Work-At-Home Success University. Course: Affiliate Marketing- Get Paid to Sell Other Company's Products and Services

Transcription

1 Work-At-Home Success University Course: Affiliate Marketing- Get Paid to Sell Other Company's Products and Services

2 NOTICE: You Do NOT Have the Right to Reprint or Resell this Report! You Also MAY NOT Give Away, Sell or Share the Content Herein If you obtained this report from anywhere other than you have a pirated copy. Please help stop Internet crime by reporting this to: mailto:success@workathomesuccess.com 2011 Copyright Leslie Truex ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express writ ten, dated and signed permission from the author. DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of publication. Because of the rate with which conditions change, the author reserves the right to alter and update his opinion based on the new conditions. The report is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report, neither the author nor his affiliates/partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional. If advice concerning legal or related matters is needed, the services of a fully qualified professional should be sought. This report is not intended for use as a source of legal or accounting advice. You should be aware of any laws, which govern business transactions or other business practices in your country and state. Any reference to any person or business whether living or dead is purely coincidental. URGENT: Your Address Potential Delivery Problems There are a couple of ISPs that are spam trigger happy and unfortunately yours may be one of them. Oftentimes whitelisting success@workathomesuccess.com will remedy this. However, in some cases it is necessary to use a different address.

3 Introduction Welcome to Work-At-Home Success University and Affiliate Marketing! I m excited to have you as a valued student in this four-week training program! I've discovered that while affiliate marketing is prevalent and most people have heard of it, many people don't understand it and are in fact suspicious of it. Let me assure you that affiliate marketing is real and you can make money. But like any other work-at-home venture, whether or not YOU make money will depend on the decisions you make, how you implement what you learn and whether or not you do the work. In this four-week course you are going to learn about affiliate marketing; what it is, how it makes money and what steps you need to take to be successful. Before we begin with the lessons, there are three important things that I need to mention to you... 1) Worksheets - The course comes with instructional materials as you see here, but it also includes worksheets. These handouts are crucial to your success so don't skip them. They are designed to help you gather and organize information so that you can use it to be a successful affiliate marketer. 2) Audio and Video Materials - When appropriate you'll find audio or video supplements to the instructional materials. These are designed to assist in providing the information in a clear and concise manner. 3) Weekly Lessons - Here is the schedule of lessons for Affiliate Marketing. Week 1 - What is affiliate marketing? How affiliate marketers make money. How to choose products or services to market. Determining if your market is a money-maker. Plans to launch an affiliate career.

4 Week 2 - Set up Joining Affiliate Programs Set up a free Blogger account and add your affiliate links. Setting up a list. Adding the list to your blog. Week 3 - Affiliate Marketing with a website or blog Creating Squeeze Pages Super Affiliates Use Wordpress... how you can too. Using marketing to increase income with one or more affiliate offers. Other monetization methods. Week 4 - Getting people to your site with little or no advertising (or money) The content in the later lessens may look sparse, but each topic area has a ton of information and step-by-step details. Some of the information will be technical, but every effort has been made to walk you through the steps one-by-one. Now that we ve gotten the housekeeping out of the way, let s get to the reason why you re here the lesson!

5 The Major Ways Affiliates Make Money Obviously, affiliates make money by referring new leads or customers to businesses. But how do they get those leads and customers? There is a variety of ways, but what we'll cover in this course are: 1) Blogging with list building. 2) Squeeze pages with list building. We're going to start with blogging using a free a resource that you can have up and running in minutes. Then we'll add and discuss list building. Next week we'll discuss squeeze pages and another blogging option that is a little more complicated, but is used by the majority of successful online entrepreneurs. Ultimately, whether or not you make money with either (or all) of these options will depend on how well you execute these steps AND how well you market your blogs and/or squeeze pages. Marketing will be covered in detail in week four. To begin this week, we'll start with joining affiliate programs.

