Affiliate Marketing Online Business Tips

An affiliate marketing online business is a great way to make money on the internet and affiliate marketers have it easy as far as online businesses go. Some of the biggest advantages of being an affiliate marketer are that you don't have to worry about researching a niche, creating a product, writing a sales letter, or doing any of the other things that are required when trying to make money from your own product.

When you are an affiliate marketer most of the work has already done for you. The only thing you really need to do is to promote the product you plan to sell. And there are more ways to do this than you can possibly imagine. And yet, as easy a time as affiliate marketers have, so few of them really take advantage of this fact by going the extra mile with their promotions. One area where many lack is in product reviews.

The reason doing a product review is so important is because it gives more credibility to your promotion. What do you think is going to be more effective, sending somebody straight to a sales page from some ad or sending them to a blog with a full review of the product? I can tell you from extensive experience that the review, if it's a good one, is going to sell more products than just sending the prospect to a sales page. The question is how should you do the review? Is there a way that works best?

I have a lot of affiliate marketing experience and I have found it's best to do a review that is as unbiased as possible. In other words, you want to talk about what you like and what you don't like about the product. Most affiliate marketers are reluctant to do this because they're afraid that if they say anything negative about the product at all, it's going to make the prospect less likely to buy it. Actually, the opposite is true. If you can honestly say that there are things you don't like about the product but overall you feel it is a good value, you are going to get more sales and make more money.

The reason for this is psychological. The prospect, having read that you've actually found fault, will believe that the review itself is actually true and not just a sales pitch. They are more inclined to believe you simply because you said, "I don't like..." and then whatever it is you have a problem with. Now, you don't want to list too many problems because then, the prospect may start to think that the product is crap. So take it easy on the criticisms, but keep them in there.

By writing a review that is honest and also completely goes over the product in question you are much more likely to make the sale than if you just sugarcoat the whole thing as one big positive sales pitch.

Here are three simple steps to successfully making money with an affiliate marketing online business through product reviews:

1) The first thing you need to do is obviously to pick an affiliate product that you can review and earn money from any sales you make. Once you find one you will want to get a copy of it yourself and go through it. The reason is because if you're going to write a comprehensive review of the product you must know it inside and out.

Now, you can usually get one by simply writing to the product creator and asking them for a review copy. Most product creators will be more than happy to comply if they see you're serious about becoming and affiliate and promoting their product. If they won't give it to you for some reason just buy one or move on to another product. After you go through the product, you want to write your review of it.

2) The next step in the affiliate marketing product review process is to get a Blogger blog. The reasons I suggest Blogger are because it's free, easy to set up, and the service is owned by Google. You'll get the best results with Blogger, at least as far as the free options go. Naturally, your own domain and hosting will be the better option, but that's going to cost some money and take longer to set up.

Anyway, get your free blog and make sure you choose a name and URL that closely matches the product you're going to review because you're going to post the review up on the blog itself. At the end of the blog post, you're going to include an affiliate link to the product.

3) Finally, you're going write a few articles on the topic that relates to the product you are promoting. Then, you are going to submit these articles to ezinearticles.com first and then a few other article directories. The reason I suggest ezinearticles.com is because it is the best article directory online. At the bottom of your article, you're going to include a resource box with a strong call to action to your blog review. Point out that you're reviewing this product. Anybody interested will want to read it.

That's all you have to do! The whole affiliate marketing review process can be done in less than a day and it won't cost you a dime. If you pick the right niche product and target the right keywords, each article can easily bring in a few sales and make money for you.

Why not give it a try? It's a very simple way to start a successful affiliate marketing online business and you may just find that it's the easiest money you've ever made!

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Free Make Money Online Tips

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How to Make Money by Saving Money

Have you ever heard the saying, "A penny saved is a penny earned" or some variation of it? I bet you have. And it does have a lot of truth to it. Many of the wealthiest people in the world are also very tight with their money, or at least they were before they got rich. They are very good about saving money where they can and not wasting it on things they don't really need.

Part of making money with your home business, or any other way you earn your living, is saving money you don't need to spend. Not to mention the fact that we are in an economic crisis right now and saving money is on all of our minds!

So, while you are trying to learn how to make money online, you can also be thinking about how to save money that you can either reinvest into your home business to make more money or help yourself get out of debt, or anything else you need it for.

Here seven ways you can make money by saving money today:

1) Always Carry Cash - Make sure you always have cash in your pocket and when you see something you want to buy only use cash to buy it. If you can't afford it then don't buy it. It's easier to stop yourself from buying things you don't really need or can't actually afford when you are using cash instead of credit. You will save money by doing this.

