Hi everyone,
First of all, apologies to all my existing readers and followers... Blogger has changed how we access our blogs and I'm not able to get back into my original blog so I've had to create a new one.
It doesn't matter though because I'm also changing... no I'm not going through a stage of metamorphosis, I'm changing the writing style and content of my new blog. It's going to be more geared towards helping new startups get a foothold and get on the right track to success.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Bill Knight. I've been in business for well over 30 years. Most of those have been spent as a freelance direct response copywriter, affiliate marketer, video marketer, ebay seller and website designer. I'm also proficient in Photoshop and many other creative software. My mind holds a goldmine of information, which I'm happy to share with you.
Okay, enough already...
In this first new post I'm going to give you some information about how to make money on the Internet... interested? Good!
For any newbies wanting to start an online business or for those who have a fledgling business and want to know what to do to make more money, here are some ideas you can try.
Probably one of the easiest ways to make money is to promote other people's products for a commission. This is called affiliate marketing. By learning about this subject you can work the system at both ends. By that I mean you can promote their products and you'll learn how to get others to promote yours.
Let's start with Clickbank (www.clickbank.com). Go over to Clickbank and open an account... it's free to open and you will have access to many hundreds of products all waiting for you to sell and make money. Is it as easy as that? Well, yes and no. Yes because it's certainly easy to find products that people are willing to buy but the crux of the matter is getting it in front of eyeballs that are firmly attached to credit cards.
Get my drift? Okay, here is your first and most important lesson about making money on the Internet. Whatever you want to sell or promote you need traffic. It's plain and simple. The more people you can get to view your product links, website, blog or video... the more chance you will make sales.
This lesson applies to just about anything you want to sell. That's why product creators rely on affiliates to promote their products. Okay so they make less than the product price but they have more chance of making many sales with an army of affiliates doing all the groundwork. I kid you not, many product creators have become millionaires by simply doing this.
On the other hand, many top affiliates have also made a ton of cash from promoting other people's products. These guys need each other, and you will need others to help you get what you want too. The Internet is just way too big to be able to make any serous money all by yourself. That doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means it's easier... and we like easy don't we?
Okay, so you've looked through the Marketplace on Clickbank and you've found a couple of products that there's a market for... oh yes... do your research. There's no point at all in promoting something jut because you like it, other people need to want to buy it. The best way to establish whether a product will sell is if it is already selling. To find out, look at the stats below the product. Pay particular attention to the Gravity score (Grav:). This number represents the number of different affiliates who are making money from promoting the product, and if it's good enough for them...
When you're happy with the product you have selected you need to click on the Promote button link. This will open up a box, in which you will place your "nickname". A nickname is a name you choose when opening your account and it is unique to you. You can also add a tracking ID, which I recommend you do if you are promoting more than one product. That will help you keep track of what products are selling, so you can keep a record of sales.
So, once you do this you will be presented with your own unique affiliate link. You can then promote this link on your website, your blog or Facebook etc. When someone clicks on the link they are directed to the seller's sales page, and if they buy the product you make a commission. Commissions on Clickbank can vary between 50% and 80%. I wouldn't entertain anything less than 50%.
I
should also mention here that you should disguise your affiliate link,
for two reasons. For many savvy Internet users an affiliate link is
quite obvious and they will avoid it. The other reason is some
unscrupulous bloodsucking parasites want to steal your commissions...
would you believe it? I use a free cloaking service: www.acloaker.com and never had a problem.
The money you make will be credited to your Clickbank account and when your total reaches a certain amount, which used to be $100, and I think it still is, then you will receive a cheque or direct payment, whichever you have selected. If you would like a copy of the product for yourself, then simply click on your own affiliate link and get an instant discount.
Hope you're all still with me...
What next? Oh yes, remember I mentioned traffic? Well you need it, lots of it. The top affiliates pay for traffic and if your budget is large enough then this is the way to go. Just as long as you make more money from sales than you do on your traffic spend, then you're Quids in, Bucks in or Euros in, whichever is your currency.
There are many sources of traffic but you must ensure you are paying for quality traffic. By that I mean your traffic must be interested in your product. There's no point in sending traffic that's interested in home cooking to your Betting System product. It has to be relevant. You can buy targeted traffic from Google Adwords, Facebook Ads and StumbleUpon. Google doesn't like sending traffic directly to affiliate links so you might have to have the link on a blog or website and promote that instead.
Alternatively, you can try webtrafficgeeks.org or any of the other traffic selling sites. In my experience they are not that good but they have worked for some of my clients. You can also try to generate free traffic. There are so many ways to do this so I'll mention just a few. Write interesting and informative articles and include your affiliate link. Then send the article off to the many article submission websites... and wait. Create a website. I'll be covering websites in much more detail in a later blog so I recommend you subscribe to my blog and keep up. Or you can create a blog and promote it to get lots of followers and then include your affiliate links somewhere in th text.
I get a lot of enquiries for writing articles, blogs and emails just for this purpose. I should also mention that I am also an affiliate marketer and the one way I have most success is with video marketing. In fact it has been so successful I set up my own video marketing business (www.busyvids.co.uk). I'll also be covering this in great detail in a later blog.
Once you've mastered the art of affiliate marketing you can then move onto other forms of the same. If you can generate lots of quality traffic then you might want to look at the CPA offerings from one of the big Cost Per Action companies. The easiest one to get into is Max Bounty (www.maxbounty.com). You have to apply for an account and then they will ask you how are you going to promote their client's products and you simply tell them you'll be using Google Adwords and email marketing or video marketing. They generally let anyone in so you shouldn't have a problem opening an account.
CPA commissions are generally quite small but hey... all you have to do is get people to sign up and you get a commission. In many cases you get paid just for sending leads. Is that simple or what? Okay, time to wrap this one up but before I go here's a checklist:
1. Open a free account with Clickbank
2. Select a product that is already selling
3. Drive traffic to the link by free and paid advertising
4. Rinse and repeat as many times as you want
5. Make money and be successful
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you did and want more then subscribe and keep in the loop. I'm going to be spilling the beans, so to speak, about all kinds of money making, traffic generation, websites, video marketing, email marketing, article marketing, creating your own product and so much more. I've only ever done this before for a few of my select clients but I will be launching a new website soon offering consultancy services so this is a kind of pre-launch.
Because I know so much about this business my clients have been paying me thousands of pounds and dollars for good advice and top quality writing services. I can both walk the walk and talk the talk. Seeya soon.
Best regards,
Bill Knight
www.topcopywriter.co.uk
www.busyvids.co.uk
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