Before you make a firm decision on a topic for your site, you'll need to do research to see if there are suitable affiliate products which match your topic.
You want affiliate merchants that have excellent products, excellent reputations and sites that look as though they're good at selling. You can search the AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory for ideas.
Consider aiming for lifetime commissions.
If you're lucky, you'll manage to select a web site topic that has affiliate programs which pay lifetime commissions or residual commissions - the sort reviewed at LifetimeCommissions.com.
You'll earn repeat commissions when "your" customers make more purchases
STEP 5: Build a useful, interesting website on your niche
Here's an very important step. Many newcomer affiliates who fail do so because they have overlooked its importance.
Don't just build a website. Build a useful, interesting website on your niche.
One of the best ways is to build a site which solves people's problems. Useful sites also often help their visitors decide which products to buy.
Create a content rich, keyword-rich site, designed to be found in search engines.
Show your personality. Have a bit of fun. Be memorable. You need to connect with your visitors. Remember that people like buying from people they like.
There's no space in this affiliate program tutorial to describe how to build a website. For that, you'll need a good instruction manual.
If you're short of money, you can hunt for free information on sites such HTMLGoodies.
You'll save yourself an enormous amount of time and frustration if you take the plunge and buy a good instruction manual.
Here are the two best options:
(1.) For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.
Rosalind is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.
Her instruction manual shows you how she builds very successful sites using web authoring software.
It starts right at the beginning, discussing topics such as myths about doing business online, mistakes to avoid, how to choose the best topic, how to choose the right domain name, etc.
The book, updated in May 2006, takes you step-by-step through the whole process.
One particularly useful feature is her explanation of how she achieves high conversion rates (visitor-to-sales ratios), achieving conversion rates of 4% or 6% while most affiliates are happy with 1%.
Another of the strengths of the book is her descriptions of a wide variety of ways to get traffic to your site. This is important - too many affiliates rely on just one or two traffic-generating methods. The more traffic-generating methods you have, the safer your business is.
Rosaland is genuinely successful, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now she's also a very successful author, with sales of more $1 million from her book, which is excellent value.
When you learn from her, you're learning from a winner.
Learn more about Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook here.
If you choose to follow Rosalind's advice, you'll also need a website-building tool. A very popular choice among affiliates is XSitePro, which is designed for people who want to build small, niche sites. XSitePro, or the new version, XSitePro2, isn't suitable for every type of site, so make sure you read our XSitePro2 review before you decide.(2.)
(2.) For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It (SBI).
SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.
Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have almost all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part - creating useful, interesting content.
SBI comes with a newly updated, truly comprehensive instruction manual, a step-by-step Action Guide, and a truly superb private forum where SBI users share information and help each other.
SBI is the tool I give my assistants. Take the Free Video Tourand you'll understand why.
Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and then Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site. Now it's being used by another assistant to whom I outsource website maintenance.
You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process. It provides a recipe for business success.
SBI teaches you how to optimize your web pages so they'll be found in search engines. After building a page, you click the "Analyze It" button and it tells you what you need to do to improve it.
The SBI technique really works. Two of the SBI sites that Rupert built are included in the case studies on the SBI site.
See the proof in the SBI case studies
All 18 steps of Affiliate Program Tutorial:
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 1 - 3 ) - Set a Goal
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 4 - 5 ) - Research Affiliate Merchants
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 6 - 7 ) - Add Affiliate Links
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 8 - 10 ) - Good links to your site
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 11 - 13 ) - Place Articles on Websites
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 14 - 15 ) - See Affiliate Success!
Affiliate Tutorial (Step 16 - 18 ) - Tweak site to make even more money
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment