Blogging and Affiliate Marketing

The Internet is a changing medium and what was a successful way to market your business last year might not work this year. There is always a time lag between what the experts said worked for them last year and now.

It is important to know what the current trends are. A trend that is going to be around for a long time is very different to a reactive fad that will only last a month.

Blogs have been around for years. The thing that is changing is the perception of a Blog. Business people are now realising a Blog is a necessity. They are now creating them as well as a tradional static website.

Blogs are also used exclusively by more and more marketers, regardless of their niche market.

Why?

There are several reasons for this change:

1) Blogs are natural traffic generators.Search engines like original content that is updated regularly. This is exactly what Blogs are suited to do.

2) Basic Blogs are more easily created than tradional Web sites. There are different platforms that can be used, each has it's own advantages. We prefer WordPress. Obviously the more add ons you use and understand the better.

3) A Blog is a good way to create a relationship with your list of prospects. Using the more informal style of blogging is proving very successful. Prospects will come to your site for the content.

4) Blogging platforms automatically generate RSS (Real Simple Syndication). Once you submit your blog to the various RSS Directories, people who subscribe to the same directory will be sent to your blog if you are in the same niche as they are looking.

5) Once you have set up one Blog, it is easy to duplicate the process. Remember it is a good idea to have various sources of income. One blog giving you $1000.00 a month is good, 10 blogs each giving $1000.00, a total of $10000.00 is obviously better.

6)Blogs can be used with adsense and to advertise affiliate products.

Conversion rates on these sites are much higher.

Take a look at your website and do a critical analysis of it. Is it up to date or is it looking tired and dated?

You decide and take any action that is needed.

To find out the latest information about blogs and how you can seriously benefit from them visit http://www.officialbusinessbuddy.com/bloggingforsuccess.html

Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

As I touched on in my first post, there are MANY ways to make money, some with minimal investing. It will be my goal to post both a business suggestion for beginners and for advanced investors/entrepreneurs each day. My information comes from personal experience, other successful entrepreneurs and some extremely popular and well known business moguls too (see Trumps Blog feed below!!)

Here is my beginners suggestion for today!!

Whether you're new to affiliate marketing or you've been trying to earn money with it for awhile, you may have come to a point of discouragement. Maybe you've even wondered if there's any truth to all the claims people state, about how much money they make with affiliate programs too.
As hard as it might seem to beginners, there really are some excellent ways to make decent money with affiliate marketing. And how much you make really only depends upon how much time and effort you put into your affiliate marketing strategies.
With that said though, most of us need a place to start. We need ideas, tips, and hints. If possible, we'd really like to know what types of things other affiliates have done to successfully earn money day in and day out, right? Well, here's three of the best things you can do to start making money with your affiliate programs.
1. Write Articles - This is my personal favorite way to make money with affiliate programs. And it's ideal for beginners because all it takes is time. You invest your time in writing quality articles for other websites. Then you distribute those articles through article directories online, and other website publishers will find and publish them. The more your article is published on other websites, the more you can benefit, because your article is distributed with a link to your website. And in order for other sites to legally use it, they must publish your website link with the article.
So the more sites that do this, the more links you get pointed to your site. And the more your article will be seen by targeted buyers. If, for example, 100 websites have published your article, that's 100 links to your site. And if each of those sites generates 100 readers to your article on their site, that's 10,000 potential visitors to your site. With that many visitors, you're bound to make an affiliate sale or two!
2. Create a blog... but not just any ol' blog - Another excellent low cost way to generate traffic to your chosen affiliate program also involves writing. In this case though, you'll be writing for your own blog instead of sending the articles out to other webmasters and sites. One of the most powerful ways to make this work though, is to create a blog that is filled with affiliate product reviews, or is a step-by-step walk through of your own personal experience with the affiliate product you're promoting.
3. Start an AdWords campaign - Last but not least, you can quickly generate affiliate traffic and sales by simply advertising. Set up a Google AdWords account, create an ad or two, then let them run. You'll need to test various ads, and adjust them based on how well or poorly they may be performing, but in general this is a very low cost, low time-intensive method of generating affiliate traffic and sales.
© 2006, Kathy Burns-Millyard. Want to learn more about affiliate marketing now? Check out these excellent affiliate marketing resources at EasySideMoney.com
Article Source: http://ezinearticles/

And even more info on Adwords from Kathy...

As an affiliate marketer, you can make money without having a website of your own. You don't have to create a mailing list, newsletter, write articles and custom content, or anything else for that matter.
Making money with affiliate programs is as simple as advertising. That's it. If you can drive traffic to an affiliate product through your affiliate link, you can make money.
This is usually done using the Google AdWords system. You place ads on Google, and you pay only for clicks on those ads.
Now of course there's a lot more to it than that. Advertising on Google can be complicated, frustrating, and expensive if not done right. It takes a lot of trial and error usually too.
One of the first questions new affiliate have is "How can I advertise without a website?" Well the answer to that is simple. When you sign up for an affiliate program, you're given a special tracking URL, or website address. This URL is what the affiliate program uses to know when you've sent traffic to them, and when you've made sales and earned commissions.
The Google AdWords system allows you to use that affiliate URL in your advertisements. There are a couple of minor rules you have to follow. One of these rules says you must have some indication in your ad that you're using an affiliate link. This can be done by simply putting "aff" or "affiliate" at the end of your ad.
You don't want to use your affiliate link for the display URL though. Put the affiliate link into the destination URL of your Google advertisement, then put the main affiliate site address into the display section. This way you have a nice looking, relevant display link showing, and this helps make your ads more appealing to searchers.
Google does have certain rules about using affiliate links in your ads though. Primarily, they don't want pages stuffed full of affiliate links. So their system is designed to only show one at a time. If you're the only affiliate advertising a certain product, then your ad will be displayed as often as possible. If however, there are 5 other people advertising the same affiliate program AND using their direct affiliate link, Google will rotate your ad with theirs.
Because of this rotation rule, your ads may not be displayed as often and of course it may take longer for you to drive enough traffic to the affiliate site and make sales. This is a fine trade off when you're first starting out though, particularly if you don't have a website and don't know how to get one started.
© 2006, Kathy Burns-Millyard. Want to learn more about affiliate marketing now? Check out these excellent affiliate marketing resources at EasySideMoney.com
Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kathy_Burns-Millyard

A personal note on Adwords, you can start a Google Adwords account for only $5 up front. You set the advertising budget, do the research and you are off and running. It does take some time to find what works, so start small, but even making an extra $100 a week could help with the budget!!!