Welcome to the Extra Money Answer – a resource to help you learn how to make money online by starting up a blog and becoming an affiliate marketer to earn money from the blog.
I was originally going to write a book with a big publisher on this topic, but I decided to share my affiliate marketing experience here instead (you can also buy a Kindle version of this information for just $1.99).
Why? Many reasons. I detail them on my blog in a post, “Does the World Need Another Affiliate Marketing Book?“.
Three reasons why you should take my advice…
First, you’re probably wondering who I am and why you should bother listening to me. Well, my name is Shawn Collins, and I’ve been an affiliate since 1997. I also managed affiliate programs for ten years, and co-founded the Affiliate Summit conference in 2003.
Second, you’ve probably seen books, ebooks, courses, etc. that claim they can teach you how to get rich quick. I’m not going to do that. You won’t get rich quick as an affiliate. You probably won’t get rich slow, either. But it’s a great way to earn an extra $50, $100, or more a month.
Third, when I mention a product or service here, I am using it myself and I like it enough to endorse it to you. These mentions will often be accompanied by affiliate links. If you click through these links and make a purchase, I will earn commissions. My examples are based on what I use, so if you use different vendors and tools, your experience will be a little different.
Good luck!
Introduction to the Extra Money Answer
Hi, I am Shawn Collins, and I got my first computer in 1994. I was a year out of college and on the hunt for a “real” job.
At the time, I was working in an administrative position for $10 an hour and no benefits. That was the most I’d made since getting my degree. Previously, I worked at a hotel front desk for $5.50 an hour and later as an assistant manager at a Blockbuster store for $7.50 an hour.
I wanted something more, and hoped a computer would help me get it. This was before I knew of Internet access at home, so I essentially got the old desktop clunker to write and print resumes and cover letters.
A couple years after buying the computer, I got an account with America Online. That was when it all changed. My computer evolved from a word processor to a life transformer, but I wouldn’t realize that for quite a while.
One day, when I was playing around on AOL, I stumbled on a tutorial for HTML, which is code to create a website. I thought it would be fun to create a site, so I went through the lessons.
My first site was a single page about New York City and things I liked to do there. My HTML skills were limited and the page was pretty horrible, but my friends started visiting. That gave me the inspiration to keep it updated with my latest antics.
I can’t remember quite how I got there, but I ended up at the Amazon.com affiliate program in mid-1997. The program would pay me a commission for referring sales to them. This was wonderful – I was underemployed and newly married, so the chance to make a few extra bucks was huge.
After I joined up with the Amazon affiliate program, I put up some links on my AOL website for people to buy books about New York City, and I waited for the riches to roll in.
Back then, you had to wait a good, long time to find out if you sold 250 books or nothing at all, because there was no online reporting. They would send a quarterly email with sales figures and commissions.
When my first commission statement came through, I was really anxious to open it. My eyes scanned down to the part about the money I earned, which was a total of $0.00.
But I didn’t give up. I couldn’t. I was so sure this could work, and it was just a matter of figuring it all out. The problem was that I couldn’t find any resources to help me. This was way before the days of blogs, podcasts, magazines, and conferences on affiliate marketing.
It was a constant state of trial and error. I started focusing on reviewing new books about New York, and I was getting more pushy about having my friends and co-workers check out the site. When I got my second commission statement, I’d earned nearly $20 for the quarter.
Now, that sounds pretty horrible for three months of work, but it was proof that there was potential here. And it was a time when I really needed more money. My wife Vicky and I were making modest incomes and really wanted to buy our first house.
At a time that we were pinching pennies, I asked her if she was cool if I spent $70 to get a domain name for two years. It was a lot more expensive to get a domain back then, and that was money we didn’t have to spare for a silly hobby.
She said no. I was sure I could get to the next level if I could just step it up and move my site to a real domain. I asked again and again. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and agreed it was a good idea (or she figured her sanity was more valuable than that $70).
I felt totally reinvested with a domain name, VelocityNYC.com, and I studied the code on every site I liked to improve how mine looked. The site became my obsession, and I would work on it evenings and weekends when Vicky was taking graduate school classes.
The next time an Amazon commission email came through, I’d gotten up to $75 for the quarter. My domain investment was covered and I’d seen a big increase from the previous quarter. I was finding that more time and effort was equaling more money. What if I could keep doubling or tripling those amounts?
Well, it was more like I had to double and triple those amounts, because I was still earning a meager salary, and Vicky recently got the good news that she was pregnant. She wanted to stay home after the baby was born, and I wanted the same. But that meant we were going to have a third member of the family and less than half the income.
After privately freaking out a bit, I started brainstorming ways to make my site better and get more readers. Up until this point, I thought Amazon was the only affiliate program in the universe. But one day during my commute to work, I read about a website called Refer-it.com that was a search engine for affiliate programs.
