Affiliate Marketing

[Sunil]

Hi!
I'm just a newbie in the world of Affiliate Marketing. I've been reading some materials relating to it. But there are tons of information out there. Some are quite misleading and I'm always afraid of the potential land mines out there. Can't quite tell which is real or spam. I want to create a website to sell affiliate products. But not sure what to sell and how to go about doing it. I don't really know how to do research on keywords either. Can someone help me?

Thanks!
regards,
Sunil

[Nik]

Hi Sunil, you can start by watching the videos here:
http://vitavee.com/forums/forum-31.html

They'll give you a starting point on how to build a website and promote affiliate products.

Nik

[Sunil]

Hi Nik!
Thanks a lot for your reply!
I'll let you know some of the problems that i'm facing in order to kick start an affiliate program. First, I want to find good and reliable merchants, that can offer a very good commission rate as high as 30%-40%. I also wish to have an affiliate program that has a long cookie duration. Also, I want to find a product that has high search volume and low in competition. I've been buying a few books like SEO for Dummies, Search Engine Marketing, Google Adwords by Perry Marshall and etc. I'm yet to read through these books so as to get a hang of it. But I just don't know where to start. I'll watch the videos as you have recommended. Thanks Nik!
regards,
Sunil

[Jack]

Hi Sunil,

If I can give a little advice: Don't go into Google Adwords as a newbie in internet marketing. I made that mistake and now my Adwords account is suspended because of things I did that I was not aware of.

Not only that, if you don't know what you are doing, you will do nothing but drain your bank account.

Even experts at adwords expect to lose money on a new campaign before making it profitable. You must do analysis of the keywords, bidding, your landing pages, etc.

I would stick to the "easy" route of affiliate marketing before venturing into other avenues of internet marketing.

Jack

[Sunil]

Hi! Jack,
Thanks for your advice Jack! Yes, i'm not going to get involved with adwords or adsense. I'm just going the affiliate way. It's just that, I need to choose a product that has a good keyword search volume and low competition. Only then i can create a website and try to hunt for quality content for the product i wish to sell. Any advice on this Jack?

Thanks!
regards,
Sunil

[Jack]

I would recommend browsing Clickbank. There are tons of products there you could promote. And the commissions are high there, usually 50%.

As far as keywords, you would have to do some keyword research. There are those types of keywords available in pretty much all niches.

Just go to Google adwords tool, enter your broad niche (eg. golf) and start drilling down from there.

[Sunil]

Yes Jack! I'll do that. I've been to google adwords before, but i'm not sure how to study the results. I actually wanted to buy keyword tracking software like Keyword Elite which many claim to be a powerfull tool that you can filter out long term keywords that has good search volume and low in competition. I don't want to jump into this fighting with the big boys out there! So I want to start small and make some money. I'm currently hunting for a domain name at http://www.namecheap.com. I also just bought the web publishing software, WebPlus X4 so as to create a website. I'm planning to create a blog page and talk about affiliate marketing too. What do you think Jack? Am i on the right track?

Thanks!

[stoneman]

If you're really interested in trying Adwords, get your hands on one of their coupons. I had one for $100 so I got to play a little and see what works without spending any of my own money. Many of the hosting companies give you coupons with your account. Mine gave me Google, Yahoo and Facebook coupons.

[Sunil]

Hi stoneman!
Thanks for the adwords advice. In face, i have $50 worth of adwords coupon. But am not really keen to use it as I have not understood the whole concept of it yet. I recently bought the book on Adwords by Perry Marshall. I'm yet to read it yet. So, Adwords can wait. I just want to know how to start doing an affiliate program. I think i'll start something safer like trying to sell TemplateMonster's affiliate program. But I'm not sure what are the things i need to place inside if i were to create a website. You know what I mean? The ingredients needed to do an affiliate website selling your merchant's product. Anyone can advice me on this?

Thanks!
regards,
Sunil

[mpw45233]

(04-18-2011 07:28 AM)Sunil Wrote:  Hi! Jack,
Thanks for your advice Jack! Yes, i'm not going to get involved with adwords or adsense. I'm just going the affiliate way. It's just that, I need to choose a product that has a good keyword search volume and low competition. Only then i can create a website and try to hunt for quality content for the product i wish to sell. Any advice on this Jack?

Thanks!
regards,
Sunil

Hi Sunil,
I'm very new to the internet marketing thing as well. And at first I was dead set against adsense. I'd read many forum threads from people complaining about adsense "pennies."

I don't know if you have a niche that you're thinking about targeting or not. I'm fortunate because my niche has profit potential, but it's also one that I'm naturally interested in, this makes coming up with material a whole lot easier.

What I do is I have product related content sites (Wordpress blogs), I blend adsense in with the content. I put an affiliate ad in the sidebar, and I have "recommended products" pages that I link to from the header. These are loaded with affiliate products. If someone lands on my site with a clear intent to buy, they see the recommended products link.

If they're just looking for information, then they read through the articles, and if their eyes gloss over something they find interesting, then they click an adsense ad.

I'm still trying to find the right combination, but my results have been encouraging.

This will vary with different niches, but if you can get pages ranked that work well with adsense and affiliate programs. Then you have tons more options. And terms that relate to these high commission affiliate products, often (not always) have high cpc from adsense.

