If you thought affiliate marketing was a hobby or an internet toy, think again. Affiliate marketing is real business and the trillion plus dollars made each year through affiliate programs is proof of that.

You may know affiliate marketing as another name ‘E-Commerce,’ but whatever name you relate to promoting products through affiliate programs you should know that it can be a lucrative business. In fact, many are pursuing affiliate marketing as a fulltime career.

If you desire to try your hand at affiliate marketing, you must have the mindset to succeed. While it’s not easy to get started, it does require work and commitment to achieve your goals. For some, the idea of make ‘cents’ per sale does not seem lucrative, but joining the right affiliate program will give you the option to make as much or as little in commissions as you’d like; if you are willing to do the leg work.

What is affiliate marketing?

You may have heard of affiliate marketing, but still now sure what it is. Affiliate marketing is simply linking customers to merchants. There are many online businesses that are willing to pay to get visitors to come to them. As an affiliate marketer, they are paying you to bring customers to their website.

It sounds easiest enough doesn’t it? Is there a catch somewhere? No, there isn’t. This is what makes affiliate marketing so great. Most affiliate programs even provide you with banners and links, making your job a little easier. Commissions can range from a few cents to a few hundred dollars – depending on the products.

Are you still a little nervous? Well, let me tell you a few more reasons why affiliate marketing is one of the best internet marketing programs to get into.

Work Anywhere

With affiliate marketing you are not tied down to an office or even a specific work time or place. Anywhere there is internet access, you can work. This gives you flexible hours and the ability to travel or make plans away from home without the worries of work – you can take it with you.

Start Up Cost

With our economy still in a rut, business star up costs have resulting in many potential business owners to wait until the economy picks up, but with affiliate marketing you can literally start for the cost of a domain name and web hosting – less than $20.00. You can’t even get a decent meal for $20, but you can start a business.

No Inventory

When you think of running a business and selling products, you think of how do I get the products? Where do I keep them until they sell? What if they don’t sell? Well, with affiliate marketing, there is no inventory. Anything that has to do with shipping, returns, customer services – all handled by the affiliate program.

Do you still doubt if affiliate marketing is real business? Let’s go over this again. Sending visitors to merchants for a commission, no inventory to store, nothing to ship, and start up cost less than $20. It sounds like a plan to me.

Website directories are where web users go when they want to search for a website. Although it sounds similar to what you are currently doing when you type a keyword into your web browser, web directories are different, but one thing is for certain getting traffic to your website with website directories is a great way to brand yourself.

With the search engines are pretty lenient when it comes to web pages they will accept, web directors are reviewed by humans and low quality websites will be rejected. Now, there are a number of web directory sites where you can submit your site to where they won’t care, but you want to be listed in website directories that have a reputation and where you know that individuals will see it. The problem with most of the web directories popping up today is that the templated program can be purchased off of an auction site for as little as $5 and most of the creators simply transfer the list from site to site and sell the same listing over and over again. Yes, this may get you listed in several different directories, but who is going to actually go to these directories to search for something – most likely no one.

Web directories like DMOZ (Open Directory) and Yahoo are two well respected web directories and it is where many individuals go to search for websites – this is where you want to be listed, and I will show you how to increase your chances of getting accepted.

First, you want to make sure that your web design is up to par. Human will be editing your page and reviewing it for accuracy, ease of use, and design. It is only necessary to submit the first page of your website since directories list websites and not web pages.

Submitting your web page to the directories is pretty easy and straight forward. Make sure that you read and understand the web directory’s rule and submission instructions. Not following the directions, could very easily get your website rejected.

All of the directors have categories and subcategories. You will have to decide which category best fits your website. It is important that you list your website in the right category or it could be rejected.

Most of the directories will require you give the title of your website and a brief description. This is a very small space, so you want to use it as effectively as possible. Try to avoid words like “cheap,” or “best,” and never use all capital letters. A simple but factual description will do just fine. Don’t forget to use at least one keyword in your title and description. This makes it easier for web users to find your site.

Make sure you check everything over, especially your URL. Check for any spelling errors and double check to be certain that you have followed the instructions. Once you are satisfied with everything, you can submit your web page.

Since the top web directories are human edited, you could be waiting a few weeks before your site appears in the directory. They normally will send out an email if your site is accepted, and you will probably not receive an email it is rejected.

