Affiliate marketing is marketing as a representative of a company. You promote their products and they pay you a commission on each sale. True affiliates actually do not sell as much as they provide relevant information to a keyword search. So before we take off on internet marketing online affiliate program lets talk about some principles of affiliate marketing.

You Are the Expert

When people make a search on the Internet they put an entry in the search box of a search engine and see what comes up in the page listings by the search engine. For example, if I put history of Idaho in my search box, I will get historical sites, book retailers, maps and such about Idaho. There may be a few irrelevant sites that come up, sites the search engine hates and will attempt to dump into their proverbial junk bin. The searcher will usually ignore such links. There are more pages of links but seldom does one look at the second page and it would be a cold day in hades before they look any further.

The search engines keep track of the words used in searches. Google has a free keyword tool that is called External which will provide you with such keywords and tell you the popularity of each keyword, how often it is used in searches. Armed with such information, you as an affiliate marketer can approach a niche market, a market that you can provide good information on a particular subject.

Monetizing a Market

That means to make money from a market. Here is how affiliate marketers do it:

1. They find a subject they are interested in and can write about. They find the keywords that have little competition that match their market. They buy a domain with the keywords in the domain name. They build a website.

2. On the new website they write good information about what they think the folks in their market want to hear. They learn this by finding out where members of their niche market hang out, what they are talking about, what they want and what they need. The information warms the reader up to the point that he will click on an affiliate link. The vendor does the selling and handles the order and the affiliate gets paid.

Here is an example:

I search for keywords about the History of Idaho. I find that “Idaho facts and history” is a very good keyword phrase. I buy the domain and setup the website. Now, I write on various facts about Idaho and certain historical events placing these articles on my website. I link to Amazon using the affiliate links to books on Idaho and such.

Then I drive traffic to the site by writing articles about Idaho and its facts and history using your keywords. I watch my ranking to make sure I am on the first page of search engines. I tell my social networks about all site updates and all articles and blogs, etc.

There are many good affiliate networks offering good programs such as Commission Junction. There are also many digital products such as provided by ClickBank and others. You can make a search for affiliate programs in your niche.

Make sure you know the product thoroughly and that you actually use the product if you are not familiar with it. Only sell quality through quality vendors. Go to the vendor’s sales page and make sure that it appeals to you and would convince you that you should buy. Keep your spotless reputation if you want to stay in business. Gurus sometimes change their names and sites to avoid being found out as the scoundrels they are.

Affiliate Marketing Training

You will need some training to become a good affiliate marketer. Stay away from the gurus who use bait and switch and pure deception to con you out of your money. You will need a quality keyword tool geared to affiliate marketers too. If a guru approaches you with a get rich scheme, run!

John

Internet Business Tool Center