There were hundreds of affiliate programs listed, and I was able to really broaden the products I could offer and make them even more relevant to the stuff I was writing. The next commission email from Amazon revealed that I was over $300 for commissions, plus I was making money with other affiliate programs I’d recently joined.
Affiliate marketing was paying the phone, cable, and water bill. Then it was covering the car note, and later the mortgage. I was making real money and moving from making ends meet to being comfortable financially.
This didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t easy, but it happened, and I started expanding what I was doing. Since I was in baby mode, I bought babylounge.com as my second domain, and made a portal for new parents. Then I bought another domain and another. I was finding that it was really fun and satisfying to write about stuff that interested me and paying the bills.
All these years later, I am still an affiliate. But I no longer work for other people. I walked away from spending my days in a cubicle in 2004, and I haven’t looked back. Affiliate marketing is a lot different these days from when I got started. It’s easier and cheaper to break into it. I have over 150 domains, and I work on my sites daily.
There are big opportunities for anybody to make from a few extra bucks to a living online. You don’t have to be a computer programmer or a writer or marketer. You just have to bring commitment and passion to the table.
I’ll take it from there. This site is the site I wish I could have read in 1997. it contains the lessons, tips, mistakes, failures, and successes of mine along the way.
This site will take you from having no clue about making money online to applying concrete advice to put more money in your pocket. I’ll explain a lot of things, such as how to brainstorm ideas to earn cash working on something you love; start a new website in 30 minutes; test ideas to maximize profits; and scale your online business to increase revenue.
I am not a researcher or journalist. I have actually done all of this stuff, and I’ll tell you how to do it yourself.
There are some people who shouldn’t read this site… those who are already affiliates and know their way around creating a site, as well as anybody who wants to get rich quick. If you fall into either of those categories, don’t read further. Click the back button now. Seriously.
For everybody else, read on and begin your path as an affiliate marketer.
Start with Chapter 1 – Pick a Topic for Your Site.
Finding Affiliate Programs
Now that you’ve got things set with your site, you’re producing content, and driving some traffic, it’s time to find some affiliate programs to monetize your site.
But where do you find the right affiliate programs for your site?
In the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, where over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed, we asked, “How do you most often find out about an affiliate program and then join?”
The affiliates responded with a wide variety of methods for finding affiliate programs to promote, including affiliate directories, search engines, and being contacted by affiliate managers.
I will go through all of the ways mentioned by affiliates, so you can experiment and find out which is most useful for you.
Before you start trying to find affiliate programs, be sure to focus on those that are relevant to the topic of your site.
Don’t be seduced by high commissions. You will want to test ads for products and services that make sense for your audience.
Here are the most popular methods for affiliates to find affiliate programs:
- Advertising in print publications
- Affiliate directory
- Affiliate network
- Affiliate Manager contacts you
- Affiliate marketing blogs
- Affiliate Manager is active on message boards
- Affiliate Manager is on Twitter
- Affiliate Marketing Conferences
- Search Engines
In addition to focusing on relevance for your affiliate ads, you don’t want to put too many ads up on your site. Less is more!
Creating Affiliate Links
OK, so you’ve been working on creating content and driving traffic to your site, as well as finding out how to find affiliate programs to promote. Now it’s time to get links set up.
What are affiliate links? They are pieces of code in a graphic image or piece of text on an affiliate’s site that notifies the advertiser or merchant that an affiliate should be credited for the customer or visitor sent to their site.
You can get your affiliate links from either independent affiliate programs, like Amazon and eBay, or affiliate networks, such as Affiliate Window, ClickBank, Commission Junction, LinkShare, and ShareASale.
In the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, where over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed, we asked, “What are your preferred link types?”
As you can see, banners and text links are the two most popular.
Based on my experience as an affiliate, banners don’t perform nearly as well as text links. But I would highly encourage you to test the various link types to determine what works the best for your site(s).
Here are the topics I’ll be covering in this section.
- Getting Code for Affiliate Links
- Banner Ads
- Text Links
- Landing Pages
- Datafeeds
- HTML for Solo Email
- Dynamic Rich Media
One word of caution – take it slow when adding affiliate links to your site(s).
Your affiliate links should supplement your content, rather than be the focus of your pages.
for more
Chapters
- 01. Introduction
- 02. Pick a Topic for Your Site
- 03. How to Create Content
- 04. Brainstorm a Domain Name
- 05. Website Hosting
- 06. Using Email to Drive Traffic
- 07. Secure Your Social Media Names
- 08. Driving Traffic to Your Website
- 09. Finding Affiliate Programs
- 10. Creating Affiliate Links
- 11. Enhanced Statistics for Affiliates
- 12. Education for Affiliate Marketers
- kaynak : http://www.extramoneyanswer.com/introduction-to-the-extra-money-answer
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