Success In Affiliate Marketing

Make Money Online with EJ Cooksey

• Affiliate Marketing Simplified

  Rosalind Gardner, author of the Super Affiliate Handbook, explains affiliate marketing in a nutshell. Visit the Super Affiliate Handbook!

• Links, Link Exchanges and Comments...

  If you would like me to add your link, exchange links or for your comments to be approved, there are a few simple rules that will need to be followed. Links and Link Exchanges: Most of the links on my sites are ones that I liked or thought that my readers would like. I have never contacted them and ask them to link back to me. If those sites choose to link back to me, great. If someone requests a link exchange, usually I am very happy to do so, if it is compatible to the blog it is being requested for...but there are limits. Someone sent me an email request for a "link exchange". I liked what they had on their site and added their link to my site. Replied back to let them know that I had done so. I then received an email back stating "If their link was still there after 24 hours they would then consider adding my link to their site" . Excuse me? That is not a "Link Exchange". Their link has been removed. Someone left this comment on one of my posts: " Your posts are waaaay to general. My site is much better than yours. Would you like to exchange links?". Ummm...No thank you and the comment was not approved. Someone left the same thing on 5 different posts in one day. It was not a comment, but an ad for an affiliate product that went to their affiliate link. They ask me to "exchange links" with them. Are you kidding me? No thank you and the comments were not approved. One person left 10 messages in a row at Blogcatalog "telling me" (not asking) to add their link to my sites. What? No thank you, their site was not compatible to any of my blogs. I will not link to sites that have absolutely nothing to do with what my blogs are about. Nor will I link to any gambling or adult sites. Don't even bother to ask. Comments: I will approve any comments: That add to the conversation of the post they are left on.That don't agree with what I have written. (You can disagree with someone without being rude and condescending to them and their readers).Telling me about memes or awards. I will not approve any comments: That are rude, condescending (to me or my readers), hateful or blatant ads. (If you can't say something in a nice way, don't say anything at all).That just says "hello, I was here...with a link to their site" and nothing else.That are 5 paragraphs long and have nothing to do with the post they are left on.

• A Wacky Wednesday Dimesale

  If you've been working online for any length of time, certainly you know that you MUST become a good affiliate marketer. Sure, you can have your own products, but there are sooo many great opportunities for affiliate marketers that many folks never even attempt to run their own site or make their own products... They just happily earn thousands selling other people's products. And, hey, there's nothing wrong with that! Today, you have the opportunity to pick up this excellent 58 page resource that will take you by the hand and make affiliate marketing not only a priority for you, but maybe the most important part of your business. And, yes, it's running as a DIMESALE so the price is steadily rising... Normally the Wacky Gals reserve their dimesales for the weekend, but today, they're just a little wackier than normal. BUT there's a catch... The dimesale pricing ends "sometime this weekend" (they refuse to tell me exactly when) and even though you'll still be able to pick up this fantastic resource after the weekend, you'll have to pay FULL price. Get on over there now before it goes any higher: Wacky Wednesday Sale To Your Success!

