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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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 »

Just in case you are still struggling with finding a good niche to begin your internet marketing journey, I thought I’d give you a couple more places to look for ideas for niches.

Magazines

Look at the magazine covers. Magazines have a huge research budget so any story that has made it onto the fron cover of a magazine has a large potential audience. You can check out what’s hot by heading down to your local newstand or check out www.magazines.com. This website has magazines under any category you can imagine. Just browse through and look at all of the front covers.See which topics are popular and what they are publishing articles about. If a magazine has devoted several pages to an article on a particular topic then you know there are people out there who are interested in that topic.

Dummies books

If someone has taken the time to write a Dummies book about a topic then you can be sure there is a hungry market out there. Either the bookshop or Amazon.com is the place to look for Dummies books.

While you are at Amazon.com you might also want to check out the best-seller lists. The top 10 best-sellers might give you an idea of a profitable niche.

And always remember you can never be too rich, too thin or too beautiful!

Still stuck? – Ask yourself the right questions

What products do I use everyday?

What videos are popular right now?
You can check out the top 10 videos on YouTube.

What are my friends and family talking about?

What are the issues being discussed on current affair shows and morning TV? Read more »

This is the most important thing you will ever read about affiliate marketing –

Before you choose the product that you want to sell make sure that there are people out there who want to buy it.

There is no point in spending time and money trying to sell something that seems like a good idea to you but that no-one else can see the need for. This seems extremely obvious but many internet marketing newbies and even those that are moderately successful will tell you at one time or another that they too have fallen into the trap of trying to sell or promote something that nobody wants. It’s even worse when you spend a lot of time creating and developing a product without first checking that there is a market out there.

Niche Marketing

The next thing that you want to consider when choosing the product that you want to promote is how much competition there is. Some of the most profitable markets on the internet are related to health, wealth and happiness but these are the most competitive as well. If you choose a market with a large amount of competition it will take much longer for you to get a result. Whilst you are learning I suggest that you pick a less competitive market so that you have small successes before you get discouraged. The major reason that people don’t succeed in internet marketing is that they give up way too early.If you pick a smaller goal to begin with you will have small successes and this will encourage you to keep going. If your target is too large to begin with then you may not have enough determination and persistence to keep going. Set yourself up for success rather than failure by using effective strategies. Read more »