6 Joining Affiliate Programs Last week you came up with a list of blog topic ideas and researched their popularity and potential affiliate products. This week you will take one of those topics and affiliate products, and get online to market it. But first, you need to find a product. Joining Affiliate Programs You should have a list of potential affiliate programs from last week's research. To make things easier initially, choose an affiliate option that has lots of tools and resources. These can be found at the affiliate program's sales site or if you're using a network like Commission Junction, you can find materials through the network. Many affiliate programs offer only a link or a link and a few banners. Others provide you with sample web pages, articles and more. For example, the Jobs Online Toolkit Affiliate program comes with a squeeze page, a rebrandable report, articles, as well as banners. We'll be using this program as a sample. If the program you choose doesn't offer all the materials, I'll provide information on how to get them or put them together yourself. To join an affiliate program: Sign-up free at Clickbank. Once you've joined you can search the marketplace for products. Many vendors use Clickbank and they'll have information on their

7 affiliate pages about joining. For example, here is the affiliate information page for Jobs Online Toolkit, which uses Clickbank. The Jobs Online Toolkit has a URL generator to create your Clickbank affiliate URL. Other sites might simply give you a link that looks like this and you need to replace the red text with your Clickbank ID. Finally, if you choose to obtain your affiliate links through Clickbank, you can generate an encrypted hoplink that is difficult for people to "steal". One problem

8 with Clickbank is that people can remove your ID and enter their own or buy without giving you credit. They can't do that with an encrypted URL. To get an encrypted URL at Clickbank, find the product you want and click on "Promote". A new box will open where you put your Clickbank ID. You can also put a tracking code if you'd like to test the ad. For example, you can put the ad on your home page or the side bar of a blog, but tracking codes for each to see which add makes more money. Finally, click the "Create" button to get your encrypted URL.

9 In the above sample, you'll see /?tid=squeeze which is the tracking code for a site using a squeeze page. You can check last week's lessons for other affiliate resources. Simply visit the site, click on "Publisher" or "Affiliate" for information on signing up. Short course in Hyperlinks One area many people struggle is with imputing code. How do you put your URL on the site to look like "Get the Jobst Online Toolkit" instead of 1. Use the code given by the affiliate resource. For example, Clickbank gives a code that looks like: <a href=" target="_top">click Here!</a> but when placed in HTML looks like Click Here! Many affiliate sites will give you the HTML for graphics as well. For example, here is the code for a banner with an affiliate link: <a href=" target="_blank"><img border="0" src=" which ends up looking like this: All you have to do is copy the code into the HTML portion of your webpage or blog (not the regular text section). You'll get more on this later. 2. Create your own links. The code for creating a hypertext link is <a href=" for the reader to see</a>. So if I wanted a link to Work-At-Home Success, the code would look like <a href=" Success</a> and would show up on the page looking like Work-At-Home Success Now that you have an affiliate product or service and some code, let's move on...

10 Getting Online Fast and Free When it comes to being a super affiliate, fast and free options are NOT where the money is. But, taking advantage of a fast, free option is not without its benefits. The most important thing you will get out of this section is the satisfaction of getting something up and running quickly. Plus you'll get the experience of adding affiliate links and manipulating web pages. Many successful affiliates started out with free options, but then progressed. That is what we will do. You'll start with free options and eventually these options won't be the main event, but a supporting cast to help you build a list and make money. Blogger Blogger is a free blogging resource owned by Google. While the most successful affiliate bloggers use Wordpress, Blogger is easier to set up and use, plus with its relationship to Google, it's easy to monetize with Adsense. The challenge of starting out with a blog is that blogging requires adding content on a regular basis. Content is good because search engines like it, but you'll need to develop a plan for updating your blog at least two to three times a week. The best way to do that is to look at the keyword results list from lesson one and use it to develop content ideas. For example, let's say my interest is in cake decorating. I have done research and found there are many searches on cake decorating. I've also checked Clickbank and Commission Junction where I've found how-to cake decorating resources and cooking products. Now I need to

11 create a blog that includes information about cake decorating. If I go back and look at my list of keywords, I find words like fondant, wedding cake, cake recipes, cake toppers, etc. All these would make great topics for a blog post. Here's how to get start with Blogger in minutes! 1) Visit Blogger.com. (If you use any Google products or services (i.e. Gmail), you can sign up for blogger through your Google account. At the top of Gmail, click on the link that says "More" and then "Even More". Then click on "Blogger".

