Affiliate Marketing – And the Learning Curve

When you put up your first website – you have to admit that you are pretty green to the ways of the Internet World. You think that once your website is up, and you have put your links in place, you will be in the money. I, and I am sure many, would love that to be true. Just think how many Super Affiliates we would have. I will give you a small sampling of what to truly expect.

The Begin of the Begin

You will be excited at first, and you will have a sense of pride in your accomplishment. Granted, it is no small feat to getting a website up and online. But this is just the beginning of your Internet Marketing experience.

Once you have your website up, you should be asking yourself -- where do I begin, or, what do I do now? If you are short of cash, which, in most cases people in the beginning are -- you can begin by:

1. Writing articles
2. Optimizing your site for the search engines
3. Putting Adsense on your site

All this takes time and work. But, when you first begin, you do have time to optimize, to write articles, and to put adsense ads on your site. Why? It has been said that for the next six months or nine months, Google, and possibly, the other search engines, may put you in the Sandbox. Some say the Sandbox exists, some says it does not. Whatever it is called, you will see a degree of dormancy in your site.

My own thinking is that there may be a pre-set time of six months before you see a rise in your unique clicks – I know I did. I feel that there may be several reasons for this:

1. It’s a great way to protect the Internet community against unscrupulous sites – I figure that these sites have a lifespan of six months before people give them the boot. It only takes one person to feel the blunt of a scam, before talk in the online forums begins.
2. Websites go up and go down daily. The search engines are looking at saving themselves time and money. If you are still on line after six months or nine months, you’re paying your dues, and they may figure you are serious about maintaining a business online.

What Do I Do During That Six or Nine Month Period

First, and foremost – since I have supplied you with this information – do not get frustrated and throw in the towel. Granted, at first the only clicks you may see is your own, but that will change.

Second, start positioning yourself, so when your dormancy with the search engines ends, you have the quality content, and the quality products to begin to fly. That means, writing articles, getting your name out to the masses, and learning to utilize Adsense.
And when you have spare change, try your hand at advertising on Adwords.

In the beginning your learning curve is just out of the starting gate – take this time to read, buy appropriate ebooks, experiment and research. All are important to moving your learning curve to the expert level.

To conclude, a website is just a small part, but an important part, of becoming an Affiliate Marketer. The other important elements, is persistence, hard work, and marketing. And finally, if you still have the passion after the initial exhilaration of becoming an online entrepreneur wanes – then you’ll make it.




About the author:
Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.bizfor free tools, quality articles related to affiliate marketing, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities – all aimed toward the affiliate marketer and the marketing process.


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Secrets To Make A Killing on eBay

Secret #1: Find a ‘real’ wholesale and drop ship company
Do you know what one of the biggest problem is to be successful on eBay? ‘What should I sell”? I can tell you, I get many emails per day from eBay sellers, asking me what they can sell. Let me explain this more in detail.

Let’s take John and David for example. Both are sellers and try to make money on eBay. Let’s start with John. He mainly gets his items from garage sales. So, every Saturday morning he gets up very early, hops into his car and drives around the neighbourhood to check out the garage sales. So he went last Saturday. John did not buy anything on the first two garage sales, but on his third garage sale, he found a little treasure. An old book from 1897 - for a bargain price of $10. Bingo! John was proud! ‘I can sell this for huge profit’, he thought and he went home. He took his digital camera and he made a high quality digital photo. It took quite some time but finally he was happy with the result. Then he had to upload this picture to his computer and he spent some time writing the sales copy. Late Saturday afternoon finally he was finished and launched this book onto eBay. 7-10 days later his item got sold for $75!! John is excited. He packs the item, labels it with the buyers address and then he drives to the nearest post office. Oh no, what a long line. After 15 min of waiting he could finally post this item to his customer! Wow, a lot of work for $65 profit? Don’t you think?

Let’s look at David. He usually gets up very late – usually at Saturday around lunchtime. He is still in his pyjamas and he makes himself a nice cup of coffee and gets onto the Internet. He logs into his drop ship account and browses through some hot selling product. ‘Yes, I can sell that” - A nice laptop for a bargain price of $550 (wholesale price). But David does not have to pay upfront for this item, so he just downloads the professional digital photos offered by his drop ship company to his computer. ”Oh wait”; David has just discovered that this drop ship company has also a ‘ready-to-use’ auction sales letter available. That’s really cool …and David copies and pastes the source code of this letter into his eBay listing and he launches his auction. A Dutch auction, since the drop ship company announced that they have more than one of this laptop currently available. Great, David could sell 6 laptops. He hits the submit button for this Dutch auction of 6 laptops and enjoys his coffee (which is still hot by the way). After 7-10 days David has sold all 6 laptops for $830 each. All what David does is the following: He waits until he gets the payment from his 6 customers in his paypal account, sends the address of the customers together with 6 x $550 (wholesale price) to his drop sip company via paypal. He has made pure profit of 6 x $280 = $1,680 in about 25 min of work – total. That’s why David is a smarter eBay seller than John. I think the idea is clear …drop shipping can be the answer to your problem what to sell on eBay and it can saves you a lot of time too. No packing, posting etc.

Secret #2: Have a professional auction listing

A professional eBay auction site is like your business card. If you are serious selling on eBay you should show your potential customers that you are a professional seller and that you are selling high quality products. Please, don’t just upload a photo and type the text in the description box. Do your homework and learn some HTML. Look around there are many professional tutorials and ebooks around helping you in that matter. It’s definitely worth it. And you’ll be surprised, because if your auction listing looks nice and professional potential buyers stay longer on your site and usually it’s more likely that they place a bid.

Secret #3: The money is in the follow up

“Yes, I’ve heard this before”, you may say. But, this is a very important aspect of your successful eBay career: Follow up with your customers. Send them an email ~10 days after they have purchased the product and ask them how they are going with the product and if everything is all right. Invite them to have a look at your other auctions. (You have to be careful though not offending anyone, but if the products are related and you ask how they went with the product, that’s fine). I never got complaints by doing that and your customers are happy to get some “insider tips”. You’ll be amazed how many customers will buy from you again, since they value you as a seller. Keep in mind that it is easier to keep an existing customer, instead of getting a new customer. You could also send them a thank you gift in form of a downloadable digital information product. That’s easy for you and they get some valuable information. You’ll see that your existing customers will be very thankful and they feel good that they have bought from you and will do again in the future.

Secret #4: Sell internationally

This aspect is often neglected by many eBay sellers: Sell internationally! First, check with your drop ship company in which countries they are shipping and how much postage they charge to send the item overseas. If you have sort out these details, you can go ahead and list your item internationally. You’ll be surprised how many more items you are selling when the potential buyers see: Ship worldwide. Don’t miss this opportunity or you are leaving big bucks on the table.

Secret #5: Be creative – Be different

How do you think your listing will be stand out from the crowd? Good question isn’t it. In my 4 years of being an active Power Seller, I have tried and tested a lot. First have the photo in the gallery; it just costs a bit more to list but these additional cents are well spend. A recent study has shown that people almost ignore listing without a picture in the gallery. So that’s mandatory! The next step is your title. Do you know that only the title is spidered by eBay when potential customers are searching for specific products? So, you have to make sure that your title includes as much keywords as possible. But be careful here, eBay does not like “keyword stuffing”. So, be creative and come up with 2-3 different titles for the same item. Try them all and you’ll see what works best.
by: Jason James
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5 Instant Income Streams That No One Knows About

Something truly dramatic has happened over the past couple of decades. The world has made a transition from the industrial age to the information age, and the income rules that used to apply a few decades ago have now been blown apart. Possibly the biggest myth in personal wealth creation today is that you should focus on one thing for your income. We are all trained into believing that in order to be successful you need to train in a chosen profession. Then get a “good job” within that industry and slog your way up the corporate ladder. In other words we are all programmed to compete and succeed at the rat race by our parents, the school system and our peers. The simple truth however is that very few people gain either happiness nor financial stability by using this cruel, tired old formula. And whichever way you look at it, the problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still just a rat.

If you wish to gain happiness and financial independence then you need to find new income sources and this insiders report will help you do just that. I am not advising that you rush to work tomorrow, throw hot coffee at your boss’s face while quitting to start up new ventures – everything takes time. But you should certainly consider using a wide number of different methods to provide income streams for you. Do not fall into the trap of depending on one source of income for your livelihood. Look around and you will discover that there are hundreds of different and very feasible ways of making money. The key is to educate yourself and then take action.

So what are the five income streams that you can set-up immediately to earn a constant stream of income? We’ll look at these one by one:

(1) Arbitrage – Do you know that the internet age has resulted in thousands of online bookmakers all competing for your money? Now if you are not a gambling man do not worry because arbitrage is an investment concept that can be used to derive a guaranteed 5% to 20%+ profit within a few hours with no possible chance of losing your original cash. How is this possible? Well online bookmakers often have huge differences in opinion on the same sporting events – this creates some incredible anomalies in the way that certain sporting events are priced between different bookmakers. This is great news for us because everyday these anomalies allow us to invest money on all sides of a sporting event so that no matter who wins/loses/draws we can walk away with a risk free and guaranteed profit. These arbitrage opportunities are present many hundreds of times each week and the beautiful part is that you can find them in as little as five minutes per day once you know how. This is one of the least known and used income sources around and one that you should certainly set-up and profit from.
(2) Recycling Cell Phones For Profits – Last year over 100 million cell phones were replaced. Only a tiny fraction of those were recycled. Many end up tossed away at the bottom of peoples attics, or are simply thrown away. Did you know that each old cell phone is worth upto $70 (although on average this is closer to the $20 mark)? Cell phones are a multi-billion dollar business and that trend is growing on a global level – governments are beginning to offer incentives for those who are willing to recycle their phones and recycling companies are now setting up and offering a decent level of cash per phone that they receive. As an individual there are some very powerful ways of collecting hundreds of phones per week and selling these on for some monster profits. The start up costs are practically zero and this is a business you can operate from home.
(3) Importing Goods From India And China – If you want a very solid, profitable and enjoyable work-from-home business then this is it. Some of the most popular goods cost a fraction of the cost that they are available for in UK/USA/Europe – for example I regularly have access to top quality items from India that cost me 95% less per item than in the UK. One of the best things about importing for profits is that once you setup a product and find a supplier, you have secured an income stream that lasts, often, for years into the future. There are literally MILLIONS of products that can be imported profitably into your home country – finding suppliers is not very difficult and you can boost your income further by selling them on auction sites such as ebay. There are also other benefits when you operate an import/export business from home – you can write off travel expenses against profits and the set-up costs are actually very low. Get involved today.
(4) Reselling Works In The Public Domain – Have you heard of the public domain? Maybe. Did you know that there are literally millions of books, videos, plays, courses, music and more that exist within the public domain that you can legally take, brand as your own and sell to keep 100% of the profits? Did you know that there are online sites that actually GIVE you text documents of public domain works – you just download the document and you’re ready to repackage it into your own product. Not a lot of people know that Walt Disney created the Disney empire out of a story that he found on the public domain – it is simply a treasure trove of cash waiting to be discovered.
(5) Ebay – I know it is hardly “unknown” but it really had to be mentioned - If you have not ventured into this incredible opportunity, you really ought to. Receiving over 1.5 billion page views a month and 9000 new customers everyday, ebay is a sellers dream. No matter what you wish to sell, there is a buyer waiting for you on ebay. There are powersellers who are making $100,000 and more per year with ebay – and if they can do it the simple fact is so can you. Simple, addictive and fun you should setup your eBay income stream today.

So there you have it – five instant income streams that you can setup today to earn an immediate online income with little or no capital. Now that you know about them the next (and most important) step is to actually start (something that sadly 95% of the readers statistically will not do). Remember, that once you set-up a new income stream it will derive cash for you years (if not decades) into the future. Don’t be lazy – get started today!
by: Tukshad Engineer
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The Perfect Home Business For Moms!

The important role that women play as a wife and mother at home can not be overemphasized. They organize home life to ensure things run smoothly. From cleaning the home, making the meals, taking care of the children, and running a host of other important errands and tasks. For a wife and mother who works outside the home these tasks can take on the organization skills of Super Woman. And, while some women are content to take on the daunting challenges of career woman, wife and mother, others would prefer to work at home.

Looking for a work at home business can be a task in itself. We often need to search through several opportunities before we settle on one that has possibilities and appeals to us. One Work at Home Business that has worked out very well for me is eBay. eBay recently reported $14.87 billion in annual merchandise sales with over 100 million members. 400,000 of these are making their living from eBay. Why? Because a Work at Home Business using eBay is so easy to operate and maintain.

Since technology has become much simpler over recent years, learning curves have become less severe than they once were This has made operating a computer easier than ever. With this, people have been flocking to the Internet and eBay to create a Business of their own. The main draw of working online is that you can Work at Home. No long commutes to work. No 9 to 5 either, your hours can be flexible so you can still enjoy time with your family.

eBay lends it self perfectly as a Work At Home Business. There are no special skills required other than the confidence that you can be successful with an online business regardless of your business, computer or Internet experience and skills. What skills? you ask. Well, just very basic skills. The ability to surf the web, read and send emails, create auction pages (webpages) and upload them. And most importantly and ability to learn and the want to succeed.

The easiest way to start your Online Auction Business would be to use Dropshippers. The great thing about Dropshipping, as outlined in my book "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak", is that it will allow you to operate a Home Based Business as an Internet Marketer with out ever worrying about storage of inventory, packaging of inventory, or even shipping of that inventory. The Dropship supplier will look after all of that for you. And even greater still is the fact that your auction business will cost you very little to get started The fact is, most Dropshippers charge you nothing to become a member to sell their products. While others may charge just a nominal administration fee. Plus, you
can list your item on eBay for approximately .35 cents. So, as you can see your eBay Auction Business will cost you very little to get started. With such a low financial risk the only thing you have to lose is a bit of your time.

How does one put together eBay and Dropshipping? It's really very simple. First, browse eBay to see what kind of product(s) you would like to sell. Then sign up as a member with eBay. Once you have decided on a product(s),locate a Dropshipper for that product(s). Sign up with that Dropshipper and then place an auction on eBay for the item.. Once your auction is over and you have a buyer for the product email your Dropshipper the required information. The Dropshipper will ship the product directly to your customer as though it came from you. Then the Dropshipper will charge your account the wholesale price for that product. The difference between the wholesale price and your retail price is pure profit!

To run a successful eBay Business you will need to sell what the public wants to buy. Always research any product before you decide to sell it. Make sure it is popular and you can get it at a great price. If you have something worth selling, you are bound to find someone on eBay who wants to buy it..
by: Joe Clare
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