#1 – Pick your keywords carefully.
There’s nothing worse than competing in a hugely crowded and non-lucrative niche. It’s easy to think that the crowds go where the money is, but it’s not always the case. Sometimes there’s just big dumb money in one spot and people are too slow to see their advertising dollars going to waste. Be a smart marketer and invest your time in finding a great niche — it’ll pay off hugely once you start marketing.

#2 – Build a list, and keep in touch.
It’s common sense to mega-marketers, but list building gets passed over too often by the small timers. Without a huge sales list, you’re as good as dead out there in the marketing world. Build that asset through opt-in pages, and use the list to get your products out there. You’ll generate links on websites, which will quickly boost your search engine rankings.

#3 – Add your keywords in post-writing.
Have you ever tried to write for SEO right from the start? It’s certainly difficult, and not something that you want to spend your time doing. Not only does it take up a huge amount of time, but it compromises the quality of your articles. Instead of writing for SEO from the beginning, write an article with a general topic in mind and add keywords in after you’ve completed it.

#4 – Pick your products carefully.
If you’re looking at affiliate marketing and SEO courses, you need to weigh up the good with the bad. Some just aren’t that valuable, and just take your money and leave you without the great information that you deserve. Be careful, and only ever pick courses that have proven benefits and can show you how well they work. Look for earnings screenshots to confirm this.

#5 – Give it some time.
You don’t hit number one in a week. Give your SEO efforts the time and attention that they deserve, and don’t rush things simply to get them out there. Build your SEO strategy, use high quality content and links to get your websites to the top, and make sure that you don’t compromise your long-term strategy by giving in to short-term incentives.

The Race For the Top Starts Now! Check out the free Get a #1 Google Ranking report. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link if you sign up at Clickbank Pirate.

Traffic + Offer = Sales

Like most people my favourite part is the Sales, but even those with no mathematical qualification will realise that if you don’t work on Traffic & Offers then you don’t make any sales.

By the same principal if you spend all your time creating offers then it would the same as setting up a bespoke suit for rich City Traders in the Outer Hebrides rather than Saville Row in London – for those from outside the UK look up Google Maps!

Now I’m guilty of buying products that help me understand the whole offer process. I know that you give away free content, include upsells & downsells via the butterfly marketing script, and that you put loads of cross sells on the download page, and put a dozen messages into your autoresponder. Heck I’m even planning on a micro-continuity site where I do free plus shipping with 2 weeks free coaching followed by 12 weeks @ $47 per month.

So I think that you can see that the part of business I hate is traffic generation. Now I do have some systems in place, eg adswaps and safelist mailings, but with so many tactics available I just don’t have the time / get bored, and end up doing a half arsed job to actually get the results I want.

Over the next few weeks this is about to change, I’ve realised that the way to make a business grow is to hire people to do the bits that you hate. The more I study the marketers I want to emulate, the more I realise that they also hate traffic generation, and they outsource it people all over the world who in this current ecomonic climate are more than willing to do it.

At the moment I’m waiting for my Automated Traffic Blast to arrive, Lee’s video was exactly what I was looking for – it may be worth hiding your credit card before watching!

Assuming you’ve enjoyed reading this article I would like you to do 1 of 2 things – or both if you really liked it:-)

#1 Click here to retweet this message

RT @andrewstark New Blog Post – Which Part Of Your Business Do You Hate? http://TwitPWR.com/umn/ Please RT

#2 Post a comment with which part of internet marketing you hate…

Thanks for reading

Andrew

So I’ve set myself a challange. Life has been getting in the way of my business, and it’s time I pulled my finger out.

After recording this video I also recorded a video squeezepage message and another that explains the double opt-in process and leads into a special offer ie a OTO.

I’ll be posting updates on each stage of my progress via twitter.

Andrew

This video shows you an example of a great squeezepage that converts traffic into leads. These leads are converted into clickbank sales by the brilliant follow-up system that Soren & Cindy have in place.

Now the dullest and most difficult part of affiliate marketing is trying to figure out where the sales came from, and having to deal with really ugly tracking links – I mean does http://cbpirate.com/s/cbp/shugster/10-09-09BlogPost really look a link you’d be desperate to click in an email?

By creating a new folder on your server & uploading this index.php redirect onto your website you will be able to have proper tracking & get people seeing your brand.

<?php
header( ‘Location: http://cbpirate.com/s/cbp/shugster/trafficsource’ ) ;
?>

If you’ve joined cbpirate it’s just a case of sending traffic and seeing what gives results and repeating.

For those of you who have your own squeezepages then use the same redirect technique, but put in your hitsconnect link with the traffic source tagged onto the end. If you want to have the opt-in conversion added then you’ll need the premium account, so it’s probably more cost effective for newbies to promote & use the tracking provide within CBpirate to find good traffic sources. Then once you a solid residual income you can invest time and money building your own list.

If anything doesn’t make sense then post a comment, and I’ll try to explain spefic points in more detail.

Andrew

Judging by my inbox I notice a lot of people are claiming they bought version 1, I actually did, and a screen shot of my receipt is below – isn’t gmail wonderfull!

The price is again a no-brainer $10, so please treat this like a magazine purchase.

By that I mean print out the report and read it when you have some down time, it will be informative, and if you act upon the advice you will make money. If you read it, and go wow that looks super simple I already knew that, but don’t actually put act upon it then you might just have wasted $10, but I’m sure you can afford it…

Here’s what I learnt from Version 1.

