Becoming a Successful Niche Marketer

Online niche marketing is more than just an online fad. People have been earning amazing incomes from it for several years; every day, more and more people get on board and start living the dream, too. If you think that becoming a successful niche marketer is out of your reach, think again. With the right guidance, it’s truly possible for anyone to become a success in the niche marketing game. These days, the crème de la crème of the niche marketing how-to world has to be Micro Niche Finder. Get on board with that program and read the following info to get the ball rolling on your niche marketing adventure!

Step One: Researching Popular Niches

There’s a delicate balance to finding the right niche market. On the one hand, you want something that’s specific enough to keep the playing field as sparse as possible; on the other, you need a niche market that will earn you steady, reliable income. The first step to becoming a successful niche marketer is zeroing in on the right niche. There are literally thousands of them available; getting started can be quite overwhelming. Micro Niche Finder simplifies this daunting step, allowing you to pinpoint the niche that is right for you.

Key things to keep in mind when researching niches include:

Find Out what People are Looking For – To find the right niche, you need to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are searching for online. Any niche marketer will tell you that staying abreast of what’s popular in online searches is the backbone of making this venture work for you. The main ingredient to being a successful niche marketer is drawing in targeted traffic; once you have an audience, the battle is all downhill. Selecting a niche that people are seeking information about is a great first step.

Choose an Untapped Niche Market – Here’s where the balancing act comes into play: You need to select a niche that’s being searched for but that isn’t oversaturated. If there are hundreds of other niche marketers trying to get in on the action, your profits will be extremely diluted. This is why it pays to sign up for an automated system like Micro Niche Finder, which helps you zero in on emerging niches with ease. By getting in on the ground floor of a niche market, you will increase your odds of experiencing amazing success as a niche marketer.

Analyze Niches at a Glance – A big stumbling block for any niche marketing is analyzing the potential of any given niche market. Usually, doing this is extremely difficult. With MicroNicheFinder, you can size up a niche market at a glance.

Step Two: Finding the Right Product

The next step in becoming a successful niche marketer is finding the right product within the niche of your choice. In this case, it pays to get as specific as possible with your keyword research. Overly broad keywords and key phrases are going to leave you spinning your tires. You need to zero in on a product that can be found through more in-depth keywords and key phrases. Micro Niche Finder makes it a snap to analyze the usefulness and effectiveness of various keywords and key phrases, allowing you to pinpoint the products that will generate the most business for you.

Another thing to keep in mind when selecting a product as a niche marketer is gauging its potential in terms of affiliate marketing. For many niche marketers, affiliate marketing is one of their most lucrative sources of income. Some products do better than others in the affiliate marketing game. MicroNicheFinder makes it possible to get a feel for how well a product will perform for you in this regard.

Step Three: Setting Up Your Venture as a Niche Marketer

Once all of the analyzing has been done, it’s time to get the ball rolling in earnest. Yet again, Micro Niche Finder simplifies the process of getting your business off the ground. There are many ways to get going as a niche marketer. Setting up a series of small sales websites is a great first step. These sites can include forms that people can use to sign up for e-newsletters; you can then use those newsletters to expand your reach and make sales. As emphasized in the MicroNicheFinder program, diverting and converting are exceptionally important things that any niche marketer should know.

Basically:

Diverting – As a niche marketer, you need to divert as much traffic to your own sites as possible. This can be done in various ways, including press releases, pay-per-click programs, article marketing, email campaigns and backlinks.

Converting – Once the traffic’s been diverted to your site, you need to convert it into sales. You can do this by selling your products or through affiliate marketing. Another prime option you can use as a niche marketer is AdSense revenue; convert the traffic into email lists that can be used to generate income, too.

As you can see, there’s more than one way to go about becoming a wildly successful niche marketer. In fact, it pays to put as many different things to work for you as possible. If you’re really serious about becoming a niche marketer, though, you need to sign up with MicroNicheFinder. Between its indispensable assistance and the points made above, you’ll be able to skyrocket to the top in no time.

