Affiliate Marketing Guide To A Monthly Online Income

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.......
Contents:

o Still in Vacation Mode

o Setting Online Goals

o Affiliate Marketing Guide To A Monthly Online Income

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o Still In Vacation Mode

Summertime is always the slowest time of
year for my sites - mainly because they deal
with online businesses or services. Everyone
is either on vacation or going on vacation.

Everything slows down in the summer.

Online marketing or anything dealing with
Internet Marketing usually drops a little in
the summer months, then picks up again around
Labor Day.

I am usually in vacation mode myself in the
summertime (casualty of being a former teacher)
- it's a time for relatives, cabin parties and
backyard BBQs... I don't work as hard in the
summer.

Ironically, the summer months are some of my
best months for online earnings and it has
mainly to do with 'back to school' sales.

I target this market with one section of my site
and it has proved extremely profitable. Since I
knew the Online marketing sector slows down,
I needed a niche market that's very active in
the summer months.

Back to School supplies (mainly laptops in my case)
are very good affiliate products to promote during
this time. All the major laptop makers have
'back to school' sales and promotions - you just
have to place these on your sites and the sales
pour in...

I mention all this because if you're an affiliate
marketer you must keep your targeted customers
in mind and take full advantage when buyers are
ready to buy.

The 'Back To School' market is a perfect example
when buyers are ready to buy... supply them with
a good bargain or deal thru your affiliate links
and you will make sales...

Even while you're on vacation!


o Setting Online Goals


We all have goals. We all set goals.

Some are short term, most are long term.
No matter what your goals are, achieving
them usually takes some effort on your part.

Just because it's the Internet or computers,
doesn't mean you don't have to do the work
or put in some serious learning time.

Most people don't put in the time. I know
this from first-hand experience, I have several
online guides showing people how to build
an opt-in list, how to set-up an online
automatic business... only around 5% ever
complete all the lessons.

Most people don't stick to one system and
complete it or put it into practice. This I
believe is the main reason, 95% of people trying
to earn an online fails. It is not because they
can't do it - it's because they give up on
a system or program before they and it has
a chance to work.

It took me three years before I started seeing
any decent results from my online marketing.
Most of that time was spent learning how
the online stuff works... I had to start
with learning HTML and go from there.

If I had stopped in those first years things
would have turned out very differently.

When I started my sites and affiliate marketing
years ago - my main goal was to make a full-time
living online. Make my living thru affiliate
commissions selling other people's stuff.

I have accomplished that goal.

It's the kind of lifestyle I wanted - I didn't
want the hassle of dealing directly with
customers, taking orders, shipping, customer
support... with affiliate marketing all those
things are taken care of for you... all you have
to do is find the leads or customers and send
them to the companies you're affiliated with
and let them do all the hard work!

If you practice something long enough, you
will get better at it! It's as simple as
that but you must stick to your game plan.

As I became a better affiliate marketer my own
goals started rising... one time I was very pleased
to make 100 bucks a day, now I am kinda disappointed
if I don't make 300 a day.

In Internet Marketing or affiliate marketing
terms this is small change... the major players
properly make that in an hour!

But it's the lifestyle I am after... not the
big bucks... I could easily make a lot more but
it would mean hiring employees and starting a
physical business. Right now all my dealings are
make in the virtual world and it's a one man
operation... if I wanted to really expand, I would
have to form an off-line business and this is not
the route I want to take.

I would also have to create my own marketing products
and sell them - that's another route I could take
to earn the really big bucks!

But we all have our own goals and objectives. We are
all searching for the lifestyle that suits us...
and affiliate marketing suits me to a tee!

I am extremely comfortable with affiliate marketing.
It has been the solution to finding an online
income which I can earn anywhere, anytime. If you're
interested in doing the same, I suggest you
read the following article.

I made a list of all the things you need to do
to succeed at affiliate marketing. I am sure there
are plenty more but these are my own starting
points. These have served me well, they can
do the same for anyone.


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Feature Article
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o Affiliate Marketing Guide To A Monthly Online Income
Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins


Creating an online affiliate marketing system which produces
a monthly income is relatively easy. With one catch, you
have to know exactly what you're doing and how the whole
online marketing system works. Figuring out all the details
can take you years to learn.

What the beginning webmaster or marketer doesn't realize
building a solid online business takes time and patience.
It is not done overnight, despite what the latest marketing
gurus are trying to sell you, it simply takes time and
a lot of hard work to build a solid online business.

First, you must have a basic understanding of how the
Internet works and the future role you will play in it.
You must understand the net is basically an extension
of the real world: it is an enormous virtual playground
as well as a vast storehouse of the world's collective
knowledge. But you must also understand the web is a
global marketplace unlike anything that has been seen
before on this planet.

