A good place for affiliate beginners?

I've got about a dozen domain names I've recently registered with an eye on taking a try at affiliate marketing. And I understand the concept relatively well - I/my site would be a commissioned salesperson for a company offering products or services (that probably are very relevant to the site topic). From what I've read CJ is a big player in this arena, so I went to their site to read up a bit. Now maybe it's my lack of experience, but the information presented on their intro pages seems like cryptic-speak to me - I don't know if they're selling software to track transactions, or they are selling relationships with companies offering affiliate programs or what. (Well, I think it's more of the latter, but I walked away from that site with more questions than answers.)

So where I'm asking for help is with the following:

1) Is there a good affiliate marketing book I could read?
2) Should I launch a site full of content and let it brew for awhile in the SERPs before I try to add affiliate marketing into the mix? Should I also wait to apply for membership into a place like CJ until the site is SEO-and-SERP-primed and ready?
3) The sites I plan to launch are all coming from a place from where I draw a good deal of experience, but I'd like to find out which one might offer me the best affiliate opportunity, so I can start there. How do I go about researching this - can I sign on at CJ or like outfit without a site in hand, to poke around their offerings?
4) One last thing - can someone point me in the direction of a site that uses affiliate marketing well? Whether it's your site or a competitors, or a site completely out of your sphere of influence. You can PM it to me if you'd prefer it stay anonymous.

Thanks so much for your help.

If i was looking for affilaite advice i would probably go to forums for affilaites rather than the seo forums.

http://www.abestweb.com/

You will probably find more relevant advice.

When you have sorted out what programme and what to do then i would come back here and ask how do i get to no1 for the keyword `desired program`.

Y'know, I think I just get attached to a particular forum and want to ask all my questions there. Got any good secrets for replacing a fuel pump in a 97 Chevy 3500HD?


Kidding

But seriously - I appreciate the link. I'll check it out. In the meantime, if any of those here that are smarter than I am with this (which should be most of you), I would most humbly accept any pointers you might give.

The amount of topics in this particular forum about affiliate marketing is very limited.

You were in the right topic but its very much like this topic was created for the sake of it.
There dosent seem to be much goes on in it.

And with your fuel pump i would heat the bolts up with a blow torch first "oxy acetaline` and get them glowing red before you try and untighten them.

Hi Robert,
Even though some of our affiliates make over $10K a month in various programs we manage, I try not to make it sound like a cake walk because it isn't.

Affiliate marketing is very hard to get started with and overwhelming to learn, but if you devote the time and energy it can be very rewarding. Too many think it's get rich quick, throw up a couple banners and then give up when that fails.

If you are good at SEO, know how to work with datafeeds and customize them with lots of unique content so they don't look like cookie cutter sites you can do quite well. There are even tools like the IPC that help you build custom sites in around a minute without having to do any datafeed programming.

Study, work hard and treat this like you would a $100,000 business and you may do well if you pick the right programs and markets. Here is a good beginner *how to get started* thread thats 2 pages long and just jam-packed with tips, tools and resources. It's from my *affiliate forum* over at WebProWorld, which is pretty geared toward newer affiliates. If you study everything suggested in this one thread it will get you off to a really good start!
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=21311

One of the best ways to get started is to get Jame's Martell's book "Affiliate Marketers Handbook" and newsletter: Affiliate Buzz . I know people that swear by Jame's methods. I have spent time with him and his students and feel strongly this is a great way to begin. http://www.jamesmartell.com

The other thing I recommend is www.sitesell.com. I think Ken's software and methods would help someone get off to a stronger start.

Hope this helps and Best of Luck!

Wow ,,

I was laughing to myself wondering where you were when i first saw it this morning.
And there you are.
5 star, i am interested in earning $10`000 a month as an affiliate.
Can you please tell me how to do it.
I know i wont be easy and i will be dilligent and hard working so i am ready to start when you are.

Thanks Linda - You have a great looking site. Spent some time there yesterday, will do more in the coming days.

Linda,

Where have you dissapeared to ?
Me and Gchaney want to earn $10`000 a month.
Can you please tell us how to do it.

Thanks Robert, glad you like it.

Hi Mick,

I wish I knew the formula for making over 10K a month with a single program, I would probably go do it. .

We have over 20,000 affiliates combined in all of our programs and about 20 clients and I just oversee everything, don't directly manage any of the programs. So no way I have time or the ability to figure out what individual affiliates are doing. I just know about the big checks that go out.

Even if I did know what some of our top earners were doing it would be unethical for me to give away their secrets to others.

What I do know which is pretty obvious is that you have to know how to drive a lot of VERY targeted traffic to make those kind of numbers from a single affiliate program. So for instance some of our top earners for insurance have high traffic insurance related sites.

The top affiliate for Net Detective last month made over 21K in commission. I don't even know the affiliate, so am not giving away any trade sercets, but I could almost bet they either have a "find out anything about anybody" type site or a high traffic general software site.

