The Affiliate SNAFU
The Affiliate SNAFU
By Jerry W Cannon
Let's begin by taking a quick glance at why the Internet is the greatest business opportunity since the railroad.
The Internet actually started in 1969 as the ARPANET, a Defense Department system designed to let survivors share files after a nuclear attack. From a handful of top secret computers, it's grown to fill more than 10 million hosts and millions of domain names. And it's still growing. According to a recent survey, the volume of Internet traffic is expected to double annually over the next five years.
Consumers are expected to account for 60 percent of all Internet traffic over that period with the rest of the market made up of business users.
What does that mean for you? It means customers - millions of them. No other business tool can put the products you sell to so many people so easily. Nothing even comes close. We're talking about a potential market of hundreds of millions of people around the world who can buy your products 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you opened a store in your city, how many people would walk past your window each month? If you live in Manhattan, maybe a few thousand. If you live in Nowhere, California, maybe a few hundred. On the Internet, there's virtually no limit to the number of people you can bring through your store front wherever you live. That's the power of the Internet. That's why my online business is working.
Affiliate marketing is now everywhere to be found and for free you can have a website up making you money in just a few hour's. Why them do 97% of new startup's fail. They make no money or just a few buck's a month and after awhile just QUIT.
Reason #1
Do you have what it takes to be an e-entrepreneur? Before you even turn on your computer, the first question you have to ask yourself is whether you're cut out for this kind of work. The fact is, building a online business isn't for everyone. Some people like the commute. They really do enjoy having a someone who tells them what to do, and they like the routine of working nine-to-five for an ordinary salary that can barely pay the mortgage. Personally, I think they're crazy or retarded. More reasonably, there are people who are concerned about the risk of starting up their own business. They're not sure it's worth the investment of time and money, and they're scared of the responsibility that comes with running their own company. They wonder if there is another way to escape the rat race.
I'm sure there is. You could win the lottery or wait for your distant Aunt Lizzy to keel over and leave you her million's. Or maybe you could sit down with a pen and paper and draw the blueprint for The Next Big Whatever. Anything can happen...
For me, what happened was creating a successful, self-running Internet marketing system. It didn't happen without effort. It didn't happen without at least an initial investment of both time and money. Of course, it doesn't happen now without me making sure that the taxes are filed and the paperwork is done. But it happened. I'm my own boss. I work from home according to my own schedule and I get to pocket all the cash my business makes. If you're prepared to give an e-business the time, the work and the money it needs to get started and get growing, it can happen for you too.
Reason #2
With all the different Affiliate programs out there a person new to e-commerce is simply soon overwhelmed by good and bad programs and fails to lay out a plan to achieve success. In their search they end up with multiple affiliate sites and can soon be lost and covered up with piles of email's unread and member's of countless marketing site's. It is much like being led into a dark cave and then being left to find yourway out.
Reason#3
The large majority of affiliate sites give you a url similar to this http://xxxx.com/userid.
What is this ? Well it is another page of the Actual business you are an affiliate of. The Problem with this is you cannot alter this site or optimize it for search engines in order to improve your location on search pages, which of course relates to traffic. One Way to improve this is to get your own domain name and simply recreate your affiliate sites into one big domain as different pages of your own named site and promote your site and the affiliate site with paid advertising.
Reason#4
Traffic-Traffic-Traffic , if you don't have it you fail, no customer's. The final blow, month's of no money ,get another job.
You must commit to investing some money into your business, even if it is $25 a week in advertising it has to be done,so keep your 9-5 job until you begin to make at least twice as much as you do on your job.
All the while keep up the search for good solid thing's to sell and drop like a hot rock those that do not sell.
Now I hope you have an idea of how to avoid some pitfalls of affiliate marketing. There are good programs out there but i have yet to see one where you can make money overnight.
One program I found that has a lot of potential is Global Domain's you get a domain,hosting,email boxes, support,forums and upline's that are vested in your success for a very reasonable $10 a month, and can make money each month to 5 level's.
You can see a very good presentation movie here
http://www.freedom.ws/oldredneck
Yep it is an affiliate but is is here to http://www.best-online-affiliate.com/gdi.html
Well Good Luck
The OldRedneck
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