In 2011, we have seen a lot of changes happening in the affiliate marketing world… Google Dance (affiliate sites disappearing from google search results), emergence of social media, adwords cracking down on affiliate ads, etc. With all these happening, it is natural for you to think it is the end of affiliate marketing.

However, affiliate marketing is still alive and kicking. And the future looks good.

Affiliates who have a list and offer good content will definitely still be in the game for years to come. This means that if you do not own a sizable list today, you run a risk of being wiped out because of all the changes out there.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, the following steps MUST be followed:

1. Build a list. Anyone who tell you you can succeed in affiliate marketing without building a list is not telling you the whole story. You MUST build a list ASAP as lots of affiliate sales happened in the backend.

To start off, choose a niche that you wish to enter. I would recommend you to choose a big and competitive niche. This is because when a niche is competitive, it means that there are money to be made. Yes, you might not have the capability to challenge the big boys now… but if you follow what I am going to share with you later, I am pretty sure you can capture a significant amount of eyeballs in a competitive niche and make money from it.

Next, design a squeeze page to capture names and email address. Don’t worry about what to promote to your list yet. Spend your time now to develop a quality free report related to your niche and offer it for free on your squeeze page. Visit forums and article directories to identify some burning questions people in your niche are craving to be answered. Understand their major concerns and try to find out the answers for each question. Compile them into a PDF report and offer it for free on your squeeze page.

2. Drive traffic to your squeeze page. Today, article marketing remains one of the best free methods to drive lots of quality traffic to my site. You don’t need to be a very good writer in order to succeed in article marketing. What you need is Consistency and Discipline.. Some marketers are saying that article marketing don’t work anymore… nothing is further from the truth. The reason why it doesn’t work for them is either they have not done enough or they gave up too early. If you want to see significant results from your article marketing effort, follow the steps below:

a. Go to Ezinearticles and look at the articles in your niche.
b. Take note of the keywords that other writers are using in their Articles Title
c. Develop a list of titles/topics (25 a week)
d. Churn out 25 articles (based on the 25 topics researched) a week… that is 5 articles a week.
e. Submit them to Ezinearticles.com
f. Direct your article traffic to your squeeze page to collect name and email address.
g. Continue to do this for the next 6 months. (100 articles a week, 600 articles in 6 months)

If you follow the steps above religiously, you will end up with a sizable list that you can market to at the backend, as well as consistent traffic to your squeeze page every single day. We are looking at very conservative figures over here. Let’s say that each article of yours gets you 1 opt-in (very conservative) every month. If you churn out 100 articles on the first month religiously, you will end up with 100 opt-ins. Continue to churn out another 100 articles in the second month and you will get another 100 new opt-ins be the end of second month. However, that is not all. The first 100 articles that you did in the first month will still continue to drive you traffic and opt-ins (1 opt-in per article, very possible). This means that, by the end of second month, you should be expecting a list of 300 email addresses. Compounding effect is taking place here.

Now, by end of 6 months (100 articles every month from 1st month to the 6th month), you should be expecting a list of more than 1000 email addresses… and you will be far better than most affiliate marketers out there (some of them can’t even build a list of 100).

Yes, there are other traffic generation methods out there such as PPC, facebook marketing, forum marketing, etc. I would highly recommend you start off with article marketing as it is a free and very effective.

It is a number games when it comes to article marketing. It all depends on whether you are willing to work hard and meet the numbers above.

3. Queue up your auto-responder with at least 2 emails every week.. You can re-use the articles that you have written and send them to your subscribers using your auto-responder. Maintain a strong and active relationship with your list.

4. Gather feedback.. In the third month, send an email to your list and ask them what else you can help them with. If you have been building solid relationship with your list, you should be getting a lot of response here. Gather their feedback and look for affiliate products that can solve their needs.

5. Promote an affiliate products to your list.. Look for appropriate affiliate products based on the feedbacks that you have gathered. Promote the product to your list. At the point of them, you should be able to get some sales to justify the hard work in the first 3 months

6. Outsource your articles.. Once you start to make money online, take a portion of it and reinvest in your business. One thing that you should look at is to outsource your article writing. You can easily find people who is willing to write 1 article for you at $4-$5 online. Don’t outsource your entire article writing as it will cost you a bomb now. I would suggest you outsource 25% of your articles and still do the rest of the articles in-house.

