Affiliate Marketing Advice from Frank Michaels of Secret Affiliate Income

Affiliate marketing is one of the best methods to earn quick money through the internet. It is a low cost business because you do not have to fork out a large sum of capital, unlike offline business where huge capital is involved. For online business, you can begin with a simple website and work your way into a full time business.

For affiliate marketing, the first thing you need to do is to find products or services which you want sell. Your main objective would be to drive targeted traffic to your website, so that they will buy the product through your link, and you will be able to earn commissions this way.

There are many ways for you to drive traffic online, you can use pay per click method, article writing or by building a list of responsive prospects. Which ever method you use, the main thing is to drive targeted traffic to your site, you will need to be precise and provide your prospects with a solution that they are looking for exactly.

As for pay per click affiliate (PPC) marketing strategy, you will set up small ads with a link back to your site. When it comes to PPC, it is crucial that you choose those highly targeted keywords for your niche for a better conversion and in turn, much higher revenue percentage. Same goes for article marketing and list building methods.

As an affiliate marketer, your main task would be to generate targeted traffic for your merchant. You need to keep in mind that those traffic that you drive to the site will eventually turn into money for you.

About The Author:

Frank Michaels is a successful affiliate market who has earned his first pot of gold online! He has also helped hundreds of people to start their own affiliate marketing business. Cut your learning curve in half and stop wasting your time and money on the unknowns. Find out how you can start your own affiliate marketing business with his Secret Affiliate Income today!

Technorati Tags: secret affiliate income, Frank Michaels Secret Affiliate Income, secret affiliate income advice, affiliate marketing advice, affiliate marketing tips, affiliate marketing

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Internet Marketers – Have You Done All Your Backups Recently?

©2009 Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved.

There’s a new decade looming, and if the past 10 years is any indication, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, niche marketing and blogging will create new millionaires before the new decade ends… There have been so many new advances in online marketing in the last 10 years that the industry doesn’t even resemble it’s former self these days. Blogging, social bookmarking, Web 2.0 sites, the rise of Google, Bing and Yahoo! have all helped to define the current state of this business, and more people are getting into affiliate marketing and related work-at-home businesses than ever before!

Are you ready for the new decade? For all the reasons I posted on my Internet marketing blog you should be planning out the decade, not just the new year… Be sure the pursuit of your goals and your dreams is on track – you have to know where you’re headed to ever get there, right? Know the path you want to follow over the next decade, then focus on what that means for the new year.

But as marketers, most of us focus just on making sales, letting the maintenance tasks fall by the wayside – is that true for you too? If so, this is an important chance to get some of it done and protect our online business as we head into the new decade. Allot one day during the holidays to this vastly important task…

Protect Your Online Business – Back Everything Up Now!

There are so many ways that a ‘data failure’ can cause a catastrophe in your Internet marketing or affiliate marketing business – failing to have backup copies of ALL data crucial to our online business can at least set you WAY back, if not knock you right out of the game… Don’t think you need to back up your hard drive? Ever had (or even heard of) a hard drive crash? What if you woke up tomorrow and couldn’t access ANY of the programs, products or information currently residing only on your computer? Would that affect your bottom line in 2010?

What if you went to log into your autoresponder tomorrow to send out your e-zine, only to find the company whose services you use had gone belly-up? Could you survive financially while you started building your mailing list from the bottom up once again? The financial crash in the US in 2008-2009 and the DotCom bubble burst early in the last decade both demonstrate that even huge companies with millions in funding can disappear overnight – so how secure is your list if your autoresponder company has the only copy?

Is your blog one of your main sources of traffic generation to our Internet marketing, niche marketing and affiliate marketing opportunities? How long would it take you to get it back up and running if some shmuck attacked it tomorrow and messed it all up for you – or worse yet hijacked it and pointed it toward banned materials? Really want to lose the benefits you have built up from all those links, all those pages indexed in the search engines?

Each of those is a scary scenario, isn’t it? It’s easy to forget our entire livelihood as Internet marketers is based on electrons that can be wiped out in seconds… But we don’t need to be defenseless – we can go a long way towards protecting our online businesses with very little time and money invested in it. Here’s a few suggestions…

Backing Up Hard Drives

Schedule a day THIS WEEK to do your backups. Start by getting an external drive, 1 TB or larger, and hooking it up to your computers and/or laptops via USB. Use the included software or a program like GoodSync to copy all your files from each of your machines onto the backup drive, creating one folder for each machine so you don’t overwrite any important info that’s on each machine. Once they’re all backed up, disconnect the drive and turn it off – don’t leave it connected where a virus or hacker might access it!

