LeeLee Meyers’ Blog

Affiliate programs online are big and growing bigger everyday.  Don’t let anyone tell you affiliate programs are dead.  They are very much alive.  And don’t let anyone tell you that you will be an overnight success.  You won’t.  You have a better chance of winning the lottery.  But you can be a successful affiliate marketer if you are willing to put in the time and work.  The beauty of affiliate marketing is that your upfront investments are small.  So your risk is also small.  And if you run your business like a professional enterprise, your payoffs can grow. 

Affiliate marketing is simple.  An affiliate promotes a product or service and gets paid a commission when some action is taken.  Depending on the affiliate program you join, you may get paid when a sale occurs.  But some programs pay you simply to deliver a visitor to the sales site or when someone fills out a form or subscription. 

You have two main jobs as an affiliate marketing professional.  Your first job is to choose your programs wisely.  An established program with a good reputation is a good place to start.  Keep in mind that you will do the same work to market for a low paying program as you will for a higher paying program.  Your second job is to drive traffic to the point of sale.  And this takes a website.  Don’t run in terror quite yet.  Today’s blogging platforms make a website doable for a lot of people. 

No doubt you will see ads that claim you can make money without a website.  That is true but it will take you either a lot longer to succeed or cost you a lot of money.  How so?  Well you can buy a domain name and (for the non-tech people) essentially attach a link to the sales page.  You promote your domain name via articles and by posting at forums,  blogs, social bookmarking and media sites to name a few.  But… not every site will welcome your self promotion.

Which leads me to the other way to make money without a website.  It is called pay per click.  The simplest way to put it is you buy ad accessibility on search engines.  You pay for the words you think people will type in their searches.  Your ad will be shown during that search or on that webpage.  If someone clicks on your ad you will pay.  If someone buys after clicking on your ad you make money.  If not, you are out money. 

Yes it can be done without a website but…. There is a trend in affiliate marketing to move away from these techniques.  Two of the biggest affiliate marketing programs in the world are removing pay per click as allowable ways to bring in business.  Pay per click is not dead and if you have a big enough business, you will still use it to bring traffic to your site but you will not be able to make a direct link to the sales site.

Also, many of the better affiliate companies request that you have a website and they even check that site manually to see if you are a serious marketer.  The days of being able to affiliate market without a website are dwindling.  And with good reason.  Think of it as a consumer rather than a seller.  You are interested in buying jelly beans.  You do a search online for “buy jelly beans”.  You click a link that takes you straight to the sales page.  Do you buy?  Probably not.  Before you buy, you may want to compare prices or brands or flavors or personal experiences.  Where will you get this information?  From a good webpage.  Let’s presume now that you click over to my blog.  I love jelly beans and my passion for them shows with the information I present on my blog.  First you will get a good feeling about me and jelly beans.  Then you may want to buy on my recommendation.  So you click my ad and buy from the sales page. 

I have heard affiliate marketers complain about having to provide good “content” at their website.  They have this notion that the search engines exist to bring them business.  The search engines exist to serve the searcher and provide them with a positive experience.  Understand this and you will have a lot less angst as you move forward with your affiliate marketing business.  Forums are websites paid for by someone, sometimes out of pure love for a topic but also to sell something be it a book or membership.  They will often allow you a bit of self promotion if you contribute positively to their site but they are not there for the sole purpose of posting your link.

So what do you need to succeed in affiliate marketing? 

1. Professionalism – treat your business like you would if you were paying thousands a month for a store front.  Make a plan.  Show up everyday and work that plan consistently.  Plan on a website or blog.

2. Patience – the odds of making a full time living overnight are astronomically against you.  The odds of making a full time living in the future are very much in your favor. 

3. Value – give your customers value.  Make a visit to your website/blog a good experience.  Try to provide useful information and your well thought out opinions.  You don’t have to be the sole source of the info.  You can bring in experts and posts with permission from other sites.  A little cross promotion is a benefit to each. 

If you dream of quitting your job.  If you want to make it in a business of your own.  Affiliate marketing is a low risk way to test the market and your mettle.