Ewen talked about adding offers on thank-you pages, and that one tactic is now responsable for most of my affiliate income. Applying this further and getting squeezepagesecretsrevealed.com into Jeff’ Dedrick’s Instant Bonus Page site means I now have affiliates promoting my site on their download pages. So you see acting upon Ewen’s advice in a $10 report has been quite a good return on my investment.

Enjoy reading Secret Affiliate Weapon, and here’s the receipt to show that I did buy version 1 back in 2005.

Andrew

Now although this is a great product I’m not putting out a cut & paste email about it, hoping to make $97 commissions and praying that you stick with the recurring billing.

Instead I wanted to share with you some marketing advice that you can try out next time you go to the shops. Simply browse the magazine rack, and pick out the headlines that sell – you know the ones that grab your eye and make you pick up the magazine… These are what you should be using on your squeezepages!

If you watch the video you’ll find the SMART headline that Men’s Fitness used, and it’s a great headline that you could modify to your own niche.

eg. How To Generate 1,234 Fresh Leads In Under 30 Days…

Please share the headline on the last magazine you bought, and I bet it could be modified to the IM niche.

Andrew

So I was at an excellent event organised by Lee McIntyre, and I realised that I was focusing in on short term wealth and being a “me marketer” who just copies & pastes out the latest offers.

I’ve been through my inbox and deleted the marketers who were leading me astray – I suggest you do the same, and add if you want to name and shame then tell me what I’ve promoted that was actually rubbish.

As I say in the video I want to focus the rest of August on creating content, I’ve now got skype recording, so please post your questions in the comments and I’ll be in touch with a suitable time for those with the best questions.

Also please let me know if you would like your squeezepage & signup process critiqued via camtasia.

Look forward to the comments, it really will help me help you.

Andrew

Ok, so here’s a summary of the 2 minute video.

#1 My site has been added to Instant Bonus Page, and this 1 line of code on your download page can add hundreds of dollars per month to your affiliate earning.

Here’s my download page in case in it’s full glory rather than the low tech close up on the video, each of these sites have paid out commission to me, and the only way I promote them is on that page.

#2 Once you’ve added squeezepagesecretsrevealed to your download page then post a comment with the link to your thankyou page. I will then find your account and upgrade it to 75% commission, so it would be great if you could include your affiliate number.

#3 I will reply to your email and give you a special link to a great new product on list building.

If anyone of you have read Mark Joyner’s latest book this is basically a bribe and blatent plea to get my message into as many different Traffic Streams as possible. If you have an actual product rather than a list building ebook then I’m also open to setting up Transaction Streams, drop me a note and we can set something up.

In case your wondering this offer would something I would be able to modify for your buyers.

Happy List Building

Andrew

p.s. Look forward to the comments and seeing what other 5 products you’re promoting.

I heard all these success stories of individuals making vast sums of money from this venture and I wanted in on the act too. I was about ready to give up when I found a report that practically changed my whole plan for affiliate marketing and allowed me join these successful individuals. Some 90% of affiliate marketers fail outright or give up when they realize that they aren’t making what is expected; I was nearly one of these people.

“Affiliate Marketing 101” is like Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin. (ok, non UK readers may not get that) so I’ll put it simpler – “Affiliate Marketing 101” tells you exactly what you need to do to become successful at affiliate marketing. It lists the Do’s and Don’ts of affiliate marketing and I was amazed to find how many “Don’ts” I had performed since embarking on my career. Too often I tried to be totally unique and innovative where sometimes simplicity and proven methods work best.

The great thing about it? I’m already experiencing results and I found this report only last week. I’m not saying this will change your life forever or within 10 minutes of reading this you will become so enlightened that you make $1 million by dinner, but what you will find is a simple and easy to understand document that can radically alter the way you approach affiliate marketing.

I suggest you read it, absorb its message and then spread the word. I know I have!

Click Here To Download “Affiliate Marketing 101″

Sound too good to be true? It almost is, but it’s completely legitimate, and experienced marketers have been making fortunes with it for years. What is this mystery technique? Media buys.

The term “media buys” is far from new. For many years, it has been used to describe the process of purchasing advertising in traditional print magazines and newspapers, or on radio and television. Although these are still perfectly viable advertising mediums, the Internet is the new hot commodity in the advertising market, and holds opportunities for marketers without the deep pockets needed to advertise elsewhere.

Essentially, “media buys” involve buying banner advertising space on websites, with the cost depending on the website’s prominence and traffic, the size of the advertising campaign, the times at which the banners are to be displayed, and other criteria. Payment for these ad campaigns is usually calculated on the basis of “CPM” (cost per thousand impressions), meaning that unlike PPC, where you are paying each time your ad is clicked, you are paying a set rate whenever a visitor sees your ad. Depending on the ad rates, you could end up getting very cheap clicks.

Traditionally, advertisers have had to pay advertising agencies to design advertising campaigns for them. However, many companies with affiliate programs are now providing their affiliates with pre-made banner ads in various different standard sizes for free, either directly or through an affiliate network.

As the affiliate, this means that all you have to do do get started promoting affiliate and CPA offers with banners is literally cut and paste a snippet of code. Cut, paste, and you’re done – no need to wrack your brain to come up with ad copy, spend hours in Photoshop or write any code. It has all been done for you.

Of course, just like any other kind of offer promotion, there are tricks of the trade that substantially increase your odds of success, and while you can simply jump in and hope for the best, you are far better off learning from a professional who has tested and tweaked techniques for maximum profits. The Zero Friction Marketing course will show you the ins and outs of media buys and allow you to hit the ground running with confidence.