Backing Up Mailing Lists

Most reputable autoresponder services have an ‘Export’ function, though you may have to hunt a bit for it. Before using it though, read the docs or contact their customer service to be sure it merely gives you a backup copy as opposed to also removing them from your list there. While you should be fine, some of the early companies had it set to use the link as a ‘remove to a file’ function – I don’t think any of today’s autoresponder services are set up that way, but better safe than sorry, right? Again, once you have the backup list of subscribers, turn on your external drive and ad a copy there, remembering to turn it off and disconnect it immediately afterward.

Backing Up Blogs

I know there are WordPress plugins for this now, but I can’t comment on how well they work or even which ones work best as I’ve never used them – anything this important I prefer to do manually to make sure everything’s right. I start by making a new folder for the backup and using FTP software to download the entire blog folder or site. This ensures I have a clean copy of all the WordPress files including any customizations I’ve done to the theme, and any graphics, videos, etc. that I’ve uploaded to the site over time.

Understand, though, that unlike backing up a web site, merely FTPing down the files on your site ISN’T a complete backup – your posts aren’t included in those files! To get those, in your WordPress Dashboard, choose Tools from the left column, then click the ‘Export’ link and follow along. For ultimate safety, next go to your site’s Control Panel and do a backup on your blog’s database as well. Once again, be sure to back these all up to your external USB drive.

Backing Up E-Mails, Contacts, Etc.

Depending on what technologies you use that are crucial to your day-to-day operations, there are still a few more backups to do before you’re done. Go into whichever e-mail program you use and back up both your contacts and your e-mail folders. Each does this in a different process, so use the Help menu if you’re not familiar with the process. Next, backup your contacts in Skype, Yahoo & MSN messengers if you use them – again, use the help feature if you don’t know the process.

Backing Up Passwords, Logins, ID’s

Every day you visit certain sites you’re connected with or services you’re using – this is especially true in affiliate marketing, but also in Internet marketing, niche marketing and blogging. And a great many of those require special login URLs, user or affiliate ID’s, passwords, etc. For these I recommend a totally different type of backup – a hard copy!

I will not now, nor never have advocated people storing their passwords, especially a list of ID’s and passwords, on their computer. To me, it’s just too insecure and nothing more than bait to unsavory types. Pick up a hardcover book of blank lined pages at the dollar store and record them in that. JUST BE SURE to store the book in the safest location you can, to prevent anyone grabbing it, copying it, or spilling anything on it!

There are further steps you can take, like storing the backup drive and password book in a fireproof safe, keeping copies of both at an offsite location – even renting a safety deposit box to keep them in. Only YOU can decide what lengths you want (a can afford) to go to to protect your information and your business…

As to ongoing protection for your data, be sure to use a reputable virus scanner/protection program, a spyware blocker like SpyBot & TeaTimer, and check your blogs regularly with a plugin like exploit-scanner. The small time and financial investment in a full-protection system is far less than what it could cost you to recover your Internet marketing, niche marketing or affiliate marketing business after an attack on your unprotected data and programs!

Secure your work-at-home business now following the steps above, and sail into the new decade ready to skyrocket your lifestyle knowing you’ve done what you can to protect your online income!

About The Author…

Doug Champigny is a world-famous Internet Marketing mentor & speaker and a recognized super-affiliate who has been online full-time since 1996. Be sure to visit his DougChampigny.com Internet Marketing Blog, his Captain-Affiliate.com Affiliate Training Blog and to follow Doug on Twitter!

Technorati Tags: backing up data, backing up blogs, backing up contacts, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, niche marketing, work-at-home businesses

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Mike Paetzold back for the final day of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Wow, seems like I just got here and it is ending already. Where did the time go?

Well let’s get started. Today the topic will be using videos for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic I strongly recommend Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Video is a format that has really come of age online. Now video has become much more popular primarily because of high speed connections. Before DSL and cable became common in households it was impossible to use video. Most people would not be able to download it and get it to stream when high speed was a 56k modem

Now with the exception of some remote areas the majority of people have access to some type of high speed internet connection. This has led to the popularity of video sharing sites like You Tube.

For some video has become their preferred way to get information. The odds are that even if you are reading this here that you get the bulk of your news from television already. You only need to look at the problems of the newspapers to make a profit to see that.

Which brings us to two questions. How do we take advantage of it? How hard is it to do?

Let’s answer the second question first only because I like to shake things up. The answer is…

it depends.

Now before you get all mad at me and I know that last answer got you a bit miffed it definitely is true.

