevitably, reading about each topic jogs things in your memory that you already know. Write that down quick. It helps when you’re doing the final editing and writing to have as much as possible already in your own words.

Alright, you’ve got the subject matter of your report done, but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got some structural elements in place as well. Use plenty of white space, this gives the reader’s eye a rest. Choose an attractive font that is also easy to read. Then focus on what I call the interest-catchers. You can have the most interesting report on the planet, but if your title and cover isn’t provocative, creative, intriguing, or otherwise captivating, no one will download and read it.

Also, your chapter headings, which will be read in the table of contents, must be engaging. And finally, assuming that somewhere in the report you are promoting yourself, your webpage, your newsletter, your ebook, some action that you want your reader to take…promote with pizzazz. Ask yourself, why would someone feel they HAVE TO click on your link? Make it so.

With planning, research, and creativity, your report can establish you as a writer, expert, and trusted information source, so execute it carefully and spread it around. Whether you give it away on it’s own, use it as a bonus, or sell it, you will be amazed at how it enhances your online presence and ultimately, profits.

Whether your business exists solely on the internet or in a traditional bricks-and-mortar storefront, you will benefit from an online presence. Customers, potential employees or business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer from your website.

Most affiliate marketers do not realize the importance of creating quality website content to the success of an affiliate business. Providing a constant stream of fresh, compelling content is vital to branding your name and your business. You can’t do this with a cookiecutter affiliate website; you need one of your own.

Customers research and compare product specifications, quality, and prices. If you are an online affiliate marketer, a cookiecutter affiliate website will build the mailing list of the product owner; you need your own website to brand your name, your business, and your unique selling proposition. If you plan on selling offline, many of your customers will still appreciate being able to research from home.

Many consumers these days research products online before they buy from a bricks-and-mortar store, so if you provide them with the info they seek as well as the ability to purchase immediately, you may capture customers that would otherwise have ended up buying from your off-line competition.

A well-designed website can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company onto your little home business, so spend some time designing your site carefully.

Internet marketing research firms predict that the number of online consumers will grow at a rate of 30 to 50 percent over the next few years. These numbers alone should be enough to persuade you that your business should have a website presence.

A poorly designed website can ruin your business image by sending entirely the wrong message, so take the time to build a phenomenal site. There are many websites offering professionally-designed templates with prices from free on up. Then you need a domain name and hosting provider and grab a mentor while you’re at it. You’ll be up and running before you know it.

“Say your target customers are everyone, and you will sell to no one.”

If your website is not producing as much revenue as you’d like, chances are you’re guilty of not targeting your audience sufficiently.

Today’s business environment is so competitive that a small business’s best bet is to focus on developing niche products where there is less competition from large firms.

Take the online book market. Amazon.com dominates the field, so smaller start-ups are wise to focus on books in specific niches. There are sites for best sellers, out of print books, used books, Oprah’s Books, teen books, 3-D popup books, e-books, Christian books, and so on and on. Imagine a small company trying to compete with Amazon’s huge inventory and variety. Then imagine that same company aiming for more depth in a much smaller field.

Another reason for niche websites is because you want to get listed in the top 100 sites on any particular search engine. By making a website based around a highly focused niche you reduce considerably the number of competitors that you have. This makes it easier to rank well in the search engines (first 3 pages, or top 100 sites). Without a high Website ranking it is not possible to attract free search engine traffic and hence free visitors.

If you’re an affiliate that thinks big and joins dozens of programs, you’re in for a bit of a shock. Your site is indistinguishable from a myriad others, no one knows it exists, and you’re very lonely. Am I right?

You need to promote what you join, and it’s impossible to promote that many programs effectively. You won’t succeed at any of them, you’ll lose interest, and your business will disappear.

Instead, you need to focus on one thing that you love and create a lot of good content.

Everyone who has a website is constantly trying to improve their search engine rankings by carrying out optimization and getting inbound links etc. However one of the easiest ways is to create content that no one else has- unique content. Unique content written for an extremely focused niche market is a sure ticket to promotional success.

If your website contains your main keywords as well as a variety of related ones, used in a natural way throughout your pages, you will outperform your competition with fewer, less targeted pages. Using all these keywords throughout your pages also makes your content more interesting, rational, and satisfying. Imagine that…the question isn’t whether you simply occupy a niche, but how much obscure secret stuff you know about it, how much of an expert you are about it, how passionate you are about it, and if your site is interactive and fresh.

Yet another example of “build it and they will come.”

If you’re just starting out in internet marketing, you probably feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available. The learning curve is less like a hill and more like a cliff! If you’ve been at this business for a while, you may be frustrated that you’re still not making any money, or not enough money. You may be wondering why no one is reading your ads, or why all those visitors to your site are not buying anything and not returning. Where do you start? How do you convert the casual visitor to a return customer?

Relax and breathe. None of us was born an internet marketer. We all have to start someplace. A great place to start is by looking at something you already DO know, offline business. We all shop somewhere. Pick a store you’re familiar with, maybe the grocery store where you shop at least once a week. Pick a small store to focus on, not a huge supermarket. Now pretend that’s just an empty lot or building, and you’re an aspiring grocer. What do you need to do?

There’s 3 big steps you need to take.

1) First you have to have a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you want to do. What do you want to sell, and what do you want your store to look like? Spend some time dreaming, so you can see everyone who is in your store and what they are buying. Your store needs four walls, a floor, doors and windows, and a roof. You need to decide on size, the first step is to figure out what you want to sell. You think about what people in your town need and buy regularly, the availability of these products in other well established stores, and decide on your niche and your location. Maybe it’s bread, canned goods, cereals, candy, ice cream, soda, milk, and cigarettes on a busy corner near a residential area with no other store in walking distance. Maybe it’s a natural food store in a yuppie neighborhood. Maybe it’s gas and snack foods near a highway.