Do you operate an affiliate site related to the medical or health industries?  If you do it may prove beneficial to add a medical disclaimer to your affiliate site in order to save yourself from unnecessary headaches.  In addition, although it’s never been publicly stated (to the best of my knowledge), Google may look more favorably on an affiliate site with a medical disclaimer.

Furthermore, I feel adding a medical disclaimer to your medical or health related affiliate site also gives you more credibility and legitimacy with your potential customers in a very skeptical market sector.  And hey, at the very least you can add a little more unique content to your affiliate site.  Here’s an example medical disclaimer I use on my affiliate sites.

Example Medical or Health Related Affiliate Site Disclaimer

“AFFILIATE SITE Medical Disclaimer

The information on this site is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this web site is for general information purposes only.  AFFILIATE SITE makes no representation and assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of information contained on or available through this web site, and such information is subject to change without notice. You are encouraged to confirm any information obtained from or through this web site with other sources, and review all information regarding any medical condition or treatment with your physician.

NEVER DISREGARD PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE OR DELAY SEEKING MEDICAL TREATMENT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING YOU HAVE READ ON OR ACCESSED THROUGH THIS WEB SITE.

AFFILIATE SITE does not recommend, endorse or make any representation about the efficacy, appropriateness or suitability of any specific tests, products, procedures, treatments, services, opinions, health care providers or other information that may be contained on or available through this web site.

AFFILIATE SITE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE NOR LIABLE FOR ANY ADVICE, COURSE OF TREATMENT, DIAGNOSIS OR ANY OTHER INFORMATION, SERVICES OR PRODUCTS THAT YOU OBTAIN THROUGH THIS WEB SITE.”

So there you go people.  Copy, modify and paste to your affiliate site at your leisure!

Like many web publishers and online marketers I have literally hundreds of domain names in development.  To be perfectly honest I have far too many just lying dormant on my registrar or collecting small profits from domain parking services.  As such a little early spring cleaning of my domain portfolio is in order!

Growing tiresome of domain auction websites I decided to launch Top Affiliate Domain Auctions.  Lets keep it in-house and keep the prices down!

Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll be auctioning off my portfolio of domains.  Some of these will be sold in groups (i.e. same name .com, .net, .org, .info) while others are solo top level domains.  Prices will vary on each domain name or domain package sold and bid increases are as low as $.01.

Domain Auction Procedures:

• Domain auction durations may vary but will last for approximately 30 days
• All domain auction transactions will be conducted through Top Affiliates verified PayPal account: sales[at]top-affiliate.com
• All domains or domain auction packages will have ‘Buy it Now’ pricing
  • If ‘Buy it Now’ pricing is not met upon auction expiration, I reserve the option to cancel the auction
• All domains are registered with www.GoDaddy.com
  • Upon purchase the buyer must sign up for a GoDaddy.com account in order to transfer the domain.  Once the domain has been transferred to the buyer on Godaddy the buyer can transfer the domain to their registrar of choice.

Please coordinate all questions regarding Top Affiliate Domain Auctions sales to: sales[at]top-affiliate.com.  Please check Top Affiliate Domain Auctions often for new domains listed.

Thank you!

Always on the lookout for new marketing tools and services I found a pretty slick tool that allows me to publish my blog posts and static web pages to all the major social networking sites.  It’s called OnlyWire (maybe you’ve heard of it) and I’ve been successfully using it for about a month now.

OnlyWire syndicates your content and articles to the web’s top social networking sites with a single button click.  OnlyWire makes it EXTREMELY easy to get your message out to the broadest possible audience in the shortest amount of time while improving readership, backlinks, search engine index speed and web-traffic.

Currently, the OnlyWire API is compatible with the following social networking sites:

ask bebo bibsonomy blinklist bookmarksync connotea delicious digg diigo facebook bluedot googlebookmarks jumptags linkatopia misterwong

mixx multiply myspace newsvine plaxo propeller reddit simpy slashdot spurl stumbleupon technorati tumblr twitter yahoobookmarks

Here's an example of the one click publishing provided by OnlyWire. Please click on the image for better resolution.