One thing you should note about outsourcing articles is that it requires lots of trial and error before you can find a good writer. Don’t put all eggs into one basket. Try out a few writers to see who’s the best. Tell the writers you only accept ORIGINAL article that has at least 500 words per article and you will be using CopyScape to check for plagiarism. If you find out the articles are not unique, you will not hesitate to launch a complaint against them and terminate all work.

Outsourcing free up your time on repetitive task and allows you to work on other important stuffs such as testing and promotions. Outsourcing is not for the big boys only… you can start small and reap the results from it.

7. Use Google Website Optimizer to improve the conversion rate of your squeeze page.. Install Google Website Optimizer code to your website and check the conversion rate of your squeeze page. You should be aiming for at least 30% conversion rate. (i.e. For every 100 visitors to your squeeze page, 30 of them opts in to your list) Google website optimizer allows you to run test (A/B Testing) on your squeeze page to identify the best squeeze page for high conversion. This is a MUST do if you want to get more with less. Don’t waste your traffic.

Now here you have a simple blueprint for affiliate success.

Affiliate marketing is not dead… and trust me, the future of affiliate marketing looks good.

Affiliate marketing guru like Ewen Chia is still making tons of money from affiliate marketing… and that is mostly due to the fact that he has a HUGE list. He started many years ago and is now reaping the rewards.

When you are going to start? Starting now is never too late.

So start working hard and build your list today. Ignore the rest.

If you need more resources on affiliate marketing, you can visit Ewen Chia’s Affiliate Marketing Inner Circle Club. (note: You should assume that I get some financial or other benefit from your use of the link above.)

If you find this useful, tell your friends about us. Send them to http://www.singaporeaffiliatemarketing.com

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Today, I went to Kinokuniya at Orchard Takashimaya to buy the book “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. There are 2 takeaway pointers from my trip to the bookstore… which you can apply to your business (both online or offline).

When I waited for my turn to pay, I was thinking about whether I should get a Kinokuniya membership card. I couldn’t make up my mind. When it’s my turn, the first question that the cashier asked me was: “Are you a Kinokuniya member?”

“Wow, their staffs are well-trained to upsell”, I thought. But, to my surprise, when I said “No, I’m not a member”, she didn’t proceed to ask whether I wish to join as a member. She went ahead to scan the barcode on the book and I paid for it. (A lost opportunity to upsell their membership to a potential customer, which will contribute more sales to the store in the next one year because he has a membership card.)

What’s the use of asking whether I am a member or not (it’s an open-ended question… what if i say no? what’s next?) without knowing what to say when I respond with a NO? If she is to proceed and ask me to join, I’d most probably do it out of impulse. Opportunity lost. Just imagine how much more sales Kinokuniya can make by making it compulsory for their staffs to upsell the membership card if they receive a NO for their initial question.

Pointer #1: If you are running an offline business (especially one with membership card service), always train your staffs to upsell. It just takes a simple question: “Do you wish to join us as a member today, and you can enjoy 10% off this purchase” to potentially increase your sales. For internet marketers, an upsell page after your initial offering is an easy way to double your clickbank sales.

On my way back home, I was all excited to read Rework. Then, i realized that I didn’t really know the authors at all. I only remember the book title Rework and it’s cover (quite sticky), and the testimonial by Seth Godin (owner of Squidoo.com).

The main reason I bought the book is because Seth Godin’s recommends it.

Pointer #2: Be it sales page, affiliate squeeze page, corporate site or marketing collateral - credible testimonials really do wonders.

P.S: I am now past chapter 2 of ReWork, it’s indeed a very good read. Highly recommended.

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Do you want to know the non-technical way of take over page one by getting your websites to page one of Google and get a regular flood of free targeted traffic?

If this is what you are looking at, then Take Over Page One is for you.

Now… there is a special 7 days trial offer plus twitter software for a limited time only…

Secure your free trial here.

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Your dream Internet lifestyle is closer than you think…

I believe your main purpose into affiliate marketing is to achieve passive online income and lead an Internet lifestyle. An Internet lifestyle allows you to:

1) Have total control of your time and life

2) Spend more time with your family and friends

3) Go on holidays while money still pouring in to your bank accounts

4) Achieve financial freedom

5) Own an Internet empire that will make you money for years to come

Many people failed to achieve their desired Internet lifestyle is because they are doing all the wrong stuffs.