12 2) After you create an account or login with Google, click on "Create Blog" 3) Choose a name for your blog. Then enter the blog address. For example, the blog name could be Flat Abs for Moms but the address would be flatabsformoms.blogspot.com if that was available. Blogger has a "Check Availability" link to help you find a blog address. Click on next.

13 4) Choose a template. You can change or modify it later. 5. At this point you can start blogging or customize your blog. Blogger now makes it easier to buy or use a previously purchased domain name, which you can add by clicking on the "Advanced Features". For our purposes, let's click on "Start Posting Now".

14 Adding Affiliate Links to your blog 1) From your blogging dashboard, click on design. Here you'll see the basic format of your blog such as your header, sidebar and blog posts. In the area that you see "Gadgets", you can add other features such as ads. 2. In the side bar (where it says "Followers", "Blog Archive", etc), click on "Add a Gadget". 3. A box will pop open with a list of Gadget Options. Click on "HTML/Java Script"

15 4. You can add a title and then paste the code you got from your affiliate vendor. (See above for example.) Then click on Save. 5. Click on Preview to see how your ad will appear. Add Adsense Code Adsense is another great money-making ad option. We will go over it in more detail next week, but since Adsense and Blogger are both run by Google, it's fast and easy to integrate the two. 1) Click on the "Make money from your blog: Publish ads with Google Adsense" at the bottom of your design view page. Or if you already belong to Adsense, your code should be integrated with your account already. 2. Click on "Ad a Gadget" where you'd like to put an ad. In this example, I clicked on the one just below the header. 3. From the pop-up box, click on the Adsense option. 4. Click on the Plus (+) icon to open the Adsense box. Click on the size and color for the ad. The location under the header calls for a long banner type ad so I chose the 468X60 option. You can choose to have text or text and image ads. Click on "Save".

16 5. Preview your site by clicking the "Preview" Button Adding Content Your blog won't be very popular if you don't add something for people to read. It can take a lot of time to write your own content; however, unique content that represents your style is always best. But there are other options:

17 1. Free reprint articles from article directories such as EzineArticles.com. Because search engines don't like duplicate content, only use these types of articles occasionally. You must print the article as written and include the author's bio (which will include a link to his site) at the end of the article. 2. Private label right articles. These are articles that you can buy and use. You can, and it's recommended, that you rewrite the articles. By using PLR articles, you get a basic outline or idea that you simply need to tweak to make it your own. Most private label right articles that are cheap or free aren't that good, so they require a little more rewriting. I've included some PLR articles that you can use... but again, plan to rewrite. 3. Hire someone to write them for you. I know many niche bloggers that do this. You can find writers through places like Elance.com or another option is Textbroker. To add content to your blogger blog: 1) Click on "Posting" from your dashboard. 2) Add a title. Be sure to use a keyword related to your blog or article. 3) Write or paste your article in the body. 4. If you want to add html code into the body of the article (for example an ad), click on the "Edit Html" tab to add it. Otherwise, write in the "Compose" tab. 5. Put keywords related to the article where it says "Labels for this post". 6. Save or Publish.

18 Other editing options for your posts:

19 Other Blogger areas to check out. Take a look at the Settings tab. The defaults are probably okay for now, but check them out so you can see what's there. The Monetize tab offers default placement of Adsense ads. The Comments tab is where you can screen for spam comments... a big problem with blogs. In your Settings, you can set it up so that only registered users can post comments. The Stats tab is where you can learn about the numbers of people viewing your site, from where they found you and what they're reading.

20 The Gold is in the List Most affiliate marketers that make big bucks do so through building a list. Why is the list so important? Most people who come to your website will may read, but they won't buy. When they leave your site, they're gone and you don't have another chance to sell to them unless you've got their address. The list allows you to stay in contact with people and through it, you build a rapport and credibility, and of course can promote affiliate products. For example, at Work-At-Home Success I give away several work-at-home related reports with a subscription to the newsletter (a form of list). Subscribers get a weekly newsletter (you don't have use the newsletter format) and important updates or information such as free events or scam alerts. And occasionally, they'll get information about an offer I think they should check out. With the list, you have a highly targeted market of people who are interested in what you have to say and offer. They are more likely to buy than cold visitors to your site are, as long as they trust you and aren't bombarded with offers, (we'll cover this more later). There are affiliate marketers that make hundreds if not thousands of dollars sending an out to their list about a hot new "thing". That is the power of the list.

