Website design By BotEap.comIf you are looking to earn some extra money from the comfort of your own home, then online affiliate marketing can be a perfect business model to start with. It’s easy to get started and you don’t need any products or services to sell right away.

Website design By BotEap.comAffiliate marketing is where you promote other people’s businesses or products, in return you get a commission. A bit like an online seller, and in some cases these commissions can be very lucrative if you know what you’re doing.

Website design By BotEap.comThe 12 simple steps below are the foundation of what an affiliate marketer would do to get up and running. Follow these 12 basic steps and you’ll have a good chance of making a living on the Internet.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 1 – Discover a good market:

Website design By BotEap.comIf you’ve been in business before or just starting out, chances are you’ve heard the saying “find a hungry market and feed it what it wants”. To be successful in this business or any offline and online business, you are going to have to get good at finding your “target market.”

Website design By BotEap.comStep 2 – Mind mapping of ideas.

Website design By BotEap.comChances are you’ve heard of this before, it’s basically getting everything from your mind onto paper. Brainstorm all your thoughts on some general topics or services you could sell. It’s a good idea to tackle topics that you know about or at least care about.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 3 – Fine Tune Your Themes:

Website design By BotEap.comYou need to find 3-5 topics that have a good following and money. This is important as you need to take into account what kind of people you are promoting your product or service to. Starting broadly, say for example “cars”, and then narrowing it down to a niche market “datsun 240z”, I got the idea.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 4 – Stuck:

Website design By BotEap.comIf you’re out of ideas, then a good place to start is online groups and forums.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 5 – Competition:

Website design By BotEap.comTo get a good idea of ​​whether your theme is any good, you’ll need to check out the competition. Don’t panic if there is a lot as this can be a good sign as it means money is to be made. Take note of what your competition is doing and saying.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 6 – Find an affiliate product to promote:

Website design By BotEap.comOnce you’ve found a niche that you think is hungry for a certain product or service, Google “your niche affiliate program.” So in the example above it would be “datsun 240z affiliate program”.

Website design By BotEap.comIf you’re having a hard time finding an affiliate program for your niche, that’s probably a good sign that you’ve chosen a dud. In which case, move on to your other niches and do the same Google search for them.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 7 – Landing Page:

Website design By BotEap.comThis is the platform from which you will need to promote your product or service. This can be a website, a blog, or a Squidoo lens, depending on your skill level. If you’re a total newbie then a blog is a good idea to start with or a Squidoo lens, both of which are free. If you’re feeling a bit adventurous then you can go to http://www.elance.com to have a site built for you, although I wouldn’t do this until you’re sure your niche is a winner.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 8 – Creating Your Landing Page:

Website design By BotEap.comIt’s very tempting to paste links all over the place saying “click here!”, “buy this!”, so much so that your page is filled with blue links. Instead, treat it a bit like a review on your chosen topic or niche. Try to be as informative as possible without giving all the information, so as not to write the whole manual, so to speak.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 9 – Add your affiliate links:

Website design By BotEap.comAt the end of the day, you’re here to provide a service, and if the customer likes what you’ve done, you can help them on their way. So be sure to put your affiliate link that you would have earned by joining your chosen affiliate program, on your landing page. Usually 3 links or less are recommended. You don’t have to push the fact that they have to click the link, just present it informally.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 10 – Traffic:

Website design By BotEap.comThis is the big one, without traffic there are no sales. Article marketing is the free option and is still a great way to promote your niche. Writing articles can be quite a task if you don’t have a lot of time, once again elance.com is a good place to write your articles. “Word Press” and “Squidoo” are often chosen by Google and rank high in Google search engine results. Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing using AdWords is another way, although I wouldn’t recommend it at first.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 11 – Follow up:

Website design By BotEap.comThis becomes an essential part of the affiliate marketing business and should not be overlooked. Knowing where your traffic came from and how much is important to you in adjusting your marketing so that your efforts pay off and you can then enjoy the benefits of being an online affiliate marketer. It may be slow at first, but if you stick with it and keep updating your “blog” or “Squidoo” page, you’ll see results eventually.

Website design By BotEap.comStep 12 – Adjust:

Website design By BotEap.comMake sure you update your blog regularly, you don’t have to do much, just tweak once in a while, add good content and you’ll be fine. If for some reason you find that you are getting the traffic but not the clicks to buy, look at the placement of your links. Play around with your page design until you see sales increase. Learn to adapt. and you will make sales.

Website design By BotEap.comThanks for taking the time to read this article, I hope you found it useful in some way to help you on your journey.

Website design By BotEap.comRegards Rob Hughes