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You’re dead wrong if you think you know anything about being an affiliate. Everything you’ve been taught is simply out of date. If you play by the old rules, you will lose this game.

You’ve been duped

You’ve been told it’s easy to get started as an affiliate. This is partially true. It’s far easier that developing, selling and supporting your own product. But “easier” doesn’t mean “easy”.

The cold hard truth

The worst part is that the information you’ve received is all wrong. The first thing you’re taught is to pick some great products. Next do some keyword research. Then buy some keyword ads that send traffic to the product. And sit back and collect the profits. But this just won’t work!

Forget keywords

Keyword advertising used to work. But it’s just too competitive to use keywords now. Adapt and change…

A better way

All is not lost. Here’s a new method that works!

• Get into CPA marketing
• Utilize demographics data
• Market on display networks

Get into CPA marketing

CPA means Cost Per Action. It’s so much easier than promoting products. Because your visitor doesn’t have to buy anything. Your commission is generated when they complete an “action”. Entering their email into a form, for example. And it’s much easier to get them to do that.

Utilize demographics data

Keywords are no longer relevant (you’ll see in a minute). So spend your time doing demographics research. Once you’ve picked the CPA offer to promote. Then hop over to Quantcast.com. And research what kinds of people will be interested.

Market on display networks

Now you have your offer and your demographics. Display networks allow you to target demographics with your ads. And use images as your ads. No keywords required. Plus you’re going to save a ton of money. Display networks charge a fraction for image ad clicks vs. keyword ads.

Summary

This is powerful method to make money online. Because getting started in CPA is free. You can buy image ad clicks for a fraction of keyword ad clicks. You can laser target with demographics. And getting them to take an action is much easier than making a sale.

Answer this question: What’s the most common reason people get online each and every day? Simple. To get information. Information seeking is so huge that Google alone hosts 400,000,000 searches every day! So what does this mean to you? Well, this is an opportunity for your to provide what people want – information. And to earn some cash for doing it!

Info marketing 101

First, understand that this is the simplest kind of business there is. You develop a product that is nothing more than information. And other people buy this product to get the info. It couldn’t get much simpler.

But how does it all work?

You’ve got the basic concept – exchange info for money. But to make it a successful business there has to be value in the info you’re selling. So step one is to discover what kind of info people want. How do figure that out?

A super simple trick is to just to check “answer” sites. Head over to ask.com or Yahoo! answers and you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of things people need help with. You want to find something a lot of people are asking about. That people are having trouble solving. And solve the problem for them by writing an info product on it.

Think about this:

If you’re worried about how to write and ebook. Think about this: An ebook is just a series of articles. So instead of sitting down to write the whole thing. Focus on one article at a time. And when you have a collection, refine and expand on them and put them together into an ebook.

So, what’s so great about ebooks? Interestingly enough, we’re back to the name of this article Here are the seven reasons

1. Simplicity

Once it’s built it runs pretty much on it’s own. There is almost no support. So it’s nearly a 100% hands-free business. You’re building a completely automated business.

There’s no inventory. You don’t have to ship anything. It’s digital.

2. Repurposing

After you’ve created a few ebooks. You can just combine them into a more expensive product. It’s a simple matter to merge a few ebooks into one. And you’ll be able to charge much more for this “new” product. Your customers will gladly pay more for a single bigger ebook. Versus multiple smaller ones.

3. Resale rights

When you own the product, you can sell resell rights to it. Recently, resell rights have become extremely popular, because people just don’t want to invest the time and money into making their own. And the best part is you’re selling the same product . . . but for 3 times the price for the rights!

4. Leverage

It’s your content, so you can use it in as many different ways as you want. Break it apart and create a multi-part email series with it. And build an email list that you can sell other products to.

5. More leverage

You can also take parts of your ebook and turn it into smaller eBooks. Then you can use the reports as the front-end of your product funnel. They can be free or low prices. And you’re creating targeted leads for your main product all along. You can even make these viral by allowing your affiliates to give them away. Which brings us to…

6. An army of affiliates

This one is huge. Once you have your own product. Other people can become your affiliates. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunch of other people doing your marketing for you? You can’t do this unless you have your own product.

7. JVs

Last, but definitely not least… Setting up joint ventures is the fastest way to gain success. Period. And this is probably the number one reason to create your own product. No products of your own = no way to do joint ventures.