So how does this benefit you?

Obviously you’ll want to use this on your own websites but it also helps your listings on Top Affiliate.  When OnlyWire users visit your affiliate program page on the directory they’ll have the option to instantly publish your page across their selected social networking sites.  More exposure always means more traffic.

Click on image for better resolution.

The OnlyWire button is found at the bottom right of all Top Affiliate directory pages.  One click publishing!

Is OnlyWire just another social bookmarking application?

Well….yes but the problem with many conventional social bookmarking applications is the time it takes to manually publish web pages to each social network.  They can only do one at a time.  Who wants to sit there and manually bookmark web content across 20 different social networks?  Not me! This means a good portion of web pages out there are never bookmarked, it’s just too much trouble.

So how much of a hassle is it to set up?

Registering for OnlyWire and setting up an account takes a little over an hour if you’re not a member of all the social networking sites.  Registering can be a hassle with some social networking sites but it’s worth your time.

So how much does it cost?

OnlyWire offers FREE and paid services.  If you select the free service you’ll have to:

“agree to add the OnlyWire “Bookmark & Share Button” on your website or blog within 24 hours or your bookmarking ability will be temporarily disabled.  The Button will immediately drive traffic to your website by providing your users the ability to simultaneously bookmark your content across multiple bookmarking sites. The Button also allows your users to share your pages via email with their friends and collegues.” – Onlywire

I purchased a year up front to use their automated content distribution for $24.99 but you can also pay a monthly fee of $2.99.  My time is worth a little more than $24.99 or $0.07/day if you want to do the math!

Tax season is here, are you ready?  I hope so because there is a hungry market out there searching for e-File authorized online tax preparation services.  Just how many?  Well here’s some interesting facts and figures the IRS released on November 2, 2009 in regards to e-filing in the 2009 tax season.  (See IR-2009-99 (Nov. 2, 2009) for the entire release.

1) in 2000, 27.57% or 35,412,000 returns were e-Filed, whereas in 2009, more than two-thirds–67.18% or 94,980,000 our of 141,376,000, were e-Filed;

2) The total number of returns shrank, however, from 153,650,000 in 2008 (a drop of 8%);

3) More taxpayers were doing their own e-Filing–almost 20% more prepared and e-Filed their own returns rather than using tax preparers to do so;

4) The government gave $303.069 billion back to taxpayers in refunds this year, an increase of more than 20% over last year’s refunds; and

5) The 73 million taxpayers who got electronically deposited refunds got them at least a week sooner than those waiting for a paper check, and cost the government less at the same time..

Since the IRS e-File system meets the needs of nearly all taxpayers, no matter how complicated or simple their returns are, more and more people will turn to online tax preparation services.  Using e-File helps taxpayers take advantage of the tax credits available to them to maximize their refunds during these tough economic times and provides key benefits such as:

* Faster Refunds
* Greater Accuracy
* Secure and confidential submission
* No paper return to mail
* File now, pay later
* Quick confirmation

This is great news for affiliate marketers because there is a a variety of tax software products available commercially that offer e-File.  Here’s a selection of the top e-File authorized tax affiliate programs across some of the major networks:

	e-File authorized tax preparation services on the buyat Affiliate Network.
	Commission Value: $25 per completed filing Cookie: 30 days
	Commission Value: $3.30 per registration Cookie: Same Session Only

————————————————————————————————————

	e-File authorized tax preparation services on the Commission Junction Affiliate Network.
	Commission Value: 20% per completed filing Cookie: 120 days
	Commission Value: 20% per completed filing Cookie: 45 days
	Commission Value: 15% per completed filing Cookie: 30 days
	Commission Value: 15% per completed filing Cookie: 45 days

