Research in order to survive

One of the most significant steps to be a successful entrepreneur in affiliate marketing is to select profitable niche affiliate products. In this ever competitive world of affiliate marketing, you must research your product in order to survive.

When you are researching a product - here are some points to consider.

1. What is selling?

• A great idea of product does not mean it will make YOU money
• If you are a beginner it's suggested that you choose something that is already working for others.
  
• A. Proves a market exists
  
• B. People are making money

2. Who's selling it?

• An over competitive market requires more work and time for success
• An over competitive market can be attacked quicker but generally at lower volume and/or profit
• If you are going to go after an over competitive market, it's recommended to not choose THE most popular.

3. How it sells?

• Pay-per-click
• SEO (website/blog/other)

4. Read articles, news, review information and blogs. All you have to do is to do your own research by reading articles from articles directories, news from Google, Yahoo and MSN group, review information and blogs. With this action, you will discover what the market is and what people are talking about or what their concern is. This information will lead you to discover niche products to sell online.

5. Keyword research: Effective keyword research will lead you to discover profitable markets and products to sell online.

• Wordtacker
• Keyword discovery
• Google sandbox
• Yahoo Keyword Selector
• SEO Book
• Microsoft Adcenter Labs
• Good Keyworks

6. Exchange the ideas among affiliate marketing entrepreneurs. This approach is one of the most effective and easy ways to find out the niche products to sell on the internet.

Back to Basics: Free Classifieds Work

Its time to get back to the basics, there are so many different things on the internet and so many programs to teach (mentor) you it can become all too consuming to take on. So here we are back at the start. Back to basics - Free Classifieds.

Free classifieds ARE a good STARTING point for marketing affiliate programs on the internet, most free classified sites allow affiliate links so you can send your customer directly to a sales page, and you don't have to write copy or create a sales page/website of your own.

For those of you who are just starting and can't afford other forms of advertising and the testing involved. You can use Free Classified advertising to test your ideas, advertising copy and/or products and then you can make the decision on how to proceed from those results. The best part of using free online classified ads is that you can see results quickly.

The real "secret" to making money using free classifieds is to build a portfolio of products.
Don't limit yourself to just one product. Set up your first product across several sites and then set a goal for yourself: one new product per day, week, bi-weekly whatever works best with your time schedule. But add, add, add.

Secret #2 Headline - it must be compelling

Secret #3: The most recent ads are listed on the top of the ad search or ad listing pages. The means your window of opportunity may only be two to three hours. So you must post often.

Secret #4: Always use photos or banners in your ads.

Secret #5: Tailor your ad to the category it appears in

I like this analogy I found during my research.

"Think of your advertising this way. You want it to build like running water against a dam! The momentum builds and any crack in the dam lets the water out from a trickle... to a flood. You have to keep going until the crack appears, then keep pushing until the trickle turns to... a flood.

Don't expect this water to start moving on its own, it needs constant pushing to build up the necessary pressure. By following the system I am going to detail to you, consistently each and every day, Monday through Friday, you will break the dam... and receive your flood."

Secrets to the preperation of working at home

How do you prepare to work from home or telecommuting jobs? We've put together a list that can help in preparing to work from home.

Basic Needs to work from home:

Strong work ethic is the most important tool to working at home, if you can't push yourself to work, who will?

Your own computer with standard office and fax software in addition to a respectable quality scanner and printer.

High speed Internet connection. The technological advances in software and hardware are rendered useless in most cases if you have a slow Internet connection.

Phone service in your home for the reliability and voice clarity, most companies offering telecommuting positions will require that you have a land line phone installed in your home. This is the case definitely if you are seeking a position that will require you to communicate by telephone as a part of your job, which then might want a dedicated business line.

Quiet and separate working environments in the home dedicated for work. Keeping work separate in a dedicated office or other room of your house will also be a requirement in most positions. It will give you the motivation to treat your work-at-home job like the real job that it is.

So you have the basics, no how do you start to prepare to work from home?

First and foremost, unless you are just moving your office job into your home, there will be some "down time" in the finances. So the first thing that needs to be done is sit down and set up a budget and how to cut costs until you are up and earning a regular income. Even if you are keeping your full-time job and working part-time there will be expenses and costs somewhere on your road to your working at home, you need to budget for these purchases/costs.

Second is time budgeting. It can become time consuming and addicting to work from home, you can't leave it at the office, you have access to it anytime, just one more minute, I'm just gonna check/do one more thing. You will need to set up a budget for your time budget time for work, family, chores. You life still needs to include those things you did when you got home from the office. You need to set aside improvement time, you need to read books and study the online world to grow and improve.