If you want to be an affiliate marketer you must place
yourself or your site into this whole online environment.
As an affiliate marketer you must play some sort of role
in the transfer of information within this complex structure.

How?

Simply give surfers what they're looking for: information.

Supplying valuable, needed information is your key to
online affiliate success.

Here are some proven affiliate marketing strategies or tips
to get you started on your affiliate marketing career. Each
is a brief summation of some of the factors to keep in mind
as you create your own complex, yet simple, online marketing
system.


1. Acquiring Knowledge

Your first step is to acquire the basic skills and
knowledge needed to run an online site or business.
When I started I had to learn how to write HTML from
scratch and go from there... today there are many online
site builders and WYSIWYG editors to get you started.
Plus, you now have whole online site building systems
you can use - Ken Evoy's SBI comes readily to mind.

No matter which route you follow, you must understand how
an online site works, how to use keywords, how to create
valuable content and how to tie in your affiliate links
with this content... all this basic knowledge you must
acquire.


2. Get The Big Picture: Your Role - Your Content

You must fully understand your role in the whole
online affiliate marketing process. Your content
must be valuable to the Internet user, it must
offer information, solve a problem or offer a
special deal. There must be some reason why the
surfer will use your site to find what they're
looking for on the web. They must benefit in some
way from using your site.

Again, offering valuable, helpful information will
spell online affiliate success for you.


3. Build Your Foundation

You must have your own domain or domains. You must
create your own piece of virtual real estate that
you can build and gradually add to as you proceed.
Be wary of free sites. Don't rent, own your real
estate outright. Your sites will become your valuable
properties you will continue to build for years
to come.

When picking a domain name try to get as close as you
can to the main keyword or keyword phrase represented
by your site's topic. Use hyphens if you have to but
choose a name that is short and can be easily remembered
and typed directly into a browser.

As for site design and layout - a simple solution
is to use a blog format such as the free WordPress
software and host it on your own domain. Extremely
effective way of creating a full-powered content site
without having to worry about learning HTML code or
programing. You can have a website up and running
within minutes.


4. Know Your Partners & Their Products

As an affiliate marketer you will be selling other
people's stuff. You must get to know these future
partners and their marketing systems. Pick affiliate
products directly related to the topic of your site.
Something your visitors are interested in and would
likely purchase after you have supplied them with
valuable information about those products.

A good way to find potential products and partners is
to join the well established major affiliate networks
on the web. These networks represents most of the Top 500
Companies in the world. Affiliate networks like Commission
Junction, LinkShare, Amazon, ClickBank, Shareasale...
these networks have been around for years and offer
excellent payment structures and commission rates.


5. Long Tail Keyword Marketing

Develop content and high rankings for long tail keyword
phrases related to your site's topic. These are some of
the least competitive keywords yet they will also prove
to be the most lucrative for you. Find the long tail
keywords within your niche and exploit them. Using exact
brand names of the affiliate products you're promoting
make for effective long tail keywords.

Consistently use and develop this long tail keyword
strategy and you will succeed at affiliate marketing.



6. Build Your One-Way Links

Take a pro-active approach to link building. Don't sit
around waiting for links, instead go out and get them.
Use your keyword anchor links in the resource box of your
articles. Distribute these articles to all the major
article directories... make sure Ezinearticles.com,
Goarticles.com, ArticleAlley.com... are on your list.

Recommend products that you use, make forum posts,
create viral videos, join social media sites, offer
a free newsletter and build your own subscriber base,
create follow-up autoresponder series on the major
products you promote... these are all ways of creating
traffic and customers.


7. Embrace Google But Don't Ignore the Others

Embrace Google as if your affiliate marketing life
depended on it - chances are it will be!

Google is the search engine that you must optimize for
if you want your site to really succeed online. Don't
ignore the others, but Google has become the most
popular search engine in the world and even accounts
for 50% of all the searches made in the USA. (comScore)

So short of a brown-nose, do everything you can to please
Google. The rewards are worth it. Whether you're a Google
fan or not, Google has gained the trust and respect of
the majority of Internet users. Getting a top 10 placement
for your targeted keywords will often mean money in the bank.


8. Be Aware Of The Social Media Revolution

Be aware the Internet is constantly changing and in the
next few years everything will be turned topsy-turvy. We
are talking about the growing popularity of user-generated
content sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, Digg,
Technorati...

Stay within the flow by making sure any site you create
has a blog and RSS feed attached to it. Make sure all
your content can be easily bookmarked in all these
different social bookmarking sites. One simple solution
is to use the easy bookmarking system supplied by
Addthis.com, place their code on your content pages
and let your visitors bookmark your content for you
in all these different media sites.

