Stop Dithering, You Need To Start Now! Many people across the globe are suffering as a result of the “credit crunch” either by having an insufficient income to meet their day to day living expenses or by uncertainty in their employment. Many have already lost their jobs due to Company closures. As a result, people who are conscious of the uncertainty are looking at ways of subsidizing their income or even starting their own online home business.
Many of these same people are turning to affiliate marketing in a desperate attempt to shore up their finances and even trying to make a full time living with their online business.
The sad fact is,that whilst affiliate marketing is known to turn some average Joe’s into millionaires, many people will fail and make their situation even worse. But this need not be the case if you just take your time and start in the right place. If you have uncertainties about your financial future, then you need to act now, as it takes time to build a successful business online or otherwise. Acting now before your uncertainties become realities will give you the cushion you need.
Everyone has to start somewhere, but where? If you are new to affiliate marketing or simply want to try internet marketing, you will very quickly come to realize that the internet (and there is no getting away from it) is rife with scams of one sort or another, all of which are targeted at you the novice. So let me give you a starting point to show you how to start in affiliate marketing without getting your fingers burnt.
Whether you have a bottomless pit of money to invest or you simply need to make some extra money on line to subsidize your income, you should be cautious about joining any programs that have a high joining fee or monthly subscription. You can very quickly eat up any spare money you have unless you know what you are doing. It would be more prudent to start out with a respected program with a minimal cost attached. Once you have learnt the principles of affiliate marketing, you can then branch out into the higher cost programs.
Okay, so where do you start? Where is a good starting point?
There are several options open to you, but this article will concentrate on three considered to be the cheapest and which offer the lowest risk.
1. Blogg
2. Free Website
3. Splash Page
·Blog
The cheapest and perhaps the easiest starting point is to get a blog. There are many places on the internet that offer a blog platform for free, the most popular being Blogger and Wordpress. Whilst I would recommend Wordpress as the preferred blogging platform, for anyone new to blogging, Blogger is perhaps the easiest to start with but if you feel comfortable with making your own changes, Wordpress offers much more versatility.
Okay, so now you have your blog, but how do you make money from it?
The first think you need to do, is to start writing content to you blog on a regular basis and submit this to the search engines so that you start to see visitors - people reading your blog. Once you start to see an increase in visitors, it is then time to monetize your blog (you can do this at the start if you wish but don’t expect sales until you see visitors).
There are numerous ways in which you can monetize your blog, one of the most popular being Google Adsense (Adverts by Google). When someone clicks on these advertisements, you get paid a few pence per click. This can soon add up if you have plenty of visitors. Another popular way is selling other peoples products, by placing links (affiliate links) to the sales page of the product you are advertising. You can register with popular affiliate programs like “ClickBank”, “Commission Junction” or “Amazon” for free. Each time someone clicks on your links and makes a purchase, you get paid a commission.
Another popular way of monetzing your blog, is to advertise affiliate programs that you have paid to join. This is where you will start to make a residual or passive income as more people join under you and is your stepping stone to success in affiliate marketing. This is however, also the area where you should exercise caution when joining any such programs and in your early stages, I would recommend joining only tested and proven low cost programs.
Ask any affiliate marketer and they will tell you that having a blog is an essential part of internet marketing. Not only does it offer a platform to advertise products or services which you sell, but as you write articles or posts and publish them to your blog you are at the same time adding fresh content to your website if your blog is hosted along with your website. This statement brings me on to the next starting point - website.
·Free Website
This starting point can be very rewarding, but again, requires a degree of caution as there are many opportunities to be found offering a free website. What you find after taking up some of the free website offers, is that in reality it is not free at all, in that you are required to pay either a subscription to join the opportunity promoted on your new free website or you have to pay a monthly administration fee.
A genuine free website opportunity will only require you to pay for the hosting of the website. This is totally acceptable as you would need to do this anyway if you want your own website. Another bonus to be found with some genuine free website offers, is that you are able to promote anything you want on your website and support is given to enable you to make the changes you desire. A totally free website such as this is a rarity and hard to find without getting your fingers burnt first, so do your research thoroughly.
As previously mentioned, having a blog hosted along with your website enables you to add fresh content to your website as you post to your blog and this in turn increases your chances of getting a higher number of visitors.
·Splash Page
The final starting point is a splash page. okay I hear you ask, what is a splash page?
A splash page is basically a sales page - a single page of text or text and graphics promoting a single product (sometimes more than one product) designed to entice the reader to click through the links on the page and purchase the product you are promoting.
When you start to promote affiliate products, many of them have a pre-designed splash page hosted on their website. You will be given an affiliate link which you can place in advertisements either by using pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords, or by using free traffic exchanges. Using this method, enables you to earn money without the necessity for a blog or a website. You should exercise caution however, when using the pay per click method as this can cost you quite a bit of your hard earned cash. Make sure you budget accordingly. As a starting point, I would concentrate on using the free traffic exchanges to advertise. I would recommend this in all cases –blog – website – splash page.
There are training courses available for new internet marketers and inevitably these cost you money, but if you are unsure of which method to use or how to promote your product, I would highly recommend investing in one of these as the cost involved will almost certainly be less than what you could lose when you don’t know what you are doing.
Beat the credit crunch and act now to build your cushion.
To your success.
Graham Maddison