21 The basics of list building are (we'll go over all this in more detail): 1) Find or create a freebie to give away in return for the name and of the visitor to your site. 2) Sign-up for a list service. 3) Paste the sign-up form code on your blog, website or squeeze page. 4) Promote your free offer and site. 5) When people sign up for your list, they'll receive an with your free offer. 6) Drip your list with great information and other resources (with affiliate programs). The FREE Offer Some affiliate programs provide free reports that you can use as a giveaway to build a list. For example, at Jobs Online Toolkit, I have a free re-brandable report (the links inside have your affiliate URLs). But many affiliate programs don't have anything you can give away in which case, you need to create it yourself. Don't panic, because it's not hard. The easiest giveaway to create and offer is a free report of 4 to 20 pages. If you have a knowledge and interest in your topic, you can create the report yourself. Or you can buy private label right (PLR) reports, which you can re-write to fit your style. Or you can hire someone to write it.

22 Fortunately, I have a few items you can use if they match your topic. I don't have a giveaway in every topic, but I've included some in the major topic areas that you can use. I've also included links to other resources for finding content you can give away to your list. Setting up the List The three main list services are Aweber, GetResponse and Constant Contact. I use Aweber and highly recommend it. There are other options such as using a list script with your hosting service, but the list services offer you protection from being accused of spam (which can carry a fine) as well as other great features. For example, Aweber can pull your blog RSS feed and it your list. Using a service isn't free, but if you want to make a living with affiliate programs, it's a must have expense. At about $20 a month, it is well worth the investment. List services do three important things: 1) Capture and maintain the names and of people who visit your site and give their information. 2) Automatically delivers a preset message or messages to your list. For our purposes, it will automatically send an with a link to the free report you are offering. You can create additional reports to go out automatically. For example, this course is set to send each course every 7 days. 3) blast your list. The autoresponder (#2) automatically sends pre-set messages, but sometimes you may want to a newsletter or special offer. In that case, you "blast" an out to your list.

23 The most important thing to remember about your list is that you are building trust and rapport. If the people on the list trust you, they will buy from you, not just once, but often. Here are the directions for using Aweber. The other services offer tutorials and customer support if you want to use something else and need guidance. 1) Visit Aweber to sign up for an account. 2) Click on the "Order" tab and choose your service option. 3) Login and choose "Create and Manage Lists" 4) Click on "Create New List" 5) Aweber gives a default list name, but for simplicity, give your list a name related to your website such as "Diet Report". 6) Type in your list's description and other info. At this point, you can ignore the social media info. Give your name and under Notifications to get an every time someone joins or unsubscribes. 7) Click on "Go to Step 2" 8) You can edit your confirmation or leave as is. To protect you from spam complaints, Aweber requires double-opt in which means after a subscriber gives you his name and , he will get an asking him to confirm that he wants to subscribe. I always edit the intro to remind people what they're subscribing to: "We've received your request for the FREE Raw Diet Recipes Report..." 9) Enter the Affiliate URL of your program where it says "Success Page: Confirmation Success Page URL". When a subscriber clicks on the "Confirm" link in

24 the , they will be taken to your program page. Another option is to send them to the PDF link to the report or to a thank you page, letting them know the report will arrive in their shortly. Since the report is what they want, this second option is most customer-friendly. A thank you page can also be a place to promote your main or additional programs. See the Jobs Online Toolkit confirmation thank you page below. However, using Blogger, it's not easy to create such a page, so in this case, send them either back to your Blogger site or to your affiliate offer directly. (I'll show you the thank you page option like that shown below next week.) Aweber has a step-by-step guide that runs at the bottom of the page during your list set up. It even has video tutorials if you need them.