I also know that some of the top affiliates do quite a bit of PPC. I know affiliates that are making 30-40 K a month with a single program but after their PPC costs they are only netting 10 -20 K a month which is still pretty good money. I also know affiliates that are making 1-2 k per month from 10 different programs so are still making around 10 - 20K a month combined.
What I don't know is exactly how they do it.

Sad truth is that the majority or affiliates make under 500 a month. So is it easy to make the big bucks - NO. Can it be done - yes.

I know I didn't answer your question - how - and have a feeling you were just teasing me anyway.

So thats my VERY long winded answer which is, in a nutshell, if it were easy - everybody would be doing it.

And if the magic formula could be packaged and sold, I'd be a millionaire.

There was a little bit of teasing but i am seroius about wanting to earn a lot of cash out of it.

I see so many people saying `oh our top earners earn this`

When you post that a lot of the people also earn $500 a month that switches me on much more than the pie in the sky $10`000 that one person once earned in the company 7 years ago and the company has quoted those earnings as a carrot since.

Its very similar to the casinos that hire a person and give him/her a fat wad of cash and a hired flash car to go and tell other people thay have one a lot in a certain casino
When you scrutinize it you generally find its bullsh*t basically.

Forget all this $10`000 bull and whats the best programme you do to earn a nice amount of cash on a daily or weekly basis?

Net detective would be handy to add on to my pi site but is it best to focus on one high paying programme or get invlved in them all?
You cant win a race riding two horses normally but i am a novice to the affilate marketing.

Looking forwards to your reply and i have just put a downpayment on a ferrari in advance.

Well some of the best advice I can give was in the 1st thread. Martell and sitesell.

But whether to start with one program or multiple AND the best programs to start with - well there is no one size fits all answer. It really depends a lot on you.

Below I am posting some great advice I wrote long ago. If you answer these questions for yourself you will have at least some ideas about the best place to get started.

1) What is your current site about and who are your visitors? What are they interested in? Find products and services that will appeal to them and THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! For instance if you have a site about travel, don't just promote hotel and airline affiliate programs, add travel insurance, Amazon books about travel and Luggage.



2) What are you passionate about??? What do you know a lot about? If you can find an affiliate programs that tie into your interests or hobbies you will be ahead of the game!!! WHY? Because it can take some time to generate income and if it's something you are interested in it will give you the incentive to keep building more pages PLUS you can add valuable content to your site based on your knowledge of the subject.



3) Make a list of all the potential products and services that you think may be a good fit for either your existing site or a new niche site based on #2.



Go to Commission Junction, LinksShare, BeFree, ShareaSale or one of the affiliate directories like Refer-it and find several programs then compare:



A) The honesty & integrity of the program. Are they parasite-free, do they have affiliate-centered management, good record of paying on time? *This can be hard to figure out unless you search on Affiliate Boards.



B) Commission – Could be per sale or per lead

C) Cookie Length - This is how long sales are tracked and credited to you

D) Good merchant web site design & navigation that will convert your leads to sales



Basic Examples:

Merchant #1 $50 commission, 1 day cookie, poorly designed site, big 800#, get rich quick type of affiliate page.

Merchant #2 $30 commission, 90 day cookie, nice site, easy to navigate, friendly affiliate page.



I would pick #2.



Now to answer the question “What is the best affiliate program?” Well, it depends and as you can see there is no easy answer, but I hope I have given you some guidelines and tips to ponder. Check out my 5 Star Affiliate Programs and see if any of them may be a good fit for you. FYI we are adding 15 new affiliate programs within the next month including 2 biggies next week so check back often.


After you answer the above questions for yourself and IF you know how to build a good site and IF you know how to do SEO or drive traffic and are still confused about the best way to get started or which program, feel free to give me a call. My number is on my site.


Hope this helps!

Thanks for your advice.

I have been involved in seo and the internet for a few years but i know i still have a lot to learn.
If i sign up for all the detective stuff and add it to my site will you help me a bit by showing me what the other affiliates do to drive traffic?
I may as well stick to the stuff like that seeing as one of my new projects is the private stuff.
I can always transfer the affiliate stuff when i sell it but i may as well make a few bucks along the way.

Abestweb is a really good recommendation. There are good tips there, but more importantly, by being a member there, you get a good feel of the heartbeat of the affiliate network.

Hey Mick,

One of the things I like about the Harris Digital program too is that in addition to Net Detective their flagship product, they have about 5 other software titles you can market, within the same program.

Here is info on them all:
http://www.affiliatesuccess.net/affiliate_products.html

I consult for and oversee about 20 programs, so no way I have time to manage any of them or know all the details about each one. Net Detective has a REALLY strong and helpful affiliate manager. Once you join Pam can answer specific questions and help you get off to a good start.

Pam always write helpful monthly newsletters too. Here is the Feb. news which also lists the top 10 affiliates who earned from 3500 - to over 21K in Feb.

http://www.affiliatesuccess.net/new...Newsletter.html

Hope you join their team.