2) Cash Back Credit Cards - I know I said above not to use credit cards but there are times when you simply have to. During those times make sure you use a credit card that gives you cash back on purchases. Most of them won't give you much but even a couple percent is better than nothing. You can also go to OpTempo.com and find money saving reviews to help you save even more money when buying some of the products you need.

3) Gas - Although gas prices have gone down a little bit lately they are still outrageous and will probably go back up again. Every bit you can save on gas will add up very quickly. You can save money on gas by walking when you only have to go a few blocks, carpooling to work, riding your bike when possible, buying a hybrid vehicle or converting your vehicle to run on water, etc...

4) Buying IM Products - If you are reading this blog then there's a good chance that you are an internet marketer or are at least trying to make money online. But do you really need to buy every new ebook, membership site or program that comes out promising to make you the next internet millionaire? No you don't! There are plenty of sites and blogs that will teach you how to make money online for free.

5) Set Up a Budget - Getting back to the basics on this one. I'm sure you have heard a million times before that you should have a budget so you know how much you are spending and where your money is going. There's plenty of software out there that will help you keep track of your budget. You can save a lot of money by knowing exactly what you are wasting your money on.

6) Pay Yourself First - If you spend all the money you make without keeping any of it then you aren't helping yourself at all. Let's say you work for 10 straight days and earn $100 each day. By the end of that period, you will have earned $1,000. Now, if you spend the entire $1,000 and you have none of it left all your efforts have evaporated! You have nothing left to show for it! What were you working for? You gave away all your money by paying everyone else except yourself!

If you keep the money you earn on day one you would be keeping 10% of your income and spending the money you earn in the remaining nine days on bills and whatever else you need to spend it on. If you do the same thing in every 10 day period, no matter what, you would be paying yourself first and your money savings would add up very quickly.

7) Read Books on Money - It's not a coincidence that most wealthy people read books on money. People who don’t know a lot about money strategies are the same people who are usually poor. People with a lot of money tend to use their time learning about making money, investing money, handling money, and saving money. You should be doing this too!

There, now you have 7 ways you can make money by saving money. Since you now know how to make money by saving money it's time to start practicing these techniques to put more money in your bank account today!

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Free Money Making Advice

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Breaking the Deadly Cycle

When you work at home it's often very easy to get into a certain cycle that you repeat day after day. This can sometimes be a good thing but more often than not it's a cycle of getting nowhere with your home business. When you start doing the same tasks over and over again each day even though they aren't actually making you any money it can be a real business killer.

Sure there are some tasks you might do every day that don't directly make money for you but they are at least helping to build your online business. These are things like building up your link popularity by getting backlinks, writing fresh content for your blog, doing keyword research to create some niche sites, etc... But I'm not talking about those things.

What I am talking about are the things you spend hours per day doing that are doing nothing but wasting your time and will not help build your home business or make money for you now or in the long run. Some examples would be checking your email, checking your stats, checking your sales, hanging out in forums, reading a bunch of blogs, etc...

Think about how much time you spend each day just reading and checking everything. Visit a few of your favorite blogs and it doesn't take very long to lose an hour or two of your day. Check your email and stats a few times and there goes another hour. See what's going on in some of the popular forums and you just wasted another couple hours. That's about five hours right there and you haven't actually done any real work yet!

The problem with working at home online is that any time you are sitting at your computer doing anything it feels like you are working, when in reality you are probably not getting anything useful done. This is a cycle that so many internet marketers get themselves into and don't get out of it before their online business is dead and they end up working at their shitty jobs for the rest of their lives.

So how do you break this deadly cycle?

It's really not very hard if you think about it...

All you need to do is create a "to do list" of things to get done each day, create a schedule for getting it done, and stick with it! Designate a certain amount of time every day for each business or work task you need to get done and when your time is up move on to the next thing. Only you know how much time you have for work each day and what you should be getting done so I can't give you an exact plan, but you are smart enough to figure one out for yourself.

If you work at home full-time then you should be able to get a lot done and still have some extra time to spend doing things like reading home business blogs and internet marketing forums. If you have a full time job and only get a few hours per day to work on your home business then you really need to be careful where you are spending your time.

You can still read blogs, forums, email, etc... But have a set amount of time designated for it and don't spend too much time on it. Yes, it's important to keep up on business news and changes in the internet marketing industry as well as learn new ways to make money online, and everything else you can learn on blogs and forums. However, you need to make sure you don't waste all your time learning or you will never have any time to put the knowledge into action so you can actually build your home business and make money!

