Affiliate Marketing - Free Traffic Methods Used to Generate Laser Targeted Traffic

Affiliate Marketing has to be one of the easiest ways to make money on the internet. You don't need your own product, you don't have to handle the sales, and you never have to deal with any customers. In fact, you don't even need your own website. You just find a good affiliate product in your niche and you are on your way.

With that being said, Affiliate Marketing is not quite as easy as everyone wants you to believe. It does take some work and it does take some time, but it sure does beat a 9-5 job.

Sure everything is all set up for you. All of the hard work is done, so you just need to go out and promote. That is where it can get tricky. How do you promote your affiliate product? How do you get people to click on your affiliate link? And more importantly, how do you get them to buy from your affiliate link?

This is where you need to work at generating laser targeted free traffic. Here are several proven methods used by all of the top affiliate marketers:

1. Blogs
Blogging is one of the best ways to get your name out there and to build yourself as an expert in your field. It is very easy nowadays to build you're your own personal Blog. Websites like Wordpress and Blogger.com allow you to build a Blog in a matter of minutes.

Your Blog should be relevant to your niche and contain a lot of useful information for your reader. You need to continuously update your Blog with new material and make sure that it is set up to be pinged by the top Pinging Services such as Technorati and Pingomatic.com. If you are using one of the Blogging Programs, this can be set up to automatically ping for every new post.

Another free traffic method concerning blogging, is posting comments on other people's Blogs. Search for Blogs related to your niche and find the most popular ones that allow commenting. Just make sure that your comments are useful and relevant, so that they are not considered spam.

2. Forums
Forum participation is another great way to get free traffic and lots of back links to your site, Blog or affiliate link. Do a search to find forums within your niche. From there research each forum to make sure that it is popular, with a lot of members and a lot of posts. Also make sure that they allow affiliate links in your signature.

After you join some of the better forums, you need to start making posts and replying to posts. Most forums have a section to introduce yourself, this is a great place to start. Make sure that your interaction is all relevant and useful to the forum. Don't post just to get your affiliate link out there. This is considered spam and you will be banned from most forums.

3. Article Marketing
Article Marketing has got to be the best way to generate free traffic. You need to write an informative article pertaining to your niche. Do not use the article to sell your product. Rather sell yourself as someone that is well educated on your niche and direct them to your product or webpage in the author bio. Ideally, your article should be between 500 to 750 words.

Once your article is written and proofread, you can start submitting it to article sites. Be sure to read their terms, each site's policies are a little different. I personally start with EzineArticles.com and wait for them to approve my article first. They are one of the best sites on the web and they are very particular about duplicate content. From there you can submit to the rest. I suggest just using the top 10 or 20 sites.

These are just a few ideas to get you started in generating free traffic to your affiliate product. There are many other methods available, some of them effective, some not so much. The more creative you can get the better you can do. Just remember to start doing something and to stick with it.

Glen Speckmann is a successful internet marketer focusing on Affiliate Marketing. Sign up for his free newsletter and receive tips and tricks on how to grow your internet business at http://www.gjsmarketing.com You will also receive a free money making report that will help you increase your affiliate sales.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Glen_Speckman

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Permission Marketing - It's Time For Change

British Companies are spending £18 Billion on their marketing advertising campaigns, finding ever more ingenious ways to reach the increasingly savvy British consumer. Are they wasting their money? Their marketing campaign's are less effective than ever with the average consumer turning to the internet and major search engines to find their wants and needs.

As more and more consumers turn to the internet and the addition of Google-ing into the dictionary it's only a matter of time before the leaders of our companies realize they have to increase their effectiveness and lower their cost per aquisition ( marketing speak for customer). Internet Marketing has become a huge industry worth 100's of billions of dollars and even in this economic downturn it continues to grow! There's a message there!

Last week, Maurice Levy - CEO of Publicis - which owns Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi - admitted that search engines can deliver more results than a formidable advertising campaign.

Major search engines control the internet traffic and with the monumental rise in PPC Marketing (pay per click marketing) it's easier than ever to place a small text based add that is triggered by a pre-determined keyword or keyword phrase. Clicking on the advert takes the consumer to predetermined website addresses that can even be tailored to suite the ad and the keyword that triggered it ( in fact the major search engines are starting to demand that they do, its called KEYWORD RELEVANCE).

These ads can be customized to target specific locations, specific times of day and even specific demographics! No longer is the advertiser hoping his add will be seen by enough eyeballs to trigger an action to buy. The Advertiser is placing his advert right in front of consumers that have already raised their hands and pre-qualified themselves!. This is huge!

Our companies are looking to giant media corporations and advertising moguls to lead them through this change, however why would marketing companies want anything to change? Huge sums of money and fat inflated bonus's have become part of the deal, its been that way forever!.

It started quietly, you spot an ad that looks enticing and 1 click later your staring at a web page and if the advertiser is smart it's an offer! A small ethical bribe to seal the deal and there it was! You give your email address and maybe your name and in return you are sent a freebie, just like that!. You have just placed yourself into someone's sales funnel! It's like magic!

Permission Marketing

If the advertiser has done his job right, the advert, website and the offer are all congruent and the content of the subsequent offer provides value, you as a consumer feel happy and content with the deal. Here is only the start of the sales funnel! The canny advertiser has captured your details and now has your permission to send you further offers it's email marketing done correctly, and why wouldn't you be interested? A great deal delivered into your Inbox is still a great deal! the difference being that this advertiser has the opportunity to build some trust, a short series of emails delivered to allow you to get to know the company, their products, services and effectively brand themselves. As they say People buy from those they Know Like & Trust.

Every business needs to know, especially in the current climate, that effective marketing campaigns delivering customers, branding their image products or services, building loyalty and trust is going to be the single dividing factor that will separate the winners from the losers. It's time to embrace the customer, find out what they are thinking, cater to their wants and become Great, as they say Serving the many leads to Greatness.

Permission Marketing - Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor founded The Marketing General to educate and give a useful resource to Companies, business's and individuals looking for a greater return on their advertising budget's. He continues to coach internet marketing techniques and strategy's and looks to implement these systems into local National and International Business.

find out more about Mark here http://www.WhoIsMarkTaylor.com

Find The General Here at http://www.TheMarketingGeneral.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Steven_Taylor

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