————————————————————————————————————

	e-File authorized tax preparation services on the LinkShare Affiliate Network.
	Commission Value: 50-65% per completed filing Cookie: ? days

————————————————————————————————————

	e-File authorized tax preparation services on the ShareASale Affiliate Network.
	Commission Value: 30% per completed filing Cookie: 120 days
	Commission Value: 60% per completed filing Cookie: 30 days
	Commission Value: 20% per completed filing Cookie: 120 days
	Commission Value: $2.00 per completed filing Cookie: 30 days

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and is one of the highest grossing holidays for online sales.  Back in 2009 consumers planned to spend an average of $102.50 on Valentine’s Day gifts and merchandise, versus $122.08 per person in 2008 according to the National Retail Federation’s 2009 Valentine’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions survey.  Although times were tight the total Valentine’s Day spending in 2009 exceeded $14.7 billion.  That is a huge pot of money!

Regardless of the economic climate people will always spend their hard earned dollars on traditional Valentine’s Day gifts which include:

• jewelry
• flowers
• greeting cards
• and candy

Furthermore, the above survey indicated the majority of people (90.8 percent) spent the most on their spouse ($67.22), with other family members such as children getting about one fifth of their budget ($20.95).  Consumers also spent on friends ($4.74), children’s classmates/teachers ($3.59), coworkers ($1.94), and yes…even pets ($2.17).

So how do the numbers look this year for us affiliate marketers?  Well this past holiday season, online sales jumped 18 percent from Nov. 27 to Dec. 24, according to SpendingPulse.

“People were more comfortable doing last-minute shopping online, especially with the bad weather,” Kamalesh Rao, director of economic research for SpendingPulse, said in a telephone interview yesterday. A snowstorm on the East Coast the weekend before Christmas closed some malls early on Dec. 19 and kept shoppers at home….Jewelry sales rose 5.6 percent for November and December, while luxury retail excluding jewelry gained 0.8 percent.”

This is comforting news to online retailers and affiliates.  So here’s a list of some Valentines Day affiliate programs you may want to promote via pay per click campaigns and niche website marketing.  I broke them down by affiliate networks and the Pepperjam Network programs were compiled by my network manager Gina Nardone.

A good network manager will/should work directly with you in order to custom tailor selected affiliate programs to suit your marketing needs and preferences.  They’ll also often dig up affiliate programs that you’ve overlooked or find programs that are not heavily saturated with other affiliate marketers.  This close relationship with your network manger offers you the best opportunity to carve out a nice market share in that specific niche.  These in my opinion are just a few areas both Pepperjam Network and ShareASale have always excelled at.

So here’s some programs you may want to consider promoting:

Valentines Day Affiliate Programs on Pepperjam Network:

Flowers 48LongStems.com FlowerStore.com Teleflora.com Jewelry, Clothing & Pampering Gifts DanforthDiamond.com -*Open-Search EternalSparkles.com Ziamond.com IDoNowIDont.com -*Open-Search SuperJeweler.com Swarovski.com Tuccini.com MyFragranceRoom.com -*Open-Search Cookies, Chocolates, Wines & More GJCookies.com -*Open-Search igourmet.com GiftBaskets.com Patchi.us MonthClubStore.com TheWineMessenger.com

Valentines Day Affiliate Programs on ShareASale:

Flowers PickupFlowers 2Flowers.com Flowers Fast Flora 2000 Jewelry, Clothing & Pampering Gifts Design it Yourself Gifts and Baskets Gifts Baskets for Delivery FragranceShop.com Gifting Inc. Timeless Message HipsandCurves.com Wicked Temptations Panties.com Intimate Wholesalers SassyBax Cookies, Chocolates, Wines & More Savannah Candy Cookies in Bloom Harry London Clever Cookie Brownie Points

Valentines Day Affiliate Programs on Linkshare:

Flowers 1-800-Flowers.com (personal favorite) Martha Stewart for 1-800-Flowers.com 1-800-Baskets.com GourmetGiftBaskets.com Honest Florist Fleurop.com Just Because Baskets Flowers.com Blooms Today GiftBaskets.com, Inc. Internet Florist Jewelry, Clothing & Pampering Gifts Memorable Gifts DiViene.com Pear Tree Greetings James Allen Her Room The Body Shop Zales Vermont Teddy Bear Frederick’s of Hollywood, Inc. Perfume Worldwide, Inc. Diamonds International Mondera (personal favorite) Bare Necessities JewelryWeb.com, Inc. Cookies, Chocolates, Wines & More Chocolate.com My Wines Direct Wine.com

Valentines Day Affiliate Programs on Commission Junction:

Flowers GiftTree Organic Bouqet JustFlowers.com USAFlorist.com 1-800-Florals FlowerDelivery.com FloraQueen Jewelry, Clothing & Pampering Gifts Ross Simons James Avery Diamond.com Ashford.com Buyz.com Body Candy StrawberryNET.com FragranceX.com My Jewelry Box WaySpa.com USA and CA Couture Candy Cookies, Chocolates, Wines & More Wine Access Gevalia Ghirardelli Chocolates Vosges Chocolates RICHART Chocolates Wine Basket zCHOCOLAT.com

This is obviously not an all inclusive list.  While each affiliate network has a wide range of products suited for a solid Valentine’s Day marketing campaign, I really like the premier clientele on LinkShare to include: 1-800-Flowers/Baskets, Vermont Teddy Bear, Mondera, Bare Necessities Chocolate.com and Wine.com.

However, these are just some Valentine’s Day affiliate programs you may want to take a look at promoting via ppc marketing campaigns or whatever marketing campaign you’re developing.  Be sure to contact your affiliate or network managers and inquire what’s hot and new this season.

Incidentally, don’t stress out if you haven’t set up your Valentine’s Day campaigns already.  Valentine’s Day is predominantly what I call a perishable holiday.   Perishable in that the majority of products bought and sold during the holiday are flowers, candies and other consumable items.  This means the majority of sales occur approximately one week before the holiday.

Best of luck to you as you create/develop your Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns.  I hope this brief Valentine’s Day affiliate program list helps speed up your time to market.  Aloha!

Pepperjam Network is one of the most progressive affiliate networks online today and a personal favorite of mine.   Back in Sep 2008 I wrote a short Pepperjam Network review covering some of the unique backend control panel  features of their affiliate network as well as a quick glimpse of their selection of niche clientele.  Today I just wanted to jot a quick note concerning their little known Blogger Incentive Program.

So what is the Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program?

Most Pepperjam Network Publishers already know Pepperjam offers a generous Publisher Referral Program, which pays publishers from $5-7 for every new publisher referral:

However, you can also earn an extra $50/month from Pepperjam Network via their Blogger Incentive Program.

Pepperjam realizes the power of bloggers and has gone the extra mile to make being a publisher with them a little more beneficial.  The Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program is an incentive program whereby any PJN publisher/blogger will receive $10 for each post you make that promotes Pepperjam Network or any Pepperjam Network tool.

So how much can you earn with the Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program?

Publishers/bloggers are allowed to post 5 such posts a month for an easy $50.  No, you’re obviously not going to get rich off of the Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program but it’s still a solid $5o bucks in your pocket every month.

So how does Pepperjam Network know you made a post?

Easy.  The only thing Pepperjam requires for you to do in order to receive credit for a post is e-mail bloggers[at]pepperjamnetwork.com prior to making your post to gain approval of the topic.  This obviously enables the Pepperjam team to eliminate spam.

So what else can I blog about with the Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program?

Aside from reviewing the Pepperjam Network itself you have a slew of topics to choose from.  Check out the Pepperjam Network Blog for the latest news from Pepperjam or you may want to consider blogging about any of their clients to earn some easy side revenue with the Pepperjam Network Blogger Incentive Program:

Pepperjam Network Featured Clients

So what are you waiting for?  Pepperjam Network Loves New Publishers. Sign Up Today and earn an additional $50/month.

