The Extreme Newbie Buddy System

You don’t have to go into the affiliate marketing business with a partner; although for my sister, Karen and me it has turned out to be the perfect business venture. You will definitely benefit from having a few buddies, throughout the process. Karen and I each bring different talents and skill sets to the table, which works well, especially during the stressful times. Of course, you can do this alone, but our experience has proven that a helping hand here-and-there is a good thing.

Our greatest business asset, outside of each other, was our decision to share the learning curves in this experience with two other newbies. We began with a weekly, one-hour conference call to learn each stop of the process together, sharing tips, resources and lessons learned. We chose to use Affilo Blueprint 2.0 as our primary training tool, so each week we had tasks to complete, which kept us moving forward.

Along the way, each member of our team found resources and information to share that enhanced our learning experience. Together we’ve made these recent newbie discoveries we want to share with you:

You can build your own affiliate website or hire a contractor to do the work or purchase a pre-built website.

• If you buy a pre-built website, your purchase generally includes the domain name, a number of articles about your niche, an opt-in box and products to monetize the site.

• Buyer Beware: Find out if the seller will take care of replacing the their affiliate links with yours, i.e., your Click Bank name, so that subsequent sales from visitors to the site are properly credited to you. You don’t want to buy a website that’s set up to pay someone else. Many sellers will also take care of minimal installation of the site, for a small additional fee; some will even coach you through establishing your first affiliate marketing site. Just figure out exactly what you’re getting.

You can write your own content, hire a freelance writer online or purchase private label rights (PLR) articles that target your specific niche/topic.

• PLR content is written by someone and available for fee or free for you to edit, rewrite and claim as your own. We recommend changing the title and make word changes and text edits. Some PLR vendors require that you change an article by 30% or more.  Be sure to check the list of rights you get with a PLR purchase and always do spell and grammar checks before you publish.

Continue to grow your buddy list as needed. The goal of building a network of relationships is to help you sustain and grow your affiliate marketing business, whether it consists of one site or a hundred. Some good ways to network include:

• Join a group like Warriors Forum. It’s an amazing place to get quick answers to questions, referrals for various resources to help you build your business and those must-have tips and tricks.

• Learn about the tools and resources you need to maintain and market your site. Take the time to learn how to use these tools. Your learning curve will lead to profits down the road.

The point is that just like building a house, you don’t have to do everything yourself. This is the true key to your ultimate success. So hang in there, Extreme Newbies. There’s light – and income – at the end of the tunnel.

Advice on Making Money

This is a great video on how to overcome the fear of taking the plunge to learn how to make money online as an affiliate marketer. If multimillionaire Ephren Taylor can start his own business at 12 years old, what’s stopping you?

Thirty Day Challenge – What Every Affiliate Newbie Needs

If you want to learn affiliate marketing or any kind of Internet marketing for that matter, there’s an amazing resource out there for you right now! It’s veteran Internet marketer Ed Dales’s little darling – the Thirty Day Challenge. It’s a comprehensive 30 day video training program on the basics of marketing on the web.

Offered only once a year, this great program (we’re taking it) started on August 1st. Now you may be thinking that you’re too late to join in. Not. You can pick up where the program is now and play catch-up as you go along to the end of the month. Or start watching the “30DC” videos on YouTube and go along at your pace.

Whatever you do, jump on this opportunity. Ed and team have done a phenomenal job assembling lessons, tools, resources and even motivational tips that every newbie affiliate marketer can benefit from.  Oh – and I forgot to mention that you can subscribe to the videos and transcripts on iTunes. For you iPhone lovers like me – 30DC is available for you phone too!

Wordpress for Affiliate Marketing Newbies

I’ve been blogging for a few years now and have grown to love Wordpress blogs. It’s what my sis and I have chosen to use for our affiliate websites. If the first thought that comes to you is “what’s Wordpress” or “what’s a blog” – then this video is just what you need to come up to speed. It’s about 50 minutes long so put your feet up and listen up.

Hosting For Your Affiliate Website

If you’re getting into affiliate marketing, you’ll end up with a website at some point and want to find a home for it. That’s what “hosting” is in the online world – that place called a server where your website lives. There are a number of website hosting companies with even more features and benefits. How do you select one?