In closing

If you’re not convinced to start selling information products, then you’re either crazy or not listening. With your own info product you can write your own ticket. Because you’re the boss! So, decide to just start:

• Go to answers.yahoo.com
• See what people are asking about
• Start providing information

Information product development really is that simple. And in short time you’ll have the foundation for your own info product.

It would be hard to argue against the fact that adding audio to a website increases your overall results. In fact, not using audio is a big mistake. It will boost your opt-in rate. It boosts sales, too.

But why?

There’s no real mystery. The web is mostly silent. It makes your site more “human”. And makes people feel they’re dealing with a real person. In short, it makes your site come alive. And this aliveness creates more interaction with your visitors.

The benefits of audio

There are actually two profit boosts from using audio. You’ll convert more visitors into buyers. And second you’ll save money on the sales letter. You won’t have to hire someone to write your sales letter. You can just add your own audio. Your honest message about your product will sell better than a professional copywriter.

You’ll also get better conversions on your list opt-ins. The reason this works so well is because people need to be told what to do. Just add a short audio message saying: Enter your email address in the form. A simple message like this will increase your opt-in conversions by 305% or more!

Some web audio ideas

Put a welcome message that plays automatically on your site, A warm welcome can be the deciding factor. This could be all it takes to get your visitor to decide to stay.

A guided tour. Just like in the opt-in example. You can use audio to tell your visitors exactly what to do. That includes filling in your order form!

Testimonials for your product or service. It’s good to get written testimonials. But an audio testimonial is better. You can just make up written one and people know that. So audio adds real believability. And will definitely increase your results.

Sneaky tick

What about creating an entire product using audio? This is by far the easiest content to produce. And your customers will be very happy with the product. Think about how popular podcast are. Plus you can get them transcribed cheap. This is the easiest way to “write” an eBook!

How hard is adding audio?

It’s not hard at all. You can find a lot of programs that create audio buttons for you. The software does all the work. The software creates the audio button code for you. Simply copy the code and paste it in your site. So don’t let this stop you.

In closing

Here’s a recap of the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. You’ll enjoy more customer sales. You’ll get more subscribers. And don’t forget that you can easily create sales pages and products in a flash. It’s a less often used medium. So you’ll be one of the few reaping the rewards. Get started right now and realize instant results.

Affiliate marketing can be very difficult to break into. The reason is because there is a lot of competition. What you need to do is come up with methods no one else is using. And the sea of information about this doesn’t make it any easier. Here’s one trick that almost no one else is using.

Video marketing

The power of video is undeniable. People love watching videos and that’s why they’re everywhere. It’s so much easier to keep people’s attention with video. So using it in your affiliate promotions is a no-brainer!

Here are a few ideas for creating affiliate videos:

• Record your testimonial
• Walk-throughs
• Record the order process
• Record a preview of the members area

Do a testimonial video

This is probably the easiest of all. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. It doesn’t have to be professional or polished. Listening to your honest endorsement makes your viewers feel comfortable buying. In truth, mistakes and mess-ups just make it more believable. You really can just click record and start talking. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Walk-throughs

This technique works slightly more subconsciously. Make this more like a tutorial helping them use the product. And in the process you’re actually selling the product. If it’s useful, then what you’re teaching just makes people want it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Record the order process

This could be the most powerful method of all. Do a screen capture of the ordering process. Nothing inspires your viewers to buy like watching you do it. First, it’s social proof. Once they see you doing it, they feel more secure. It also build your viewers trust. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And let’s not forget about good old fashioned envy. People want what they see you getting. You can add some extra punch to this by ending with: You’re gonna have to place your own order if you want to see the members area.

Sneak peak

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. You do a tour of the members area. They get to see everything they’ll receive when they order. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

Anyone can do it!

No special skills are required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. Really, the software does all the work. So there’s no need to even think about the technical side. Keep focused on the rewards:

• More sales Using videos in your affiliate marketing will dramatically increase your sales. People like video, so start using it.
• Less refunds You’ll lose less of the commission your earn. Your customers will know what they’re getting into ahead of time. So less of them will ask for refunds.
• Beat your competition! This is such a simple technique. And almost no one is doing it. That puts you ahead of the pack.

So get serious about your affiliate business and add video in now. The bottom line is that if you’re not using video, you’re losing money.