• The Pros and Cons of Selling Affiliate Products

  So you've made the big decision that you'd like to work from home and that affiliate marketing on the Internet sounds like your ideal job. The next step to making any money on the Internet is to decide what you want to do. You'd also like to start making money as soon as possible and you don't want to fork out a lot of dough to get started. If this sounds like what you are looking for then selling affiliate products might be your answer, at least to start. The Pros of Selling Affiliate Products: 1. You don't have to have a website: You can buy a domain name and use it to redirect to the product producer's sales page. 2. It is easy to get started promoting: You don't have to take the time to produce a quality product, get testimonials, get the product set up on ClickBank, or write some killer copy. 3. You don't have to wear many hats: Your job is to promote the product through your affiliate link and that's it. 4. Promotional materials may be provided for you by the product producer: Blog posts, articles, emails, and keywords you can use. 5. It doesn't take a lot of money out of pocket to get started: You can promote it for free by doing article marketing. You can also venture cautiously into using Pay Per Click advertising. 6. You are not involved with customer support: The product creator is in charge of customer support, answering questions, giving refunds, etc. There's no big worries keeping you awake each night because you are not ultimately responsible for the product. 7. You can tell how well a product is selling on ClickBank: By looking at the stats they provide, if the product's track record doesn't look good, you'll think twice about selling it and pick something else. The Cons of Selling Affiliate Products: 1. Promoting someone else's products: You can only make a certain percentage of the commission whereas if it were your own product, you could make 100%. 2. You have no control over the affiliate product: It's not yours to change around, up the price, make the sales page better, etc. 3. You are not branding yourself: Selling an affiliate product will not help you brand yourself as an expert in your field like your own product can do. 4. You might have lots of serious competition: If it's a product that sells well on ClickBank, other people might know how to promote products better than you. You'll need to learn the best ways to promote, and each product may require different types of promotions to effectively make sales. 5. You must follow the merchants TOS: You need to read the terms of service of the merchant's product to make sure you are following the rules. The TOS are not the same for every product, so be diligent in reviewing them. As with anything, there are pros and cons of becoming an affiliate marketer. If, after going over everything you decide you want to give it a try, do some further research on affiliate marketing to arm yourself with all the knowledge you need to be a success.

• Top 10 Reasons Why The Mom Market Rocks

  Did you know that companies are spending billions of dollars every year marketing their products to Moms? If you’re in the Mom market yourself, you know you’re in the right place. If not, then why aren’t you? Services like Mom PLR eBooks make it easy for you to tap into this market, too. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room, as you’ll see in our Top 10 reasons why the Mom market rocks: 1. Moms make up a huge market. There are over 80 million Moms in the United States, with 1.4 million new Moms giving birth for the first time every year (US Census). 2. Moms send a lot of money. Moms spend $1.3 trillion every year (Marketing to Moms by Maria T. Bailey, 2002). Have I mentioned the Mom market is huge? 3. Moms make a lot of buying decisions for their homes and families. Moms account for about 50% of spending on consumer electronics, food, health and beauty aids, home furnishings, and clothing (MRI, 2004). If you’re still looking for products to promote to the Mommy market, let this guide you. 4. Moms are web savvy. About 70% of Moms surveyed say they use the Internet to research before buying products (Marketing to Moms, 2002). 5. Moms like to shop online. The majority of Moms say they buy products online (Marketing to Moms, 2002). I told you, you’re in the right place. Internet marketing is the way to go! 6. Moms read their Email. Moms check their Email messages all day long (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Whoever said Email marketing was dead, was wrong. 7. Moms take Email messages to heart. 71% of Moms say their buying decisions are influenced by Email messages (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Not only do Moms read your Emails, they act on them, too. 8. Moms make things go viral. 80% of Moms say they forward useful Emails to their friends (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media 2004). So make your Emails useful! 9. Moms buy, not only for their spouses/partners and children, but for their parents as well. Up to 40% of Moms reportedly are involved in purchases for their aging parents (Marketing to Moms Coalition, 2007). This is a wonderful insight - let’s remember that Moms are somebody’s children, too. 10. Moms rely on their communities or tribes. 64% of Moms say the recommendations of others influence purchases they make for their home (Marketing to Moms, 2002). Moms are the chief financial officers of their homes (and many have their own businesses as well). They buy a lot of stuff, both online and offline. They rely on other people to make up their minds about what to buy, and they appreciate getting really useful information that makes their lives easier. What’s the take-away lesson for marketers here? You better be marketing to Moms and you better be doing it properly. Moms are craving useful information - are you providing it? Moms PLR eBooks can help you give Moms the content that they’re looking for online. You’ll get high-quality content written just for Moms, to use in your websites, infoproducts, Emails and more. Use coupon code “momsrule” (without quotation marks) to get $10 off your first month of membership. Give Moms content and products they love and they’ll spread the word for you. Moms ROCK!

