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Blogging.....just something you can't avoid!
Blogging used to be just a method for stating your opinion, but now blogs are used to opine, to review, and to sell. In fact, many Internet marketers base their entire business around blogging.
Here's why.
Blogging is really just basic communication. All it takes is a computer and an internet connection and you can set up a free blog on one of the many blogging services.
Its flexibility is also one of its outstanding features. There are numerous platforms to blog from, from Wordpress to Joomla to Drupal, and dozens more in between. And even if you don't want to host your blog, you can set one up at one of the many free blog services like Blogger or Wordpress.com. And even if you use the free services, you can always take your blog to your own server at a later date.
Many people also feel that blogs create an intimate atmosphere for learning and research. A blog can create a simple credibility that can help sell your products because it helps create an "Everyman" aura, that is, a stripped down, hype-free way to talk about products.
If your opinions get read and respected, you might find that your credibility will begin to increase around a particular subject. People will begin to look to you to offer your opinions on forthcoming issues. And once you are established and considered an expert in a niche, your ability to sell from your blog will increase dramatically.
Once you are established, don't be afraid to ask people to sign up to your list. This will be a list where you can reach your readers at a moment's notice. A great way to utilise this list is to send a message to it when you have made a new post to your blog, and encourage your readers to not only read your new article but comment on it.
By using your list in this manner, your subscribers won't feel that you are using your list merely to sell to them. Of course, you can sell to them from your blog, and if your readers begin to comment on your posts, you are helping to enhance your blog's stickiness.
Blogging is a terrific tool for any Internet marketing business. Done in the correct manner (meaning that if you intend to build your credibility, you should blog in the most personal manner possible), you'll be blogging your way to success in no time.
Affiliate marketing is better than working! :-)
Internet marketing has blown up in the past few years with more and more people looking to work from home. There are thousands of opportunities and ways to make money online, including affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing has been around for quite some time and continues to hold strong. But have you had success with it?
Millions of people try affiliate marketing at some point in time, but many quit after a few weeks of no success. Just as with any home business, you have to be patient and give it time. But there are some things you can do to set yourself up for success.
The first tip to have success is finding a program that you are interested in. The great thing about internet marketing is that there are so many opportunities available, giving you the chance to find something you enjoy. Everything is much easier if you have passion in it because you will be more willing to put in the extra hours to promote the program.
Next, find a program that is correlated to your website in some way. It is extremely difficult to have success with affiliate marketing if you affiliate links of gardening sites on your car website. Take the time to find a program that is related to your site and will benefit you. It will take a load off your back if you can offer your visitors what they are looking for.
The fact that there are thousands of affiliate programs to choose from allows you to look for programs that pay well. You want to find a program that is related to your website and pays at least 35% to 40% residual income. There are some programs that pay as high as 70%, but 40% residual income will allow you to make a decent amount of money. There is no sense in placing a link on your site that pays nothing.
Lastly, make sure there is a way for you to view your statistics. Statistics say everything when it comes to the kind of success you are having. Every affiliate program should have some kind of page that allows you to look at your statistics while you are working for them 24 hours a day. The internet never sleeps, so why should your affiliate program?
There is great potential for affiliate marketing if you take the time to find a legitimate program. Accommodating an affiliate program with your home business is a great way to branch out and income flowing in multiple directions. If you follow the tips listed above, you can have success with affiliate marketing.
Despite what some so-called 'gurus' might tell you, affiliate marketing success is not that easy to come by.
Affiliate marketing is a specific business model that has its own
unique set of techniques that you have to learn. You will also find that
irrespective of the exact market segment you choose to go after, there
will be a lot of competition from other affiliate marketers.
If you are going to become a successful affiliate marketer you will
have to make a commitment at the outset that you are in it for the long
haul, and that you will stick it out through the inevitable challenges
you will meet along the way.
If you believe that affiliate marketing is a 'get rich quick' scheme
and that by becoming an affiliate marketer you will soon have a bank
account bursting with cash, then you are going to be sorely
disappointed.
Get used to the fact right from the start that affiliate marketing is a business - a business that you'll have to put a significant amount
of time and effort into before you're likely to see any real financial
rewards.
You need to be prepared to learn. Even if you come from a business
background, you will find that affiliate marketing has a learning curve
attached to it. You must be prepared to learn new things from the outset
and be prepared to continue your learning as you progress in your
affiliate marketing career.
You have to stay focused on your long-term goal of developing an affiliate marketing business that will bring you a full-time income, or
at least a decent second income, and realize that this will not happen
overnight. You have to be determined that you won't be discouraged
because of a few roadblocks that might appear in your way. You have to
expect some negatives on the way to your planned positive outcome.
So, will it all be worth it? There are lots of people who have
managed to achieve so-called 'super affiliate' status and who have
dwarfed their former employee incomes many times over. There is
absolutely no reason why you cannot join them.
You don't need lots of skill and esoteric know-how to make it as an
affiliate marketer. You just have to be prepared to learn the basics and
take massive action towards your goal. If you do this and promise
yourself that you will keep on working until you achieve your affiliate marketing objectives, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot make
it as an affiliate marketer.
The Affiliate Marketing Solution
Many companies are now turning to affiliate marketing as the solution to getting the relatively low cost, highly focused traffic to their websites or to a "warm-up" site that increases the chances of a customer actually buying something from the main site. The affiliate marketing solution is a solid and very effective web marketing tool which helps to reduce a company's overall marketing costs because they only pay for quality performance and they have no costs involved in employing permanent workers, e.g. tax, insurance, holiday, sickness, etc; also it is the most efficient use of outsourcing where the company pays for a service on a microscopic scale which eliminates outsourcing companies adding a mark-up to cover risks taken or money invested.
Affiliates
Affiliates are the first to take advantage of newly emerging trends and technologies, where established advertisers do not dare to be active, and they are prepared to take risks; "trial and error" is probably the best way to describe how affiliate marketers are operating. Affiliates can be search engine marketers who run pay-per-click campaigns in order to drive traffic and sales for an advertiser and they are compensated according to the value of the conversion through a variety of pricing models including cost per click, a flat fee per conversion, a percentage of sales transaction or some combination of all three of these. Affiliates generally attract traffic either via paid search or Search Engine optimisation.
What about the money, you say? Well, often people are tempted by lucrative offers of earning money online without having to do anything, which is obviously appealing to everyone, but it is essential to know exactly what you are getting into before you start investing your hard-earned money on an online business which may not be a very good choice.
In order to become good at affiliate marketing, you need to be prepared to invest your time and money wisely. Firstly, do as much research as possible about the company whose product(s) you will be promoting and the type of customers that might be interested in those products; try and find the type of places that users of these products are likely to be found, e.g. blogs, forums and social networking sites such as Facebook.com, and see what these people are interested in, have a need for, etc.
Once you have identified a good product with a good market, then it is usually a good idea to start an AdWords campaign where you pay as little as possible for keywords that are related to the product that you are trying to promote. Time can help you as an affiliate marketer to hone your trade, as you can study what links your readers are most interested in by tracking their clicks, where your traffic comes from by seeing what keywords they used to find you, and what affiliate links convert to the most sales.
Why Blogging can be a Waste of Time and Money
Every day millions of people start blogging. Indeed, the best estimates show that a new blog is created every single second of every day. As if this weren't enough extra material being added to the Internet, there are of course millions of blogs already in existence. There is a vast amount of new information being added to the Internet every minute of every day.
Many people have been told that blogging helps increase your visibility on the Internet. That's true enough, but if you are in business at what cost?
Let's assume your time costs $100 an hour and that you spend a total of two hours a week adding to your blog. That's $200 a week or $10,400 a year. That's the cost of blogging to your business. You really should calculate the amount of time and its value to your business.
Once you've found out how much blogging is costing your business, you need to consider how much money it is actually making. How many people bought items or services from you as a direct result of your blog? If you don't know, you need to add tracking codes to your blog links to ensure you can work this out.
Also, add up all the advertising income or affiliate income you've generated via your blog. Then look at the total. If it is less than the cost, you're wasting time and losing money by blogging. Don't let the fashion for blogging overcome traditional business requirements of profitability. For many people blogging is actually draining their profits, but they are unaware of this because they are not measuring their blog.
Ensure you measure your blog using tracking codes so you can check the real value of your blogging efforts. To do otherwise could seriously affect the profitability of your business.
True enough, blogs can raise your visibility on the Internet and can help boost search engine rankings. But being top of the search results for a particular keyword is of no value to you in business unless being top of the page actually translates into sales. Far too many people chase search engine ranking at the expense of chasing customers.
If you are using a blog to gain search engine ranking, but have not measured the income generated as a result, you could be wasting your time by writing your blog. As ever in business, measurement is essential if you are to do your best. So don't blog hopefully; measure its real impact.
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