Erwin's Blog

The blog all about content and value for you!

Custom Search

Posts Tagged ‘Time And Money’

Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve

Monday, December 21st, 2009

When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think that once your website is up, and you have put your links in place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect.

The Begin of the Begin

You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience.

Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself — where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are — you can begin by:

1.    Writing articles
2.    Optimizing your site for the search engines
3.    Putting Adsense on your site

All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put adsense ads on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site.

My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:

1. It’s a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.
2. Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you’re paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.

What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period

First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel. Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change.

Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.
And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.

In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research. All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level.

To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally, if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you’ll make it.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Accomplishment, AdSense, Adwords, Affiliate Marketer, Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve, Dormancy, Google, Google Search, Internet Community, internet marketing, Internet World, Learning Curve, Lifespan, Nb, Nbsp, Nine Months, Online Forums, Other Search Engines, Pay Per Click, Pride, Sampling, Sandbox, Set Time, Six Months, Time And Money
Posted in Affiliate Marketing | No Comments »

Four (4) Essential Ways To Create Instant Affiliate Commissions

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

One of the easiest ways of starting an online business and earning quick profits is through affiliate marketing. With no website to develop, no product development to achieve, no refunds or customer problems to deal with, this is by far the most effective way of developing your online presence.

If you already have your affiliate products and you’re working at making more sales, an increase in commissions is the obvious goal of everyone. With more and more products hitting the online market, it’s essential to follow some simple yet crucial steps. So what are they?

If you want your affiliate program commissions to take off, literally overnight, these are the steps you need to seriously consider;

1. Do your research and check out the programs you’re thinking about promoting. It’s pretty obvious that you only want to promote a product that will give you the maximum paycheck in the shortest possible time.

The main factors to consider when doing this are obvious when you stop and think about them, but more often than not, are not fully considered before putting your time and money into making your product pay.

Check the commission structure and make sure it pays well. Also, try to find products that match your target audience and are already paying well to other affiliates. You soon know when a program isn’t meeting up to it’s promises – that’s the time to reconsider its worth and move on to the next.

As you’re probably going to be one of many affiliates promoting the same product, especially if it’s a good one, establish your USP – or ‘Unique Selling Position’. Set yourself up as offering that little something extra that makes you stand out above the crowd. Write a short article to give away as an incentive to potential buyers. This gives you both greater credibility and extra drawing power.

Give information that’s not only free, but useful. When you do this, if what you give away for free is good, people naturally expect a great deal more from the bought product. Make recommendations about the product within the report if you can, and try to give just enough information to make people need the actual product.

2. When giving away free reports or ebooks, save and collect, at the very least, the name and email addresses of all those who download your gift. It’s now widely known that very few people make a purchase on their first introduction to a product.

This is where an autoresponder is invaluable as you can create a whole series of follow up messages to send to these prospects to entice them into buying your product. Anywhere between 6 and 10 messages are needed to finally clinch the sale, so automate this process and capitalize on the free report.

Once you have these prospects details, they are yours until the person unsubscribes. This means that you can send them information in the months ahead about other products you’re promoting, long after they’ve bought the original item.

If you develop an ezine, you are in a perfect position to send more valuable, and occasional free, information to these prospects who now value you as a source of knowledge and useful recommendations. You develop a relationship with them and they may stay with you for years to come. They begin to trust you and your recommendations and eventually, are likely to buy from you again.

3. Never underestimate the power of negotiation. Be prepared to haggle with a seller whose goods you wish to promote. Remember that all merchants need affiliates to market and sell their goods and will be more inclined to change their payment structure than potentially loose business if they see you as a good source of income.

Be bold and you could find yourself receiving a greater slice of the pie for all your advertising efforts. Don’t be greedy but be fair and you will be respected for it.

4. Use effective advertising techniques. ‘Pay Per Click‘ will give you the most immediate results if you do your research right. Naturally, Google’s Adwords and Overture are the places to start, being leaders in the online PPC field. But, look around and research the smaller players who offer cheaper rates to a smaller audience. These include; ExcelSeek, JumpFind, LookQuick to name just three.

Ezine Top Sponsor and Solo ads can also give you a huge and quick return on your advertising buck with your ad being received by a responsive audience of your chosen market.

And as with any advertising campaigns – track your results. If you don’t know who’s clicking what, you’ll never know which ads are working.