25 The next step is to create your first message. 1) Click on Messages and then "Follow up" to create your first message. 2) Enter the subject line. Use a subject with the report title so that subscribers know what it is. Click on "Personalize" and choose one of the options such as name if you would like the subscribers name to be included in the subject such as "Sally, Here's the Raw Diet Recipes You Requested". 3)You can use the HTML Message and templates, but for this lesson, we'll stick with easy and scroll down the Text Message box. 4) Enter your message. You can use the "Personalize" option in the as well. I always thank people for signing up and then give them the link for the report. I let them know that I'll occasionally send tips and resources related to the topic of the report as well. I end with my name and underneath it a signature line that has information about my product. Instead of including a link to your product in the signature line, you can include a little information about your offer in the body of the , but the focus of the should be delivering the free report. If you seem to salesy, people will unsubscribe. 5) Click on the Attach button at the bottom to attach your free report to the (Blogger users only.) Using Blogger means you don't have an easy place to store your report online to send a URL for download to subscribers. So instead, you need to attach it to the first .

26 Autoresponders At this point, that is all you need to get your list online. But it can help to include at least five follow-up messages given every few days. These s should enhance the report you've sent out. For every four or so informational s you send, you can include one that is directly about the offer. For example, three days after sending the raw diet recipe report, you can send an about raw food safety, and a few days after that another one on raw food and children, etc. After about four of informational s, you can send one about the great offer on the raw food diet product. Beyond that, you can set up autoresponders that send a message every week or every two weeks. Or you can simply set a schedule and use the "Blast" option ( marketing will be covered in more detail next week). 1) To add follow-up s, click on "Messages" and "Follow-Up" and "Add new message". 2) Enter your subject and message just as you did on the first message.

27 3) Enter the time frame that this will be sent from the previous one. For example, will it go out 1 day after the first one or 4 days? You can set up intervals as well such as weekly. For example, in this course, the s are set to go out every seven days. 4) Repeat these steps for each follow-up . Remember the intervals are based on the previous . In the sample below, message two goes out three days after message one. Message three is sent two days after message two. And message four is sent three days after message three. Posting the Sign-Up Form on Blogger The first step to getting a web-form is to create it at Aweber. 1. From your Aweber account, click on the tab that says "Web Forms". 2. Click on "Create Web Form" 3. Choose a template. 4. Edit the template. There isn't a lot of room so just include something like "Yes, Send me the Raw Diet Recipes Now!" 5. Click on "Save Web Form"

28 6. Click on "Go to Step 2" - Enter a name for your form such as raw diet blogger. This name is just for you to keep track of the forms. You can create more than one form for the same list. So if you later create a squeeze page, you can have a form your blog and different one for the squeeze page, and can track which brings in the most subscribers. 7. Enter the Thank You Page information. The easiest option is to choose one of the Aweber provided options that tell the subscriber to confirm the subscription. Super affiliates usually have a thank you page that thanks the subscriber for joining, and gives a pitch for one or more affiliate products (see the Jobs Online Toolkit thank you page above). 8. Click on "Save Web Form" and "Go to Step 3". 9. Click on "I will install my form", unless you've hired a web designer. 10. Aweber provides a java snippet or html version. The Java version is best because you can come back and make changes to the form without having to repaste the code into your squeeze page. 11. Copy the java snippet from where it says <script to where it ends with </script> 12. For the time being, paste this code into Notepad to hold it until we stick on your Blogger site. Add Your List Code Onto Your Blogger Page. 1. Log into blogger. 2. Click on "Design" 3. Click on "Add Gadget" in your sidebar. This is the best place to put it because it shows up on all pages of your blog.

29 4. Click on "HTML /Java Script" option. 5. Paste the code from Aweber into the box and click save. Preview: Whew, you've gotten a lot done! You've: 1) Signed up for affiliate program(s). 2) Created a Blogger blog, added content, affiliate ads and Adsense. 3) Created a free report. 4) Set up a list.

30 5) Added the list to your Blogger site. The key to success now is getting people to the blog and signing up for the list. We'll cover marketing in detail on week four. Until then you can your friends and family, Tweet and Facebook your blog (Blogger has Gadgets to help with this), and tell people about your new blog. Next week, we'll cover two other ways to promote affiliate products; the squeeze page (which uses the list you made this week) and blogs using Wordpress. Plus we'll cover the why and how of using the list to make more money and other blog monetization options.