So get yourself out of the deadly cycle right now! Write down a specific amount of time to devote to each task you want to accomplish in your online business today and stick to your schedule.

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
How to Make Money Online

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Research to Riches - Niche Marketing Makes Money

So, you want to make money online? That's great! It's an awesome way to earn a living. But please read this post before you go starting another blog about making money online (there are already too many of those).

You've probably already seen about 100 different make money online blogs talking about how they earn a million dollars a minute from their blog. So, of course, you want to start your own make money online blog so you can start making money like all these guys do. I can understand that considering you don't know any better. But I am about to let you in on a little secret...

Hardly any of those so-called "make money online blogs" are actually making any money at all. Only a small percentage of them really do make a profit and even most of the ones claiming to earn thousands upon thousands of dollars per month are lying to you! It's a simple fact that blogs about making money online are the very same blogs that aren't making much money. Some do, most don't!

If you don't believe me then go ask Griz, Court, Vic, or Mark. They all own highly popular MMO blogs but they will be the first to tell you that they earn the majority of their income from niches outside of the make money online niche. They'll also tell you to do the same.

There are plenty of reasons for this that I am not going to get into right now so just take my word for it. The reason for this post is to tell you NOT to start another MMO blog if you really want to make money online.

You might be asking yourself, "If that's not the way to do it then what is?" and I will tell you right now...

Go back to the title of this post, "Research to Riches - Niche Marketing Makes Money" and I am sure you can at least somewhat figure out what I am about to tell you.

Yep, you guessed it, if you want to make money online then you should be starting blogs and/or static websites in smaller niche markets. This will sometimes require quite a bit of research on your part but it is more than worth it in the long run. And sometimes you can hit a good niche market without much research at all.

When you think of a niche that you might want to pursue you first need to research to make sure there is a market for that niche. One way to do this is to type in the niche keywords in quotes in Google and see how many Adwords ads come up on the right side of the search results. If there are none that usually means one of two things...

1) You have either just found a killer niche that nobody else has tapped into.
2) There isn't enough of a market for that niche to make it profitable enough for Adwords advertisers.

Most likely it's the second one, but don't dismiss it as a bad niche just yet. Do some more research first! More on that in a minute.

If you find there are a lot of Adwords ads then it is most likely a profitable niche. Typically a good niche will have some Adwords ads to show that it is profitable but not too many because you want to be able to make money from this niche without spending all your time trying to beat out a lot of competition.

Ok, so now you have found a niche that appears to have some profit potential but not a lot of competition solely based on the Adwords ads. Well, that's not enough. So, what do you do next?

More research! I told you this was "research to riches" didn't I?!

Now you need to figure out how often your niche keywords are searched for and how much competition there really is.

First the searches...

The most basic way to do this for free is to use the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker so you can see how often it is searched per day. I've heard varying opinions but most people say that you need to take the number the tool comes up with and multiply it by 4 to get the number of times it's searched for per day on Google.

Now the competition...

Go back to Google and search for your keyword phrase in quotes. It must be in quotes or you won't get a good estimate of your competition. Now look at the top right corner and it will say, "Results 1-10 of about XX, XXX" and the X's will be the number of sites that match your exact keyword phrase. This is how many people you have to compete against to get the top ranking on Google.

If the number of searches exceeds the number of competing sites and there are Adwords ads promoting products in that niche, then you have most likely found yourself a gold mine. Get started in that niche right away!

Most likely that isn't going to happen. But if there are only maybe 20,000 or less sites competing for that niche and it does get quite a few searches, and there are at least a few Adwords ads, it's probably a niche worth going after. Anyone with a little SEO knowledge and internet marketing experience could dominate a niche like this pretty fast and make a lot of money.

Another super way to make money online through niche marketing...

Building niche trend blogs is a great way to make money and it's a lot easier to find the niche this way. What the hell is a niche trend blog? Well, let's see if I can put it very simply...

A niche trend blog is a blog you start around a certain trend or "hot topic" that is happening right now.

For example; if you would have been one of the first to start a niche trend blog about the popular MTV show "The Hills" and marketed it correctly, you probably would have a blog that is pulling in some pretty darn good profits right now. Or you could have started a blog about any of the main people on the show like Lauren Conrad, Audrina Patridge, Heidi Montag, Whitney Port, Spencer Pratt, or Brody Jenner.