It can be easy to do screen capture or talk over a power point presentation or just speak into your web camera or a flip camera. It can be extremely difficult if you want to create TV quality action videos with green screens and special effects.

You only need the easy version to be able to get traffic from it.

All you would need to do is take an article you created and convert it to a power point presentation, read the article as you go through the slides while recording it. A software like Camtasia can handle that quite easily.

If you are tight on dollars you can do it with free tools like Open Office and Cam Studio. It is bit more work with the free tools but what isn’t? You always pay with time or money.

Either way create the video and upload it to the various video sharing sites. (Tube Mogul is a free service that will upload to multiple sites for you.) Use the url you would like to see people visit to start your description, add in your keywords and you have a video that others can use. (Note: Always do the full url http://yourdomain.com not www.yourdomain.com so that it will be clickable in your description.)

This will give you another venue for people to find your information in a format that they like. It works well using the same content.

In fact quite often I will use the same content for each of the 4 ways I have written about this week.

Create a blog post –> Use it to submit an article (just add a sig file) –> Convert the article to power point and record you reading it –> Strip out the audio and use that as a podcast.

The power in using your content in all of the ways is that you can reach a different audience with each form but you only need to create the basic content one time.

Once you have your initial blog post you can easily make that into the other 3 forms in a half hour once you have done it a few times. The Sunday Night Cash Plan will walk you through exactly how to do that.

I hope you have found my visit here to be helpful in growing your business and leveraging what you already do to get even more traffic.

The Old Bald Guy Blog Tour is going on a hiatus for two weeks to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. It will return in two weeks and the next stop will be at Twitter Marketing Products beginning January 4th.

Have a great holiday and I’ll catch up with you next year.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Mike Paetzold back for day 4 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Today the topic will be using podcasts for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic I strongly recommend Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Podcasts are really nothing more than a sound or video file that you syndicate through a feed. Now that sounds a bit complex and that is probably why most people ignore them.

Now before I get into using a podcast consider this. How many ipods have been sold? How many books are now available in audio versions? How many files are available in Itunes?

Getting information in an audio format has become the primary media source for a large portion of people. When I bought my first Ipod 5 years ago my step daughter asked why an old fart like me would want one? Of course the fact that she wanted it may have had something to do with it but today all ages use mp3 players regularly.

This makes audio a format that any marketer can use to their advantage.

Now to some of the technical stuff. It is easy to record an audio and you can use the same content and just read it out loud and record it. Free software like Audacity makes it really easy with a computer and a microphone to make mp3 files. Upload them to a blog and use a plugin like Podpress and 98% of the technical know how has been overcome.

A few things to consider when using podcasts. If you want people to take an action it pays to have an easy to remember domain name. The person listening may not be at their computer but listening to your podcast while they are driving to work or jogging.

Domain redirects make it easier for them to remember, Something like www.thecbpirate.com is much easier than if I used the actual affiliate link http://cbpirate.com/main/mpaet3 although both go to the same page.

The other thing is that an mp3 file has an id3 tag. Use that to fill in information about your podcast and make sure you add your link into the description section because that will show on most mp3 players making it easier for people to find the site you talked about.

Finally you need to take the time to set your podcast up on the directories so people can find it easily. At the very least make sure that you get it into Itunes and Podcast Alley but the more the merrier.

So start using your content in audio format to increase the exposure and it will bring you more traffic.

I could just cover the very basics and why you should podcast in this post . Check out Doug’s It’s You Live! for complete step by step instructions on the technical aspects of podcasting.

See you back here tomorrow for my last lesson in this visit.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Mike Paetzold back for day 3 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Today the topic will be 3 ways to use articles for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic I strongly recommend Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Articles are a great way to generate traffic to your sites but it takes more than just one. I have seen way to many people complain that articles do not work and it is usually because they did one or two and that was it.

Article marketing tends to start slowly but once it hits critical mass it can explode. You really need to do good keyword research (it just keeps coming up day after day for any type of content marketing) and provide quality so others will want to use your content.

Before I get into the three ways we will discuss today it is important to understand an important item. Most article directories will not allow you to use an affiliate link. If you are going to promote direct to a sales page (not my recommended way) you need to set up a redirect off of your domain or buy a domain that is on the topic and redirect that to your affiliate link.

Quite truthfully almost any affiliate product that I would consider promoting direct with article marketing would be an evergreen product and worth the small investment in a domain to redirect to it. That way it looks like you are talking about your own site and you get more credibility.

Here are 3 ways that I use articles

What to do article

The first is the what to do article. This is perfect if you are going to promote an affiliate product. You tell them what to do and then direct them to the product to show them exactly how to do it.