Paulson Management Group, founded by industry expert Heather Paulson, has recently launched PMG-AffiliateTV.  PMG-AffiliateTV takes an inside look at what’s going on in the affiliate marketing industry as a whole as well as the latest developments within PMG.

I think it’s exceedingly obvious Heather and her staff are trying to put us all out of a job by cornering all aspects of the online marketing sector, which is probably why she was recently honored as an Affiliate Marketing Legend Award nominee for Affiliate Summit’s Pinnacle Awards.  Congratulations to you Heather!

So, without further adieu here’s PMG-AffiliateTV Episode I with your host McKenna.  Enjoy!

About Paulson Management Group:

Paulson Management Group, Inc is a leading full service eMarketing management and internet consulting company providing affiliate management, search engine management or social media management. PMG supports these channels by developing affiliate media, micro-sites and web sites, landing pages, as well as affiliate videos. For a customized free proposal, contact PMG today at 1-800-384-7760.

As an affiliate, spreading the word about your products is your number one priority. If you aren’t constantly looking for new customers and for new ways to promote your products, you risk losing out on a lot of potential sales to the competition.  While the Internet has made advertising easier in many ways, it can also be tremendously confusing – believe it or not there are those who aren’t very familiar with it!

There are many different techniques for marketing online, but viral marketing is one of the cheapest and most effective ones.  With viral affiliate marketing, you can put the Internet at large to work for you, letting your message pass from person to person in an exciting – and potentially lucrative – ripple effect.

So What Is Viral Affiliate Marketing?

Viral marketing refers to any marketing phenomenon that revolves around the “word of mouth” concept.  As the name implies, viral marketing involves letting an infectiously popular advertising product or message loose on the Internet; as it gains momentum, it is passed along from person to person.  All the while, the product is promoting your product, service or business.  Just think about how many hilarious videos you were told to check out or were e-mailed this past year.

Viral affiliate marketing, then, refers to using those marketing techniques to promote your affiliate marketing program.

These days, affiliates and affiliate managers have numerous options at their disposal when it comes to viral affiliate marketing.  Whether you’ve used viral marketing before or not, the following tidbits, strategies and resources will help you become a savvier and more effective viral affiliate marketer.  Choose one or several of them to begin your foray into viral marketing; over time, you will become more comfortable with these techniques and will arrive at a solution that is perfect for you.

Viral Affiliate Marketing Techniques

Some of the most successful viral affiliate marketing campaigns are those that are completely custom-designed by business owners.  Many times, they combine several different strategies or techniques; other times, they use entirely brand new and completely innovative strategies.  Down the road, you may become experienced enough to devise your own viral marketing ideas; until then, use these techniques as a jumping-off point.

Videos

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years you’re probably very familiar with one of the most popular websites on the Internet, YouTube.  However, YouTube is about more than just funny cat videos and other random attractions – it is a great place to create, post and market a viral video.  By creating a YouTube account, you can set up your own page; on it, you can list your affiliate marketing site’s URL and other information.

The real fun begins, though, with creating your video.  While professional quality viral videos are viewed millions of times amateur viral videos have done just as well…if not better.  Just take a look at the “Baby Dancing to Beyonce” video which currently has over 6.6 million views in 2009!

I’m pretty sure the father who shot this video never dreamed his son would be a YouTube megastar or that his son’s little happy-feet would launch the website http://www.SingleBabies.com

Viral videos get that way by being something that people want to pass along to others.  Whether it’s especially catchy (like the video above), extremely informative or exceptionally useful, your video should be something that people will want to share with others.  As your video is embedded on social media sites and linked to in emails, people will be directed to your YouTube channel.  There, they will be able to learn more about your affiliate marketing program and will be able to visit your regular website.

