This has to be the most exciting yet challenging part of this business and its something you need understand if you are to survive in this business. The way I look at it is you only have one competitor in this business and that is google. So my advice here is don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, focus on what google wants. To do this go to the Google Webmaster Guidelines and read, they tell you exactly what to do. ( Type – Google Webmaster Guidelines into Google )

Look in the beginning this can be overwhelming as there is just so much information, but invest some time in reading their guidelines and put it into practice what you learn.

Anyway I am going to give you a brief outline and then I will expand on each one as time goes by, but do yourself a favor, don’t listen to every tom, dick and harry on the internet, spend time on googles webmasters guidelines until you fully understand the basic principals of SEO. There really is a lot of garbage out there so stay clear of it and don’t be in a hurry, because there is no quick fix to getting a top 10 ranking in Google. It really takes time, hard work and patience, and in my opinion is the hardest thing to get used to in online marketing.

The Basic Guidelines of Search Engine Optimization

1. Choosing a Domain Name
2. Design and Code validation
3. Site Structure
4. Meta Tags – Title and Description
5. Content and Theme Density
6. Images and Video
7. Linking Campaign

I know this is very basic information and you were probably expecting a lot more, but each topic is a science on its own. You need to start at the top and understand each one clearly before moving to the next one. Rather spend more time on research at this stage, understand what you are doing and why you are doing it, because it will save you a lot of time and aggravation down the line.

Seriously this is the foundation for setting up a good online business, so do it correctly from the word go.

Offerforge did it again. Today I was on one of my sites and the exit pop up had the offerforge banner on it. I never received an email or notice that the campaign had ended and it really pissed me off. What makes me cross more than anything is that they put their banners in there, instead of putting something similar.

Just shows you they actually have no respect for the affiliates, because they are just trying to promote themselves. We work hard for our traffic, so why the f—k must we now send it to them. Seriously I am so cross, you have no idea. Since the end of last year I have started promoting some of their products again after a long leave of absence from their network, and nearly every single one I choose is no longer on their system anymore.

They just have a shit load of gambling and insurance products.

Its a wonder why allot of us spend our time focusing on the international markets.

Really the South African Market is pathetic and I have really had enough of wasting my time and energy here.

Ever heard the saying Content is King, well in this business it is and it is something you should be adding to your website daily or weekly, depending on how competitive the market is you are in.

In the beginning I suggest you write you own content because it will help you get a better understanding of what you are selling. To be successful in this business you need to become an expert on the product you are promoting and the more you understand it the more successful you will be. On top of that your readers will trust what you are saying, and you are more likely to make a sale.

Besides that articles do cost money. They usually start from $5 to $10 for a decent article, but can cost up to $30 if the article is highly focused or requires a lot of research, so if you don’t have a lot of money write your own. When your site starts making money you can always have them rewritten professionally.

Keyword Density

A few years ago this was very important and lot of people stuffed their articles with the main keyword they were targeting. There is nothing worse than seeing an article full of the same word, it just makes no sense when you read it. In my opinion this is not necessary any more and to be honest you should rather focus on writing the article for your visitor and not for the search engines. Lets face it the search engines don’t read the articles, people do. So make it a good read and you will find you’ll get a better engagement rate from your visitors which search engines are now starting to monitor.

Length of Article

A good article should be at least 500 to 600 words, if you can do more than that its even better. But don’t do less than this.

Where To Find Good Article Writers

There is only one place I use and I am very happy to recommend it, its called (elance .com), you will find hundreds of writers from all over the world and each of them are experienced in different fields. There are other places on the net but I only use this site.

Duplicate Content

This is something you must definitely not do, because you will be out of business in no time. Search Engines penalize you heavily for this, so make sure your articles are 100% original. Seriously I cannot stress this enough. Copy and you die.

Seriously if you want to succeed in this business content is crucial. I have got into the habit that I always have at least 3 months of articles on hand for each project I do, with my writers continually sending in news ones daily. So make an effort and focus a lot of energy on this because it is really important.

Anyway I think I have covered the basics on this topic, if you have any questions just pop it in the comments section and I will answer it as soon as I can.

Now this is not easy if you have no experience what so ever and it was one of my biggest challenges when I first started in this business. Today it is much easier because there are a lot of free templates available.

But if I have to advise here, your best bet is to work with wordpress, because it’s a really simple system to use and they have full online tutorials.

Now there are 2 wordpress sites:

• Wordpress .com
• Wordpress .org

Wordpress .com is the blogging platform and with in minutes you can have a site up. The only problem is your domain name will look like this (yoursitename.wordpress .com). For blogging purposes its great, but if you are creating a site around a product you want to sell then you need to host the site on your own so your domain name looks like yoursitename .co.za.

