Affiliate Marketing

Step-by-Step

There are six steps to building a successful affiliate website. The first step (and most important) is to decide what product or service you want to promote, try for 2 to 3 ideas. Step two you want to analyze those ideas to see how profitable they'll be. Step three you'll select the one idea you believe will be the most profitable, then analyze the competition and perform a SWOT analysis. By step four you're ready to research your idea and build yourself an affiliate website. For step five your website will be complete and you'll contact merchants who may be interested in placing their link or banner ad on your website. As the final step you'll begin advertising your new affiliate website through search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), or by some other means.

   » Page Outline:

Step 1 :  What to Promote? Step 2 :  Analyze Idea Step 3 :  Analyze Competitors (SWOT)

Step 4 :  Build Website Step 5 :  Sign-Up Affiliates Step 6 :  Promote Website

Step 1 : What to Promote?

The first step in affiliate marketing is to figure out what products or services you want to promote. Generally you're looking for a product or service people are familiar with and would be comfortable buying online. For example, some products which convert well include: shoes, luggage, and travel.

When I'm looking for new products to promote, I find it's helpful looking at magazine advertisements, advertisements posted on transit buses, or even SPAM. However my favorite source for website ideas comes from excellent affiliate programs. That is, if I find a merchant with a very good affiliate program I'll generally build websites to promote their product line.

   » Goal: Try to come up with three or four ideas for your affiliate website.

Step 2: Analyze Idea

Once you have three or four affiliate website ideas, it's time to analyze each of them. You want to see how many times per day these topics are searched for online. In addition, you want to build a keyword list for your website topics. A keyword list is a list of keywords people would likely type into the search engines to find the product or service you're going to promote.

An excellent tool to use here is WordTracker (free trial available). This tool searches for what people are searching for. With this tool enter your main keyword for each of your site ideas and WordTracker will return both the number of times per day that keyword is searched for, as well as suggestions for other keywords. Analyzing your ideas in this way helps you eliminate those less profitable ideas.

   » Goal: Narrow your ideas down to one or two and build a keyword list for each.

Step 3 : Analyze Competitors (SWOT)

At this point you should have one or two affiliate website ideas and each idea should be one that's searched for regularly. Now it's time to see what kind of competition you'll face by performing a SWOT (analyzing your competitors Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats).

A good place to find competitors is through Google, Yahoo, or any other popular search engine. Take your best keywords from your keyword list and perform a search. Scan the search results for affiliate websites and note the site's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. I find performing a SWOT gives me some great ideas for my own website!

Strengths
What does the affiliate site do well? Do you like the site? Why?

Weaknesses
What does the affiliate site not do well? Do you dislike the site? Why?

Opportunities
What ideas can you implement on your own site? "Imitation is the highest form of flattery"

Threats
What does the affiliate site do well that you are unable to do, or will find very difficult to achieve?

At this point you may be a little intimidated by the competition, don't be! If you persist you will succeed.

   » Goal: SWOT at least 3 competitors for each site idea & decide now which idea you'd like to proceed with.

Step 4 : Build Website

Finally you're ready to start working on the website! At this stage you have your website idea, a list of keywords, and you have performed a SWOT on your competition. Now it's time for you to sit down and build your affiliate website. My approach to building websites is a 5 step process: Organize Site, Purchase Domain Name, Write Content, Build Site, & Post Site.

   » Resources:

• Step By Step Websites In 3-6 Hours (eBook)
• One Template - Use it Again & Again (website)
• Domain Maniac (domain registration)
• Dotster (domain registration)
• iPowerWeb (web hosting)
• LunarPages (web hosting)

   » Goal: Build and Post Website.

Step 5 : Sign-Up Affiliates

With your website built and hosted, it's time now to affiliate with some merchants. If you haven't done so already, sign-up with a couple affiliate networks - it's FREE! An affiliate network is an independent third party which brings merchants and affiliates together. The two big ones are LinkShare and CJ; some other affiliate networks include:

• ClickXChange

Alternatively, you can apply to any merchants who handle their own affiliate programs - Indies. Some affiliate programs which have been lucrative for me include:

• Dental Plans
• WordTracker

   » Goal: Add text and banner links then re-post affiliate website.

Step 6 : Promote Website

Congratulations! You have finished your first affiliate website - complete with affiliate links. Now it's time to promote your website and begin driving targeted traffic to your merchants. There are a number of ways to do this, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, advertisements in online newsletters, or offline advertisements.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization means tweaking your website here and there in an attempt to rank well in major search engines. If you get really good at search engine optimization you'll appear near the top for the keywords which are important to your affiliate website. Since this topic is a book in itself I'll refer you to some excellent resources.

   » Resources:

• The Nitty-Gritty of Writing for the Search Engines
• Search Engine Optimization - Fast Start

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Pay-per-click campaigns have worked well for me. PPC is purchasing placement on search engines, you pay by the click to have your advertisement shown. There are a number of good PPC programs available, the most well known are Overture and Google Adwords.

   » Resources:

• Yahoo Search Marketing (Get a $25 Credit)

Newsletter Advertisements

There are countless newsletters available on the Internet, many of which would be happy to run an advertisement for your website. When I run ads in newsletters I look for a newsletter with a large subscriber base and one which is highly targeted to the product or service I'm promoting. For example if your website is promoting Garden Gnomes, you would look for a gardening newsletter, even better would be an English Gardening newsletter.

Offline Advertisements

Offline advertisements can be ads in newspapers, mailings, flyers, or even posting the domain name of your website on your car! Let your imagination run wild.

... and Your Done!

Further Resources