Being one of the first to jump on a hot topic and get a blog going about it puts you in a good position to take the top Google rankings for those keywords and cash in on the trend. These don't usually last long but if you keep adding more and more niche trend blogs you will continue to make money off each new one. There is never a shortage of hot topics to start niche blogs on. You just need to stay on top of the gossip and get your blog going right away.

I suggest using the free blogger.com service for these for many reasons. Mainly because they are free and you don't want to be spending money to create these because you will be creating so many of them and you don't know for sure if they are going to produce any income. Also, they are very easy to create and you want to be able to get these up quickly. And since Google owns blogger.com it only makes sense that they would rank well on Google and that is exactly what you are trying to do.

Many of your niche trend blogs will probably turn out to be duds but some of them will make money, and the more you create the more chances you have to make money. This will eventually turn into a nice sized passive income. Since they are free and you won't be spending much time on each one, you don't need to worry about all of them pulling in profits for you. Just move on and find another hot topic to cash in on.

So what have we learned here?

1) Starting a "make money online" blog is actually one of the worst ways to make money online.
2) Niche marketing is a much easier and faster way to make money online.
3) Niche trend blogs are a very easy way to get into niche marketing.

You stand a much better chance of getting rich by doing research to find profitable niche markets then you do by throwing up another MMO blog and trying to compete in that niche. That's why I called this post, "Research to Riches - Niche Marketing Makes Money" because niche markets are where the money is at!

So, get started on finding profitable niches right now so you can really make money online!

Dedicated to your success,
Trent Brownrigg
Free Online Business Tips

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How To Make Money Blogging - 10 Step Solution

First, we all want to know How to Make Money Online, and one of the best ways I have found is by creating blogs. In this article I intend to show you how you too can learn How to Make Money Blogging by telling you how combining the techniques I have gathered from across the web helps to make me $$$ every day.

Second, I am not trying to sell you my latest "Get Rich Quick" scheme because I don't have one. Each eBook you read will have a wealth of information within them which will, without a doubt, help you to discover the secrets of How to Make Money Online. I am only going to tell you which ones out of the 100's available you SHOULD read if you too want to make lots of money.

I use a 10 step guide to setting up and starting all of my blogs.

I will give you a list of the top 10 resources later that I use and recommend to everyone who is serious about making lots of money online. One of the vital aspects people seem to miss out when they first get into blogging is the fact that their blog must contain information that people want to read.

Many bloggers are looking through closed eyes in this regard and if you browse through 50 blogs you will notice that most will tell you they know How to Make Money with Blogs when really all they tell you is where they went on their vacation or how many cars they have.

Are you ready to learn How to Make Money Blogging?

If the answer is YES then read on and start to make money with your blog. I am not here to tell you how to write your blog, that's up to you, but what I am about to tell you is the 10 things I use to make money on the internet. You can choose to use these techniques or not, that's your prerogative.

Step 1 - Finding a Topic

Turn off your computer, grab a pen and some paper and sit somewhere you can relax but also stay focused (if you are just starting out this step can be a pain because we all want to know How to Make Money Online and we want to know how to make it NOW). Think of a topic you are interested in and write it down (this helps because you will be more committed to trying instead of giving up in a day or two) and also make sure it is something other people are interested in too. A couple of ways I use to think of a topic is by using MetaSpy to find out what people are searching for, Ask IQ to find what's popular and VRE Toolbar to find out how many people search for the topic (this is also useful later on to get traffic). Write down your top five keywords, you will want to use them later in your blog.

Step 2 - Create Your Blog

Find and create your blog online. I like to use Blogger but other popular Blog platforms are Wordpress and Movable Type. You can find all the help in the program you use to get information when setting up the blog. Create your content, make it original, and make it informative. This is one of the main keys to learn How to Make Money with Blogs. You need to include the keywords you wrote down in Step 1 in the content of your blog. Try not to overuse these as it sends out bad signals to the search engines, and this is 100% not what you want.

Step 3 - Go Google

Sign up for Google Adsense and insert the code in the margin of your blog. You can customize your ads in many ways, such as including text links or image links. I prefer the text links only, as they are easier to blend in with your blog and don't take the focus away from the information. Google Adsense will probably not make you a millionaire but it is an instant way of generating a small amount of money.

If you want to track where your visitors are coming from with regards to direct hits or from search engine results then I would suggest you use Google Analytics and again you can get all the help you need setting that up from within the program.

You will also want to add your URL to Google's index.

Step 4 - Find Something to Sell

If you don't want to sell anything and are happy with the income Google Adsense is bringing in then you can skip this step. If you want to maximize your income and truly learn How to Make Money with Blogs you will want to find an affiliate program to join. A couple of affiliate programs I would suggest are ClickBank and Commission Junction. You can sell anything from office furniture, pet supplies, movies and clothing to PC games, Dieting tips and Audio software.