2) Secondly, you have to understand what you need to have in place to make that dream come true, and how you’re going to do it. What does your store need by way of infrastructure? You need shelves, freezers and refrigerated cases, a counter and a cash register. Probably you need a small office and bathroom as well. You need electricity, lighting, heat, air conditioning, desk, chair, phone, fax, maybe some music, paint, flooring, security cameras and so on.

Once you decide on the layout of the store, you will know what size of a building you need to build, buy or rent. How are you going to finance this, and how will you afford to stock your store, from savings or from a loan?

3) Assuming that you now have a fully-stocked and operational store, how will you get people to shop there? You could advertise in newspapers, radio and tv; put up signs; offer door prizes and/or sales; offer free advice and information (recipes, menus, shopping lists, health and nutrition information, diet information); sponsor events (a booksigning by a famous cookbook author, co-sponsor a food related festival); build familiarity and trust by joining social, charity or business clubs, or volunteering at local events.

Fine and good, you say, but I still don’t know how to make money online. Let’s take the example we just developed and convert it to online business.

Gazing Into Your Crystal Ball

1) First the concept. What do YOU want to do? What do the people that frequent the internet want? First and foremost, right behind email, people online are looking for information. There are places online you can go to research hot topics, such as Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool. Here you can see how many times a word or phrase was searched in the last month. You can do a Google search for these terms to see how many websites are already available sharing that information. As you keep narrowing down your focus, balance between your passion, what other people want, and what’s already available. A very small niche with very little competition with targeted promotions can become a very lucrative business.

Your Shopping List

2) Now the infrastructure, the Short List:

a) internet real estate = a website. This can be an affiliate site or your own. You can get a free website with no outside advertising here: .finitesite.com

b) products: No matter what your interests, there’s an affiliate program with products that fit; you may want to sell related ebooks, Amazon.com books, etc. Clickbank is a good place to find electronic information products.

c) tools: you will need a tracking system (known as a link tracker); an autoresponder; a link rotator.

d) knowledge: you will need a splash page program and/or some basic html and advertising knowledge. A free html tutorial: .pagetutor.com

e) an expense budget, no matter how small at first.

You Need More Than Two Cans and a String

3) Promotion: people enter your world (the internet) via a browser. Since “the internet” is intangible, many people confuse the vehicle (AOL or Yahoo!, for example) with the destination itself, the internet. So let’s be gentle with our potential visitors and make their journey from landing pad to your neighborhood as effortless, pleasant and convenient as possible.

If they are interested in buying widgets online, they will soon realize that there are a million widget salesmen out there. So they start narrowing down their search, and they comparison shop. First and foremost, they are information gatherers. Where do they go first? Probably to a search engine. Then they start exploring. They visit a site; if it fits their needs, they may bookmark it before they move on. When they move on, they may return to their Google or Yahoo! search results, or they may follow a link off of the page they visited.

So getting yourself listed in the search engines is important. This does not require your own domain name, although it’s the best route to go, but a website where you can control your page content is essential. A search engine will not list a replicated affiliate website, such as any-old-program.com/aff_id=102109 but it will gladly list your-domain.com/any-old-program. Search engines want new, original information, so write something original on your website about every program you join. Link your articles, etc. to your web page, then link that page to your affiliate program.

Your own domain name, carefully chosen, will help to brand either your name or your website name, such as wallywalton.com wallyswidgets.com widgetworld.com etc. If you get a free website with finitesite.com, your url will be finitesite.com/wallywalton or something like that. It might be finitesite.com/member/wallywalton — I forget, it’s been a while since I had a site with them With some work, you can get a site with a url like this into the search engines. It’s a great way to start if you can’t afford domain name, hosting etc.

Sooner or later, your site visitor will be ready for a purchase. Maybe they will drive off to the nearest hardware store armed with all their new information and buy a widget there. If they found your site in the search engine, visited and bookmarked it, maybe they’ll return and buy from you. Maybe they’ll buy from the site they went to after your site. But 9 times out of 10, once they’ve left your site, they’re gone forever.

And Now the Quiz, Purely Common Sense

How do you get them to come back? Here’s a pop quiz for you, choose the best answer (it’s a no-brainer):

a) offering so much valuable information, they bookmark your site and return on their own;

b) building so much trust and familiarity that, when they think of widgets, or of asking for an opinion, or for buying anything widget-like, they think of you (that’s called branding your name);

c) promoting your website so much that, when they think of widgets, they automatically think of your website (that’s also branding, the name of your site in this case)

d) have a mailing list they can subscribe to (this might be the online equivalent of a guest book in a store) and receive updates on information on your website;

e) have contests on your site;

f) endorse other people’s sites and products, with an appropriate byline including your own url;

g) give away things;

h) hang out in places online that your potential visitors frequent (forums, bulletin boards, chat rooms, conferences, seminars) and make friends, give away free information and helpful links and tools, include your url in your signature where allowed;

i) blogging and using RSS feeds to keep people thinking of you and your widgets;

j) being a part of the search engine revolution and exploring the world of tagging, or social bookmarks (creating your own search engine with other like-minded anarchists

k) all of the above.

Each of these concept, infrastructure, and promotion ideas could be an article in its own right; but this is your basic outline for building your online business. The ultimate power of the internet is to level the playing field for both major corporations, little ol’ you, and everyone in between. A business that fully utilizes the internet can throw away the purchased leads list, because cold calling and cold emailing is a thing of the past. Using the internet to its fullest business potential means putting your message where your potential customers can find it, and letting them come emailing, looking and calling for you.

Be sure to take advantage of the unique power of the internet, and keep the “internet” in your
internet marketing.