Even Clueless Affiliate Marketers Can Make Money

I should know, I am clueless. I just realized today that I did not own that domain on Godaddy. Silly me. I would never have learned this had I not let my domain expire. Went to renew a little late and seems it was auctioned off and for sale for about $5000.00. I don't understand all this, but I am sure I should. I start thinking selling domains? Can I do that? Probably, but that is an entire other project that I am not ready for.

Well now I remember that I had used that domain in maybe 15 articles on Ezine. Oh boy! Manual labor to fix that. I fixed it, seems those articles had been going to the site to buy my domain for about 10 days. I spent 15 minutes, resubmitted the articles, and tad da, after they were all corrected, I made $250 over the weekend while I was hanging out with my new boyfriend. I think that is kind of cool.

In the process I also discovered that I had made another error in about 7 more articles. I had put in the wrong domain. I was meaning to tell women how to get their boyfriends to marry them but the link I put in directed them to how to get the ex back. Ughhh. I did that today. I will update later when they are released again.

So what I am really talking about above is one of the 3 forms of article marketing. Direct Article Marketing that is. That is where you don't have your own landing page or squidoo lens or blog. You write the article, link it directly to the sales page which is your affiliate link. You say you can't put an affiliate link in some articles such as ezine, true yes.

That is where the domain thing comes in. I purchase domain names or registration or whatever it is. I put keyword research into this too, another subject. So many subjects. I can get a .us for $5.00 for a year. I forward the affiliate links straight to these domains, simple even for me. You can put domain names in your articles in most directories if not almost all.

I do other article marketing other than direct, but these do make money for me. This is so much fun learning too by the way. It's like going back to college but much more rewarding because what you build is really completely yours. It could be a reputation you build, a financial empire or a few bucks, but it's yours.

Bum Article Marketing Tip

When I first started affiliate marketing it was all Greek to me, still is for the most part. A mentor of mine was telling me one day about forwarding domains. Huh? What was a domain? I had no clue and I certainly wasn't going to tell him that, he was already really frustrated and accused my blond dye of going past my roots and into my brain. So I did what anybody would do and consulted with my friend Google.

He was telling me how to forward my clickbank hoplinks to a domain. Ok, ok, so I got it, then what? Then you just place your domain name as links in your articles. Duh, that is so simple. Why didn't I think of that.

The fact is that most major article directories won't allow a direct affiliate link, but they will allow a domain name in the body of an article. This was amazing to me. So to be an affiliate marketer, I really didn't even have to have a web site to get started, just purchase a few cheap domain names and forward my hoplinks to those domains and ta da, I am in business.

I use Godaddy.com for my domain names. You can purchase them for as low as $1.99 per year and that is pretty cheap.

Is Building a List really Necessary in Affiliate Marketing

To be honest, my jury is still out on this one. Please remember though, I really don't know what I am doing. Do I have a list? Well yes, but I did not have any auto responders to get it. Oh no, that would have been way too easy. Instead I found public forums to post on and in the process I built relationships. It's only been a year, but I have made many a friend that has landed in my inbox. They trust me and rightfully so, I have been with them on these forums for over a year. Work, well yes. Rewarding, well that too. They are friends. Virtual friends, but real people on the other side of these copper wires.

Oh yes I could add a responder, come up with a clever campaign and mail it out to everyone on my list, but would I really be targeting my market? It's the old numbers game, send it to enough people, someone will buy. Like dating, which by the way is my niche in internet marketing. Mine and about a million or zillion others. Am I making a killing? No. Am I making money consistently and is it growing? Yes!

Funny thing happens with my small list, the market is targeted, they trust me and when I tell them something is a great product, they believe me. If I don't think it is great, I am not going to ask you to buy it.

I have not invested any money with one exception which got me started. Curious? Click here.

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.

Small Changes in Article Marketing that Tripled my Income in 3 Weeks

I am one of these unorganized fly by the seat of your pants people. When I started article marketing to drive traffic I would just do a little key word research and write. I would toss the keywords around in the article and I was done. I got traffic, some articles did really well, some not so hot. I was still making money so I really didn't pay it any attention. About a month ago, I realized I had to get more cash in the door. Daughter graduating High School, need I say more.

