Affiliate marketing for beginners part 1
It's a question we get asked often, and we'd definitely recommend having your own online presence - you may even find it difficult to join affiliate programs without your own site or blog, although some do provide materials for the alternative marketing methods we're about to discuss.
These are the options you can explore if you really want to go ahead without
your own site.
Quite a few referral programs offer ready-made email marketing campaigns as well as standard online advertising. You simply send the advertisements to clients on a mailing list, and if the offers are taken up, get paid a specified amount.
For marketing of this sort you obviously don't require any kind of online
presence at all, although you will need a very extensive and ever-changing
mailing list.
When you sign up to an affiliate program, you will be provided with your own affiliate ID. This then forms part of the adverts you create to keep a track of any payments you earn.
Ads consisting of text links together with your affiliate ID can be used
in a variety of online settings.
This marketing method involves writing articles about the service or product you're hoping to sell, then submitting them to specialist articles sites, where they can be read or distributed further.
Since you are allowed to include a certain number of links at the end of
each article, your affiliate link can be added in the hope that, in combination
with the interest generated by your article, it will produce a sale.
Networking sites that let you build your own online page or profile provide what is technically known as a sub-domain. For example, myspace.com is a domain, and myspace.com/onlinemarketer is a sub-domain of MySpace that has been created by someone using the name online marketer.
Although web pages of this type are, of course, actually owned by the networking site, since you're largely in charge of their content they can theoretically be used for the purposes of online marketing.
In practice, however, you'll find that there are usually restrictions in place regarding exactly what you can add to your profile. It's not possible to include, say, pay per click advertising in MySpace or Facebook. Affiliate text links may well not work either, and most networking sites monitor content pages frequently and blacklist links they don't want used.
Squidoo, famously, is far more flexible, and is often used as an example
of the kind of sub-domain that can be used successfully for marketing
purposes. Affiliate links are generally allowed, and it's even possible to
place advertising such as Amazon widgets directly in your 'lens' - the Squidoo
name for a profile.
Although some affiliates have certainly managed to make these options work, the reality is that marketing in these ways is extremely difficult.
For example, successful mail marketing ultimately depends on having access to massive, targeted lists of mail recipients who agree to be contacted and are actually likely to want the products you offer.
Article marketing is successful for a few, but with thousands of new articles posted daily it's a difficult way to reach an audience and really make sales (although it does work well for publicity purposes and in conjunction with other marketing methods).
Sub-domains provide you with an online presence, but restrictions on what you can include are often extremely limiting.
It's much harder to promote sub-domains in search engines than a full domain of your own, and of course, no matter how much you change a profile's overall look, it will always remain visibly part of the social network's brand.
Most importantly of all, the profile could be terminated at any time, meaning that all your hard work goes completely to waste.
So - once again we reach the conclusion that having your own site makes it a lot easier to suceed in the online marketplace. And the fact is, getting one needn't be a problem.
One of the things that holds many people back is the worry that it will prove too difficult.
Not everyone feels confident with computing, and the mere mention of technical jargon can be very off-putting indeed.
Luckily, it's easier than ever to create basic, yet attractive and fully functional sites using a variety of simple tools - several of which are actually online and completely free to use.
We won't go into details here, but we've a series of guides on really simple web creation here in clickspiration and have included links to these at the end of this article.
These easy site-building options are certainly enough to get you started online and help you build a valuable web presence.
Admittedly, their simplicity does make them less flexible than many people require, but if you need a more complex site and are confident with a computer, programs such as Adobe Dreamweaver can help you create one without too much difficulty.
And if none of these options appeal, professional web design really isn't expensive these days. You can easily contact designers to discuss your needs and ask for quotes in web design forums, or online classifieds such as Craigslist.
Next: which affiliate programs should I choose?
Really easy ways to create your own website
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