The Process of Building an Affiliate Business
You can go to an individual merchant's site, or an affiliate program network, like Commission Junction, and fill out an online application.
The application will ask for some personal information about you, including your name, address, and preferred payment method. You will also be asked for information about your site, such as its URL, name, and a description of the type of content you offer. You will also probably be asked to confirm your acceptances with the terms of agreement posted on the site.
Approval into a program may or may not be immediate. Some affiliate program managers will want to review your site prior to accepting you into their program.
Once your application is approved, you are ready to start marketing as an affiliate. Many merchants will supply you with all you need in terms of marketing material, such as text and graphic links.
Overview of the Business Building Process
It's always easier to tackle a big project, when you break it down into manageable chunks.
Here are the 10 'chunks' involved in building an affiliate business. Each chunk is comprised of several smaller steps.
Chunk by chunk and step-by-step, you'll soon find that you're making money on the Web!
Let's look at a brief description of each 'chunk' in the process of building an affiliate business.
- Choose a Topic or Two - What will your site be about? The best way to choose a topic is to pick something that interests you. Spending hours and hours everyday working on a topic you have no interest in or that bores you is hard to do. Choose something that excites you and the work will be fun. Write down a list of potential topics in a notebook or MSWord.
- Assess Demand, Supply & Profitability - The basic rule for determining profitability is to see whether your chosen topic has an audience and how crowded the market is. This is a 2-step process. The first step is to see how many people search on the keywords applicable to your topic. The second step is to visit Google or AltaVista and determine how many sites relating to that topic are already online. With this knowledge, and a formula given later in the Handbook, we will determine the potential for profit in your chosen market.
- Find Related Products and Services with Affiliate Programs - Once you know that your idea is potentially profitable, you need to find out whether there are merchants offering products and services of interest to your customers through affiliate programs. We research the programs we locate to determine product quality.
- Choose Your Domain Name and Web Host - Now that we know your topic idea is potentially profitable and supported by affiliate programs, it's time to register a domain name and web hosting for your site.
- Create Site Outline - This is an essential step that many people forget. An outline gives you a plan to work from and makes the project proceed quickly and easily.
- Write Product Endorsements - Using word-processing software like Microsoft Word, write product endorsements for two or three of the products and services you plan to sell. Although it may seem strange to write a product endorsement before you've joined the corresponding affiliate program, this is one thing that sets super affiliates apart from other affiliates. Affiliate managers will see the work you've done and are more likely to accept your program application.
- Build and Upload Web Site to the Hosting Service - Either design a site yourself, or input the sales copy into a purchased template, then place it on the web for all to see and enjoy.
- Sign up for Affiliate Programs - Only now do we apply to join affiliate programs.
- Promote Site - Get the word out and draw huge numbers of surfers to your site. Have them sign up for your newsletter and build a huge opt-in list. Watch your visitors buy copious amounts of your affiliate products and services. Deposit numerous checks in large amounts into your checking account. Contact newsletter subscribers with new offers and deposit more checks into your bank account.
- Repeat Steps 1 through 9 - In Step 1 above we talked about coming up with multiple ideas for site topics. After your first site is online and making money, you will repeat the process all over again with Topic Number 2.
That's it in a nutshell. Ten steps to building your own prosperous affiliate business. Let's get started!
Are you feeling a little overwhelmed by all that you need to learn? Fear not!
Affiliate marketing on the Internet isn't rocket science
You don't need an MBA or other degree to succeed in an online business. If you know how to access the Web, as well as send and receive email, you've already mastered the two activities you'll perform most frequently.
It's also helpful if you have fundamental computer skills including a grasp of basic macros and file management.
Don't worry about knowing HTML (Hypertext Markup Language - the code to write web page) at this, or any other point in the process. Although I strongly recommend that you learn a little HTML later, it's not absolutely necessary for success.
At this point we are only dealing with the things that will help you maneuver around your computer more easily. Building a web site will come later.
Continue reading here: Overtures Search Term Suggestion Tool
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