Karl M Foxley

 

Affiliate marketing for me is one of the best ways to start making money online. Below you will find 7 reasons why I think affiliate marketing ROCKS! 

1. No Start-Up Costs

Most affiliate programs are free to join. You can start by registering with Clickbank, PayDotCom and Commission Junction.

2. No Website Required

You can promote your affiliate links in articles you’ve written, forum posts and signatures, videos, PDF reports, PowerPoint presentations, you name it you can probably do it. 

NOTE: There is a skill to marketing using the above methods and spamming should never be considered an option. For ethical affiliate marketing training visit John Reese’s Opportunity.com.

3. Rewards Can Be High

The potential rewards in affiliate marketing can be massive. If you find the right program and the right way to promote it you can be on to a real financial winner. 

4. The Product Owner Does The Selling

Okay, as an affiliate you can pre-sell a product to help increase the conversion rates but, in the most part, the product owner does all the work. They pay out for testing their sales page, the copy-writing that will ‘sell‘ their product and so on, in other words, the hard work is done for you.

5. The Product Owner Handles Customer Care

If a person purchases a product through your affiliate link you get paid. Not only do you get paid but you also don’t have to worry about the hassle of customer services. 

If the product receives a lot of support tickets about installation, compatibility issues or anything else, it is the owner who has to respond to each issue, not the affiliate.

That said, it is worth making sure you only promote items that are going to benefit your referrals and not upset them in any way. If you promote a shady product with shabby customer care then you as an affiliate will tarnish your own reputation.

6. Affiliate Marketing Fits Into Your Current Online Business

In most cases, if you already have a website, it will be tailored to a particular market. You can instantly increase your sites revenue by adding affiliate products and promotions to your site that compliment your current products or services. 

If you have an information site then adding product reviews that are tailored to your niche can also see you earning a nice affiliate commission each month.

7. Something For Your Area of Expertise

Finally, nearly every niche is covered with a product or service that you can promote as an affiliate. This makes it so much easier for you to promote something in an area that you already have an established presence and level of expertise.  

Now you can see the benefits of being an affiliate marketer you probably have a few questions:

How do I get started?

How do I find the best products to promote?

How do I ethically promote these products and stay within the affiliate programs terms of service? 

John Reese, a very successful affiliate marketer and online entrepreneur, has the answers to all of your questions and, not only that, has put together the ultimate affiliate marketing training resource to help you make money in the quickest possible time.

The site is aptly called Opportunity.com and I recommend you click on the link below and head-on-over to the site to watch the video John has put together for you, it will explain a bit more about affiliate marketing and Opportunity.com.

Opportunity.com Affiliate Marketing Training and Resources

To your affiliate marketing success,

Karl

 

I’m always being asked what tools and websites I frequently use in my online business, so much so, that I’ve decided to share some of them here. I hope you find at least one that you can use in your online business.

1. Domain Name

I purchase my domains for next-to-nothing from GoDaddy.com. Your domain name is your first step to looking professional online plus you can use domains to cloak affiliate links (as shown in this previous blog post).

2. Hosting

I host my websites at HostMonster.com for two simple reasons, they have the brilliant Cpanel interface in the admin area and they have brilliant customer service (important if you ever encounter a technical problem you need sorted straight away).

3. Email Service Provider

My email service provider of choice is Aweber for the simple reason they are the best (in my humble opinion). Use Aweber to capture leads, follow-up with prospects and customers, post emails straight to your blog and Twitter accounts, and much more. Aweber ROCKS!

4. Create Videos With Screen Capturing Technology

Every online marketer worth their salt will purchase Camtasia as soon as they get the chance but for those just starting out it is a pricey piece of kit. The guys behind Camtasia have also released a free tool called the Jing Project. You can download it right now and start making professional videos to promote your business online.

5. Analytics

If you are serious about your online business then you will want to make yourself familiar with online visitor tracking and stats services. Google will track your visitors for free over at Google Analytics, you will need a Gmail account so you can log in and register your website/s. 

6. Desktop Analytics

It can be a chore to log into your Analytics account to track your latest visitors so why not download the powerful Analytics desktop application (uses Adobe Air) called Polaris; you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it.

7. Affiliate Products

Everyone seems to know about Clickbank.com as a place to find affiliate products to promote. Clickbank.com is truly a great resource to have but make sure you also give PayDotCom.com a try as well. You will find affiliate products that are exclusive to the PayDotCom community that you won’t be able to promote from anywhere else.

8. Image Manipulation Software

Adobe Photoshop is another must have resource for those who can afford it, but if you cannot, you can grab the free Gimp software that is every bit as powerful. You can download it directly from here.

9. Royalty Stock Photography and Images

You can get royalty free images from the amazing I Stock Photography website for as little as a dollar. You’ll be surprised how a simple but well taken photograph can increase your conversion rates.

10. HTML Editor

Again, if you are just starting out you may find the expensive HTML editors to be out of your price range. NVU is a free HTML editor that is not lacking in features and just as good as the paid for editors.