Now what does this have to do with building traffic? Take a look at the number of directories where you can submit your web pages. This is where the real work comes in. Don’t worry, you can outsource the task or utilize some of the software programs that will submit your web pages to numerous directories after you enter your information one time. This makes getting traffic to your website with website directories much easier and less time consuming.

There are thousands, perhaps even more articles and blogs and forums that talk about the importance of listbuilding and how it can benefit your business, but very little of this content actually tells you how to start and grow your list so that you can start making money online. You have to learn how to start listbuilding before you can learn how to make the most of a list, so let’s start here.

Forum Marketing

This is a bit old school when you compare it to the new and exciting Web 2.0 platforms, but forum marketing is still around because it’s effective. Since the rapid increase of people doing business online, you will have to find reputable forums related to your niche to post to. You may think this does not make a difference, but linking to sites that have no values may hurt your rankings in the search engines.

Once you have joined a few forums, you will need to submit at least five posts to each one of them daily. That’s right. You want to become known as the expert in your niche and this is created by creating a presence in the forums. Not only will you gain expert status, but you will also get traffic going back to your website, which is the first step for building your list – getting the traffic to actually come to you.

Giveaways/Freebies

It is known that webmasters offering giveaways and free offers get more subscribers. Why? Because it gives visitors something in return for their subscribing to your mailing list and two, you need to prove yourself to them if you are not very well known in your niche.

A giveaway can be something as simple as a free e-book download or a special report. If you want to capture a physical home address, you may want to check some wholesale distributes and see what they are giving away at reduced costs; either because of low stock or discontinued. You can usually get great deals and you then say something like, “Free key chains given to the first 20 people who subscribe to my list.”

List Builders

List builders are pretty simple once you know how it works. Basically you sign up for the exchange and while you are allow to promote to thousands of others participating, you agree to have other members promote to your. In other words, you agree to receive emails from other members as well. This is a quick and easy way to build a list if you have quality content. It works best when you follow up with an email every few days.

Article Marketing

You’ve heard about article marketing a million times, but for the purpose of building a list, you will need to do more than just submit your articles to the article directories, you will need to submit your content to authority sites related to your niche. For instance if you’re in the scrap booking niche market, you will want to find sites like scrapbooking-directory.com to submit your articles. This has a twofold benefit for you. One, you’re not in competition with millions of others because you are submitting to a target based niche, and two, people reading your articles are obviously, interesting in your site if they have come to a specific niche directory.

Here are just a few ways to start your listbuilding campaign that will give your newly created or slow business a boost. You can try one method or try them all, but the key is not to wait. You can get started right now in fact.

Social media is booming – and internet marketing is right in the middle. There has never been a better time to get into internet marketing with all of the options available to you. Affiliate marketing and social media make a great team for success.

If you aren’t familiar with the social media site, let me give you a brief description, along with how combining social media with affiliate marketing can get your business rolling or bring back to life a dwindling existing business.

Facebook

This site is tagged as a place for ‘friends to connect,’ but it’s also a potential cash cow for affiliate marketers. Not only is Facebook great to meet others in your niche, but if you are an affiliate marketers, it’s a great place to promote your products. By building a community of like minded individuals, it’s easier to market to individuals who are already interested. If you don’t have a Facebook account, sign up today and get your affiliate business going. An added bonus is you can now customize your URL, so if your niche is custom earrings, you can have facebook/yourname/customerearrings. This makes it easy for others to identify your niche.

Twitter

Everyone is tweeting from Oprah to members of Congress, so why not use it to your advantage. The great thing about Twitter is that it’s quick and easy to post – 140 characters to be exact. Your profile should include a link to your website and your posts can be as simple as “Check out this new product ‘x’” Twitter replaces URLs within a post, so your link is not visible, but if someone clicks it they will be directed to your website. Remember, you have to create a list of followers to market to, so this does take some time, but its well worth it and certainly a potential goldmine for affiliate marketing. You can share videos, blog posts, even articles to your followers, all of these linking to your website, of course.

Linkedin

This is more of a professional or formal social network. It was originally created for professionals to connect with each other and link to other networks. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use Linkedin for your affiliate marketing business. With the help of Q&A, Groups, and Polls that the website has, it’s easy to combine your products with a successful marketing campaign. Keep in mind that this will require a little more work and creativity, but it can be accomplished.