For this you need to go to wordpress .org and download the software and then upload it to your server. Might sound complicated but as I said they have full online tutorials so if you just read the instructions you can have your site up in half a day.

What I also find nice about wordpress is the choice of templates they provide, so you really do not have to be a designer. You simply download the template you like, put it on your server and then just activate it. I promise it’s really simple and it will save you a lot of time and money. You can find theses templates on wordpress .org/extend/themes.

Anway have fun with this, because it really is the fun part of this business and remember if you have any questions, just post them in the comments section.

This is not as easy as its sounds because before you buy a domain name you need to decide which market you are entering into. For example if you are going to create a website for South African users then you need to setup a hosting account in South Africa and then buy a co.za domain. If you are promoting overseas then you need to set up a hosting account there and then choose a .com or a co.uk etc.

It doesn’t end there either, because once you have decided on your target market you need to go back to your keyword research and work from there. Because the domain name should match the keyword or products you have chosen.

Lets say in your keyword research you came up with the word WEIGHT LOSS PRODUCTS. The chances of getting the domain name weightlossproducts .co .za are pretty slim so what you need to do is add a word in front or at the end, but at the same time focusing on the keyword WEIGHT LOSS.

The trick here is to also create a call to action in the word with out adding to many characters. So you could either choose:

• getweightlossproducts .co.za
• buyweightlossproducts .co.za
• orderweightlossproducts .co.za

You need to remember you are trying to sell Weight Loss Products so having a domain like greatweightlossproducts .co.za or cheapweightlossproducts .co.za are not going to work. Therefore think carefully when you add the call to action in the domain name, but also keep it as short as possible.

Also if you can try stay away from hyphens such as get-weightloss-products .co.za .

If you are not sure or are a little confused, please feel free to post your questions below in the comments section and we’ll help you where we can.

To me keyword research is the mosting exciting part about this business, but if you are new to the game it can be very overwelming because there are a lot of factors you need to take into account before choosing which keyword you are going to target.

When I first started affiliate marketing there weren’t many tools available for this, in fact I don’t think there were any or I just didn’t know about them. So I basically built sites around what offers where availble at the time. Most of them never made any money because they just didn’t get any traffic.

So my advise to you is, before you do anything make sure you do some form of keyword research. There is no point getting into a market if no one is searching for it. Seriously this is the most important part of online marketing, so rather spend a month on this than just rushing into it because it will save you a lot of aggrevation and hard work.

There are plenty of these tools online, but a lot of them you have to purchase. So in the beginning the easiest one to start of with is the google adwords keyword tool. Its completely free and gives you some really good information, so I strongly suggested your familiarise yourself with this tool before purchasing one.

Also I am not going to put a link here so just type the term into google and it will come up at the top of the list. As I said before I am not here to spoon feed you so you need to search for these things and find them for yourself. It’s the only way you are going to learn.

Below is an image of what it looks like :

I am not going to explain how this tool works because its pretty straight forward, you just need to spend time on it and if you have any questions you can always post them in the comments section. This way everyone can get the benefit of it.

But some advise here is not to go for the big search voulmes, because they are the most competitive and it will take you a long time to get to the top of google for that specific term. In some cases up to 2 years, so look for lower searches volumes and once you have had some success and understand what you are doing then you can go for the big ones.

Later on in the blog I will go into this topic in more detail, but right know you are in a learning phase so it best to keep it as simple as possible.

Joining an affiliate network is not as easy as it sounds, because when you sign up they all ask the same question.

• What’s the name of your website and how many visitors do you get.

Now when you are new its impossible to give this information and usually your application gets rejected. So the best thing to do is once you have submitted your application is to send in a motivational email explaining you are new to the game and need to see what offers they have available before you can build a website. Be persistent and email them everyday if you have to. Eventually they will approve you and open your account.

Terms and Conditions

The next thing you need to take a careful look at is their terms and conditions and their payment cycle.

The payment cycle is very important because if they state payment is made in 30 days it means you get paid in 60 days. If it states 60 days you get paid in 90 days. So just be aware of this because it can affect your cash flow if you are using paid advertising.

Also another thing to check for is how are they going to pay you. Is it by EFT or Cheque. Here in SA its pretty straight forward, but overseas some sites pay via Ebookers or Paypal so just make sure because currently you can not transfer money into South Africa with paypal.

The second thing to look at is who carries the risk if a merchant doesn’t pay them. Some networks do not carry this risk and should a merchant default on their payment you have no claim and it can cost you a lot of money especially if you use paid advertising. Trust me I have been caught like this a few times, so careful consideration should be taken in to account if you decide to promote a product on a network and they exclude themselves from the risk.