• 50 Blogging Ideas

  What's the hardest thing about blogging? Coming up with fresh, new content! And you have to publish new posts frequently - twice a week at the very least - to keep readers interested and earn search engine love. If you're feeling stuck, here is a list of 50 blogging ideas that are sure to inspire you to come up with new content for your blog. Most of the ideas can be used more than once, so you won't run out of blog posts for months to come. And by the way, if you want to make more money from your blog, Blogger's Paycheck shows you how to make passive income from your blog without spending all day at it. 1. Special events - Relate your blog topic to a special event, national day of, or holiday. 2. News - Subscribe to Google news alert on your keywords and write about the latest news in your niche. 3. Book review. 4. Respond to a post on another blog in a niche similar or related to yours. 5. Blog milestone - Write about your blogging milestones, such as publishing your 100th post, getting your 1000th comment.... 6. Niche heroes -Blog about a person who made a positive contribution in your niche. 7. Blog memes - Join in blog memes such as "Wordless Wednesday". There's at least one for every day of the week! 8. Product review - An excellent way to work in some affiliate links. 9. FAQs in your niche - Write a short Q & A based on FAQs about your niche. 10. Blog comment response - Write a long and expanded response to a comment on your blog. 11. Predict trends - What do you see happening in your niche in a year? 5 years? 12. Historical view - What was your niche in the past? Or what past event influenced your niche? 13. Top tips on any topic of interest to your readers. 14. Best of... - A good year ender, make a list of your best posts for the year. 15. Contests - Organize a contest for your blog readers, or make a list of contests your readers can join. 16. What I learned from... a current event, a person you met, or an experience you had. 17. Definitions - Define terms that are commonly used in your niche but a beginner may not understand 18. New products - Not a review but simply an announcement of a new product relevant to your niche. This is another good opportunity to drop in some affiliate links. 19. Biggest problem - Ask your readers what their biggest problem is about your blog topic or niche. They post their answers in the comments section. 20. Biggest problem follow up - Summarize the comments from #19 in another post. 21. Biggest problem follow up series - Write a separate blog post tackling each question from #19. 22. Interview somebody knowledgeable in your niche, or has succeeded in it, or is otherwise interesting to your readers. 23. Big list - Compile a big list of various resources, just like this one. The bigger the better! 24. Reader Survey - Put up a brief survey online and blog about the results. 25. Be Provocative - Challenge a common belief or widely accepted idea in your niche. 26. New Idea - What new idea about your blog topic or niche have you come across lately? 27. YouTube - Embed a funny, moving or insightful video on YouTube. You can even have a "video day" once a week. 28. YouTube version 2 - Make YOUR own YouTube video. Publish it on YouTube then embed on your blog. This way, you can attract traffic from YouTube to your blog. 29. Freebie - Scour the 'net for freebies that your readers will love. Or create a freebie of your own, such as a checklist or special report. 30. Personal story - Use a personal story to illustrate an important concept or principle in your niche. 31. Free to publish articles - Check out relevant articles in article directories such as Ezine Articles... but don't publish them entirely on your blog. Instead, use an article or a group of articles as your take-off point for a blog post, or several. 32. Link love - This is a post with links to other blogs. Some bloggers set aside one day a week to publish a list of the best blog posts on their topic. 33. Photo - A picture is worth thousand words, right? Search Flickr for creative commons pictures that your readers will like. 34. Hot topics - Look at Digg for hot topics in your niche 35. Pros and cons - Examine what's good and bad about something related to your blog topic 36. Respond to relevant questions you find in Ask.com 37. Guest post - Invite another blogger to write a guest post for your blog 38. Reader's post - Invite blog subscribers to submit an article or post to be published on the blog 39. Inspirational post - Write a motivational post for your readers. 40. Update an old post with fresh ideas, new learnings and current research findings. 41. Beginner's guide - What do beginners in your niche struggle with? Write a post to guide them through it. 42. Best list - Patterned after "best dressed lists" make a list of the best ___ in your niche. 43. Worst list - Make your version of the "worst dressed list" for your niche. 44. New uses for - Think of new ways your readers can use gadgets and other stuff. 45. Write about a live event that you attended and what you learned from it. 46. Bribe post - Bribe your readers with a freebie in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter or RSS feed. 47. Around the world - Compare how people in different countries do something related to your niche. 48. Seasonal - Relate the month or season to your blog topic. 49. Blog carnival - Join or host a blog carnival, where several publish posts about the same topic on the same day. 50. Host a virtual "conference" on your blog - Invite "speakers" to publish their post on a specified date and time. Q&A happens in the comments section. Now that you've got a steady flow of fresh content, how do you actually make money from your blog? Visit Blogger's Paycheck for a step-by-step guide on blogging for profit.