Regardless of which site you want to try out first, affiliate marketing and social networking make a great team only if you build a great network. Simply signing up and posting affiliate products will probably not be a big hit because no one knows who you are; however, if you participate in the different sites beforehand and build a network of individuals who trust you and have termed you as the “expert” in your niche, marketing to these groups is a piece of cake. Social media is about building credibility and trust, so join a social network, start participating and building your target market to sell your affiliate products to.

Some think getting visitors to their site is difficult, others say getting traffic to your website is a matter of strategic planning. It doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact getting traffic to your website for free is a matter of knowing how to use the marketing tools and strategies available to you.

If you have a blog or a website, it’s easy to use the plug-ins and widgets to create a great layout, but that doesn’t get visitors, it’s the content. You can add as many widgets and videos as you’d like, but after visitors watch a video or two they’re gone.

Everyone has heard the phrase, “Content is King,” well this is true. Content is the name of the game when it comes to not only getting traffic to your website but getting them to come back is crucial. If your web pages have quality content, readers will visit your site regularly to learn more about the subject. In return for visiting, you will offer them get content for their time. An added bonus for you is the search engines love fresh, quality content, and will crawl your site more frequently than sites who update in frequently.

Finding Content
For some finding valuable content can be challenging. Once you write about everything you know, it’s now time to turn to the internet to help you find compelling content to write about. There are a number of ways to get new information such as: visiting press release websites to see if there is anything related to your niche, other blogs, forums, search engine news sites, such as Google News, Yahoo News, etc. If your blog is related to something local such as a service that you perform in your area, you can check the local newspapers as well as your local Chamber of Commerce for news. You can also check the article directories to get ideas on topics others have written. If you’re really stumped for content you can take advantage of the article directories by using content that is free to use as long as you give the author credit for their work.

Using Social Media Networks
Another great way to get traffic to your website is through social media sites. With so many people tweeting and digging news and information, you can get your website or blog in the mix and start benefiting from social media. When you create your profile, be sure to add a link to your website and make your tweets related to your niche. If you are in the vitamin and supplement niche market – “Hey, there’s a great product that can help decrease join pain. Check it out.” It only takes a few minute to plug your site and the benefits can be huge.

Bookmarking your sites is another great way to get people to visit your site. This can be time consuming, so it is recommended that you take advantage of some of the great bookmarking tools that allow you to bookmark many sites at once.

By combining quality content on a regular basis and incorporating article marketing, social media, and bookmarking, you are not only creating back links to your site, but you will start getting traffic to your website.

Building a list is done for obvious reasons, to build a list of subscribers that you can market to, but understanding how listbuilding works can help your business and your pockets grow large.

First, let me say that there is a lot of work that goes into actually building a list, but your hard work will definitely pay off in the long run. Before you start building your list, there are a couple of things that you need to have in place:

Autoresponder software
An autoresponder is a program that automatically responders to your subscribers. These message are set up by you so when a person subscribes to your site, they will receive an automatic response. There are a number of autoresponder programs available (free and paid) and it is simply a matter of creating your messages.

This software works great when building a list because you can generate automatic thank you messages, send out newsletters, hello’s, and even promote products to all of your subscribers at once or as they respond.

Newsletter Software
If you are going to create a monthly newsletter for your subscribers, which by the way is a great way to keep them up to date on what you are promoting, sending useful information, or even surveys so you know how to better serve them. There are several software programs available.

Survey Software
Sending surveys is a great way to interact with your subscribers and there a several great programs on the internet. Remember to keep your surveys short, so your reader won’t get turned off.

Questions can be simple one answer questions like, “What information would you like to see more of?” Of course, this needs to be related to your niche. You can ask their opinion on previous products or information that requires a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer: “Did you find the report on ‘blank’ useful and would you like more information?” This makes their response quick and easy.

Once you have a number of responses, you can review this information and create new products or use it to provide more useful information that your readers will enjoy.

Exchanging lists
When you have created a targeted list in one particular niche market, you can use this list to approach other business in your niche and offer to exchange lists. In other words, they will promote their products to your list and vice versa. If you have a decent sized list, and as long as you are not in direct competition with the business you approach, chances are they will be more than happy to exchange lists with you.

Offer Something
In order to get someone to subscribe to your list you have to offer them something. Well, you don’t have to, but “free” is a universal language and people are more likely to opt-in if they are getting something in return. This does not have to be something expensive – an ebook, a report, a link to something free all work well in getting people to sign up.

