Affiliate Marketing

Selling affiliate products can be a very powerful way to make money on the internet. First of all you do not need your own product and so you save plenty of time and money since you do not have to create a product. However only a fraction of all internet affiliate marketers ever succeed. The reason for this is perhaps that affiliate marketing while simple in concept still does require effort and commitment in order to make it work.

Many people come to the internet to try to make money and they get caught up in trying to make a quick buck. The problem with these approaches is that they rarely ever work and even if they do make you some money it usually does not last. There are many steps required in order to succeed in affiliate marketing. The first step is niche selection.

Niche Selection:

Picking a profitable niche is very important. You need to do your keyword research, use the free keyword tool like the overture keyword tool and if you find that the main keyword in your niche has more than sixty to seventy thousand searches then this niche could be profitable. Once you have found a potentially profitable niche the next step is to decide on a domain name for a website.

Build A Website:

Creating your own website is an important step especially if you have a small budget and cannot afford to play around with paid advertising. If you do have the money for advertising then we suggest you learn how to use pay per click so click here to learn more about that. However for most people their budget is too low to go into paid advertising thus learning how to build a website and draw free search engine traffic is important. If you need a web host then consider Hostgator (click here) as they offer low cost unlimited sites and have reliable customer service.

When choosing a domain name make sure to pick a name that has the main keyword you want to rank number one for in it. Make sure this keyword gets plenty of searches. After picking the domain name you need to add content to your site. Make your site an information site so add lots of articles and make sure they are unique and created by you. You can add some articles from article directories but do not rely on them only since you may get duplicate content penalties in the search engines.

Add content regularly at least once every 3 to 5 days so that you have something new for your visitors and this will also help you in the rankings. Once your site is complete you need to promote it. The best way to ensure you will have a site that does well in the search engines is by creating great content that people will link to over time. These one way links can make a big difference in your rankings.

Another way to drive traffic is by writing and submitting articles. Simply write an article around 650 words and submit it to the main article directories like Ezinearticles or Articledashboard or you can use a submission service like Article Marketer. Write around one new article a week and make sure the articles are of good quality otherwise they will not get picked up by other sites.

The benefit of article marketing is that you get traffic from the article directories and you also get the potential benefit of increased link popularity which can improve your search engine rankings. Here are a few article directories you can submit to:

www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.searchwarp.com
www.tigrafix.com
www.workoninternet.com
www.articlenexus.com
www.free-articles-zone.com
www.content-articles.com
www.bigarticle.com
www.e-calc.net
www.ezine-writer.com.au
www.uniterra.com
www.linksnoop.com
www.article-hangout.com
www.articlestreet.com
www.newfreearticles.com
www.articleboy.com
www.2articles.com
www.articleclips.com
www.articlemotron.com
www.articlecube.com
www.nowlearnmore.com
www.article-planet.com
www.content-corral.com
www.articlesnet.co.uk
www.article-warehouse.com
www.article-search-online.com
www.articletrader.com
www.abc-articles.com
www.articlealley.com
www.a1articles.com
www.thearticlesyndicate.com
www.articledepot.co.uk
www.article-free.net
www.thearticlezone.com
www.articleattic.info
www.articlebeach.com
www.articlebliss.com
www.articleblizzard.com
Article Blotter http://www.articleblotter.com
Article Bots http://www.articlebots.com
www.articlecake.com
ArticleCo.com http://www.ArticleCo.com
www.articlecodex.com
www.articleconnection.com
articlecrazy.com
www.articledevil.com
www.articlegarden.com
articlego.com
www.articlekarma.com
www.articlemap.com
www.articlepeak.com
www.articlerag.com
www.articlesbridge.com

Choosing An Affiliate Program:

Selecting a profitable affiliate program is important and you need to be very picky about what you promote. If possible look for quality products that offer a free trial or membership as these kinds of products or membership offers convert very well. Also look for recurring commission type programs where you get paid month after month. Here are a few affiliate networks you can go to find affiliate programs:

CommissionJunction.com
Clickbank.com
JoeBucks.com
Linkshare.com

Once you find one or a handful of good affiliate programs then simply add the affiliate code to your site, ideally at the bottom of your articles so that your visitors will click on them after they have been warmed up by reading the content on your site. Do not flood your site with ads otherwise you will lose a lot of visitors. Take action on some of these steps and learn from your experience and in time you will find affiliate marketing success.

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