A Timetable for Affiliate Marketing Success
Success in affiliate marketing is certainly not guaranteed.
In fact thousands of people enter and leave the industry each and every year, most of whom do so without making so much as a penny.
These people go into affiliate marketing because they believe it will be an easy and risk free way to the income they dream on, and are, more often than not, rudely brought back down to earth by reality.
It is clear to me that they will continue chasing their dream, not achieving it, with this kind of attitude.
Affiliate marketing is a business like any other, and therefore, like any other, results come as the result of talent, motivation and hard work.
To my mind it really is possible to make money doing almost anything if you have these three attributes in abundance.
The importance of an affiliate marketing timetable...
The reason I am writing this article is to advise how best to designate your time and resources with affiliate marketing.
This will firstly mean considering your efforts day in day out, all in order to reach long-term, but also realistic, goals.
This is how I have had my own success and how I am now able to earn a good income as a part-time affiliate marketer.
I am assuming writing this that you already have some knowledge of the affiliate industry itself, and that you know the main determinants of affiliate success.
These put very simply are choosing a profitable and in demand product to promote; creating a website with the content to sell that product and finally, and most importantly, to drive as much highly targeted traffic to that website.
Below I have outlined the timeline I have followed with different projects to achieve this - it is not a conclusive or concrete guide but should give budding affiliates some idea of the time and effort it takes to start making the big bucks in affiliate marketing.
Day 1 - Choosing a Niche My first action is to choose a profitable niche to enter - there are different ways to do this and many good e-books out there on the subject.
I personally have used some of these but I would say often the best niche is actually your own personal area of expertise (as long as there is a real market and it isn't overly saturated already) - I recommend spending at least a day choosing the products you are going to promote as an affiliate because a bad choice can instantly ruin any prospects of future success.
Whilst you do research into specific areas and affiliate programmes, I recommend you check out those affiliate marketers already populating the niche, and really try to start to vision how your own marketing efforts will plan out.
If you can picture your articles and adverts before you start a lot of thinking will be avoided later on - taking the time to identify a good niche really is time well spent.
Day 2 to Day 7 - Create your affiliate website...
Once you have a decent product you are pleased to promote, now comes the creation of your new affiliate website.
Site Build It is probably the best site in helping affiliates optimise their website so I would recommend you check that product out - they take you through the process step by step so you end up with a site you can be proud to promote and which gives you the best chance of affiliate success.
My own SBI sites are generally content based with articles lending themselves towards a natural, but unpressurised, presell of my affiliate products.
This means including at least five different in-depth articles which at least gives you the impression of knowing what you're talking about, whilst including personalised affiliate links, embedded in the text as subtly as possible.
I find this approach generates a trust from my readers and the useful expertise I offer translates to a return of improved sales figures.
This stage in the process should not take more than a few days really, especially with Site Build It where you can choose your domain name and hosting and immediately begin work on the selling features on your website.
Where you need more time is writing the high quality, presell articles - this may take a few hours for each but trust me that in the end if you are writing quality articles they will see far better long-term results.
If these articles are suitable for article marketing, i.
e.
they are highly helpful and informative and the sales pitch isn't too blatant, then this is an added bonus.
Once your new site is up and running you should submit these five original articles, with any necessary changes and editing, to around 10 or so good article directories.
I actually only use three of these now myself, EzineArticles, ArticlesBase and GoArticles, however early backlinks and exposure are vital in the early stages of any website.
Once your catalogue of articles increases in size then you can start to reduce your submissions and I'd recommend concentrating closely on EzineArticles which is by far and away the best.
You can then start creating links back to these articles also and as these are your best work the republish figures should be reasonably high.
Day 8 - Setting out your daily timetable and long-term targets Now you have done the basics, and, if your articles and product are of high enough quality, you may even see a sale or two.
However this initial exposure will die down very quickly so it is important to press on with your marketing efforts.
This is where I recommend setting yourself some long-term targets on what you hope to achieve in that week, month, year etc.
You shouldn't be doing this is terms of money you dream of earning but in terms of the hours you are willing to dedicate.
If you aim to put in twenty of hours every week, writing ten articles and posting on 20 blogs in your market for example, you set yourselves the kind of marketing goals that lead to financial returns in the long run.
I know too many people who get distracted right at the beginning by checking their article views or ClickBank sales every five minutes and not do anything useful at all.