Once you have everything in place, you will see that your list will grow. You must remember to keep your content fresh to keep them coming back, keep your autoresponder up to date, and most importantly, interact with your subscribers on a regular basis. Once you get a firm understand of how listbuilding works, you will be on your way to building a list that you can monetize from over and over again.

Some think it’s tough to get started online, especially if they have no prior knowledge of how internet marketing works. Truth is you can get started today, even with affiliate marketing. I won’t kid you though, in the beginning, you won’t be able to sit back and watch the green roll in. It takes time to build your business before you can reap the rewards.

So what is all this talk about affiliate marketing? I’ll make it easy for you. Affiliate marketing is advertising. That’s right advertising products for other people. You see this every day, everywhere you go companies advertising products for other people. Do you get sales papers in your Sunday newspaper? All of the stores are advertising for other people. Affiliate marketing is all about promoting for others and you earn a commission for each sale or lead you send to them. This is all managed by an affiliate company, to make it easier for the marketer and the product creator, although many individual online companies have affiliate programs that you can join and earn a commission from the sales sent through your affiliate code.

So how does affiliate marketing work? When you join an affiliate program you will be given a code or affiliate number. This will track sales that come from you and recorded so the affiliate program can keep track of your earnings. Most affiliate programs will go above and beyond to help you because if you make money, they make money, so they provide banners and text links, and even provide you with an affiliate manager in case you run into problems, in some cases.

Once you have joined and received your affiliate code, you have to select products and start promoting. This can be through posting to blogs and forums, free classified ads, and forums. You may also choose to use social media or article marketing to send some traffic to your website. The more traffic you send, the more your chances increase to make a sale.

Have a great product, Digg it and see who else thinks it’s great. Do you have a group of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter? Post your affiliate products and see if anyone is interested. Don’t be discouraged if no one is interested at first, just keep promoting and you will start to see results, if you have what it takes to send the traffic.

What’s the catch? It sounds too easy, doesn’t it? Well, what looks easy in black and white actually requires some due diligence on your part. Signing up for affiliate programs and finding great products is the easy part – writing compelling sales copy and getting traffic to come to you take a little more effort. Since commissions vary drastically, from a few cents to higher dollar amounts, you may have to work a little harder to build a decent commission.

That’s not to say that you can’t make decent money with affiliate programs – some marketers have replaced their fulltime income with affiliate marketing. You have to find the right program, the right products, and most importantly you have to promote to the right people.

If you’re like most new marketers, one of the biggest challenges is how to get traffic to your website. We all know that traffic is needed to create sales and sales are needed to create money. Here are five ways to get traffic to your website, both free and paid methods.

Free online traffic

One of the easiest and most forgotten ways to promote your website is to include your URL in your emails. This should be with every email you send and most email providers allow you to create a signature which automatically is placed at the end of each email.

You may see “Follow me on Twitter” on many emails you receive, so why not add a link to your website. This is a quick way to get your name and your URL on the map.

Submitting Articles to Directories

When you submit articles to the article directories, there is a place where you can add a link to your website. Your resource box is at the end of each article accepted. This is basically a link to your website, and as you know, links increase your ratings with the search engines. To make article writing and submissions effective, your content must be related to your website. There is an added benefit when others use your articles on their website, as you have another link to your website. It’s important to note that you should make the best use of the resource box and not just add a link. Use that space to say something to make readers want to click to your website.

Reciprocal Link Exchange

Exchanging links with other businesses in your niche is a great way to link to higher ranked sites, but be careful as you don’t want too many links pointing out from your web pages and double check to make sure the other webmaster has actually added your link.

Other ways to get traffic to your websites

Press releases

Many people don’t submit press releases because one, they don’t know how, and two, they don’t want to spend the money. While there are free sites were you can submit press releases, most of the paid sites offer you more benefits and are certainly worth the money spent.

Paid traffic

There are companies that will send traffic to your website for a fee. If you plan on going this route, you want to make sure that it is targeted traffic. This can be a costly method, but if you’re looking for a boost to get you started, it is an option, if your budget will allow for it.

It’s no secret that listbuilding now will pay off later for your business. In fact, once you have a list, you can use it over and over again to market your products. But how does one actually start building a list?

