Back to Basics
Some of the online marketing gurus have been promoting business strategy programs recently.
How does that help you when you’re just starting out?
When you don’t have a business, it’s difficult to know just what steps to take to get to the position where a strategy becomes necessary!
You should understand the difference between strategies and tactics. A strategy is a long-term plan of action with a clear objective. Tactics are immediate actions with whatever resources are at hand.
There is one tactic which practically every Internet marketer seems to agree on. It forms the cornerstone of any business, even in the offline world.
That tactic is nothing more complicated than building a list of prospects.
Once you have a database of targeted prospects, you can promote to them again and again.
What’s the quickest way to build your database?
Use a Squeeze Page.
A Squeeze Page is a web page which gives your visitor only two options – sign up, or leave.
Usually, a visitor is given something of value in exchange for their details.
A squeeze page can be short or long. Some marketers have had the most success with squeeze pages where everything appears “above the fold” – you don’t have to scroll down to read any of the text.
Others prefer to create squeeze pages which are as long as regular sales letters, with testimonials, audio clips, videos and more.
Once you have built a database of prospects, you will need to start looking at long-term strategies rather than immediate tactics.
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This article is written by Mark Tse. Mark shares free tips, articles and downloads about Internet Marketing. You can visit his blog and read his latest posts here: www.marktse.com/blog/
You can find out more about squeeze pages at www.marktse.com/recommend/squeezepage/
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There is a lot of buzz these days around blogging for money. In truth, it is more difficult to make money this way than some may lead you to believe. However, if approached properly, blogging can become a very profitable exercise. Let’s discuss some easy, practical steps you can take towards creating an online blogging presence that will make money for you.
First and foremost, a personal little blog is not going to do it. Some people believe they can blog about their daily lives and make money. I hate to break your bubble, but your life isn’t that interesting. Don’t take offense – nobody’s life is that interesting! If you want to pull traffic, you are going to need to offer a topic or topics that interest people, and in many cases answer questions that people have. For instance, an Internet Marketing blog might have all general IM posts, or may be divided into sections for PPC posts, article marketing posts, affiliate marketing posts, and product creation posts. Such a blog offers a subject many people are interested in, many subdivisions of that subject that people want more information about, and the posts can give great tips, advice, or share experience that can help others.
After beginning a blog focused around your niche, sprinkle a little Adsense around it. Try to keep your Adsense in places that receive the most focus – the top of your blog (specifically top left if you can), between paragraphs in the text, or at the bottom right after the text ends, for people who are looking for more information after reading your post. These locations seem to do well. However, making money with an Adsense-only blog can be very difficult. There is one more thing you should do to make your blog more profitable.
Once you have established yourself a little and built some rapport with your readers, you want to begin sprinkling affiliate products into your posts. Don’t overdo this or you will run your readership away! However, in a post describing a particular problem, you may post a link to a product that solves that problem. That link would be your affiliate link, and any sales resulting from your blog post’s link would pay commissions to you. You might even want to place one or two graphical or text affiliate links to useful, relative products in the sidebar or sidebars of your blog. Be sure you don’t make it difficult to search your blog for all the ads and affiliate links! You want your users to feel that you are blogging for them first and foremost, and your affiliate links are merely helpful suggestions you are making.
By establishing yourself in a niche, offering useful information to your readers, and sprinkling your blog with tastefully-positioned ads and affiliate links, you will begin to see an income coming through your blog. Congratulations, you have succeeded! Now continue to tweak and test what works well and what doesn’t so that you can continue to make your blog more and more profitable for yourself, while becoming more and more appealing to your target audience.
Good luck and happy blogging!
Entering the affiliate marketing game can be a ruthless and frustrating exercise in futility these days. There are gobs of people attempting to make it big online as affiliate marketers, and those numbers definitely play against you when it comes to PPC and organic search engine optimization. It can be very costly to begin drawing traffic, and in many cases you still won’t get the kind of traffic you’re looking for. Let’s look at a few things you can do to shift the odds in your favor.
First and foremost, learn to write articles. Article marketing is free and will bring you quality, targeted traffic for months and months. It takes awhile to learn to use PPC and profit, so allow yourself to dabble in PPC while focusing in article marketing for the time being. You will find plenty of prospective buyers without spending a penny in advertising.
Next, let’s get to the real topic of this article – finding alternatives to Clickbank. Why? Because Clickbank is oversaturated with affiliates and want-to-be-affiliates, so your competition is very steep. The most popular Clickbank products, the ones that really sell, will cost you a fortune in PPC campaigns. It is surprising that so many beginning affiliates do not realize how unnecessary Clickbank is. The only real benefit to Clickbank is convenience, in that you can search products all in one place, you get paid from one source, and you only need one account to do so. The benefits of using other sources, in my experience, have far outweighed those conveniences. Let’s look at some other options.
Did you know that most sites offer their own affiliate programs? Do a search for a general topic that you want to find products for. Find several of the top organic search results pages that actually offer a product for sale. Now scroll to the bottom of those pages (in most cases). On many of these sites, you will find a link for “Affiliates”, “Join Affiliate Program”, “Partners” or “Become a Partner”. There are other variations, but it should be obvious that you are seeing an affiliate program. Click there and sign up with the sites that you want to promote with. Many direct affiliate programs offer more options and better commissions than Clickbank programs, and you have the added benefit of competing against much smaller numbers. Try to pick programs that don’t also have a program with Clickbank, or you wind up in the same position as before.
By going straight to the product vendors and becoming affiliated with them, you put yourself in the unique position of being one of the very small percentage of online affiliates who are working with individual companies, which gives you a great competitive edge. It’s amazing to see a campaign that costs almost nothing yield great results, when having been accustomed to watching expensive campaigns hemorrhage your money. Cutting yourself away from the masses of Clickbank affiliates is one of the best advantages you can give yourself. Let the professionals dominate, and let the want-to-be’s through away their money. This way, neither of those will stop you from taking your cut, nor cause you to pay far more than you should for PPC ads.
Good luck in your affiliate marketing, and may you prosper!