I was promoting a product that sold for $50 with a 50% commission, after hundreds of views, I didn't sell one. So I instead put in an adsense unit, floated in an article. I now get between $1 and $3 per click, and my clickthrough rate is above average. $3 isn't bad for just a click.

Sorry for being long winded...

Anyway...Guess it depends on what niche you choose. For the record, I promote physical products, I don't know anything about Clickbank or digital stuff, though I'm sure there's lots of money to be made.

Good luck

Michael

[Sunil]

Wow! Michael, considering yourself to be new in affiliate marketing and you are already doing impressive! Yes, I don't mind lengthy advice. Keep in long! Thanks for that! Well, I don't really know what product i have in mind to choose. Do i need to buy the Keyword Elite software which churns out profitable long term keywords for you to choose and market?
If i join as an amazon affiliate, i have to sell many products at the same time as theire cookies last only 24hrs! I wanted to market Kindle, amazon's hot no.1 seller now. But I need to create a website with a suitable domain name! Many good domains name have been all snatched up! Or should i start a blog first? Maybe I can talk about affiliate marketing itself! But seriously, i really don't know where to start. Still am very very confused!

regards,
Sunil

[Jack]

Hi Sunil,

Just wanted to jump in here and say that I'm sorry for not replying earlier.

I've got multiple things going on right now that's keeping me very busy. Thanks so much Michael for offering up this tips. I really appreciate it!

Jack

[Sunil]

No prob Jack! It's good to be busy. It gets you and things going! By the way, i've been thinking about bathroom tiles. If i plan to sell bathroom tiles, how should i go about searching this term as a keyword in google analytics? And even if do, i'm not sure how to read the results and make a decision on which keyword can be the most suitable and profitable. And furthermore, how am i going to get content rich materials regarding bathroom tiles? I also have to look for the best affiliate merchant that can offer you a good commission and longer lasting cookies. Am i going the right way?

Thanks!
regards,
Sunil

[mpw45233]

First thing, watch all of Vita's videos in the Blueprints, Strategies, and Tips forum, maybe 2 or 3 times.

The Google keyword tool is great for checking search volume. Just type in the keyphrase you're thinking of targeting, and click search. After that, on the left, uncheck "Broad search" and check "exact search." When you hear people talk about search volume, they're usually referring to exact searches. On the right, click the "columns" menu, and select to show cpc.

The amount of search volume that people look for will vary, many consider 1,000 exact monthly searches a fair starting point, but I like a lot more. Keep in mind that as you add content, you will rank for lots of other long tail terms.

Here's what I love about internet marketing-Bathroom tiles is a profitable nich!---Who knew? I'm not very good at judging competition, but the search term "Bathroom tiles" looks very competitive. But other terms like subway tiles, floral tiles, etc...not so much. Don't take my word on this, I'm not great at judging competition. Keyword Elite or Market Samarai would probably be a worthwhile purchase.

Some people would use a domain like subwaytiles.net to target the term "Subway tiles" (Just for example) and then expand out from there. Others would use a tile themed domain name, and use categories to target terms like "subway tiles" "floral tiles" "Kohler tiles" etc...(Watch Vita's videos) You could also have "How to's" design tips, tools etc..

I use Wordpress blogs to create all of my sites, I didn't want a "blog" and they don't look like blogs. The free WP theme I use "Suffusion" is super versitile with the design elements, and you can turn off comments, posted by, and all that other bloggy looking stuff. Add in all of the free plugins, and you can do a lot with a Wordpress site.

The cool thing about Wordpress is it's easy to use (unless you're me) It's versitile, and easily crawled by the SE's.

As far as domains, most of mine are a .org with 1 hyphen. But some people will add a stop word-ie. "the" "a." There is some debate about this. Maybe you could add 101 to the end of it, that would look pretty legit. There are a lot of top ranking sites that aren't an exact match.

If you have any other questions I'll do my best to help.

Good luck!

Michael

[Sunil]

Great! Fantastic! That was some great tips you gave me regarding doing google analytics tool to do a keyword research! Thank you Michael! I'll try to do your method!
Oh, and about bathroom tiles, yeah it's pretty competitive and a very big industry. I got to do a lot of research and outsourcing for tiles and referers. Definitely, i'll end up competing with the established big boys out there! So, i have to pass that out.
Anyway, i went to clickbank to choose a product and guess what? I end up buying ProfitSiege by Steven Rounds! I'm trying it now but it's very technical and complicated to use. But a lot of good work has been put into this software to work! Anyway, I'll continue to search for a good product via clickbank and try to promote a product as soon as I can. But definitely, I'll need your help and advice in future! Thanks a lot Michael once again!
regards,
Sunil

[jemsrav]

As per my knowledge Affiliate Marketing are a number of these types of promotions but in most cases they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.

[odlanor9]

Sunil - I wish you luck man!

On top of clickbank, I would also recommend go to amazon and joining their affiliate program. They have a lot of products that have very little competition and high monthly searches.

[daisy172]

I second the advice to use Amazon too - it converts like crazy, particularly during holiday time. Most people in the USA have an Amazon account, so it's easy for them to buy.