Well, it has been a little longer than usual since I posted on this blog and for those of you who visit regularly, I apologize for the break.
However, I am happy to say that, although I almost gave up on this project – the fact is I am back and so, I haven’t given up.

So firstly, back to something I wrote in one of the earlier mindset posts:

Never, ever, ever give up! (top 10 qualities of successful entrepreneurs)

Roadblock

There is no such thing as an overnight success!

As I listen to the stories of the successful internet marketers that I admire, I am struck by the similarity in their stories. There is always a big reason why they have pursued the internet marketing dream. Also, they had to experience a lot of failure before they achieved success. For most of them, the road to success was neither short nor easy and there were many obstacles that needed to be manoeuvred past along the way. Most of the successful internet marketers spent at least a couple of years honing their craft.

I have found, this week, that when I became discouraged about my lack of progress both on this blog and on other projects that I have been working on, it is good to stop and listen to the experience of others.

I visit the blogs of James Schramko, Yaro Starak and John Carlton fairly regularly to get an information fix but when I need some encouragement to stick with it and keep going there is nothing better than listening to the story of a successful, internet entrepreneur and how they got started. When you listen to story like this it makes you realize that their success didn’t happen overnight. It did not happen easily and they faced as many obstacles as I am facing right now. The reason that they are able to tell their story and that many people listen to them (and buy their stuff) is because they didn’t give up.

As I learn more about internet marketing and the things that need to be done to bring traffic to a website I have realized that although most of the work is not hard to do – it takes a lot of time and is definitely not that exciting!

One of the many ways to get traffic to your site is to develop backlinks. There are many ways to do this and I will go into this in further detail when I get to the traffic posts. But the fact is, to get traffic to a website you need to complete many small repetitive, time-consuming tasks on a regular, consistent basis. For me, I have two problems with this – one I get bored easily and I don’t like doing repetitive, boring, time-consuming tasks. I decided to pursue internet marketing because I am interested in giving myself more time to do the things I enjoy doing, not to give myself an extra job which is more tedious than the one I already do!

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So if you have been following this blog you will have chosen your affiliate product and you now have an affiliate link that looks something like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?ref=abcd1234

The next question is what do I do with this ugly looking domain name (URL)?

The easiest thing to do is use the raw affiliate link to drive traffic to the product sales page and collect the commissions. However in this case the simplest is definitely NOT the best.

Reasons NOT to use the Raw Affiliate Link

1. People trust direct links with normal looking URLs more than they trust an affiliate link with lots of foreign looking code.

2.The long ugly affiliate link can also drive potential customers away from your site which is exactly what you don’t want to happen.

3. If your raw affiliate link is visible then people can either chop off the code bit at the end of the affiliate link and you lose your commission or worse still they can substitute their own affiliate link for yours and once again you lose your commission for the sale!

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When you start out on your internet marketing journey there are many mistakes to make and if you find someone whose information you trust then you may be able to learn how to avoid some critical internet marketing newbie mistakes as well. Subscribe to my internet marketing newbie top 10 mistakes to avoid report for some of the most common mistakes to avoid.

Internet Marketing Mistake

If I can offer some advice on making mistakes it is this: make as many mistakes as you can as fast as you can. You will not become a successful internet entrepreneur without making mistakes so make them early when the impact on your bottom line will be less.

This a mistake that I relate from personal experience that did NOT make it onto the report above (maybe I shouldn’t have stopped at 10!)

Backup is Critical!

Imagine that you have been busy working away at your internet marketing business for a few months and have quite a few projects on the go, when one morning you wake up and go to your computer to check your email. You gently nudge the mouse to wake up your computer and nothing happens (a bit like trying to wake up your teenager for school). Another nudge, this time a bit more forcefully and still nothing. You check that the power to the computer is on and try again – still nothing. It’s time to try rebooting – it takes forever and a few worrying messages are displayed then it gets stuck halfway through the reboot.

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A quick recap on what we have covered so far…

The first post on affiliate marketing explained how affiliate programs work and that all are free affiliate programs.Then we discussed finding a niche and there were heaps of ideas from James Schramko’s video about what kinds of products you can promote on the internet. Lastly we talked about how to find a niche market product that will be profitable.

So now that you have chosen your market and you know that people are looking for solutions to their problems in your market, you need to find a specific product. After you have found the exact product that you want to promote, make sure you save your affiliate link somewhere you can find it again!

Places to Find Free Affiliate Programs

1. Clickbank

Go to the clickbank marketplace and see what comes up when you type in your chosen keyword.
There are a few things to understand about clickbank. It is a place where you can find products to promote on many, many different topics and keywords but there have to be able to be delivered digitally. This means you can’t sell physical products through clickbank.

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So by now you should have quite a few ideas for different niches that you want to promote products in. Before you start looking for a specific product in your chosen niche it is wise to make sure that you have chosen a niche that has commercial opportunities.

Product Test No. 1

Does it solve a problem?

If your product/niche solves a problem for your potential client then you are much more likely to find people willing to spend money on your product. Examples of products that solve a problem:

Learn how to lose weight fast
How to give up smoking effortlessly
How to stop your baby crying and get a good nights sleep

Look out for words or phrases that signal a person would like to buy a product or service. Things like: how to, stop, get, buy, learn, order. If you include these kinds of words on your webpage then you are more likely to attract people who intend to spend money rather than those looking for freebies.

Product Test No. 2

Is it already selling?

To find out if there already is a market for the product that you wish to sell then you need to see if other people are already selling it.

Type your product into the Google search engine and see if there are any paid ads. The paid ads are usually the first couple of listings on the left hand column and all of the listings down the right hand side of the Google search results page.

If other people are willing to spend money on PPC in that market they must be making money! If there are pages and pages of PPC ads then you may have found a very competitive market and it might be a good idea to start with something less competitive. Either choose a new niche or become more specific within the niche that you have chosen. Read more »