Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. There are many products and companies to choose from and you can sell either digital or physical products. Clickbank, one of the premier digital retailers, offers very high affiliate earnings upwards of 50%. By comparison, Amazon, another popular affiliate program for physical products, offers a percentage ranging from 4% and up.
There are other affiliate programs that will pay you each time a visitor completes an action, such as completing an application or offer, even if that action does not result in a sale!
When you sign up as an affiliate, you will receive a special link which records clicks and sales. You, in essence, simply need to drive traffic to your affiliate link to generate sales. Traffic, and the ability to generate quality traffic, is key to successful affiliate promotions.
The affiliate link provided by the program will usually be long and unappealing to click on. At a minimum, you will want to purchase a domain name that is short, tailored for you, and then mask and forward your affiliate link. This does not require hosting and the company you purchase the domain from can help you with this. Having a domain name will make your link more user-friendly and more likely to get clicks.
If you cannot afford to purchase a domain, there are free link shorteners you can use. Some even allow you to customize the link so it is pertinent, and some provide free tracking as well.
So, an important step before you proceed any further is to have selected your product and then transform that long affiliate link into a shorter, more professional appearing link that will get clicked.
Now, you can begin to promote your affiliate program without a web site, in any of the following ways:
- Social Networking. Twitter and Facebook have become important tools for affiliate marketers. You can find ebooks that have one topic: building a following! Imagine having thousands of followers on Twitter or Facebook and who are receptive to your suggestions when you recommend products or services! This is powerful and does not require a web site. Keep in mind, Twitter and Facebook users will be more tolerant of a free link shortener. If you are not using these two programs, join right away and work on building a following that you can later promote to. Myspace is another popular social networking site that can be used for internet marketing.
- Forum Posting. Get involved in a several forums that pertain to the product you are promoting and begin to build a presence there. There is no cost involved, other than your time. Most forums allow users to place promotional links in their signature, which appear with every forum post. In fact, there are services where advertisers purchase forum signatures - a testimony to the power of frequent forum posting. If you post frequent relevant, helpful, insightful comments, you will see clicks on the link in your signature! Most forums allow HTML, provide instructions, and allow at least several lines. For popular threads in a forum, you can see traffic being generated even many months later!
- Craigslist and other online classifieds. Many people now rely on the Internet in their search for information and products, and the phenomenal popularity of Craigslist is one example. When using online classifieds, keep your ad brief and to the point. Often, the less said the better. You want to tell them just enough to arouse curiosity so they will click on your link to find out more. There are many free online classifieds, and most also offer premium paid services as well. USfreeads, Backpage, Epage, Adpost, Ablewise, Oodle are a few. Some allow HTML and pictures. Whenever possible, include a picture to make your ad stand out.
- Banner advertising. You can purchase banner advertising very inexpensively to get your affiliate link out there. Most affiliate programs will provide you with banners that you can use. Just be careful to check the terms. Some affiliate programs do require that banners be placed on a personal web site, while others do not. You can place banners in a banner exchange network very inexpensively and have your banner shown across the net and even target categories. 1800banners is a popular network.
- Article marketing. This is another very popular and zero cost method, other than your time. Write and submit relevant articles to article directories. Each article will allow an author resource box in which you can place a promotional link. Some of the better directories will not permit a free link shortener, so you will have to have a domain name that masks the affiliate link. This method requires no financial outlay. The key is writing interesting articles in quantity. The potential with article submission is great because if your article is picked up by other webmasters and used, your exposure (and potential for sales) multiplies! If you have some finances at your disposal, you can have articles submitted on your behalf to hundreds of directories and save a great deal of time.
Each of these five methods can help drive traffic to your affiliate link. Remember that anything you do must be done in quantity! Post in forums multiple times daily. Show your banner thousands of times! You must write and submit many articles to many directories to generate enough clicks to result in sales.
Promoting affiliate products without a web site can be done. You may choose to only use these methods or use them as a stepping stone to having your own web site in the future.
Posts
Did you know you can shorten your long links with LinkShrink and get $$$$$ from every click on your short urls.
I earn $20 for filling a 20 minute survey!
Guess what? This is exactly what major companies are paying for. They need to know what their average customer needs and wants. So large companies pay millions of dollars per month to the average person. In return, the average person, like me, participates in surveys and gives them their opinion.