9. Model It

In art one of the best ways to learn is to model
or copy the masters. You learn by seeing how
someone else has approached and solved a problem
and then use their model or example. In affiliate
marketing, one of the best ways to learn is to
copy or model your business on one that has already
been proven to work.

This is NOT literal copying of a site or business
but simply modeling your own business on an existing
example that works. Same structure, same marketing
techniques, same principles... building your affiliate
business on an existing mold or model is a wise
route to take if you want to succeed.


10. Be Patient For Results

Building a viable online affiliate business takes some
time so be patient. If you're building a content rich
site and targeting specific keywords it can take months,
sometimes even years, before you obtain significant
results. So have long term goals in place and expect
plenty of hard work before you reap the real rewards.

Just remember becoming a full time online affiliate
marketer is well within anyone's reach. However, like
most things in life, the journey is always much more
enjoyable than your final destination. Many of you will
probably discover, like I did, that 'the reach is the
grasp'. Actually doing something is the main reward,
all those monthly affiliate checks are just pleasant
aftershocks. Very nice aftershocks that add up very
quickly into a healthy monthly online income!



...

Everyone has a story! Mine is called: "In Search Of The $100 Click
or How I Found A Full-Time Online Income And Came To Love The Internet"
It's located here: Online Income
For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools
Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be
freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
...............................................













Kind Regards,

Titus Hoskins

How to Brand Videos with Your Affiliate Links

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BWMagic's Web Marketing News!


Read This Newsletter Online:
http://www.bizwaremagic.blogspot.com






.......
Contents:

o Google Tops The Search Market

o Tapping Into The Social Bookmarketing Sites

o Video Content Is King

o How to Brand Videos with Your Affiliate Links

.......



o Google Tops The Search Market


As reported by ComScore Google now counts for
over half of all the searches done online
in the USA and reaches 70% of surfers 17 and
up.

That's a lot of traffic.

Google has also been named the MOST significant
e-commerce developments of the last decade by
the Software & Information Industry Association.

Anyone with an online site knows Google is vital
to the health of their site. It simply delivers
the most traffic.

This is something webmasters who have managed
#1 rankings for the keywords in all three
engines: MSN, Yahoo! and Google already know.
They can see it in their log stats every day.

Google sends the most traffic.

Not only that but as Google grows in the trust/respect
by the general public, getting listed in Google will
also boost your site in the eyes of your visitors.

But what a lot of people or webmasters don't
realize is that search engine traffic takes up a
very small portion compared to the overall traffic
on the web.

If you visualize all the traffic on the web as a
basketball, then the amount represented by all
the search engines would be a mere ant crawling
around on this basketball! Small indeed!

There's tons of traffic outside the search engines,
in fact many surfers never use the search engines
to find what they're looking for on the web. Most
go directly by typing in their favorite site's URL
and then if they have to search for something, they
do a search within that site, bypassing the search
engines.

For example, if you were checking out movies, you
could go directly to RottenTomatoes.com or click
your bookmark for it and then search within
RottenTomatoes for the movie you want to read
about.

This scenario is played out constantly by
experienced surfers who go directly to the
source of their information, bypassing the
search engines altogether. Many simply type
what they're looking for into their browsers
directly - hotels.com, insurance.com and
so on.

Enormous amounts of traffic never use the search
engines and the searches they do use may be done
once their have reached their desired site.

Savvy webmasters should keep this fact in mind, and
make sure that any visitors coming to their site
can do a side-wide search within the domain to find
what they're looking for. At the very least, you
should have a site-search box on every page of your
site, powered by Google.

Let's look at another example, each month Google's sites
gets around 536 million visitors globally (ComScore) but
Microsoft sites also has around 520 million, while
Yahoo sites draw nearly 470 million.

Keep in mind, it's not just search traffic, many visitors
going to MSN for instant would probably click on any of
the featured links on that homepage... enormous amount of
traffic but not necessarily search traffic. Getting your
links on these front pages and even anywhere on a high
volume site will send tons of traffic your way.

Those who have been Slashdotted or featured on the homepage
of YouTube will tell the amount of traffic you receive
is unreal. Totally overwhelming...

That's why it is important not to become too dependent
on only search engine traffic... build links and connections
so you get other sources of traffic flowing into
your sites. Don't concentrate all your efforts on
the search engines - tap into the much larger reservoir
of traffic on the web.


o Tapping Into The Social Bookmarking Sites


You don't need a crystal ball to tell you that
social bookmarking and user-content driven
sites are the wave of the future. Actually,
they are already the future on the web.

Sites like YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, CraigsList,
Digg, Squidoo... this is where you will find most
of the traffic on the web. A whole basketball full!

You must have some way to tap into all this non-search
traffic. You must be able to connect your site to
all this traffic in some way.