Use these techniques and you’ll soon see an immediate improvement in your affiliate sales. Build on your successes and expansion and growth will follow.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Affiliate Commissions, Affiliate Marketing, affiliate marketing strategies, Affiliate Products, Affiliate Program, affiliates, Commission Structure, Credibility, Crowd, Customer Problems, Drawing Power, Four (4) Essential Ways To Create Instant Affiliate Commissions, how to make profits quickly, Paycheck, Presence, Profits, Something Extra, Starting An Online Business, Target Audience, Time And Money, tips, Unique Selling Position, Usp
Posted in Affiliate Marketing | No Comments »

Affiliate Marketing Programs: Join The Ranks Of The Super Affiliates

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Affiliate programs are the perfect way to optimise your website and to subsidise any income. Depending on the amount of work that you are willing to do to maximise your personal sites visitor count, the awards for being an affiliate are boundless. Through advertisements, emotive language and word of mouth you can create real interest in a website and if that site also carries affiliate advertisements, you could be in line for some substantial financial rewards. Even if you do not fancy investing time into advertising and marketing there is still the opportunity to earn money as an affiliate. Companies do not discriminate over, which sites are more worthy and, which should be dropped. Affiliates pay nothing for the advertising space until they have generated customers through a site. So it is a risk free environment in which all parties are given the opportunity to earn money without the pressure of paying up front.

Some affiliate programs pay you a one off figure for attracting a customer, which is all right for a casual earner. However for the more business minded, regular incomes are also available from affiliate sites. Take online poker sites, this is an industry that is going from strength to strength and growing everyday. Tapping into this hugely lucrative market can give even the smallest affiliate a percentage of the profits. The poker sites usually offer an affiliate a percentage of a poker players lifetime value, taken from games and account top ups. If the player is a high user, in so far as he or she spends a lot of time and money in the poker halls, even just one player can earn a fairly regular income for an affiliate. But imagine for a moment the potential of attracting dozens or hundreds of players through your site, with an affiliate earning 30% of the overall money generated. An affiliate can build an empire running into hundreds of dollars a month if not more.

The opportunities are only limited by an affiliates own work output. By making their personal site popular and attracting hundreds of hits each day, the chances of attracting people to the advertising banners is hugely increased. Therefore promotion of the personal site and the affiliate sites is essential to make the visitors first come to your site, and secondly to make them want to follow your links and sign up. Emotive language and relevant text are usually the most popular ways to attract a new guest. Whilst there is no sure fire guarantee affiliates can certainly improve their odds by first marketing their site and then secondly persuading visitors to follow the banners and join the site. The incentives are there to be taken, all that is required is the will and a little effort to make an affiliate business a success.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Advertisements, Affi, Affiliate Companies, Affiliate Marketing Programs, Affiliate Marketing Programs: Join The Ranks Of The Super Affiliates, Affiliate Programs, Affiliate Sites, Amp Nbsp, Dozens, Free Environment, Incomes, Lifetime Value, Lucrative Market, Personal Sites, Poker Players, Poker Sites, Profits, Strength To Strength, Substantial Financial Rewards, Tapping, Time And Money, Ups, Word Of Mouth
Posted in Affiliate Marketing | No Comments »

Six (6) Keys to Selecting The Right Golf School

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

There are many criteria to selecting the school that is worthy of the investment, and this is not an exhaustive list. However, consider these to get you focused on what is important to you.

Key #1) Golfing style
As with any topic or subject matter to learn, golf can be played in many styles. Most of them based on your personality and skill level. Some play aggressively, others, like me, more conservatively. But ultimately you have to choose a school or instructor that matches you.

Your skills, your personality, your style.

Key #2) Problem areas
I have trouble with slicing. Consistently I find that my shots slice to the right. You, to be sure, have at least one issue with your game or specific shots. You may want to find a school to address and help correct that shortcoming. If you come back from a long weekend and your slice has vanished, you would have had time (and money) well spent.

Key #3) Instructor to class-size ratio
This is a personal preference item. Some people learn in a group setting (even craze the interaction). Others of you need the attention that a one or two person class offers. It may also depend on what you are trying to gain from the school which one you actually choose.

Key #4) Price
For some this may not be an issue. Golf is your life and no amount of money is too much if you improve your game, and thus your enjoyment. For others, big obstacle. If you are considering a golf school then you know that most start above $1500. There are some “big name” instructors offering half day lessons for $10,000.

You know your budget. If you are price sensitive then, by all means, do not forget to add in travel, lodging, and food costs. Many times these “incidentals” can double the overall cost.

Key #5) Proximity
What is your traveling distance? Is your schedule tight so slipping off within 100 miles for a half day lesson is all you can squeeze. Or, are you planning your school around a vacation so distance is not really an issue. One plus of keeping tabs on those schools “in your own backyard” is when these offer last-minute specials you can jump on those quickly.

Key #6) Length of training
How long can you take off from your profession to pursue your passion? Like any good consultant would answer, it depends. It depends on whether you are looking for a long weekend, a one day seminar, or wrapping a vacation around your training. This is an important factor in choosing a school so compare wisely.