Honestly, everyone making money online has an email list. It’s the one thing above all else that matters most. Because you can market to your list whenever you want. It’s a resource you can tap at any time and generate income.

OK, but how?

Here are the three components of list building:

• Your Landing Page
• Your Bribe
• The Opt-in Success Page

Your Landing Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. This is where they will enter their email address. This page needs to look professional. And it needs to be simple to see how to opt in. And your call to action must be clear!

Failure to include a great “call to action” will result in failure. This “close” tells your visitors what you want them to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a compelling video to the page. You only have a few second to get your visitors attention – video helps! Plus it give you a chance to tell them to opt in multiple times. Then at the end of the video you can print “sign up now” on the video.

If you don’t know how to make video, don’t worry. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 – $250. There are also list building systems that include video squeeze pages.

Your Bribe – The next thing you need is an incentive to subscribe to your list. People need a good reason to part with their email address. Nobody likes spam, so most people guard their email closely. So you have to give them a good reason to do it.

The key to a good bribe is that is has value. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And will be able to actually benefit from it. This can be:

• An eBook
• Software
• A video
• An email training series

Basically, you just need some content. It’s got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. And nothing sells like “free”. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Now, if you don’t know how to create the bribe don’t worry. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. A 5-part email series is a good freebie. And you can get emails ghost written for about $20 – $25 each. So, a great premium will cost you around $100 – $150.

There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. There are two important things about the email series. First, it must provide value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. One very easy way to make some money from your list is with affiliate marketing. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

The Thank You Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s nice to give them some great content right away. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also sets the foundation for your relationship with them. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.

Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. Or you can do it yourself. And write it all yourself. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

Summary

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or hire someone else to do it for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. It’s just important that you start today building your opt-in list. Because once its built… You can basically write your own meal ticket.

Preselling for profit

If you want to make more money as an affiliate, you must presell.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. And it’s function is to prepare your reader to buy something. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. If you do it well, it’s completely invisible.

Basically, you give them some content. And give them a link to the product you’re preselling. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. Before we get into that, you should understand what’s in it for you. Some major benefits of this process:

• It helps your reader trust you – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. Which obviously means you’ll make more sales.
• It takes your reader out of defense mode – When you’re preselling vs. pitching, you’re reader doesn’t feel the need to be guarded. Unguarded reading means they’re not filtering what you say. So your content get absorbed.
• It puts them in a buying mood – Now they trust you and feel open to your message. So they become more receptive to other messages. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. Being open to a sales message is what it means being in a buying mood.
• You make more money – You’ve prepped them and referred them in the right state of mind. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only possible result is more sales!
• Your customers are happier – People like to make their own buying decisions. Instead of being manipulated into buying. And this leads to greater satisfaction with the product.
• It boosts your profits – Satisfied customers are less like to refund. Less refunds means more affiliate money stays in your pocket.

The need to presell is clear. You make more money. And increase your customer satisfaction. That’s a clear win-win.

OK, so how do you do it?

You’ve learned the importance of preselling. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. So, let’s talk about how to make it work. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

Mastering the art

The first step is in getting your readers to trust you and open up. This can only be accomplished by providing actual value in the information you’re presenting. Now, providing enough info to be useful, but still making them want more – that’s the art of it. The idea is that they want more and the sales page you send them to gives them more. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.

Part 2 – the Science

There are also several key elements that need to be included.

First of all, it’s important HOW you present your information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. One way is to give them enough info to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. The other method is to explain all the details and expose how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining. Whichever method, you send them to a product website that solves the problem you just created.

You also have to link to the product you’re promoting discretely. Instead you link directly to the product sales page. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? Well, that’s part of the science of this whole process. You use the “covert cookie” strategy.

Next, you want to make sure you’re linking on related words and phrases. Hyperlinked words are clicked more than anything else. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

What you have now is a super powerful system for affiliate marketing success.

OK, here’s the not-so-good news:

It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Let’s look at the skills required to pull it off: Good content. First of all, you actually have to write great articles and give value to your readers. This means you have to be able to write well, and have enough knowledge to be useful. Preselling skills. First, you have to give good information. You also have to present the info in a way that provides real value. And somehow also make them want to learn more. Or provide so much information that they see how hard it will be to implement.

Choosing your products. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. Even if you can pull off writing and great article. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.

The technical know-how To be most effective you have to use the “covert cookie” method. This is pretty easy – you just make a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image with no border and make the “source” of the image your affiliate link. (But if you mess it up, your referrals won’t be tracked.)

