Become an Expert in Your Niche

It happened to me by accident. Rather is wasn't in my plan. My plan was to be an affiliate marketer and make money selling the product of others. Had you told me 2 years ago that I would have been interviewed by David Shade, become friends and work with Nicole Gayle and have Evan Marc Katz as a guest poster on my forum, I would have never thought it. If you had told me that I would make money helping others find love and go through break ups and have my own site, I would never have believed it. Writing my own book? Me? Yet all of the above is happening and now I can imagine and believe that more is to come my way. Being a weekly co-host on a radio talk show, Getting man out of the cave? Me, nope never, but it's real and it's happening.

I started with blogs and Squidoo Lens. It all started when I purchase Pot Pie Girls One Week Marketing which I highly recommend for a newbie. Her plan was simple and I started blogging and low and behold, people started reading my blogs and lens and money started coming in. I little at first, but now I support myself on this plan alone, the becoming and expert and my own site I believe is going to be the icing and cherry on top.

I wrote a lot of articles as well. I have thousands out there and became an expert at that as well, but it's no longer my focus. It is a way to drive traffic, build credibility and a reputation. It's very important to provide useful information for your audience and build trust.

So will you see me on TV one day? I think you just might. It all started with a work at home forum that I joined and the rest just started spiraling. With a lot of hard work, dedication and never giving up.

My Core Belief About Affiliate Marketing

I use Core belief here because tonight I logged onto a work at home forum, it is my favorite one, I am on a few. I don't log onto them as much as I should. Every time I do I tell myself you should do this a couple times a week. I learn something new each time. Today I was reminded by a very respected member there in his post about Frank Kern's Core Influence series, or program or whatever it is. I watched a few of these videos and I had forgotten about them. I also realized what Frank Kern teaches I pretty much do. For the most part anyway.

The general message is you have to be able to understand their problems, feel them really so you can communicate through to their core personality. You have to get to know them I believe or communicate to them as if you know them and feel their pain or problem. So in essence if you feel their pain, you do understand and you sort of become an authority to you audience.

I don't underestimate the power of really getting to know my audience. I do this through Facebook and some forums related to my niche. I guess you could say I am building an online presence and credibility slowly but surely. If you remember, I am not in a huge hurry hear nor am I the most organized.

Bottom line, I choose a niche that I am absolutely passionate about. I know that I help other people and this and the passion means I enjoy what I do. Since I enjoy what I do, that core thing resonates through my writing. This is my core belief about affiliate marketing, you have to love what you do, be passionate, and the rest will follow.

I also have a few followers in the affiliate marketing niche. There are a few that follow this blog. The main purpose of this blog is Pot Pie Girls program. It's just a side thing from my niche and the reason is it worked for me. It opened the door and painted a picture for me. After my first week long project that I followed step by step, I started learning, a lot.

I really am pretty clueless about a lot of this stuff, but I believe in what I do, I like it and it works. It can be done. I may do things backwards, that is debateable for sure. If you read this blog I think you might see I have learned a lot from day one. At least I hope so. I am still very much a newbie.

Oh and I think in my last post I said I would update about my articles that I had screwed up links in, the domain was auctioned off because I wasn't paying attention. I fixed them. I was curios if those few articles out of the loop would make a difference. Turns out it did, not huge by any means, maybe an average of $80.00 per week, but hey, it's something.

Thanks to my friends on the work at home forums! I would not be here if not for you, really I wouldn't.

If you have made it this far I must add that core belief or feeling the pain or problem that you want to solve should transfer into your key word research. I have come up with many a good key words by putting myself into the shoes of another or remembering a time when I was in the exact same shoes. Use this core belief thing for key words, article titles, domain names etc....

Slow Boat to Riches????

I have been blogging and use Squidoo as my only source of affiliate marketing now for a while. True I could probably try some new methods, but for now I am doing ok with the bum marketing techniques. I have not been putting a lot of time into it and still see results. It's summer and the fact of the matter is, I would rather be playing.

What I have already created sites out there and still brings me extra money while I am playing. I have no doubts that if I increased my efforts, I would be on a faster road to riches, but for now, I will take the slow road.

Just want people to know that it is possible to make money through affiliate marketing, it does happen. It feels good too. I love coming home after playing and seeing a few extra dollars. Even if I only invested 1 hour and that one hour makes me $100.00 bucks week after week, well just imagine. You do the math.