11. FTP Client

FileZilla is a free FTP client. You’ll need one of these to upload your websites to your hosting account. You can download FileZilla directly from their site.

12. Writing Tools

Creating PDF reports and e-books to giveaway or sell online is made a doddle with the free Open Office Writer. You can download the whole suite of applications that are every bit as good as Microsofts offerings or just choose the programs you want.

13. Self Hosted Blog

Having a blog is a great way to gain exposure for your online business. A self hosted blog is one of the best moves you can make for your online business and Wordpress has the answer for you with over at Wordpress.org.

14. Blog Themes

The standard blog theme is pretty boring but you will be able to select from a vast array of blog themes over at Wordpress Themes. There really is a blog design for your needs!

15. Professional Blog Themes

Okay, the free themes are great but you will always get what you pay for and if you want a real professional blog theme for your wordpress blog then you must check out the themes at Studio Press.

To your success,

Karl

P.s. I’d love to hear what tools you just cannot live without! You can email me directly or just leave a comment below.

Niche marketing can be a great way of making money quickly, especially if you can create a product that is unique or superior within the niche you choose. I’m often asked how I conduct my market research for hot niche markets and people are often surprised with the answer.

My research method is quick and simple, not because I’m lazy as I stated in the title , but because these guys have already done the work for me.

This is how I do it!

1. Ebay

Just take a look at Ebay and scroll through as many of the categories you can, going deeper and deeper until you find ideas that you feel you can profit from.

The example above shows you how I went to Home and Garden, Wedding and Party Supplies, Wedding Supplies. You can either take this as the niche or look even deeper within that category for more ideas.

Brad Fallon and his My Wedding Favours is a perfect example of a massive company built around this type of niche; you’ve just found an easy way to research niches just like this.

2. Amazon

Use the same method that I mentioned above to perform a deep search within the categories until you find a niche that you would like to step into. Head on over to Amazon now and give it a go!

3. Shopping

Again, use the same method as above to find some great niches. Visit Shopping.com and see what you can uncover.

4. 43 Things

This is a great site for coming across niches that you are unlikely to find anywhere else. Watch what people are saying and see if you can create a marketable product to fill a void. Visit 43Things.com!

5. PayDotCom and Clickbank

I’ve grouped these together as they are both pretty similar and you will find some great niches by deep searching within the categories. Use the marketplace at both and see what you discover; Clickbank and PayDotCom.

The biggest mistake newbies (and some experienced marketers) make is to perform a search in Google to see how many results are returned for a particular niche. The misconception is when there is hardly any products available that their is a market, people rush in, create products, sites etc and then discover that there is no competition because it isn’t a profitable niche or there simply exists no market.

I recommend that you choose a niche using the above method and then look for at least a few competitors in that market.

Get going looking for your niche markets today.

Before you go and dominate the niches I want you to go and grab some free niche research videos that will give you some great ideas and show you how to Absolutely Dominate Niche Markets in Google!”

To your success,

Karls

P.s. Do you have an interesting way of researching niche markets, why not share it here?

Do you want to make money online? Are you confused and don’t know where to start?

How would you like your very own digital product store filled with top selling items that people regularly purchase. Well, I have news for you, Dave Nicholson has just released an excellent new product call ‘Your Software Website’ and I can confirm it is truly amazing.

Just imagine having your very own site that is filled with cash generating links and products. I can imagine what you’re thinking, ‘it’s probably going to look like a giant ad site’… well you’d be totally wrong. The site looks amazing and you can check it out for yourself by visiting Dave’s site and seeing for yourself, after-all, seeing is believing.

Before you go, just take a look at what else you get from your very own ‘Your Software Website’…

# You get your our own admin panel so you can simply edit your site with a few clicks.

# You can change your header, sub-heading and footer text by simply adding text into a field in your admin panel.

# You can do basic SEO on your site by simply adding text into a field in your admin panel.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with over 30 sofware titles that you can re-sell.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with over 30 affiliate software links.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with over 20 website themes that you can simply change from your admin panel, with the click of a button.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with Google AdSense, editable from your admin panel.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with ClickBank Ad Rotator, editable from your admin panel.

# All of your links within your site are linked to YOUR ClickBank or YOUR PayDotcom ID’s from within your admin panel.

# Your website comes pre-loaded with an opt-in form, so you can build your list, also editable from your admin panel.

# All of your payments from the site are made to YOUR Paypal account, editable from the admin panel.

# You have the ability to add/remove categories from within your admin panel.

# You have the ability to add/remove/edit new software pages from within your admin panel.

# You have the ability to add/remove/edit many, many more areas from within your admin panel.

# The website and the admin area has been created with ’super simple’ controls, so you do not need any special knowledge at all, if you can click a mouse and type text, you have all the knowledge needed to fully setup your website. You can get it from here:

YourSoftwareWebsite

Regards,

Karl Foxley.

p.s. Trust me when I tell you that this website is worth at least 10x the price that Dave is charging. Check it out before Dave puts the price up!

YourSoftwareWebsite