Ebooks

These days, ebooks are very easy to create and simple to pass along.  This was NOT the case when I started back in early 2000.  Now however, there are several free programs for creating your very own ebooks, so you shouldn’t have any problem with the execution of one.   The issue, as with videos, is that you’ll need a catchy idea or a valuable premise that will prompt people to not only READ your ebook, but actually pass it along to others as well. Assuming your ebook is compelling enough, those who read it will want to share it with others.

Word of mouth concerning your ebook can easily start picking up steam; whether you offer it on your website or on an ebook directory, you should begin to notice a spike in the number of downloads that are made.  Within the content of your ebook, you should make sure to refer readers to your website, where they can find the products and services that you have to offer.  The more people that download and read your ebook, the greater amount of exposure your affiliate marketing program will receive – and the higher your profits will ultimately be.

Feeling A Little Creative?

Although videos and ebooks are the “big kahunas” of the viral marketing world, there are an endless number of permutations that you can play around with when doing this for yourself.  Consider a few of these great ideas for yourself; these are also great places to start brainstorming for your very own viral marketing concepts.

• Use a program to create your very own electronic post cards or gift cards and offer them on your website, social networking profile or elsewhere.  On them, include a link to your affiliate marketing URL so that readers can check it out for themselves.
• Hire a freelancer to create a simple digital game for you.  Have them incorporate advertising and marketing elements from your affiliate marketing program within the game.  If the game is playable and catchy enough, it should spark a decent amount of interest.  As it’s played, people will be taking in your advertising message and your business should enjoy a great deal of free, word-of-mouth exposure.
• Similarly, you could have someone create a simple but useful utility with the name of your affiliate marketing program marked on it.  Offering a free download for it on your website, blog or social networking profile will help it get spread around.  I see these all the time as mortgage calculators.

And What About Those Darn Widgets?

Ahh Widgetmania!  Affiliate marketers are turning more and more to widgets in their viral marketing endeavors.  Widgets are mini-applications; they are self-contained and can easily be dragged and dropped onto websites, blogs and other online places.  They are taking the affiliate marketing world by storm; it’s easy to see why.

With a few clicks of a mouse button, you can create widgets that highlight the products that you sell and then place those widgets on your social networking profiles and elsewhere. People who see your widget and like it can easily pass it along to others. In that way, widgets can be tremendously powerful viral affiliate marketing tools.

By their very nature, widgets are simple to use.  You don’t need a great deal of technical know-how or other training to use widgets effectively.  For the most part, you can jump right in and use widgets to promote your affiliate marketing program in no time flat.  However, if you want to strangle the market in a particular niche find a good widget/API developer and keep him/her happy.

Some Useful Resources And Tools

There is a plethora of information available online about setting up viral affiliate marketing campaigns.  You could kick your own campaign off and get it up and running in no time; use the following resources to help you get started:

• Viral Marketing Method – (New) A site that compiles a large number of valuable marketing tools for affiliates and affiliate managers. Many of these tools are completely free of charge.
• Easy Ebook Creator – Available for a very low price, this software program helps you generate slick-looking ebooks in record time. It’s so easy to use that you can come up with multiple ebooks without wasting a lot of time.
• Viral Manager – This site is a great place to get your feet wet in the world of viral affiliate marketing.  Browse it to gain valuable insights on techniques and strategies that you can use.
• Widgetbox – Find widgets.  Create widgets.  Very cool.
• Have some of your own viral marketing products/resources?  Let me know and I’ll grow this list out.

Thanks to affiliate marketing, the concept of working from home has never been more doable or accessible.  Promoting and selling vendors’ items online – and sharing a percentage of the revenue that is generated through such efforts – is surprisingly easy and can be incredibly lucrative.  The primary thing to keep in mind when trying to break into the affiliate marketing game, though, is “marketing.”  The vast majority of the work that you’ll be doing will revolve around gaining exposure for your website and the products that are promoted within it.  Luckily, there are several great tips and strategies related to affiliate marketing; familiarize yourself with a few of the best ones below.