One simple solution is to become a part of these
sites and contribute content with links back to
your site. Another rather way is to advertise
directly on these sites, depending on the site
this can be expensive.

Another easier way to use all these bookmarking
sites is to have some type of program or system that
lets your users quickly and easily bookmark your
site or content for you!

One such program is the AddThis bookmark program.
It's free and very simple to use. You simple put
a bookmark on your pages and your users can easily
bookmark your page in all the popular bookmarking
sites.

Get the code here:

www.addthis.com



I have been using this simple bookmarking program
and it was rather surprising to see just what content
on my sites users found valuable enough to bookmark
it. It was not what I expected but that's another
story for another day.

Of course, this is a very simple way of getting traffic
but more importantly it is a very passive, yet effective
way of building One-Way links to your site. Building
a lot of One-Way links from quality sites is your
main expressway to any type of online earnings.

At least from my experience this has been the case. Get
those One-way links from quality sites and your link
popularity will go up, then your rankings in all the
search engines will start hitting the first page and
the traffic pours in, bringing sales and customers.

Try the AddThis bookmark program. Simply way to connect
your content to all these social media sites. Once
you have the simple code in place, your visitors
will do all the work for you and some visitors will
even thank you while they're doing it.

How great is that?

...........

o Video Content Is King


Everyone knows quality Content Is King on
the net. That sentiment may have to be changed
very soon to 'Video Content Is King'.

Video is taking over the web. It is changing
how information and content is presented. It is
changing how surfers receive their information.

Much of the web's content is or will be switching
over to video. Presented more in a TV style
presentation rather than a straight forward book
format - we will watch rather than read to get our
information from the web in the future. As mentioned
before, the future is already here.

We will watch and listen.

A couple of years ago, when I wrote articles about RSS
and mentioned we would have a "Billion Channel Internet"
very soon - this statement drew some strange comments
and most people didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

Google it to find my articles:
Billion+Channel+Internet


Everything evolves, even the web.

But given the important of video and RSS now, it is easy
to see the web is evolving into channel driven (like TV)
universe where you get the majority of your information
by watching and listening.

On a more practical site, anyone who has been following
online trends or marketing patterns on the web for any
length of time will tell video has come on really strong.
It is hard to remember that we actually did product
launches without videos or blogs not very long ago.

It is very hard to imagine a major product launch now
without a video or two to promote the launch.

Video has quickly become the mainstream on the web
so you must take advantage of it. Producing your own
videos can be very simple and inexpensive to do.

Any online marketer should also be using videos produced
for them by their affiliate programs. I saw a marked
increase in my affiliate sales for Ken Evoy's popular
site building program SBI once I started using videos
on my sites.

You should be doing the same with your affiliate
marketing.

Of course, there was one problem with using videos with
your affiliate programs - how to attach your affiliate
link to your video.

Where there is a problem, there are marketers that will
quickly come up with a solution. Now there is an easy to
attach your affiliate link to any video.

...

o How to Brand Videos with Your Affiliate Links


Videos are all the rage on the web. Video marketing
is just in its early stages but those marketers who
are now using videos to demonstrate and sell their
products are reaping the rewards: i.e. more sales.

Branding videos with your affiliate ID or link can
increase your sales. We are talking about videos
where the owners have given you expressed permission
to brand the videos with your links. You shouldn't brand
any video where you don't permission - this will probably
get you into a lot of legal trouble. Besides, it
not nice!

Many affiliate programs like SBI will supply you
with videos which already have your affiliate links
embedded. However, most affiliate programs don't give
you your own branded videos and this has been a major
problem until now.

Now you can brand any video with your affiliate
links thru a simple software program called
Affiliate Video Brander, created by Eric Holmlund
& Michael Nicholas.

You can now brand your own Videos.

If you have used videos in your marketing before,
you will probably find the download times can
be a bit slow, especially if it's a popular video.
Now with this program, you can use your own servers
and speed up those download times.

Videos are becoming very popular learning tools
especially for complicated subject matter. Potential
customers like finding out important facts before
buying a product. Many also like having a complicated
process explained in video format rather just
reading tons of text on a webpage. Video simply
does a better job of explaining things quickly and
easily.

Having your affiliate ID linked to this valuable
content is one sure way of not only increasing your
sales but also a good way to increase the usefulness
of your site to your visitors. Always have their
best interests as the heart of your site.

Affiliate marketing is all about giving valuable
content first and then making the sale. Branded
videos fit perfectly into this pre-sell model that
has worked extremely well for thousands of successful
affiliate marketers on the web.

Don't lose out on this very popular marketing trend,
start branding your own videos with your affiliate links
right now.

Get the Video Brander ==>







Kind Regards,

Titus Hoskins