I went back to those articles and studied the ones that performed well. Now some got lots of clicks but the click through rate was low, others few clicks but high percentage of click through rates. Hmmm, what did I do right and what did I do wrong. Do let me note here though, Travis that teaches Bum Marketing techniques inspired me to research this through the emails I get from him.

Titles are big, the ones that got a lot of views always had a catchy title, something emotional, something that created a need. Example: "How to text a girl" had 459 views last month. "How to text a girl and push her buttons", 1471 views. Same keywords for both articles. Some of the corniest titles are the best. Usually when someone is online, they are alone, no one can see how corny they are so they will get clicked on. The corny titles often do stir emotion. Take your keyword and build emotion into it. Push buttons!

Keywords, I used to always add those to the article last, I knew what they were going to be, but I waited until the end to add them. Now I do that before I write the article, some are long tailed keywords by the way. I have them in that little box typed above or below the article. This reminds me to toss all of them into the article in some form. After I finish the article, I go back through looking for an opportunity to add them a few more times. You would think this time consuming, but once you have done it about 10 times, it's a breeze really. I can spit out an article now in about 10 minutes. I do not know why these things work, I just know that these articles with the rich keyword content seem to often end up on the first page of Google.

The call to action. The bio box at the end of an article is huge. In the article, hopefully if you played on the emotions. Fear is a good one, such and such could happen if you don't fix this. You created a problem, you have set the bait. Now you have to offer the solution and create some urgency. Reminder of what might happen if you don't fix the problem. If you don't get your ex back he will land in the arms of another tomorrow. Maybe not that drastic, but you get the drift. Remember this person is probably alone, behind their computer maybe worried about something, feeling vulnerable.

So about 3 weeks ago, after this I started paying more attention. I put out roughly 25 articles in that time. I also picked 10 of my existing articles with high views and edited the bio box and improved the call to action. Results, in 3 weeks my income tripled. Now I am not rich, not even close. I do all of this the bum marketing way. No money, no outsourcing, yet. The long road, but I am still learning, I am still a Newbie by the way, so this information may be old news to some, but to me, it was Grand!

Also note, I only use blogs and Squidoo Lens. No huge sites, just following the one week marketing guide.

Affiliate Marketing with a Blog

I have people ask me all the time how do I make money off of a blog. Well it's something called affiliate marketing. Now there are thousands and thousands of programs out there to do this, some rather costly, some just a few bucks and then you can do like me and go the free route or what us affiliate marketers call bum marketing.

While the free route may take a bit longer, it can be done. You just have to have a plan and implement it consistently. It is as simple as setting up a blog, perhaps a squidoo lens and writing a few articles and setting it free on the Web. In a short time if you followed your steps, your blog gets indexed.

I have 5 blogs and about 14 Squidoo lens. It has taken time to build these, but I did purchase a guide that detailed it step by step. This guide is by called One Week Marketing. It is simple, easy to follow and it works. I have made my investment back a thousand times over.

The beauty of it is I just rinse and repeat the same steps, if I don't want to take it any further or learn anymore than this one simple guide, I can still have unlimited income over time.

I have come back when I notice sales dwindling down and add content to the blog just like I am doing today, ping it, and I am done. The blog goes back out there on auto pilot. Pretty simple actually. For your guide click here.

The Value of Work at Home Forums

I joined a work at home forum Spring of 2009. I stumbled upon it doing a search in Google for work at home ideas. I lingered there for weeks, reading. There was so much information there, just reading. That forum was the determining factor in the path I would take, affiliate marketing. I found that any question I had was usually previously addressed and all I had to do was a search and I would see tons of posts on the topic.

Then I started participating. I found I could ask any question, no matter how stupid I thought it was and all of these wonderful, helpful people in the virtual world would come to my rescue. Eventually I was participating in 3 different forums. I have met many people there that help and inspire me, people who have made it in affiliate marketing and newcomers full of hope.

Another great thing about these forums is the networking that goes on there. I formed friendships there that moved off of the forum and into my in box, facebook page, and even my telephone. We exchange ideas, link sites together, help one another and encourage one another.

The value of a work at home forum is priceless. It is where I discovered one week marketing, which for a technically challenged person such as myself was perfect. A work at home forum is networking at it's finest.

Last but certainly not least is the back links it provides. You can link your sites in your signature and this drives more traffic. It's a win win place to be.