Summary:

Now you know exactly how to presell effectively. Using these techniques will increase your affiliate sales by 500% or more! The important thing is to use these techniques for everything you promote as an affiliate. Don’t wait another minute. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.

Everyone knows the number one thing you need to be successful online is traffic to your website. Obviously, this assumes you actually have a reason for wanting this traffic. What you do with the traffic when it gets to your site could be any number of things. The important thing is getting the traffic and sustaining it.

Here are some tips for generating website visitors:

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0
• Article Websites
• Video

OK, so how do they work?

Web 2.0 Sites

Web 2.0 simply means the new family of websites that have user-generated content. The exciting thing about Web 2.0 sites is that you get to add your own content and it becomes part of these sites. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don’t have time to get into here, but this will get you started.

Articles Sites

Article marketing really builds on the Web 2.0 concept. Article sites are in essence web 2.0 websites. In typical web 2.0 fashion, article sites rely on user-generated content (i.e. your articles). And because they are also considered authority sites by the search engines you get all the benefits of other web 2.0 sites just by putting your articles on them. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. In order to get the most free traffic make sure you:

• Do your keyword research
• Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
• Be sure to link to your site on the keywords you’ve chosen. Do this inside the article itself and in your author’s bio.

Video Sites

Our discussion would not be complete without talking about video. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. So, just like article marketing, video marketing enables you to add content to authority sites. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.

Here’s how to get free traffic using video…

• Set up your YouTube account
• When people view your videos, you want them to visit your site, so turn all the other modules in your profile off
• Add tags to your profile
• Add a link to your website
• Add 1 or more videos to your profile
• For each video use your keywords in the tags, the descriptions and the title

Summary:

If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.

Let’s talk about niche selection. This is very important to ensuring the profitability of your membership website.

Step 1 – Find a Fanatical Market

The number 1 thing you have to do is find fanatics if you want a profitable membership website. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. Here’s how to find fanatics:

• Here’s something you may not have considered – magazines! We’re so internet-based these days, it’s easy to forget about them. Because it’s becoming harder and harder to keep print periodicals profitable these days, if you see a magazine on the shelves, you know it’s making money. And that means there are lots of people interested in it. If they can make money in a print version, you can probably make money with a membership website.
• Watch and listen for fanatics in your daily life. Pay attention to conversations, social events, TV, restaurants, public places to see what people are talking about. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
• Conventions, clubs, and organizations. Once again, if there are enough people interested in a topic to create a club or organization, then there are enough people to build a membership business around it. By the same token, if enough people are interested to hold a convention on a certain topic, you can definitely find enough people to build a membership business around that same topic.
• What about your interests and hobbies? If you’re interested in something, it’s highly likely others are, too. The icing on the cake here is that you get to build a business doing something you love.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These topics are the hottest topics because lots and lots of people want information about them. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Next – Figure out if there’s money in it

Once you found a potential niche or topic to center your membership site around, you need to figure out if you can actually make any money in it. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche

• First go to Google and type in the name of your niche followed by “blog” and “forum”. If there are blogs and forums related to it, that’s a good sign. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. It’s a good sign if there are because it tells you people are making money here.
• Watch Google Adwords for a period of time and look for ads the run again and again. Adwords ads are expensive, so people only run them repeatedly if they are profitable. And to be profitable, they have to be selling products and making money.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

Once you’ve found a niche and figured out that there is money to be made in, you need to determine if you can break into this niche. How do you gauge the ease of entry?

• Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. Membership websites based on information are the easiest to start and maintain.
• The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
• Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
• How quickly do people in this market make buying decisions and are the ready to buy? Some niches are made up of people who require lots information and have a very long lead time, and some markets are filled with people who will spend lots of money right now.

Putting it all together

At this point you’ve figured out what niche you’re going into. You found your fanatics, you know they spend money and you’re confident there’s room in the market for you. Now that you’ve prepared properly, you’re success is 99% guaranteed. How to actually run your membership website is the only thing left to talk about…

In this video we show you how to add a PayPal button to your site.

Click the “PLAY” button to start the video.
Then click the “FULLSCREEN” button and enjoy the video.

In this video we show you how to upload a WordPress theme.

Click the “PLAY” button to start the video.
Then click the “FULLSCREEN” button and enjoy the video.