How Super Affiliates Make the Big Bucks

Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time. Even before the Internet,
some businesses would pay referral or finder’s fees to people who referred new
customers. But the Internet has expanded the concept through affiliate marketing
and has made it possible for anyone to make money online.

Unfortunately, affiliate marketing is not well understood, which is not
surprising considering how it is marketed. Some deceptive marketers sell
affiliate training, but call it “typing”, “data entry” or “rebate processing”
jobs, which is not what affiliate marketing is about. Many super affiliate gurus
sell quality informational programs, but they sometimes give the impression that
affiliate marketing is a set-it and forget-it job. They fail to mention that
they can set-it and forget-it because they hire people and use expensive systems
to manage their affiliate business. You can do that too, but until you are
making enough money to hire people, all the work needs to be done by you.

With that said, there is much to learn from the super affiliates. If you want to
make a living from affiliate marketing, you should implement the same strategies
used by super affiliates.

Super affiliates…

1. Verify their idea is profitable. They do this by researching the
keywords related to their topic using Google’s Keyword Tool or Wordtracker to
find out how many people search the words each month. They also check out the
number of websites that are ranked for the keyword and what the sites do to make
money.

2. Choose a niche topic of interest to people who need to buy something to
fix their problem. A niche is a narrowly defined group within a larger group.
Despite being a smaller group, niches tend to make more money than general
topics. But not only should the group be targeted, it should be a group that has
a problem that an affiliate product can solve. For example, teenagers with acne
is a niche topic targeting a group highly motivated to spend money to fix the
problem.

3. Focus on building a list. There are many ways to promote affiliate
programs including squeeze pages and blogs, but the super affiliate views these
methods as ways to develop an email list. The super affiliate asks visitors to
his squeeze page or blog to join his email list in exchange for something free
such as a report. Having a list not only allows the super affiliate to promote
his affiliate product if the visitor doesn’t buy the first time he visits the
site, it also allows him to promote other related products. In fact, super
affiliates make most their money from their lists.

4. Market, market and market some more. Affiliate marketing, like any other
business venture, requires marketing. People can’t buy affiliate products or
services from you if they don’t know about you. Super affiliates use a variety
marketing techniques to get people their websites including search engine
optimization (SEO) techniques, article marketing, videos, and joint ventures
with other affiliate marketers that have a list.

Many people looking to work at home gauge a program by how much can be made.
Affiliate marketing like many other work-at-home options can make a great deal
of money; however, like other work-at-home options, most people don’t make
anything at all. Success in affiliate marketing depends on you. It requires that
you do the research and implement proven strategies established by super
affiliates.

About the Author:
Leslie Truex is the author of The Work-At-Home Success Bible (Adams Media). She
has been telecommuting and running home businesses for over 15 years and helping
others to work at home since 1998. She conducts Work-At-Home Success University
that includes courses in affiliate marketing. Get work-at-home jobs,
money-making tips and other resources for free at http://www.WorkAtHomeSuccess.com