Quick time budget:

1. Evaluate your daily routine schedule. Think about everything you do during your day and the length of time it takes you to do those tasks. Are there any tasks that can be shared or adjusted to use time more effectively.

2. Create a weekly schedule of all activities and going on that week, including work. Schedule work time during times that young children are taking naps or are in school.
Make sure to include periodic breaks for quality time and activities with the children. This will help lessen behavior problems that may pop up because the children are seeking out attention. Then post schedule where the whole family can view.

3. Go over the weekly schedule with the family. It gives the family time to voice any changes or upcoming events that may need to be penciled in and allows everyone the chance to work out problems that may come up with the schedule.

Third is to keep your work and home organized. A organized work space will be a productive work place. This would take a whole other article to cover.

Organizing Relieves Stress in Your Business

A little less stress is a good thing.

One of the great things about being an employee and working for someone else is that when the clock hits five you are basically done for the day and you jump in your car and you are gone. You do not have to worry about anything until the next day when work starts again. Your mind is free and you own it.

When you own a small business it really owns you and there is always some aspect of your business on your mind. But sometimes this can cause stress.

Organizing has a huge impact on your home and your home business and the stress of it all. Being organized reduces stress. When someone is disorganized, they often feel a lot of stress, anxiety, and generally overwhelmed. They may not be able to locate missing items, they may find their selves constantly running late or forgetting things, and they may be prone to missing work deadlines.

When someone is organized they will be able to find what they are looking for, will be less likely to forget things, and will find that will be more likely to arrive for meetings on time and turn work in before the due date. An organized person will feel more confident because of those things and their stress levels will go down.

Another great reason to get organized is that being organized increases your productivity, and therefore, can increase your bank account. When you are organized, you will be able to get more work done. Depending on the type of job you have, the more work that gets done can generally lead to bigger paychecks and a bigger bank account.

Being organized can help you create a sense of calm and peace in all aspects of your life. Once you have organized one area of your life, you will start to notice that things seem to run more smoothly in all areas of your life.

From my own experience the more I let my work space become disorganized the more stressed and unproductive I begin to feel. I have learned very quickly when this begins to happen, take a few minutes clean up/organize the work space and once again I will be ready to go. It is worth those few minutes of organizing.


For Step by Step directions on getting your home organized, check out Organization for busy moms.

Learn the Secrets of Affiliate Marketing

New online marketers tend get into affiliate marketing with some misconceptions. Here we will reveal the secret realities and facts of affiliate marketing.

The four basic secrets of affiliate marketing:

1) It is necessary for you to invest some money if you really want to succeed. You will need to have your own website, an autoresponder for your website and the ability to track your advertisements.

2) Affiliate Marketing will take some work and effort on your part.

3) You will always need to be learning and improving. Internet marketing is very dynamic, and there are always new ways of promoting your website. (Social Networking, Web2.0)

4) You need to have confidence and faith in yourself.

Secrets of affiliate marketing:
1. Always Cloak Your Affiliate Link. Whether it is a link you use in email marketing or a website link, be sure to hide the ugly looking link that tells the whole world it is an affiliate link. People get a bit sensitive and are not likely to click when they see that it is an affiliate link. Use affiliate cloaking tools or php redirects.

2. Use Article Marketing. Article marketing is a powerful workhorse in affiliate marketing and is one of the deadliest secrets of affiliate marketing used by the top affiliates. Brand yourself as an expert and you will have loyal customers. Not only so, your articles will drive targeted traffic from the search engines and indirectly from other related websites that post your article.

3. Target Specific Niche For Marketing. They target specific market niches rather than going for broad markets. It is easier for you to publish content that gets high ranking in the search engines for tight niches than broader markets as it can be overwhelmingly competitive with big established sites taking top spots in the search engines.

4. Create Presell Pages. Never send your prospect directly to the affiliate sales page. That is a big mistake made by newbie affiliates and even some veterans. Presell your prospect first with a review website or even some testimonials from past customers. This gives you a tremendous edge over others.

5. Follow Up With Your Prospect. While most affiliates would agree that driving traffic is a never-ending task and can be quite challenging even for experienced affiliates, many do not optimize their traffic. Many focus on bringing in fresh traffic but fail to capture them for follow up.

These secrets of affiliate marketing make a difference between struggling to pull in a good income and comfortably making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Secrets of Affiliate Marketing Failure:

1. Perhaps the most common misconception about affiliate marketing is that one can rake in huge amounts of revenue simply by slapping up a low-quality website with no original content and tossing in some affiliate links.

2. Failue to promote yourself and your web site is a big part of ensuring the creation of affiliate income.

3. Another mistake is not choosing products that have some relevance to the content of your web site.

4. Keeping the same old look and the same old text with nothing new to entice people
back is a sure way to limit your chances at being a successful affiliate marketer.