• Affiliate Marketing 101

  Many an internet marketer got his start making money online by selling someone else's product. It is actually a good place to begin because you don't have to come up with your own product, you can get started quickly, and you don't have to spend a lot of money. Affiliate marketing is a win-win situation for both the product creator and the affiliate. The product owner can ultimately sell more of his product by having others (the affiliates) sell the product and make a predetermined percentage of the sale. The product will reach so many more people when the owner has affiliates out there selling it for him. It's like having a sales team doing the marketing, and he's happy to pay them. It's a good situation for the affiliate marketer because you don't have to spend time and resources creating a product, you can promote it inexpensively, and you are not responsible for customer service. Typically, affiliate commissions are around 50% and higher. You aren't charged anything for being an affiliate, but you also don't make any money if you don't sell the product. Think of it like a sales job where you work only on commissions. If the product you're promoting sells for $57 at a 50% commission, you will make $28.50 for each sale. Just think if you sold 5 per day - that's $4275 per month. The earnings potential is the big thing that drives people to try affiliate marketing. Occasionally you'll find a product, such as an ebook, that you can make 100% commission on. These products tend to be less expensive, and the product owners do this to get you to sell more. They're going to make their money on their own links inside the ebook, plus backend sales. Many product owners will give you affiliate tools from a website dedicated to helping you be a good affiliate. After all, it's in their best interests to help you sell so they can make money too. They might offer you banners, ebook covers, blog posts, articles for your website, emails you can send out to people on your list, a list of keywords, and maybe a short report you can brand and give away. If you are an affiliate marketer then you should realize the emphasis is on the word "marketer". Here are some ideas on how to market the affiliate product: * Article marketing, lots of it * Pay Per Click (PPC) ads * Marketing the product to your list * Adding your own bonuses to any sales through your link * Having a product review blog that showcases the product * Squidoo lens * Twitter about it with a link * Selling it on the backend of a PDF you're giving out for free * Interview with the product creator * Doing a video about how to use the product Effectively marketing affiliate products requires finding the right niche, the right product, the right keywords, and the right combination of marketing. The good thing is you can gain knowledge and experience as you go and tweak what works until you're making the kind of money that's possible to make with affiliate marketing.

• Why I Love Affiliate Marketing - Part 5

  NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors. By Jimmy D. Brown of "Affiliate Payraise" The word "overhead" is not a favorite among those who run businesses of any kind. Nobody likes the expenses of operating a business. And nobody really talks about them much when it comes to promoting all of the "money-making" products and services online. But, don't kid yourself, there's a lot of overhead. That brings me to the fifth reason why I love affiliate marketing... ** You don't need a big budget to make it work ** Do you have any idea how much money is spent running an internet business? There are monthly fees for... * Autoresponders * Hosting * Management * Advertising * Scripts * Much more There are regular fees for... * Licensing * Outsourcing * Support * Customer Service * Maintenance * Development * Recruting * Much more It's not uncommon to spend tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of dollars in operational costs -- which is fine if you've been in business a while and are making the bucks. However, if you're a newcomer, it can be taxing on your budget! SIDEBAR: I paid one girl over $30,000 last year just to oversee one small part of my business. No one talks much about it, but there ARE a lot of expenses involved before you get to the "bottom line" of profit. BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don't need a big budget to make it work! You can simply use a variety of free and low-cost marketing methods to generate clicks to your affiliate link. That's why I love affiliate marketing. You don't need a big budget to make it work. ......................... Jimmy D. Brown is the author of "Affiliate Payrise", teaching you a whopping 27 ways to increase your affiliate commissions! Tired of "tiny" commission checks? Grab your copy today at...http://reallylikes.com/?AffiliatePayraise .........................