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Does The New Affiliate Need? by
Stephen Brennan
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I'm often
contacted by my website visitors, readers of my articles and
others who've 'tracked me down' in some way or another, who are
generally looking for advice or guidance in some form or other.
One of the more common requests seems to concern their need for
information about how to go about getting their 'planned'
Internet home business started. More specifically, in fact, are
those wondering about Affiliate Marketing. It's
not surprising at all, given the level of exposure that this
particular home business model enjoys online. Certainly, every
website with a home based business theme promotes or at least
suggests Affiliate marketing as a possibility for the thousands
of budding 'Netpreneurs' (not being a fan of 'buzzwords', I
really do hate that expression!). There
would also seem to have been a recent increase in ebooks and
tutorials etc promising the recipe for success in Affiliate
Marketing. Having written one myself and read many, I can say firsthand
that some are valuable, helpful and useful products which will
go a long way towards getting a budding Affiliate up and running
and, provided they have the necessary drive, perseverance and
'certain other qualities', on the way to success in their dream
of working from home. Of course, some (IMO probably about 50%)
are total rubbish, a promotional vehicle for some other product
or program, or both. One
article is certainly not going to go anywhere near giving the
necessary advice to the information hungry 'Newbie' who is
chasing the promised dream of a successful home business. Nor
will it suggest much in terms of the necessary requirements and facilities
etc. However, after recommending a couple of the better (and
more reasonably priced) tutorial ebooks, I will generally
suggest that their initial Affiliate endeavour should include,
at least, the following: |
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Domain and
Hosting Package - Although it is possible for some to
achieve a level of success in Affiliate Marketing without a
website, the chances of a 'Newbie' having the knowledge,
experience and abilities in the required areas is unlikely (i.e.
copy writing ability for email ads and Google Adwords® and knowledge and skills in areas of
promotion outside of website promotion etc).
Domains are
priced from as little as $5 to about an average of $12 per year.
Certainly don't ever pay more than $20 for your standard .com,
.net or .biz domains. A hosting package with the necessary
facilities for a new Affiliate should cost no more than $3 to $5
per month. If it does, you're being charged too much, or paying
for things that you simply don't need, nor ever will. A hosting
package, which includes free 'sub-domains' is a must for any
Affiliate.
Safelist
Memberships - I know that many say that Safelists are not
very useful for promoting anything, as they are populated by
primarily other
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home business people who are all there to promote rather than
buy. This is true however, the fact that most are others in the
same position as yourself, Safelists are a good opportunity for
a new Affiliate to promote products, which may well be of
interest to others who are also building or promoting their
Affiliate activities. They are also quite useful in building
your Affiliate downline. As well, the opportunity to see how
others are writing their email copy and what other opportunities
are available can be an educational experience for the new
operator. Safelists are also very much a good way to simply stay
in touch with what is happening in the Affiliate/Home Business
industry. Traffic Exchange - Again,
there are some who may doubt the usefulness of the Traffic Exchanges
however, again, I see them as a useful facility, especially for
the new Affiliate. Admittedly, the traffic that your website will
receive from the exchanges is 'non-targeted' and very unlikely to
consist of anyone other than those who are, again, in the same
position as yourself. However, as in the case of Safelists,
Traffic Exchanges are useful for building your Affiliate downlines
and also for the very same opportunities and experience that the
Safelists present. Imaging Editor - In my
opinion, a good image editor is essential for anyone involved in
building and maintaining their own website/s (for a new Affiliate
to pay for this service would be financially crippling). The good
news is that there are a number of imaging programs which will
perform all the modification and adjustments that most webmasters
would need and the one I suggest as the best is freeware. It is
called 'Irfanview®' and can be downloaded free at their website Irfanview.com Website
Editing Program - As I just mentioned, having to pay someone
to build and maintain a website (let alone more than one) would be
financially crippling. Most of us have managed, over time, to gain
a reasonable working ability with programs such as FrontPage® and DreamWeaver® and from there, at least a working knowledge of the
common codes. It can be daunting for someone who has had no
experience with these programs or 'html' coding but this is where
the 'perseverance' I spoke of earlier becomes useful. Besides,
there are relatively cheap tutorials available and a ton of free
advice in the 'Webmaster Forums' etc. Of
course, these few 'tidbits' are simply what a new Affiliate will
need, in my opinion, just to achieve an online presence. There is
far more to getting to the point where you will be attracting
'targeted' visitors to your website or actually referring paying
clients to your merchants. In fact, there would probably be
another dozen or so articles (or a good tutorial ebook) in just
that alone. Did I mention that patience was another necessary requirement?
** This 'Author's Resource' must be published intact with links
active when copying or publishing this article **
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