Sell What You Know

Passionate salespeople tend to outperform less enthusiastic ones.  When you genuinely understand and enjoy the products or services that you sell, customers can sense it and those products and services become that much more appealing.  We’ve all met the bored salesperson with the monotone drawl – unenthusiastic online affiliate marketers can come across in much the same way, repelling customers and running into dead end after dead end.

Although it may be tempting to engage in an affiliate marketing program that offers the absolute best revenue sharing percentage or other key perks, if you’re uneducated, inexperienced and unenthusiastic about the things you’ll be marketing the extra compensation isn’t going to go very far.  Instead, look for an affiliate marketing program based on something you know and love.  In turn, you will be able to write more compelling and engaging content, which will attract more customers to you. In the long run, you’ll carve out a great niche for yourself and your sales will start flooding in.

Choose A Great Domain

One of the biggest mistakes affiliate marketers make is skimping on their website.  Rather than investing in a proper domain name – something that typically costs about $10.00 per year – they try to avoid that extra cost by using a free web hosting service like Blogger.  While the platform and tools that go along with sites like WordPress and Blogger are great, having a domain that ends in “.blogspot.com” is not.  Search engines tend to overlook sites with long, convoluted extensions and yours will probably get lost in the shuffle.  Think up a clever, catchy and unique domain name and invest in it – one ending in .com is generally best.

* Note:  I personally use www.Godaddy.com for all of my domains, they’re one of the best registrars in the business.

Create Killer Content – Or Pay Someone Else To Do It For You

These days, it seems like every site on the Internet is trying to sell something.  People are fickle, and simply slapping up affiliate links along with images of the products that you sell just isn’t enough. What draws people to your site and its products and services is content.  Regurgitating something that someone else has said is pointless; you need to create compelling, well-written and informative content, and you need to update it frequently.  If you have a knack for writing, enjoy it and have the time, do it yourself.  If writing isn’t necessarily your forte, hire a professional – it is well worth the money.

* Note: For over a year I have been using www.TextBroker.com for unique conetent generation on all of my new niche affiliate web sites.  In a word this service is AWESOME!

Submit To Article Directories

Assuming that you’re heeding the first bit of advice in this article and are selling something that you know and love, writing informative articles about it should come pretty naturally.  Those articles can be submitted to various article directories around the Internet, along with links to your website or to specific landing pages. In order to attract attention and traffic, those articles will have to be professional and should include a decent percentage of strategically selected keywords.  Educate yourself about the top article directory sites, then start generating articles for them.  Over time, your affiliate marketing business will truly start booming.

* Note: Online Marketing Research has put together a good list of quality article directories ranked by their Alexa rank.  I’m not going to recreate the wheel so here’s the link: http://www.seoresearcher.com/articles-directories-list-alexa-rating-ordered.htm

Create Topnotch Landing Pages

Landing pages are the bread and butter of many top affiliate marketers.  Basically, a landing page is a place where a person is directed after clicking on a link or an ad. In a succinct and direct way, landing pages convey what the visitor can expect and don’t require a lot of reading or involvement.  They can be used in a number of different ways, too, including:

• To Direct Traffic To Your Site – The most popular and basic goal of many landing pages is to funnel visitors to your affiliate marketing site.  Such a landing site will include compelling language within a link – usually called “anchor text” – to direct people to your website.
• To Extend An Offer – Landing pages are sometimes used to direct people to special offers, deals or sales on your affiliate marketing goods.  Sometimes, clicking the link on a landing site might send a visitor directly to the sales page for a specific product; other times, clicking that link might send them to a group of related products. The choice is up to you.
• To Allow People To Participate – You can use a landing page to link people up to follow you on Twitter, sign up for an email group or to become a fan of yours on Facebook.  The possibilities are endless, and they all add up to excellent marketing tools.

* Note: One of the best free resources to learn everything about landing pages can be found here: http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-pages/

So there you go.  If you’re just starting out in affiliate marketing I hope these quick tips and resources will help you out.  Aloha!