I use clickbank among many other affiliate programs. Here is a snapshot of clickbank transactions for this week so far. It's not millions, but considering the hour I put into it, it's not bad. This does not count my other affiliate networks that I use and I still have 2 more days in this pay period.

Weekly Sales Snapshot
Week Ending Gross Sales
2010-08-04 (current week) $80.33

So Newbies out there, know it does work and the more you put into it the more you will make. You can take the slow boat or you can speed it up. It's all up to you. If I did nothing else with this, I could still count on about $100.00 extra buck a week for a lifetime. Residual income.

Here is how I do it. One Week Marketing.

Facebook and Affiliate Marketing

I have been doing affiliate marketing for a while now full time. I love it, I get to have fun, make money doing it and meet lots of new and wonderful people in the cyber world.

I currently just use potpie girls program, one week marketing, but have added a few things out of my own imagination, one being facebook. Now there are lots of internet marketers out there that use this tool too, but often they will just pollute your wall over and over and you end up just hitting that hide button. I have found a different approach.

My niche happens to be the very broad niche of relationships. There is a lot of little niches inside of this one, but that is another story. I joined facebook several months back with just a few friends. Now I am only a few over 200 but every day I get more and more friend requests. I do this by posting on my wall and commenting usually funny or relevant comments on walls of others. I have my setting unrestricted so anyone can view what I post. I try to pique interest and usually I get a lot of comments and conversations start and people get to know one another. Facebook is truly viral, it just keeps expanding. Freinds become friends of friends.

So for the most part I am just socializing. A few times a week I will post an article or an updated Squidoo lens and the traffic comes. I even have a few followers who will take my links and post them on their own walls.

Another thing I have done is create groups on facebook relating to my niche and I start discussions there. My links are posted within the group and I get traffic daily from that. Like my network of friends, my network in the group grows too.

Moral of this story, if I have aquired over 200 friends and the same amount of group members in just a couple of months, where will it be a year from now? Facebook alone with my lens and blogs can make me unlimited income. The best part of it, I have a blast doing it and I have made some great friends I would never have met otherwise. Hec I have even got a few dates off facebook, help with my websites among many other benefits, so yes I love facebook.

What is Affiliate Marketing and How does it Work?

There are thousands of affiliate products out there to promote. Affiliate Marketing is when you take that product and promote it on line. Now for beginners this could be as simple as creating a blog, or Squidoo lens which are both very simple. You then direct your visitors to your link to the affiliate product in your site where they purchase and you get paid.

Now for a newbie, this can be overwhelming as you have to learn how to drive traffic to you site, how to get indexed by Google, and about keywords. There are thousands of ways to promote your site. As a newbie to affiliate marketing, you will be overwhelmed in the beginning. Its a huge learning curve that takes months. The good news is there are programs out there, some of them free, some very low cost that can take weeks or months off of your learning curve.

You also have to decide what you are going to promote, many choose a business in a box, but that's not for everyone. I think if you can find something you are passionate about your success will be much greater. Think about what you love, then Google it with the word affiliate behind it and Ta Da, there are your choices. You can market ebooks, vitamins, electronics, almost anything you can think of there is an affiliate program out there for that product.

The best thing to do is get your site up with you affiliate link, then start the learning. This way you can tweek and apply what you learn as you go, but get started first. Once you get one site up and running, then you can go onto another and then another. I average creating a new site every week now. When I first started it would take me a month to get just one up. So lets say 1 week per site, 4 sites in one month all bringing in income even as you sleep. Rinse and repeat. I use a one week marketing plan and it has got me off the ground.

I started this 5 months ago part time and at first had little success. I got laid off 2 weeks ago so I knew I had to start getting serious. I spent 10 and 12 hours a day on this to get it up and running . I was a newbie and totally lost. Well it paid off, now I make money and in the last 2 weeks I made very close to what I made at my "real job", which by the way wasn't exactly peanuts. The best part is I love it. I have put together a guide that will help with your learning curve if you want to move ahead faster and start bringing in some cash. Its called Affiliate Marketing Made Easy. Start making money faster and take some of that learning curve away.

I hated my day job, my hours were awful and I did not have a life. One day I just Googled "make money from home" and wow the opportunities, a lot of them scams. I lost a lot of money in the beginning. Now 8 months later I am headed for financial freedom. Did it take work, yes it did, is it worth it to be able to have my freedom back oh yes. I want to share this, because in today's economy, times are hard. I also want to let those new to this know that it can work and its fun and don't give up, I almost did, but so glad I didn't.

More of how I used one week marketing to get here is below.