Secrets Of Affiliate Marketing Success

Tried and true affiliate marketing strategies

There are certain truths in affiliate marketing.

        1.) You will never run out of "the latest and greatest, guaranteed to make you millions" products to buy.

         2.) It is a business and should be treated as such.

         3.) Most successful affiliate marketers keep their secrets close to their chest. You may get a taste of it but not all the information needed. Why is this?   

Much like a magician, successful affiliate marketers don't want you to know their secrets because they work. If everyone knew their secret to success, its effectiveness would be diminished. I keep this line of thinking at the front of my mind any time I am considering trying a new affiliate marketing product. If an affiliate marketer claims to make millions of dollars per month by simply promoting their affiliates why are they willing to share it with me in an ebook for $9.99? If I were making millions in a month and could show you exactly how to do it I would think my knowledge would be worth more than $10. There are definite exceptions to this rule. Rich Jerk is one that comes to mind. The sheer volume of sales at $9.99 each would make it worth my time.

I am not at the million dollar level yet. I generally can make between $1000-$2000 per week. Now I don't know about you but in my world that is a pretty good living. With the money I make my knowledge must be worth about a nickel, right? Good. We can agree on one thing. Well keep your shiny nickel because I am going to give you some of my secrets of affiliate marketing success for free!

Successful Affiliate Marketing Secret #1 

Find a niche   

Becoming successful promoting affiliate marketing tools can be very difficult. It is an entry level of affiliate marketing that is completely saturated. Most any affiliate marketing ebook you buy will tell you(and anyone else listening for that matter)how to promote affiliate programs. I promote affiliate programs and anything you need to become a successful affiliate marketer. I am good at what I do, unfortunately, most aren't. They become frustrated with their lack of production and give up too early. Jack of all trades but master of none. But promoting affiliate marketing programs is not where I make the most money. I make the most money with my detailed, specific niches.      

The so called gurus may also tell you to find a niche. But this is usually done in a passing manner when it should be highlighted and expanded on. When I first got into affiliate marketing I thought I could conquer the world. I was smarter than anyone who had gone before me and failed. I would be the next great thing...this can be a very humbling business. It took some time for the bell to go off in my head to apply what I had learned from promoting affiliate marketing products to other smaller niches.

Lets look at some numbers. A recent Google search for "affiliate marketing" returned 16,900,000 results. A separate Google search returned 394,000 results for the term "niche finder". The same terms searched on Yahoo were 72,500,000 and 1,250,000 respectively. Which area do you believe is a better bet for you to break through to the top 10 searched results? Its a no brainer. By finding a specific niche (like "niche finder") instead of a broad area ("affiliate marketing") you can target your audience with search engine optimization techniques and blow by the competition.

You can become an affiliate of most anything your heart desires. Do you like to golf? Start a golf website and receive a commission every time someone buys a golf product through you. Even better, follow the secret to success I have just outlined for you and start a website for and about putters. Find a specific, detailed niche and become the master. You get the idea.

If you need help finding a profitable niche I recommend using Micro Niche Tool . I have found it to be very effective at analyzing which niche markets to get into. I was amazed the first time I used it. It saved me the time of doing all the manual research which can be mind numbingly boring.   

Successful Affiliate Marketing Secret #2 

Content is king

So you found your niche, bought a domain name, set up your hosting, used your website creation software to create the coolest website on the internet. You finally get it live and several months go by with little to no traffic. What happened? One of the biggest mistakes new affiliate marketers make is thinking they can set up a site, slap some affiliate banners (banner farm, anyone?) on there and wait to cash the checks. This just simply is not the case. You MUST have unique, useful content to have a snowballs chance at ever succeeding.

But wait, you might say, I copied and pasted a ton of articles from ezinearticles and articlecity. That is a lot of content. It sure is but it is not enough and never will be. You must have unique content. How many others downloaded the same articles as you? If it was any good I can guarantee you aren't the only one with that article on your site.

The search engine spiders crawling your site look for content that is exclusive to your site.  You have two options. Either create your own content or buy articles. One requires work while the other means you need to open your wallet. I don't like the extra work involved with writing my own content and I hold onto my wallet tighter than my firstborn. But either option you choose will pay huge dividends in the long run.

Using the free article services is a good idea to a point. The two problems I have with them is they can be overused, meaning there is nothing unique about that content. The other problem is unless you are a complete jerk and enjoy violating copyright laws you have to include the authors link back to their site. This can mean once a visitor (read potential customer) reads the downloaded article they may be inclined to click on the author's link. Goodbye potential sale.

Free articles are good in moderation. They are also a good source of links and I am a big proponent of submitting articles to directories for the extra traffica and backlinks provided. Find a healthy balance between the free and original articles/content and you will find your site climbing to the top of the search engines.   

You can also easily create your own unique high quality content with Instant Article Wizard. A computer programmer found a way to write an article on any subject in just minutes. Even if you know nothing about that subject. I have used it and love it. 

Successful Affiliate Marketing Secret #3

Copy the best                

If you are getting into real estate who do you want to emulate? Donald Trump, of course. You want to be the greatest basketball player ever? Be like Michael Jordan. Do you want to be the King of Wall Street? Follow in Warren Buffett's shoes.

To be a successful affiliate marketer do the things and use the same products as the best affiliate marketers. You can find several affiliate marketing products right here on our site.

Find a successful affiliate marketer and study their habits. See what they do. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. If you know someone has a successful practice, don't try to change it or make it better. Do it.

Google Assassin was recently released to do this for you. They will show you the guru's websites, what they are doing and how they are cashing in. You get a peek behind the scenes. They will show you how to legally clone a website taking all the thought and work out of starting in affiliate marketing.

Secret Bonus Tips               

*You can learn a lot of information from subscribing to newsletters. I believe this to be a very good way to get differing viewpoints on similar subjects. Go to yahoo or msn and set up a free dummy email account just for this purpose. You do not want to use your everyday email. While most websites are legitimate there are others out there that will spam you until you can't see straight. Who wants to sift through spam to get to their really important email.

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