To avoid this trap I recommend not even checking these for a couple of weeks - unless you are incredibly lucky the results won't start to come until this point at least.
Just write yourself a timetable with day by day instructions and targets to fulfil and really get down to some good, old-fashioned, hard work! Day 8 to one and a half months - follow your timetable strictly.
You should follow this timetable for about a month in my opinion.
It is when you start to get greater exposure and move up the search engine rankings that you can start to evaluate your success - after about a month and a half I usually reflect on my progress and if I'm not getting anywhere I will move on to another product.
I have found that often you can think you have found the perfect product only to be mystified when it just doesn't sell - you are bound to come across this issue and sometimes it is just better to cut your losses, always ensuring however that you learn as best you can from your mistakes.
I believe however dedicating three-quarters of your time on writing articles and a quarter on social bookmarking, blog posts and answering questions on forums is a good formula for success up to this point.
This will give you a good indication about the quality of your niche, the quality of your articles and the saleability of the product you have chosen.
After that, if it isn't broken, don't fix it If I have made a few sales (even just 2 or 3) after the one and a half month mark I will generally stick with my marketing efforts.
The great thing with article marketing is that your articles remain live forever and will continue to drive traffic to your site, it therefore follows that the more you write the more customers you will have coming to your website every day.
In this sense there can often be a kind of snowball effect and your sales will increase very rapidly as your articles cover your niche in greater depth and width.
To really bring in the big money you dream of you need to just keep writing, writing, writing therefore.
If you are committed to this task and write at least an article every day, after a year you will have written 365 plus articles.
Two a day and this rises to 730 articles.
Now say each of these receive 50 views each per month (very possible if they are sought after and contain good material).
This means 36500 views each and every month to your articles - if these then create an un-optimistic click through rate of just 5% you have gained yourself a tidy 1825 targeted visitors.
If we consider that 1% of these visitors should be converted (almost definitely if you are using the Site Build It formula) you have an extra 18 sales a month.
Now remember this is only one source of traffic and income - if you can supplement this with other methods, and keep on writing new articles, you will create yourself an automated income machine which could allow you to quit full-time work after a couple of years.
For me this was the ultimate goal and I reached it this May - I would recommend it being a good first longer term goal for any new affiliates also and wish you luck in getting there.
Of course after that the sky truly is the limit.
In fact thousands of people enter and leave the industry each and every year, most of whom do so without making so much as a penny.
These people go into affiliate marketing because they believe it will be an easy and risk free way to the income they dream on, and are, more often than not, rudely brought back down to earth by reality.
It is clear to me that they will continue chasing their dream, not achieving it, with this kind of attitude.
Affiliate marketing is a business like any other, and therefore, like any other, results come as the result of talent, motivation and hard work.
To my mind it really is possible to make money doing almost anything if you have these three attributes in abundance.
The importance of an affiliate marketing timetable...
The reason I am writing this article is to advise how best to designate your time and resources with affiliate marketing.
This will firstly mean considering your efforts day in day out, all in order to reach long-term, but also realistic, goals.
This is how I have had my own success and how I am now able to earn a good income as a part-time affiliate marketer.
I am assuming writing this that you already have some knowledge of the affiliate industry itself, and that you know the main determinants of affiliate success.
These put very simply are choosing a profitable and in demand product to promote; creating a website with the content to sell that product and finally, and most importantly, to drive as much highly targeted traffic to that website.
Below I have outlined the timeline I have followed with different projects to achieve this - it is not a conclusive or concrete guide but should give budding affiliates some idea of the time and effort it takes to start making the big bucks in affiliate marketing.
Day 1 - Choosing a Niche My first action is to choose a profitable niche to enter - there are different ways to do this and many good e-books out there on the subject.
I personally have used some of these but I would say often the best niche is actually your own personal area of expertise (as long as there is a real market and it isn't overly saturated already) - I recommend spending at least a day choosing the products you are going to promote as an affiliate because a bad choice can instantly ruin any prospects of future success.
Whilst you do research into specific areas and affiliate programmes, I recommend you check out those affiliate marketers already populating the niche, and really try to start to vision how your own marketing efforts will plan out.
If you can picture your articles and adverts before you start a lot of thinking will be avoided later on - taking the time to identify a good niche really is time well spent.
Day 2 to Day 7 - Create your affiliate website...
Once you have a decent product you are pleased to promote, now comes the creation of your new affiliate website.
