We’ve all been there. You sign up for an affiliate program and get an affiliate link… and then you stare at it. Staring at an affiliate link will not make you money. Also, spamming the link via myspace or forums. If you do, stop it…it’s either illegal or should be illegal. In this short article, I will give you 5 steps in the right direction.
#1
Buy a domain name and a hosting package. The best way to get something indexed online for people to see is to put it there on “virtual real estate” that you own. Remember, you don’t get anything for nothing, so tap some cash and start building your own site.
#2
Equip yourself with all the free tools you can get. Don’t own Adobe Dreamweaver? No worries, NVU or Trellian Web Page are two free site builders that will take you to an acceptable level of web design. Hey, it’s free. Bookmark http://www.download.com, you can find tons of free software there, and even better, you can filter out trial software and only search for free license software (meaning it’s really, really free).
#3
Build your own email list. This is another step that is crucial if you want to earn a significant amount of income online. Some of the clients I work with can make sales just because they can promote 50,000+ targeted leads with the click of a button. I recommend 1shoppincart.com for beginners. First, it’s affordable, and if you ever want to create your own product, you can upgrade your service level to add a Shopping Cart. For now, you just want to collect leads through a squeeze page or newsletter.
#4
Get a blog and use it. Blogs are free. Get one and update it daily.
#5
Practice Pay-Per-Click advertising. It might not be for you, so create a Google AdWords account and give it a try. You can set a budget, so keep that in mind when testing it. I personally did my first audit of PPC sales as an affiliate of dentalplans.com. PPC is incredibly complex now, so you might want to do some research before changing your strategy.
Well, these are my 5 steps. All of them can and are easily expanded into their own science. Now you get an idea of what it takes to earn income online through affiliate programs…lots of work. Don’t worry, but once you learn it well, it will look easy. Like anything in life, the beginning is not easy, but affiliate marketing can be incredibly rewarding.
Hello, see you there.
– Jared Masa
