I am just really confused, if someone could help clear things up thatd be great. I want to start making money online. I purchased a domain name and hosting. Everyone says start a site/blog about something you love because it will be easier. So how does this process work? I want to make money with ads/affiliate marketing. So if i love fitness and weight lifting, and write articles about weight lifting and getting in shape, how do I make money with affiliate marketing? Like if i have a big website that just has articles and posts about lifting/fitness, where does affiliate marketing come in? I guess my question is .. how can i use my newly acquired domain/hosting to get started in affiliate marketing? Should I create a landing page and then try to sign up for a service? I just dont get it.. because you cant even sign up for affiliate programs without a good website.. soo confused..
You need good content first. You need to also do some keyword research and you should opt for longtails to bring in potential buyers to the market you are covering. Obviously you have to develop your rankings which comes from backlinks and PR.
This is what i dont get. Everyone keeps repeating the same stuff over and over. Lets say I had amazing content, the best content in the world on a site that had articles and content about weight lifting. Where would affiliate marketing come into this picture? Would it be ads like adsense?
On a bodybuilding site for example you can write some reviews of bodybuilding supplements that you recommend to your visitors and put your affiliate links, so you can get a commission if they buy the product.
Hey swfx, You have chosen to work in an industry that does exist and has great potential on the web. A site that is related to health stuff can offer home-gym accessories, all kinds of videos for learning it, herbal remedies, herbs, vitamins, minerals, herbal supplements and many other things. Now you are asking yourself how to make money from it? Just search Google for the word "affiliate" then find some affiliate programs that deal with the pills/vitamins stuff and join it. Then go to amazon.com , sign up as an affiliate, get links for selling stuff on your site and start selling videos/DVDs/Books about that subject. Don't stop here. Go to ebay.com , open an affiliate account and find categories that matches your content. Link to it. And last one: sign up as an affiliate on cj.com , search for vendors that are looking for content like yours and start promoting them on your site. That is, i guess, the missing chain that you were looking for. Before that, make sure you have traffic on your site... Try to cooperate with other sites to exchange links, participate in forums that are related to this subject and attract people to read your content, maybe start your own forum.... Remember that the first dollar is the hardest one. The rest comes easier... Good Luck!
You can find bodybuilding supplements on health related affiliate prgrams that you can join via affiliate networks. On affiliate networks there are a great number of these to choose from. Affiliate networks include Affilliate Future, Affiliate Window, Buy.at, Commission Junction, Trade Doubler etc. When you join one of these sites you simply grab some link code from any such health related advertiser and put it on your blog/website. This can be a basic text link or a banner creative and you will earn a set commission of say 10% if someone users your link and goes on to buy a product on the site! The affiliate network provides reports on your performance over time, so that you can study whats working for you and what isn't. If you wrote a bodybuilding article about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Olympia/Mr Universe titles... then you could perhaps add an affiliate link at the bottom of the article for perhaps books about Arnold, DVDs starring Arnold etc. You just need to think outside the box.
Here is your sole purpose. The reason you want excellent relevant content is to get people interested in reading your blog/website. You will need to make it known that you are up and running by submitting your site to directories, RSS services, social networking, and bookmark sites to draw some attention to yourself. The reason that you want to research keywords,and key phrases is because you want to get some love from the SE's like Google. You want to be found on the results (preferably first page) when people are searching for the information that you have on your blog The more eyes that you get on your page, the better chance you have to sell them something, or have them click a link of a product that they are also interested in, or an ad. That's how you make money. Traffic is the name of the game, and you want to target traffic that is interested in your niche so that you have a better chance of selling them something from your site. There are a number of ways to do it, including article marketing, which is free, and paying to have your ads displayed, such as adwords. My advice would be to get up and running first, put some good content up, work out the design and layout kinks, and then decide what you want to sell, and who you want to sell it to. Once you get that far, you can then start exploring different marketing avenues to get more traffic.
Something like the way people use adsense... but people just mean advertising products that pay you via an affiliate program. (usually pays you a percentage of sales you refer)... and generally they dont mean adsense when speaking about affiliate marketing. You might talk about products/services in the body of your articles (and link them) or you might write an article then go out and find complementary products you can place ads for next to the article... or you might write your articles and watch what sort of search engine traffic you receive and tailor your adspots to those searches. You might even keep your website advert free and just try and build up an email subscriber list.. and market products to that group. You don't need a 'wonderful' website to apply for most affiliate programs... just one that doesn't look half built or under construction. Somewhere like commission junction (cj.com) is an easy place to start as they are a 'front end' for thousands of sites with affiliate programs.. once you have it sussed out then start signing up to individual programs direct.
Ok. thank you for the helpful responses. So the number one thing I should focus on is content for now. I should just write and write and write until I fill my site/blog with content. How much would you consider "enough content" to start doing affiliate stuff? Or is it not so much about enough content as it is enough quality content that has good keywords in it which drives traffic?
Focus on unique content. A site with a few unique and high quality content can be more efficient than another with thousands copies of existing articles. Also, search this forum for SEO. You'll need the basics.
If you are using a blog format, I'd say 4 or 5 decent articles is enough to 'establish' your site.. then apply for your affilliate programs.. this can be done in a day if you wish. Don't hesitate or procrastinate or worry if your site has enough/good content yet. Juts rip into it and build/improve as you go I say.
And designing a nice looking site. A new blog will need to be appealing to get readers to stick around and take you seriously. Remember to write for people, not search engines.
As of right now my site has wordpress installed with a custom theme. I believe it looks "nice enough" for now... I have four unique articles already written so I guess I should apply for some programs
Hold on. Hold on. Babe, you're confused beyond all belief. First of all: there are many ways to make money with affiliate marketing. One of thise methods is with a website. It's perhaps the most flexible way for you to make money online. There are other ways that don't involve a website at all such as video marketing, article marketing, pay-per-click advertising, old fashion methods off-line. Weight-lifting and fitness is a great niche because the health industry has lots of affiliate programs available for you to pick and choose from that are related to your topic. But don't just go and rush throwing a blog up there if you haven't done the right keyword research otherwise your site won't be seen. If you want to make money online, and you know what your niche is already, what you need is the right program that will teach you all the methods to make money online with affiliate marketing, not just a couple here and there With some affiliate programs, some methods work better than others, depending on what the merchant or affiliate network restrictions are. For example, some programs won't allow you to use their Name in your marketing campaigns because you would be competing with their marketing or they would consider it trademark infringement. The program I'm in is really good about covering all of that, including learning how to use a website/blog. The teacher is really clear about his explanations. I love him and finally made my first dollar. It's designed for people of all experience levels. If you're a beginner you would opt for the core training in the program. If you're a little more advanced, you would skip to some of the skillsets in there. It's all video training. The key is to know where, how and what to promote. You need all those three answers, or you're going to have a long road ahead.