What to do is good information but it is not complete. Therefore to complete it they need to know exactly how to do it and your signature will offer them the answer for that.

Two part article

This can be perfect when used with your blog or you can create a special landing page on your web site. Start with part one as part of your title and give the first part of the information.

This allows you to send them to part 2 on your site. One good thing to do is have that landing page be a squeeze page where they sign up to your list before you forward them to the rest of the information.

This is one of the best ways to use articles to build your list and with a list you can show them multiple products multiple times.

Back link article

Often times for these articles I use a combination of the two ways above but this article is primarily being done to create back links for my web site. It would be nice to get people to click through and visit but that is not the primary purpose.

Here the keyword phrase I am using in the article and to use as anchor text are my primary goal.

Yes it does need to be good content so people will use it but unlike the first two it is the anchor text and the link that are the primary reason for the article. The traffic will come from Google and the other search engines from the higher ranking rather than trying to compel a click direct to a specific page.

There are many more way to use articles and feel free to add your favorites in the comments below. Tomorrow I’ll be back to talk about one of the most overlooked ways to generate traffic. See you then.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Mike Paetzold back for day 2 of my stop here as part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour. Today the topic will be using blogs for traffic. If you are looking for more ways to get traffic check out Doug’s Top Traffic Tips.

Google loves blogs and with a blog you stand a better chance to get ranked in the search engines. Part of this is the blog structure itself and the other is fresher content.

Because a blog is easy to update (if you can use Word or any other word processor you can create a blog post) it is easy to keep your content fresh. Others can easily interact with your blog adding even more fresh content to your blog.

Now with all content marketing and this would include all of the topics I will be covering this week you need to do proper keyword research. Finding the long tail keywords that draw traffic and are easy to compete with is key. You can find out more about keyword research at EZ Keyword Research.

Here are 3 ways you can use a blog to drive traffic to your product or affiliate offers.

1. Write a review of a product. Go through and explain exactly what you liked and what you didn’t like about a specific product. Add in a section to explain who this would work for and who it wouldn’t. Be objective.

Allow others to comment and leave their feedback and link to the product at the end of the review.

Note: With the new rules make sure you have disclosed that you get paid if they buy through the link. Links in this post may be affiliate links for which either Doug or I get paid if you purchase.

2. Use your blog for your email promotions. Because of the various spam filters quite often you can not use the words you would want to use in your email without triggering the spam filters.

Words like make money, free, and many more can keep your email from being delivered. Put up your full promotion on your blog and just send an email to your list with a blurb to make them curious enough to click through and read the full story on your blog.

A side benefit is that quite often the search engines will rank you for that topic and you will get people finding your content that way that are not on your list.

3. Educate your readers and link to appropriate resources (with your links of course) that will help your reader. Use your blog to tell them what to do and your product recommendations to show them how to do it.

You will see this tactic used through out this particular post.

Finally I know that I said 3 ways but one of the things that is missing here on this blog and you should make sure that you use on your own blog is a chance to opt in to one of your mailing lists.

It can be as simple as keep up dated on the latest posts and information on this blog. If you use Aweber you can even automate it where each time you post or whatever time frame that you set your subscriber will be automatically mailed a reminder to come read your latest post.

Hope this helps and if you have other ways you use a blog feel free to leave a comment. Be back tomorrow to discuss using articles to generate traffic.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Hi let me take a minute to introduce myself. I am Mike Paetzold, and for the last 5 weeks I have been traveling across the blogoisphere taking up residence as a guest blogger each week on a different blog. This is part of The Old Bald Guy’s Blog Tour.

Doug was gracious enough to invite me here and I hope you find it beneficial too. This week I am going to discuss 4 ways to generate traffic.

Now there are many more than just 4 ways to generate traffic but as I am only going to be here for a short stay that was as many as I can fit in unless I write a book everyday instead of a blog post.

By the way Doug did a 3+ hoiur call with Willie Crawford that covers these and many more if you are looking for more at Top Traffic Tips.

Here are the 4 ways I will be discussing this week.

• Blogs
• Articles
• Videos
• Podcasts

Tomorrow I will start with blogs but there is a topic that most ignore when discussing traffic that is necessary to understand first. Traffic is absolutely worthless if you do not have a system to convert it.

Always make sure that you set up that first before you worry about getting traffic.

For example – If you want traffic to build your list you need a squeeze page up and the rest of your system. That includes a thank you page and a download page. Until you have those the traffic can’t do anything for you.

Sending traffic to an offer that does not convert is again a waste. It might be necessary to test and tweak the offer but if you do not have an effective offer work on improving that first before you waste a lot of time and/or money generating traffic.