Whatever program you join will give you help inserting the code you will need to insert into your blog, but be sure you do this correctly or you WILL NOT earn money from your visitors. If you do not know how to edit HTML, W3Schools HTML tutorial is a great place to start.

Step 5 - Social Bookmarking

There is no better advertising than word of mouth, but the next best thing is social bookmarking. You will want to make things easier for people to do this. Social bookmarking sites I use and recommend are OnlyWire and SocialMarker and they are used for people to share their bookmarks or websites that they have liked with other people in their online community.

I would not suggest you add your own links to these services, but provide visitors to your website the ability to do so.

Step 6 - Write an Article

Whether your blog is about a specific product, for example a certain MP3 Player you are promoting, or just about giving people information, I would suggest you to write an article or a review of it. Most article directories require articles of 500 words and over so I would use this as a rule when writing to ensure your article is published.

Submit your article to any of the 100's which are out there. I personally use a few of the Top Article directories such as EzineArticles, Article Dashboard, Amazines.com, isnare and SearchWarp. I also use a nifty piece of software called Article Submitter which will submit your articles to over 600 article directories, which saves you lots of time and leaves you to focus on writing your blogs.

Step 7 - Ping The Hell Out Of It

Every time you add new information to your blog, you want to let the blog directories know about it, this is known as pinging. Some Blog providers automatically send out pings when you update, but to be on the safe side you will want to do this manually too. ONLY PING WHEN YOU UPDATE.

There are a couple of Ping sites I use which will send a ping to multiple blog directories at the same time. PingMyBlog would be my first port of call and then if for some reason that site is down I would use Ping-o-matic. Remember, to only ping when you update or you could get blacklisted, and that is bad.

Step 8 - Yahoo! Answers and Forums

One of the easiest ways to get targeted visitors to your blog is to make use of the people you want to target. I would suggest you sign up to at LEAST one forum in the topic you are writing about, and don't just go straight in there and start posting comments for people to look at your blog, they won't.

The secret is to add the link to your blog in your signature and actively become a member of the forum, posting relevant topics and starting debates within them. The more you post, the more your link will show, and if you provide someone with good info the chances are higher they will click your link.

Yahoo! Answers is along the same lines as forums but the beauty of this is it's viewed by thousands of visitors each day. If you don't already have a Yahoo! account get one and then login and search for questions relating to the topic of your blog and answer them well. You can then insert the link to your blog and as with the forums, if you answer well you may have not only earned yourself a point or two on Yahoo!, but also earned a visitor to your blog.

Step 9 - Update Your Blog

This can be by several means, one is to add new reviews or content to your blog, and if you are going to do this I suggest updating every couple of days. This helps to keep the search engines happy as they love to see new and original content.

Another way of updating your blog and keeping the content fresh is to add RSS feeds to it. Make sure the feeds are relevant to your blog and provide visitors with helpful information. Visitors to a World of Warcraft blog don't want to read feeds about knitting, or do they?

Step 10 - More, More, More

Repeat steps 1 - 10, this is the only way How to Make Money Blogging.

Step 11 - A Bonus Step

If you have your own product or newsletter, give your visitors an easy way to sign up to receive updates or information. This helps you to contact the visitor again with more great info or products you wish to sell.

How to Make Money Online is easy if you follow the above steps.

Some important things to remember so you don't get disheartened with your blog is the fact that you will not become a millionaire overnight, it takes hard work and a lot of effort. If you are really serious about learning How to Make Money with Blogs then stick with it and eventually you will have an Ah-Ha moment. This is when things start to work and you think to yourself Ah-Ha, that's how they do it. Your moment could be sooner than you think.

My Top 10 resources I use and recommend are:

1. Rob Benwell's Blogging to The Bank 2.0

2. Wordpress Goldmine

3. Rob Atherton's Building A Blog Empire For Profit

4. The Blog Challenge

5. Hinge Marketing Magic

6. Blogging For Riches - Complete Video Tutorial

7. Social Bookmarking Demon

8. Adsense Inbox

9. Wordpress SEO Sniper

10. RSS, Blogs and Syndication...

About the author:

My name is Andy I'm 31 and I'm from Manchester, UK I like to read a lot (Discworld, Sci-Fantasy) and listen to music (The Doors, Wu-Tang, Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Blondie, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix). I also try to be a skateboarder when I get time and dry weather. Please view and leave comments on my blog.

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