Once your application is approved and your account is open the next thing to do is search for offers and products you would like to promote.

I will go into detail on this in the next post, but if you having any questions please feel free to post them below in the comments section.

This is not an easy subject to explain because there is so much involved when getting into affiliate marketing. A lot of sites will tell you its free and easy and offer you untold riches, but once you sign up the buck stops there. In all my years of experience not one network or affiliate program has offered me assistance in helping me promote their product. All you get is banners and text links. The rest they leave up to you, so don’t think you are in for an easy ride, because you are not.

So what I am going to do is give you a basic outline and then expand on each topic as my blog unfolds.

But please understand something right now, I nor the active members of the blog are going to spoon feed, or give you a detailed blue print of what needs to be done. So don’t try email them or me for one on one help because we will not respond. You need to step out of your shelf and engage on this blog.

Ask as many questions as you like and all the people who are active here will welcome you and assist you where we can.

The goal here is to create an active community of like-minded people where we can all come together and share our ideas. And the only way for this to happen is by active participation.

The Basic Guidelines

1. Join the affiliate networks and see what is available to promote.
2. Research the keywords and market you want to enter into.
3. Choose a Domain Name and set up a hosting account
4. Build a Website
5. Tracking and Analytics
6. Add content to your website
7. Search Engine Optimization
8. Advertising
9. Building a Newsletter List

As I said before this is very basic stuff and I will expand on each subject, but if you follow the process 1 step at a time your will be on your way to building a solid online business.

There are 2 ways of promoting an affiliate program. One is to send your visitors directly to the merchant’s site and the other way is to capture the visitors email address and then send them to the offer.

Now the first way is easy and limits you from any kind of responsibility, but the problem is you will spend your life brokering traffic and at the end of the day you will have gained nothing, because if the merchant stops the campaign you know have to go and find another way of generating your income.

The second way is the correct way because you are now creating a customer base and a long-term revenue stream. If the merchant pulls the plug on the program, you can always find similar products to market to your list and therefore stay in business. The downside with this model (if you want to call it that) is you are now putting your name on the line and that’s where the Moral Responsibility comes into play.

Now the reason for this post is something happened to me this week which fully explains the above and its been an extremely valuable lesson for me so I am going to get right down to it without mentioning any names.

In December 2009 I started promoting a particular campaign, and the more I got into it the better it did. It was almost like having an atm in my lounge. The problem was I didn’t like the product because I new it was complete bullshit, but I did it anyway. I used the first model in the beginning because I was uneasy about the product, but as time went by I realized this was a big market and I was wasting the traffic because I wasn’t building a list.

So January came and I decided to put up a newsletter form and remove the affiliate link. It was all going well, my list was building fast, sales were coming in and I had started to communicate with the list. Then one morning I got an email from a lady saying she had paid for the report I was promoting and had never received it, could I help her.

Being the person I am I offered my assistance seeing I referred her to the product. So I contacted the affiliate network for help, but was brushed off. They said it was not their responsibility as their job is to get affiliates to promote the campaign and they cannot get involved in the service delivery of the company in question. To a degree they are 100% right because as they explained, if I had bought a Laptop from a Company and it was faulty I couldn’t hold the media or newspaper who advertised it accountable, I needed to take it back to the store where I bought it from.

Now they are 100% right, but in this case, the company this lady had ordered the report from had no contact details on it. The email address she and I replied to was set up to an automated system and kept replying you have won a gift, to receive it click here and the link then redirected to an order form to buy the report again.

Now to me this is not right because there should be contact details to the company in question, because things do go wrong and all this lady wanted was her report and she couldn’t get it because the company couldn’t be contacted in anyway.

My argument here is the network should have at least had the courtesy to email the company with the ladies details and assist in helping her get here report. They are the direct link and should take some responsibility in circumstances like this. I might be wrong here, but that’s my opinion.

Anyway I decided since they were not going to help, I would and offered to pay any charges for the credit card reversal and if the bank wouldn’t reverse it then I would pay her back in full. What else can I do, I referred her to the product and therefore I must help or it says nothing for me as a person.

Subsequently I have stopped promoting this product completely on the basis that there is no product support or contact details on the merchants site and I really couldn’t live with myself if I caused other people to go through what this lady has gone through.

The moral of the story here is:

As affiliates we need to take responsibility for what we promote. We need to step up to the plate and put our name to everything we do. The days of brokering traffic are long gone and if we are to survive we need to build up some trust to the people we promote to and help them when there are problems.

We can’t just take the money and run anymore, because it’s just not right. We need to get involved in what we are selling, believe in what we are selling and offer as much support to the customers as we can when things go wrong.

Please click on the comments link below and ask your question there.

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