For most internet marketer, listbuilding begins with all of your family and friends who you’ve asked to subscribe to your site. While this is great, you need for more subscribers than people in your community to get listing building to pay off for you. As you may already know, subscribers are past customers or potential customers, and of course, you want to convert them all into recurring customers, but again, how you have to start somewhere.

Are you familiar with social networking – MySpace, Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn…? These are all social media outlets and places where you can promote, but you can’t just say, “Hey subscribe to my mailing list,” because most people won’t even bother going to your page, let alone subscribing to anything. Why? Because they don’t know who the heck you are. The first thing you need to do is familiarize yourself with some of the social networks and start networking. Chances are you already have friends on at least one of these sites, but now what?

If you aren’t well known across the social networks, you may have to buy your way in. No, I don’t mean with money, but wow the networks with freebies. Let’s say your niche is cell phone accessories. Create a free report on, “How to get a free cell phone,” which by the way, you can easily obtain free offers on just about any niche if you search for them. Now, when you leave a comment on someone’s page, add a link to your page and your free offer. “Visit my page and get your free cell phone offer. Join my mailing list and get the lasted updates on new cell phone releases.” This is a quick way to not only get noticed, but they will refer others to your site. Now you need to do this for several of the social media sites, but don’t just duplicate your offer, add new content because chances are those same people that are interested in cell phone accessories will be on other sites as well.

Another quick way to build a list is to create a video. Show a demonstration of a product or how to download an application to your cell phone, but don’t give them everything in the video. You want to give them only a snippet of information and then direct them to your website where they can subscribe and get the rest of the information.

Don’t be afraid to create a video, it’s easier than you think and you don’t even have to show your face if you don’t want to, although it makes your promotion more credible when visitors can actually put a face with a product. The great thing about videos is that they don’t have to be perfect. If you mess up, that’s okay; you can add a joke or edit it out.

Once you have started building a list, you will have to give them something periodically so they don’t unsubscribe or forget who you are. If you don’t have an autoresponder set up, you will need to do so to make reaching your subscribers easier. With an autoresponder you will be able to set up emails in advance to send messages to your members at once. This can be a promotion, a newsletter, a “Just saying hello,” email; something that they will remember you by.

If you need more information on listbuilding or finding an autoresponder series, there are unlimited resources right at your fingertips.

Did you know that it is possible to start an online business even if you don’t have your own products? This is easy to do when you use affiliate marketing to jumpstart your business to get you going.

Many individuals hold off on working online because they don’t have anything to sell, but what they don’t know is that you don’t need anything; you can use other people’s products through affiliate marketing.

There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of affiliate programs just waiting for you to join, and contrary to what you may have heard; this is not just limited to e-books and downloadable audio products that have no value. In fact, affiliate programs also have high-end products that you can sell in addition to your traditional downloadable items.

To start, you will need two things:
1. A place to promote your products; a website or blog
2. Products to promote

Finding the right affiliate program takes some investigating, because there is more than finding great products. You also have to know the company’s reputation, their payout schedule, your commission for the sales you make, and what tools and strategies they have available for you to use. The reason why most internet marketers start with affiliate programs is because it’s so easy to get started. Most companies have banners, and even sales pages, ready for you to start promoting.

Of course, driving the traffic to your site is your job, so you will have to learn how to get people to your site. This can be done in many different ways:

1. Advertising through your blog
2. Forums and social networking sites
3. Social bookmarking
4. Pay per click

If you have a blog, you have control and it’s easy to promote your products, but don’t forget about the content – it must be related to your niche and compelling so your visitors will trust you and feel comfortable buying from you.

Forums and social networking sites are a great way to spread the word about your products. With most forums, there is a section for selling products/services where you can promote, but before you do that, you will need to participate in the forums and create a name for yourself so people know who you are. Most people won’t buy from strangers, so be the social butterfly and stand out.

Social bookmarking can be tedious, but there are tools available that make bookmarking a breeze. If you find that you just don’t have the time, hire someone to handle the task. This doesn’t mean that you have to go out and spend all of your savings, perhaps you have teenagers or college students who want to make a few dollars for the summer.

Pay per click takes some know how, and it does cost, but it will be worth the effort to have your ads being seen across the internet.

Regardless of how you get traffic, if you use affiliate marketing to jumpstart your business and promote your products to a targeted group of individuals, you can be an internet marketing success.