Site Build It is probably the best site in helping affiliates optimise their website so I would recommend you check that product out - they take you through the process step by step so you end up with a site you can be proud to promote and which gives you the best chance of affiliate success.
My own SBI sites are generally content based with articles lending themselves towards a natural, but unpressurised, presell of my affiliate products.
This means including at least five different in-depth articles which at least gives you the impression of knowing what you're talking about, whilst including personalised affiliate links, embedded in the text as subtly as possible.
I find this approach generates a trust from my readers and the useful expertise I offer translates to a return of improved sales figures.
This stage in the process should not take more than a few days really, especially with Site Build It where you can choose your domain name and hosting and immediately begin work on the selling features on your website.
Where you need more time is writing the high quality, presell articles - this may take a few hours for each but trust me that in the end if you are writing quality articles they will see far better long-term results.
If these articles are suitable for article marketing, i.
e.
they are highly helpful and informative and the sales pitch isn't too blatant, then this is an added bonus.
Once your new site is up and running you should submit these five original articles, with any necessary changes and editing, to around 10 or so good article directories.
I actually only use three of these now myself, EzineArticles, ArticlesBase and GoArticles, however early backlinks and exposure are vital in the early stages of any website.
Once your catalogue of articles increases in size then you can start to reduce your submissions and I'd recommend concentrating closely on EzineArticles which is by far and away the best.
You can then start creating links back to these articles also and as these are your best work the republish figures should be reasonably high.
Day 8 - Setting out your daily timetable and long-term targets Now you have done the basics, and, if your articles and product are of high enough quality, you may even see a sale or two.
However this initial exposure will die down very quickly so it is important to press on with your marketing efforts.
This is where I recommend setting yourself some long-term targets on what you hope to achieve in that week, month, year etc.
You shouldn't be doing this is terms of money you dream of earning but in terms of the hours you are willing to dedicate.
If you aim to put in twenty of hours every week, writing ten articles and posting on 20 blogs in your market for example, you set yourselves the kind of marketing goals that lead to financial returns in the long run.
I know too many people who get distracted right at the beginning by checking their article views or ClickBank sales every five minutes and not do anything useful at all.
To avoid this trap I recommend not even checking these for a couple of weeks - unless you are incredibly lucky the results won't start to come until this point at least.
Just write yourself a timetable with day by day instructions and targets to fulfil and really get down to some good, old-fashioned, hard work! Day 8 to one and a half months - follow your timetable strictly.
You should follow this timetable for about a month in my opinion.
It is when you start to get greater exposure and move up the search engine rankings that you can start to evaluate your success - after about a month and a half I usually reflect on my progress and if I'm not getting anywhere I will move on to another product.
I have found that often you can think you have found the perfect product only to be mystified when it just doesn't sell - you are bound to come across this issue and sometimes it is just better to cut your losses, always ensuring however that you learn as best you can from your mistakes.
I believe however dedicating three-quarters of your time on writing articles and a quarter on social bookmarking, blog posts and answering questions on forums is a good formula for success up to this point.
This will give you a good indication about the quality of your niche, the quality of your articles and the saleability of the product you have chosen.
After that, if it isn't broken, don't fix it If I have made a few sales (even just 2 or 3) after the one and a half month mark I will generally stick with my marketing efforts.
The great thing with article marketing is that your articles remain live forever and will continue to drive traffic to your site, it therefore follows that the more you write the more customers you will have coming to your website every day.
In this sense there can often be a kind of snowball effect and your sales will increase very rapidly as your articles cover your niche in greater depth and width.
To really bring in the big money you dream of you need to just keep writing, writing, writing therefore.
If you are committed to this task and write at least an article every day, after a year you will have written 365 plus articles.
Two a day and this rises to 730 articles.
Now say each of these receive 50 views each per month (very possible if they are sought after and contain good material).
This means 36500 views each and every month to your articles - if these then create an un-optimistic click through rate of just 5% you have gained yourself a tidy 1825 targeted visitors.
If we consider that 1% of these visitors should be converted (almost definitely if you are using the Site Build It formula) you have an extra 18 sales a month.
Now remember this is only one source of traffic and income - if you can supplement this with other methods, and keep on writing new articles, you will create yourself an automated income machine which could allow you to quit full-time work after a couple of years.
For me this was the ultimate goal and I reached it this May - I would recommend it being a good first longer term goal for any new affiliates also and wish you luck in getting there.
Of course after that the sky truly is the limit.
Source...