Posts Tagged ‘Affiliate Marketing’
Make Marketing Your Top Business Priority
As an entrepreneur, you can only do so much for your business. When most businesses are getting off the ground, there’s only enough seed money to pay a single employee. If you are operating as your company’s sole employee, it’s time to learn to prioritize. That way you can focus on the aspects of your business that lie within your control. Sit down at a table and begin drawing up a business plan.
It stands to reason that you can only sell products or services if people know you exist. For that reason, developing an internet marketing program for your business should be near the top of your list. You can find cutting-edge ways to spread the word online - on social-networking sites, message boards and chat rooms. By partnering with an affiliate marketing site that has already proven to be successful, you increase the odds of finding success in your own right.
Internet Marketing Tools: Google Trends
When we think of internet marketing tools, we often think of packages like Market Samurai or expensive software like Adobe Photoshop. If you think outside the box, though, you’ll find that there are thousands of internet marketing tools out there, many of them completely free. Google Trends is one of those.
Google Trends is useful because it lets you identify highly searched topics long before they show consistent volume in Google’s main search tool. Instead of reading vast quantities of news and paying attention to pop culture, you can spend 10 minutes with Google Trends to learn what’s hot.
But what good does that do? What if the topics you see have nothing to do with any of the products you want to promote? Does that mean that the results are worthless and completely un-monetizable?
Of course not! Where there’s an audience, there’s a product to be sold. Imagine this: Lindsay Lohan keywords are climbing the Google Trends list. You don’t know what product that might tie in with, but you DO have a basic clue about who’s searching for it. You can figure out what else that market is interested in, or what that audience needs, and then market that product or service to them.
Becoming a successful affiliate is not just about hard work. It’s true that you have to work hard (especially initially), but creative use of resources is every bit as important. By learning to harness unconventional internet marketing tools, you’ll be ahead of the game.
Bad Internet Marketing Ideas
There are a lot of bad internet marketing ideas out there. Sadly, the vast majority of independent internet marketers will never make any significant amount of money. These two facts are not coincidences. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of some of the worst internet marketing advice you could possibly get. Are you making any of these mistakes?
-If something doesn’t work immediately, switch to something else. You have to give something a fair shot before moving on, or you’ll never find anything that works for you. Even if it’s a good natural fit for you, remember that there’s always a learning curve.
-Don’t diversify. Stick with what works and make a killing. Even though it’s important not to spread yourself too thin or jump around from method to method, it’s also a good idea to diversify once you build one successful income stream. It keeps your income much more stable.
-Don’t tell your affiliate manager what you’re doing. It’s true that there have been cases of affiliate managers stealing campaigns, but this is such a small minority that it’s not worth getting too worried about except in the most extreme cases. In most cases, affiliate managers are people who want to help you maximize your income, not steal it. It might not make sense, but for the most part they’re people who value the security of a day job, or who lack the motivation (or maybe even the skill) to take your campaign and have similar success. Being too secretive, however, can ensure that you don’t get valuable insights from your AM or the advertiser.
-Skip the industry events. Although some people would argue that the money is better spent on testing or savings, industry events let you make valuable real world contacts in an industry where few people know each other in real life. They also have a huge motivational benefit. When you see what’s really possible, you’ll go home with a new level of determination.
What kind of bad advice have you gotten? Did you listen to it? Share in the comments!
Narrowing Down Your Options
With so many job opportunities offered online every day, it’s difficult to know where to begin. The law of averages dictates that not every home-based business can be successful, but there’s no doubt that many people make a lucrative living without ever setting foot inside a corporate office. The trick is to narrow down your online business ideas until you settle the perfect choice.
Most telecommuting jobs are offered on a contractual basis, and depending on the terms of the contract, you’ll be paid based on the speed and quality of your work. Other opportunities - such as affiliate internet marketing - implore you to recruit other business associates. If you’re a people person with formidable networking skills, affiliate marketing could be an easy way to make money online.
Affiliate Marketing: A Mutually Beneficial Business Practice
In order to succeed in business, you need two things: capital and contacts. Capital is the seed money necessary to develop your business - the cash you would shell out to pay your employees, advertise your business and purchase inventory. Contacts are the major players in the industry who already have the smarts and the skill set to conquer the business world. Entrepreneurs face a unique dilemma in that they often lack the formidable capital required to enter the marketplace.
Luckily, an affiliate marketing program allows entrepreneurs to gain contacts who are in turn willing to share their capital. Large, successful businesses will call upon individuals to help them with the marketing aspect, offering payment in exchange for exposure. If an affiliate manages to direct customers to the seller, he or she is paid handsomely. This setup allows entrepreneurs to focus on one practical task: marketing.
What Everyone in Affiliate Marketing Should Know About New Twitter URLs
Most of us in social media affiliate marketing are aware of Twitter’s plans to change the way their links work. In short, their new plan means that it’s going to get much, much harder for the people who use bulk follower tools and spam complete garbage to anyone who will click on it. They realize that those types of promotions provide an extremely negative user experience, and they’re hoping to minimize that.
In the future, all links are going to be routed through t.co links (Twitter’s own shortener) and also through the Promoted Tweets platform. This means that they’re going to get significantly more data on what’s going on, and they will ultimately be able to cut off the traffic to a URL if they find that it contains malware or negatively affects the user experience. They’ll also be adding a feature where users can hover over the URL to get a bit of information about it before clicking. To anyone who has ever clicked on a compelling Tweet’s link, only to be greeted with some junky site, this is no doubt a welcome change.
A final added benefit of the changes is that the URLs will be even shorter than in the past, with sites like tinyurl.com or bit.ly. It just doesn’t get much shorter than t.co. For users who have a tough time keeping their Tweets short enough, this will be a great addition.
