How to Build A Successful Online Affiliate Program

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By cwaiyean
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Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better

There are five steps to build a successful Online Affiliate Program. As you follow these steps, you'll discover exactly how an expert affiliate marketer does business. There is a definite formula involved in making a serious income from affiliate programs.That formula involves targeting a profitable market, finding hot products for that market, and then driving market-specific traffic towards a sales funnel that is designed for high conversions

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Internet Connection
Laptop/Desktop Computer
A Notepad and A Pen

Step 1

1. Find A Hot Profitable And Rabid Market

Your first step is to find a hot, profitable and rabid market. Finding the right market to target is critical to your success.

The Market Selection Process

The market selection process first begins with you. Start by examining your areas of knowledge, and the things you are passionate about. The reason behind this is simple. It is easier to work in a market you enjoy and know something about.

Exploring Your Market Ideas

The next step in the process is to explore the Internet to find out whether there are any existing products in your market. In order to get this big picture, you need to go where your market's products are sold. (e.g. amazon.com and Clickbank)

Keyword Research

Each time someone enters search keywords into a search engine; those searches are stored in a database. By having access to information about what people are searching for, you can improve your web site's search engine ranking, target your advertising and uncover online markets more easily.

In order to do keyword research, you need a way to access the data the search engines have collected. You can do this online, from your web browser, or you can use desktop software.

Google External Keyword Tool - (free)

Overture/Yahoo Suggestion Tool - (free)
Step 2

2. Find 3 High Converting Affiliate Programs In Your Market

The main criterion in choosing a program is conversion rate. The higher the "gravity" number under the product title the better the product is converting. "% referred" is representing the numbers of sales for this product have been referred by affiliates. There is another reason why this information is important, and it also points to the 2nd criteria to use in selection an affiliate program. It is to make sure the merchant is NOT aggressively competing with his or her affiliates!
Step 3

3. Write A Review Article For One Product, And Place This Review On Your Opt-In Page

There are four reasons for writing a full-length product review that gives valuable information to your market:

✔ Your role is to be an information provider
✔ Giving people valuable information up front improves your credibility.
✔ People want and need this information. Show them that you provide it, and you WILL get tons of subscribers onto your list.

How To Write An Affiliate Review Article
1. Gather crucial elements for writing affiliate review from the sales page.
2. Find discussions about the product on message boards and forums.
3. Contact testimonials on the sales page to check with them about their experience with the product.
4. Contact the product owner and ask if they provide "review copies" of their product to affiliates.
Step 4

4. Drive market-specific traffic to the opt-in page to build your list

Now, we have to FOCUS on driving traffic (visitors) to your affiliate review opt-in page. More importantly, this traffic must be targeted, and market-specific.

You'll roll this knowledge into a traffic generation campaign that utilizes:
1. Articles to 'steal' search engine traffic
2. Pay-per-click advertising
3. Message boards and groups
4. Social networking
5. Blogs
Step 5

5. Follow Up With Your List With More Information

In keeping with your role as an information provider, it's crucial that you build your relationship with your list by providing as much timely, useful information as possible. The key is to always have some form of information in front of your list, especially between the 'gaps' in each autoresponder sequence, and often in the middle of an ongoing sequence.

There are two ways to do this:
- Insert informational emails or newsletters between autoresponder sequences, and have these messages direct subscribers over to your blog.
- Use your autoresponder to broadcast 'one time' messages to your list.

Comments

femwiccan said

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on 5/1/2009 Can some one please give me the exact steps to starting an affiliate based company? Do i need a business license right away or can i wait until i have affiliates signing up i have a good idea so i dont know where to even begin?