Selling the wrong products and making things harder than they needed to be.

If you want to achieved your dream lifestyle, you need to start doing the right stuff. The good news is, you can follow a certain formula to achieve a full time income from affiliate marketing.

And below is the “The Formula” that has proven itself over & over again:

The Full-Time Income Formula

1. Create unique content in profitable markets that specifically targets people who are on the verge of making a purchase decision…

2. On each page of your site, prominently display an affiliate offer that directly matches your visitor’s problem, question or query…

3. Promote your site with simple, time-tested activities that work just as well today as they have for almost a decade (more details below),

And, finally…

4. Simply repeat steps 1 through 3 until you reach your target income - which can happen surprisingly quickly with the right offer & market.

If you actually follow the formula religiously and take action, below is what it looks like when you start doing what actually works…

Note: This does not reflect the average types of results that most beginners can expect. Most beginners can expect a fair amount of trial/error before they see any results. This is because the most important factors in terms of generating results are targeted traffic & offer selection/promotion - which, like any skill - require practice, perseverance & action.

Just remember 2 very important things if you want to succeed:

1) It is easier to sell in-demand product.

2) You do not need to reinvent the wheel.

If things just aren’t working out at the moment… instead of “trying harder”…

- Why not copy what clearly already works?

The key to making a full time income online is to start building sites that specifically target buyers and selling them what they already want…

And Affiliate Genie is going to drastically accelerate your success. It’s going to save you time. And it’s going to level the playing field for you, especially if building sites that perform is something you struggle with.

Affiliate Genie is created by Chris Rempel, who also famously known as the Lazy Marketer. He is the creator of Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate and I must admit his products are top-notch.

Many marketers struggle with the technical know-how of building websites.

If you do not have any technical or HTML knowledge, don’t worry.

Affiliate Genie is the Wordpress of Affiliate Marketing. This is all you have to do:

1. Upload the Affiliate Genie package to your server

2. Open the admin page, login, set your initial preferences - and;

3. Start adding reviews, content and whatever else you want - and you’re DONE. It’s that simple.

With Affiliate Genie, there is no excuse for you anymore. Whether you succeed or not, it is all up to you.

The KEY to success is action.

As in, what you do right now. Not waiting for tomorrow or coming up with excuse that prevent you from living your dream Internet lifestyle.

—–> Download Affiliate Genie here <——-

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Google Adwords is a very effective and popular marketing tool for affiliates. Many affiliates depend fully on Google Adwords to make their living. If you are new to Google Adwords, allow me to share with you 7 steps to create a winning Google Adwords campaign.

Inside Google Adwords, there is a factor known as the Quality Score. If you have a high campaign Quality Score, Google will reward you with lower cost-per-click and higher position for your ads. This means that you will pay lesser than your competitors and still enjoy prominent positions in the sponsored results. Getting a high quality score is something all Adwords specialists strive to achieve.

Now, let me share with you 7 steps to score a high quality score and create a winning Adwords campaign:

1. Keyword research. Conduct keyword research to identify keywords that are relevant to what you are offering. Make sure that you bid on keywords with Exact Match for the start. If you intend to bid on broad or phrase match, you need to ensure that you include negative keywords to filter out unnecessary impressions. This is important because when you have lots of unnecessary impressions, your click through rate will be very low. When you have a low click through rate, your campaign will be slapped with a low Quality Score.

2. Turn off the content network. If you are not experienced with Adwords, I advise you to turn off the content network first. Run your ads on Google search only.

3. Group relevant keywords together. Your ad groups should contain keywords that are closely related so that you can write a more relevant ad for each ad group. The relevancy of your ads is one factor Google looks at when it comes to Quality Score.

4. Split test your ads. Create two ads per ad group and run a split test to determine which ad copy gets you more clicks. The purpose of split testing is to get a better CTR and improve conversions.

5. Adjust your keyword bids accordingly. After you let your campaign run for a few hours, log in to check how much each keyword costs and what position you ads are at. The best position is between two and six. The first position usually gets lots of tire kickers.

6. Eliminate keywords that do not perform. Delete keywords that don’t bring you clicks and conversion.

Google Adwords is a great advertising tool for affiliate marketers. When you run an Adwords campaign, make sure you track the performance so that you know what works and what doesn’t work.

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