What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing in simple terms means “Marketing somebody else’s products or services”. So the good news is that you do not need to own a product.
Affiliate marketing network involves three parties: A merchant (An advertiser, a brand or a seller), an affiliate himself (or a publisher) and a customer.
An affiliate signs up to market the merchant’s goods or services by directing a customer to the appropriate web page containing information about the advertised products. For every customer, the affiliate would earn an affiliate marketing commission.
How does Affiliate marketing work
Affiliate marketing is a good option for those:
· Working from home/part time
· Wishing to make some extra bucks along with a full time job
When a customer clicks on a link from your website directing to the main web site, this information is stored in the profile. Every time he or she buys something, you receive a commission as agreed upon by the owner.
Another way to earn affiliate marketing commission is through paying per click (ppc affiliate marketing). Here, you place small ads (promote products of companies who are willing to pay you to bring customers to their sites) on popular search engines like yahoo, google, msn where traffic is extensively high (you got to pay them per click on your advertisement)
Moral: If you have some money to invest then opt for PPC (taking the “loss” too into consideration). At the same time, if you are not in a hurry then go for creating web sites.
How to start off with Affiliate Marketing
1) Create a website or blog (with WordPress/Blogspot) or only a “lens” on Squidoo.com (if you don’t have a website or don’t enjoy writing) about the product(s) you are advertising. The information that you publish must be of great quality and informative to attract readers. You could also start your own email list and offer them free products to kick-start. Once you have developed enough confidence in them, you could suggest products that they would need to pay for and begin affiliate marketing.
2) Promote a product that matches you niche and choose a niche that people would want to browse through and develop interest in. It can either be physical or virtual (software/eBook).For physical products, you can set up an account on Amazon.com or CJ.com. Clickbank.com is one of the most popular ones and will give you the option to promote virtual products.
3) Drive traffic to your site with SEO optimisation techniques. You got to build abundant patience here as the famous saying that goes -“Rome as not built in a day”
4) Build trust in your readers
A word of caution: Do not push people to buy products, only recommend them. Also do not suggest products that you are not sure of .This might end up losing your valuable readership network.
There are several places where you would like to place Affiliate Links on a site, depending upon where your readers would most likely focus their attention on.
Suggestions: Text-link ads are advisable to be placed in blog posts, or you could put advertisement banners above or below each post since the readers would glance mostly at those areas while reading your posts.
Innovation, intelligence the right tactics will take you to attain your objectives.
Some good links to learn about Affiliate marketing
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