One other thing that is important to uinderstand and why this part is important is that all traffic has a cost. It can be money or it can be time but you will pay with one or the other to generate traffic so you may as well get as much as you can back from it.

The 4 ways I am going to be discussing this week can continue to send traffic after the initial effort but there is still an initial cost.

I’ll be back tomorrow and start talking about generating traffic with blogs.

About the author

Mike Paetzold has been online since 2000 and runs numerous blogs and you can find out what he is up to at Mike Paetzold Recommends. You can also find out and keep current with WordPress at his blog WordPress Made Easy. Follow Mike on Twitter

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

You say you’ve always wanted to attend a live Internet training conference but never been able to? Job gets in the way, or the cost is too high? Well, this may be the answer you need…

In August 2009 British marketer Lee McIntyre ran a weekend training seminar that cost $997 to attend – and those there KNOW they got their money’s worth, and then some. Now that they’ve had time to take action on what they learned, Lee is releasing the videos of the event on DVD – and he’s letting you have the DVD for free – you just pay the shipping!

Here’s your chance to see the same marketing training those people saw, without leaving work, paying for airfare or hotels, and without paying for the seminar – just investing less than $10 to get the videos shipped to you. You can’t get a good e-book that cheaply, so don’t miss out on this powerful collection of videos if you can help it! Order YOUR marketing videos on DVD now!

Best of all, with the videos you can rewind, fast-forward, pause & replay – all of which Lee hates you doing to him live…

Technorati Tags: Internet marketing seminars, Internet marketing videos, seminar recordings, marketing videos on DVD, Lee McIntyre, Free DVDs

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Here’s three sources for resources you’ll want to visit – each has some powerful Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing and/or niche marketing training resources available to you for free…

First up is Lee McIntyre’s marketing seminar videos – admission to this weekend marketing bootcamp was $997 last August, but you can now get the videos of the entire training course for free – you just pay the shipping to get the CD to you. So go ahead and grab your copy of these free marketing videos, then c’mon back to get…

Free access to the pre-event webinars from Mark Hendricks Internet Super Stars Conference. The conference is in Orlando Florida in January 2010, and there’s a whole series of great training webinars going on before the event itself.

In fact, as I write this, about half of the webinars are complete, and once you register for your free membership you’ll have access to the recordings for those along with notification of the remaining sessions so you can hear those live or get the recordings for those too. Naturally I recommend you attend the Internet Super Stars Conference in January – after all, I’m presenting my Power Start 2010 lecture there and running a hands-on workshop to help you get going faster.

But even if you can’t attend, at least get the free membership and learn from the recorded webinars! And that’s not all either…

Because Shelby Carr and I have teamed up with 27 other Internet marketing professionals to bring you 29 of the best free Internet marketing gifts you’ll find online, all free, and all available to you through the Santa’s Christmas Giveaway site. Be sure to download your gifts right now though, as these are only there for a limited time!

Technorati Tags: free marketing resources, free marketing training, free marketing downloads

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Here’s your chance to watch a major Internet Marketing pre-launch from the inside!

Jeff Dedrick’s Send Button Profits

You have to go right now though – Jeff’s pre-launch switches to a full-blown launch on October 6th, 2009. If you’re reading this post after that date it’s still a site you need to be part of, but you won’t see the pre-launch in action, obviously…

Jeff Dedrick burst onto the scene a few years back, making a huge splash with his first launch – and no wonder… Jeff was an offline business mogul til then, with a business that was doing over TWO MILLION DOLLARS a year – a business he WALKED AWAY FROM when he started his online business!

Jeff has detailed how and why he walked away from it, and why he was suddenly so successful online in this free report:

Just click on the report cover here to download your free report on why Jeff Dedrick got into Internet marketing and why he would give up a 2-million-dollar a year business to start his online business – it’s a story unlike any other!

But most importantly, if you act right now it gets you inside the pre-launch mechanism for a major new site – every one of Jeff’s launches has been massively successful, and acting now will show you WHY each is so good.

While the report is valuable in itself, the true value to anyone in Internet marketing, affiliate marketing or any other work-at-home business is the education you’ll receive from watching Jeff and his partners in action – pay close attention and you’ll see how to make YOUR launches a success too!

Get Jeff’s report right now, and then watch the whole system in action – save as much of you can of it into a swipe file to model your own successes on! Download the Free Report now!

Technorati Tags: Jeff Dedrick, Send Button Profits, sendbutton-profits.com, pre-launch systems, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, online marketing, free download

Twitter This

Usuario: Password: