When first starting out, looking for a business that you can set up on the internet and run from home it is very easy to become swamped in all the information, offers and advice that is available. As some one who is very new to the market (a “Newbie”) how are you supposed to know whom to trust? What is the correct information? Who is giving the best advice? What you are after is a tested & proven home based business idea and opportunity but how can you tell which is which?
There are things that you can do to protect yourself and you need to because, unfortunately, there are still many, many scams out there being run by unscrupulous people who are after your cash. The thing you have to remember is that the good guys are after your cash too. The difference is they will then give you something of value in return and try to help you achieve your aims, that is they will give you a tested and proven home based business idea or opportunity!
So, the first thing you should do to protect yourself is to ensure that your credit cards are locked in a cupboard in another room whilst you first peruse the market. This is because the sales pages, whether genuine or scam, are designed to elicit an emotional response from you that makes you part with your hard earned cash without analysing everything fully. By keeping your cards in a separate room you will find yourself more able to resist the temptation to buy without fully analysing the product. (this is also a good learning experience in marketing by noting which words in the sales pitch have you itching to reach for your plastic!)
The second way you can protect yourself is to only look at products that are supported by an established and respected source, for example commission junction or clickbank. These two sources are well respected and provide you with some protection through money back and returns policies. These are not the only two sources just two of the better-known ones.
The third way of protecting yourself is to research the product thoroughly. You should make a short list of products that you are interested in promoting. Once this list is completed you should carry out searches looking for other peoples comments on the products in forums and articles to see if there are any negative statements or whether previous buyers have been happy with their purchases.
The fourth way you can protect yourself is to research the author of the product. How long have they been around? What other products have they been involved with? Are there any black marks against their names? This is actually fairly easy to do since most product authors have spent time building up a reputation online, a quick “Google” of their name should produce plenty of feedback, at least enough for you to decide if you wish to be involved with their product or not.
Finally though it comes down to you. After all your research, you have to go with the products and authors that you think are legitimate. By following the steps above, you can greatly reduce the chance of becoming the next victim of a scam. I can not guarantee that you will never get scammed but usually they are easy to spot and by following my steps above you should end up only looking at truly tested and proven home based business ideas and opportunities
Neil Mansley is the owner of NeilMansley.com and writes articles about his experiences in the affiliate marketing industry. To learn more Neil recommends you visit Tested & proven home based business ideas and opportunities and for a great way to start in affiliate marketing you could try NeilMansley.com/pips
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Secrets of Super Affiliate Marketers.
Now, when I say Super Affiliate Marketers I mean those guys and girls who are in that top one- percent of the three percent who actually make a living out of affiliate marketing. Not the ninety seven percent that fail to sell anything and not the two- percent of the three- percent who just get by or who make a moderate amount through their efforts.
Now that top one- percent will include people like Stone Evans and Ewan Chia, you know the ones. Those who are making a seriously disgusting amount of money from affiliate marketing, those that we all wish we could emulate or even better. So what makes them so special? What skills do they have that the rest of us lack? In truth, without wishing to insult anyone, probably none.
The real difference between the Super Affiliates and we mere mortals, the secret to their success, is knowledge. They have mastered the lessons that we are learning now. They have gained the experience that we seek. And, probably most importantly, they employ what they have learned to always improve their techniques.
Whilst we flounder through the masses of hype laden sales pitches of other affiliates, enticing us to buy their latest marketing strategy, (which will, of course, increase both your opt-ins and your sales by some unbelievably extravagant percentage). The Super Affiliate has learned which strategies basically do work and which do not. They spend more of their time developing tweaks to those strategies to improve their percentages.
I know I used to imagine Super Affiliates as people who spend very little time on the Internet whilst money just flowed into their accounts and they got richer and richer. Having had a little longer to explore affiliate marketing now I understand that this is most definitely not the case. They may not have to work as hard as say you or I to make money but they still do. More over they work smarter than we do; they have learned all the little short cuts that you can employ to get the job done quicker. They also understand that the only people who really get rich in any market are those who have their own product to sell so they must spend some time developing new products for niches that interest them.
I also believe that they must have multiple irons in the fire. In my short time in affiliate marketing I have quickly come to realise that you are unlikely to find just one product that will make you rich and you must generate many small lines of profit if you wish to have a sustained income.
The final thing that I have noticed that the Super Affiliates do and we should all (we mere mortals anyway) be grateful for this, is they love to teach others how to emulate them! Of course they will charge you for the privilege, but then that is their right and to learn from people whose names you have seen all over the Internet is a wonderful experience. You know in advance that they have “made it”, so you also know that what they tell you is the genuine article, the breadcrumbs that will lead you on your trial to success, all you have to do is learn what they tell you and then act upon it!
Neil Mansley is owner of NeilMansley.com and writes articles about his experiences in the affiliate marketing industry. To learn more Neil recommends you visit NeilMansley.com/SuperAffiliates and for a great way to start affiliate marketing you could try NeilMansley.com/pips
Now that top one- percent will include people like Stone Evans and Ewan Chia, you know the ones. Those who are making a seriously disgusting amount of money from affiliate marketing, those that we all wish we could emulate or even better. So what makes them so special? What skills do they have that the rest of us lack? In truth, without wishing to insult anyone, probably none.
The real difference between the Super Affiliates and we mere mortals, the secret to their success, is knowledge. They have mastered the lessons that we are learning now. They have gained the experience that we seek. And, probably most importantly, they employ what they have learned to always improve their techniques.
Whilst we flounder through the masses of hype laden sales pitches of other affiliates, enticing us to buy their latest marketing strategy, (which will, of course, increase both your opt-ins and your sales by some unbelievably extravagant percentage). The Super Affiliate has learned which strategies basically do work and which do not. They spend more of their time developing tweaks to those strategies to improve their percentages.
I know I used to imagine Super Affiliates as people who spend very little time on the Internet whilst money just flowed into their accounts and they got richer and richer. Having had a little longer to explore affiliate marketing now I understand that this is most definitely not the case. They may not have to work as hard as say you or I to make money but they still do. More over they work smarter than we do; they have learned all the little short cuts that you can employ to get the job done quicker. They also understand that the only people who really get rich in any market are those who have their own product to sell so they must spend some time developing new products for niches that interest them.
I also believe that they must have multiple irons in the fire. In my short time in affiliate marketing I have quickly come to realise that you are unlikely to find just one product that will make you rich and you must generate many small lines of profit if you wish to have a sustained income.
The final thing that I have noticed that the Super Affiliates do and we should all (we mere mortals anyway) be grateful for this, is they love to teach others how to emulate them! Of course they will charge you for the privilege, but then that is their right and to learn from people whose names you have seen all over the Internet is a wonderful experience. You know in advance that they have “made it”, so you also know that what they tell you is the genuine article, the breadcrumbs that will lead you on your trial to success, all you have to do is learn what they tell you and then act upon it!
Neil Mansley is owner of NeilMansley.com and writes articles about his experiences in the affiliate marketing industry. To learn more Neil recommends you visit NeilMansley.com/SuperAffiliates and for a great way to start affiliate marketing you could try NeilMansley.com/pips
SEO Is It Worth It?
So, you have your website and you know that you want traffic. What would be the point in putting in all that effort to build your website if no one was ever going to see it? You have set up some traffic exchanges and some banner advertising but you were hoping to get some visitors from the search engines without having to do PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, what are you going to do?
Well, in a word (three words actually!), Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short. Now there are lots of people and companies out there who try to make this sound a lot more complicated than it is. Their reason for this is simple, if you are a bit worried about it, then you will pay them vast sums of money to do it for you rather than having a go yourself.
Now, I readily admit, that I am no expert on the subject. There may well be some esoteric techniques that these people and companies use that I do not know about. But what I have learned, is that you can do an awful lot for yourself before you even need to think about calling in an expert! I advise that you make a back up of your website before making any alterations so that if you do have a major problem you can restore your original site quickly.
In essence, all SEO is is making the search engines crystal clear on what your website is about. This is achieved by carefully choosing “keywords” i.e., words that describe what your website is about, and ensuring that these keywords are used in the correct places and acceptable regularity throughout your site. Also, the use of “links” to your site from other, similar topic sites. These “links” show the search engines that your site is seen as something of an authority on the keywords you have chosen by other websites.
All you need to achieve this is a “keyword” generator/search tool, a tool to help you create links and a little time to work it all together. (A good guide close to hand is also very useful and you can find many online. I would recommend anything by Brad Callen.) Having chosen your “keywords” carefully (ideally so there are less than two million competing sites, i.e. sites using the same “keywords”) ensure that they are in your sites “meta tags” and your “title” and the wording on your index page. If you have a logo or image on your index page you can also place your keywords in the text alternative description of these.
Just these few changes and the introduction of some “links” will greatly improve your position in the search engine results and hence improve your traffic. There are other tricks (obviously!) that you can use and many of them can be found in free guides online. You do need to be aware that over use of your chosen keywords can be detrimental to your sites search engine results – It is something that they look for and consider “cheating”
In conclusion, is SEO worth it? In short, YES! You may not want to try it yourself and you may prefer to pay someone to do it for you but you should most definitely get it done if you want to increase your natural traffic.
Neil Mansley is the owner of NeilMansley.com and writes articles about his experiences in the affiliate marketing industry. To learn more Neil recommends you visit NeilMansley.com/SEO and for a great way to start affiliate marketing you could try NeilMansley.com/pips
Well, in a word (three words actually!), Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short. Now there are lots of people and companies out there who try to make this sound a lot more complicated than it is. Their reason for this is simple, if you are a bit worried about it, then you will pay them vast sums of money to do it for you rather than having a go yourself.
Now, I readily admit, that I am no expert on the subject. There may well be some esoteric techniques that these people and companies use that I do not know about. But what I have learned, is that you can do an awful lot for yourself before you even need to think about calling in an expert! I advise that you make a back up of your website before making any alterations so that if you do have a major problem you can restore your original site quickly.
In essence, all SEO is is making the search engines crystal clear on what your website is about. This is achieved by carefully choosing “keywords” i.e., words that describe what your website is about, and ensuring that these keywords are used in the correct places and acceptable regularity throughout your site. Also, the use of “links” to your site from other, similar topic sites. These “links” show the search engines that your site is seen as something of an authority on the keywords you have chosen by other websites.
All you need to achieve this is a “keyword” generator/search tool, a tool to help you create links and a little time to work it all together. (A good guide close to hand is also very useful and you can find many online. I would recommend anything by Brad Callen.) Having chosen your “keywords” carefully (ideally so there are less than two million competing sites, i.e. sites using the same “keywords”) ensure that they are in your sites “meta tags” and your “title” and the wording on your index page. If you have a logo or image on your index page you can also place your keywords in the text alternative description of these.
Just these few changes and the introduction of some “links” will greatly improve your position in the search engine results and hence improve your traffic. There are other tricks (obviously!) that you can use and many of them can be found in free guides online. You do need to be aware that over use of your chosen keywords can be detrimental to your sites search engine results – It is something that they look for and consider “cheating”
In conclusion, is SEO worth it? In short, YES! You may not want to try it yourself and you may prefer to pay someone to do it for you but you should most definitely get it done if you want to increase your natural traffic.
Neil Mansley is the owner of NeilMansley.com and writes articles about his experiences in the affiliate marketing industry. To learn more Neil recommends you visit NeilMansley.com/SEO and for a great way to start affiliate marketing you could try NeilMansley.com/pips
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