Well here’s a review site to visit, one of many that give you the skinny on hosting sites.  Remember any review site is bound to be someone else’s affiliate site – just so you know. But that’s OK, it’s where you get to see one of the more popular kinds of affiliate websites, something you can have after you pick a niche.

Just a few things you might want to look for:

1. Does the hosting company have a cpanel? That’s what you need for Wordpress which is the platform we are using for our affiliate websites. Look for our post on Wordpress here on Extreme Newbies.
2. What’s the monthly fee – and do you get a break if you pay annually?
3. Something new – is the hosting company eco-friendly? If this is important to you (and shouldn’t it be for all of us), look for green hosting. It’s out there.
4. Do they have 24/7 easily-accessible support? There’s nothing worse than having a problem at 1am and no one’s home at your hosting company.

Affiliate Marketing Newbies – First Month Lessons

We’re at our first month anniversary as newbie affiliate marketers and whew – lots of lessons learned! Here’s a few:

• Pick a niche – something you’re interested in, something lots of other people are interested in and something where there are products to sell. Examples of some of the ones these newbies picked are weight loss, weight training, credit repair and a new favorite life topic – going green.
• Do a keyword search before you do buy a domain or do anything else. Check out the Google Keyword Tool – easy to use and free. Or try out our favorite keyword tool, Market Samurai that has lots of other features to help in any kind of Internet marketing.
• Focus, focus, focus. Create a roadmap for your affiliate marketing journey. This is not a business that you want to meander along in and miss the opportunity to make the mean green.
• Ignore “bright, shiny objects”. As you get involved in affiliate marketing, you will see wonderful things on the learning curve, things I call – bright, shiny objects, the “accessories” of the trade – courses, programs, tools, resources and my favorite – ready-made affiliate websites. Unless you have a trust fund, you can’t get them all so this is where having a business plan comes in real handy to keep you focused.
• Pass on most of the freebies you run into on the Internet – teleseminars, webinars, ebook, special reports. They are there to get you to buy a paid product. Freebies usually tell you the “what” on a topic but never the “how”. And they can really be a time suck. If something really speaks to you though, follow your intuition, go for it and sign up.
• Ask questions – there are any dumb ones or I would have asked all of them already! One thing I’ve found is that experienced affiliate marketers are always ready to share some advice with a newbie.
• Take your mistakes – like the ones I’ve made this month – as absolutely necessary affiliate marketing lessons learned.

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much. ~ Joan Collins

3 Necessary Tools for the High Rolling Affiliate Marketer

What does it take to become a successful Affiliate Marketer? What are the ingredients of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to Affiliate Marketing glory? All these questions play around in the minds of affiliate marketers who want to make it big in this business.
Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it is not as easy as it sounds. The wise affiliate marketer plans every action and executes it the best way he can. He should also maximize the potential to earn by utilizing the right tools necessary for a successful Affiliate Marketing business. We have consulted some of the most successful affiliate marketers in the business and below are the top three necessary tools for a successful affiliate marketing business.

Important Tool #1: Your Own Website

The most important and indispensable tool in Affiliate Marketing is your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and service you are promoting and make a purchase. Therefore, you must first concentrate your efforts in building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.

The most important thing you should consider is that almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. People will love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, in the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a good step in building up a loyal consumer base.

Important Tool #2: Incentives

Competition is extremely tight in the internet world. You must always be one-step ahead of your rivals to ensure that you capture a significant share of your target market. Therefore, you must use every possible means to encourage people not only to visit your site but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting. Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather prospects. Offer a newsletter or an e-zine. Better yet, offer incentives to your prospects to encourage them to subscribe to your newsletters. You can present free softwares, access to exclusive services and other freebies that will be helpful to your prospects.

Important Tool #3: Link Popularity

The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important entities in the internet world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you should carry out. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive reciprocal link campaign.

One of the best ways to do this – at no cost at all – is by submitting articles, with your website’s link at the resource box, to e-zines and free article sites. You will not only gain exposure, you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, just include a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity is. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick it up and post it.

These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. You can always explore other ideas and adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become a high rolling affiliate marketer.

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