You have probably heard about affiliate programs. You promote
somebody else's product and get a commission when a visitor you
refer buys the product. Many people quickly sign up for these
programs, place the affiliate link on their website expecting
sales to roll in like an avalanche, but are soon disappointed.
Being a successful affiliate requires discipline, creativity and
strategy. One can write a book about how to be a successful
affiliate, but in this article I will focus on a strategy that
can make you a top selling affiliate even if you don't have a
website.
What affiliate program you should choose? Well, it's up to you,
there are many to choose from. I recommend using ClickBank,
since they have over 10,000 digital products and rank their
products based on number of affiliate sales each product is
generating. I suggest selecting a product that gives you at
least $20 commission on a sale. Products with lower commissions
are simply not worth promoting, because promotion is going to
cost you money.
The main advantage of an affiliate program is that you don't
have to develop your own product to sell. The product is there;
your efforts must be focused on promoting it. One of the best
ways of promoting a product, when you don't have a high traffic
website, is using Pay Per Click advertising.
Pay per click advertising is the hottest new marketing medium.
Pioneered by Overture, PPC advertising is offered by major
search engines including Google. PPC method allows an advertiser
to bid on specific keywords and when a search engine user is
searching for that particular keyword, the advertiser's add
appears in the search results. You get charged only when that
user click on the ad. For example, an advertiser may bid on the
word "camera." When a user searches for the word "camera," the
advertiser's ad would appear in the search results. The rank of
the ad in the search results depends on the advertiser's bid,
since the highest bidder gets the top position.
Which search engine should you use to promote your affiliate
product? I recommend using Google's AdWords.
PPC advertising is quite effective for promoting affiliate
programs, especially if you don't have a website. When you sign
up for ClickBank or some other affiliate program, you will be
given a nickname or an affiliate code that you must insert
inside a link used to direct people to the vendor's sales page.
In a PPC advertising campaign this will be the destination link.
For example, let's say you have signed up with ClickBank and
have decided to promote an ebook about weight loss. You open an
account with Google AdWords, and create an add for this
particular ebook. When creating your add, you will be asked to
enter a destination url, this is the address of the website that
the user will be taken to when they click on your add. You must
use your affiliate name or code inside this destination url or
link, so that when the user clicks on your add and is taken to
the vendor's sales page and subsequently purchases a product you
will get your commission. As you can see, you do not need a
website to promote an affiliate product. You can use the PPC add
to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate's sales page, and
when someone from this pool of traffic purchases the product,
you get a commission. More sales you generate, more money you
make.
When setting up your add you have to decide which keywords you
will bid on. Google has a keyword suggestion tool but it does
not tell you how many times a keyword was searched in the past.
I recommend using another free
keyword
suggestion tool. This amazing tool tells you the number of
searches that were conducted both on Overture and Wordtracker
throughout the previous month for each keyword phrase. This
should give you good idea what words and phrases are being
searched by search engine users and enable you to target your
keywords accordingly.
When writing your PPC add, you must use a catchy headline to get
the viewer to click on your add. I suggest using words like
achieve, discover, lose, make, overcome, protect, enjoy,
enhance, satisfy, seek, win. These words have a psychological
effect on humans and have been statistically proven to get
people's attention. Of course, your headline must fit the
product you are promoting. In the body of your add describe some
of the benefits of the product and include a call to action.
Tell the viewer what you want them to do: buy, order, download.
After your add goes live, you should monitor it and see how many
clicks you are getting. If you are not getting enough clicks,
modify your add and try a different headline.
Mastering PPC advertising takes time, but once you know what
you're doing, you can promote any affiliate program and make
good money doing it. I know several affiliates that make a
comfortable living by promoting affiliate products using solely
PPC advertising. If you want to learn more about using PPC
advertising to make money, I recommend an excellent book by
Chris Carpenter called
GoogleCash<
/A>. I recommend this book because it is a step-by-step guide
filled with practical and real examples. Remember, the worst
thing an affiliate can do is give up easily. Set a strategy,
stick by it and you will succeed. Good Luck.
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