The main takeaway for us affiliates, though, is that we’re going to need to add more value to stay alive on Twitter. If you Tweet out relevant links that your followers enjoy, you will see nothing but positive changes with this new format. On the other hand, if you spew out as much spam as possible as quickly as possible, you’re going to find your profits hampered.
Any tips or ideas for dealing with the changes? Feel free to share in the comments!
Will an Internet Marketing System Work?
A lot of people wonder if they will ever find an internet marketing system that works, or if it’s even possible that any of them work. The truth is actually pretty simple - almost all of them work. They just don’t all work for everyone. The problem is that we all come to this field with different skills and different weaknesses. What works for one person will not always work for another. Luckily, though, there are ways to maximize your chances of finding a program that works.
- Do an honest appraisal of yourself - Your strengths, weaknesses, and your ability to invest. This is extremely important in choosing a program. If you don’t have money to invest, don’t waste your time with courses on paid traffic. If you don’t have a lot of time to invest, not many programs at all are going to help you. The initial time investment is never as small as sales letters would have you believe.
- Find out exactly what traffic source is being taught - If a course’s sales letter doesn’t make it clear how you’ll be earning money and driving traffic, run far away. It’s a big waste of your time and it’s also a good indication that things may not be completely on the up-and-up.
- Get a money-back guarantee - Use that “free trial” to quickly look over the material and see if it fits your work style. If not, get out while you still can.
And of course, you have to make sure that you’re willing to follow through. Without follow-through, there isn’t a course in the world that can help you make money online.
Internet Marketing Tools: Picking a Domain Name
When it comes to internet marketing tools, few are more handy than the ones that help you pick your domain name. A great many of the “good” domains have been taken at this point, so it’s difficult to come up with something that’s keyword-heavy, memorable, easily spelled, and most importantly, AVAILABLE. The tools below should help you accomplish that.
- Thesaurus: This is the most basic tool in your arsenal, but it’s important. Suppose you want to make a blog about your obsession with chocolate. Instead of just giving up when “chocolateobsession.com” is already taken, you can use your thesaurus to come up with alternatives like problem, addiction, need, urge, and so on. With enough synonyms, you’re bound to find something that you like.
- Dotomator: This site lets you use multiple columns and enter words you’d consider pairing. In the previous example, you might put words like chocolate, choco, candy, and sweets in the first column. In the second column, you’d use words like obsession, problem, fanatic, etc. The site would then try every possible combination and tell you which ones were available for registration.
- Apt Domain: This site is similar to Dotomator, except that it lets you put all the words in the same column. This is better if you don’t care about the specific order of the words in your domain.
- Expiring Domain List: This is available through a number of registrars, and it simply lets you browse domains that are about to expire. Often, you’ll find hidden gems that you can snatch up immediately when owners forget about them.
Do you know of any other good domain-finding tools? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Internet Marketing Ideas: Valuable Links for SEO
When it comes to internet marketing ideas, it’s not exactly revolutionary to come out and say that you need inbound links to rank well in the search engines. We all know that much. Google has made it very clear that they value sites that are valued by others (in the form of inbound links, which act as popularity votes). Among links, though, they’re not all created equal. There are definitely some links that are more valuable than others - but which ones? Below, we’ve covered a few of the most important factors in determining the quality of an inbound link.
- Anchor Text: Anchor text is crucial, as this is one of the best ways to tell Google what a page is about. If you want to rank for a particular phrase, it’s vital to have inbound links that use that phrase as their anchor text. This one small step will dramatically improve your ability to rank.
- Pagerank: Pagerank gives you a good idea of where a site stands in terms of inbound links. Ideally, you want as many links as possible from high Pagerank sites.
- Relevance: It’s not just about anchor text. If a site relates to your topic, the link is going to be worth more to you.
- Purity: If a link is purchased, it’s probably worth less than a non-purchased link. Obviously, it’s impossible for Google to know which links are paid in all cases, but it’s not too difficult to figure out the ones purchased through major link buying services. It’s also not at all difficult for your competitors to report you for link buying. The best case scenario is one where you build links manually and don’t buy any at all.
What other traits do you look for in your links? Although these are some of the top factors to consider, they’re not the only ones. Weigh in on the comments!
Internet Marketing Tips: Make Your Money Work for You
Here’s something you don’t hear with all the usual internet marketing tips that get passed around - the people who make the most money are the ones who make their money work for them. If you give two affiliates $10,000, it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll do vastly different things with it. Some people know how to magnify the power of money, while others just spend and wonder what happened.
- Work on someone else’s money. Plenty of credit cards offer long no-interest grace periods. Use this to your advantage. Let your money earn interest or buy things you must have, and use interest-free credit in the meantime.
- Get an interest-bearing checking or savings account. Never leave money sitting somewhere that prevents it from earning more money. That’s just common sense.
- Put any and all expenses on cashback cards. Even your groceries and bills should be paid with a cashback card whenever possible. Even if you can’t get a credit card, you can most likely get a PayPal business debit card that will give you 1.5% cash back.
- Keep track of every expense. It’s very easy to get lazy about receipts, but this is like throwing money out the window. If you can verify your expenses, you can nearly always claim them on your taxes. Self employed people get taxed enough as it is.
- Speed up your cashflow wherever possible. Think it’s not a big deal that your network pays you once every 2 weeks? Or worse, once every month? Well, it is. What if you were able to speed that up? You could get the money into an interest-bearing account faster, earning hundreds or even thousands more over the course of a year or two.
Are you doing all of these things? If not, why not? Do you have any other suggestions for improving the way your money works for you?