12 Tips to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is one of the first steps for anyone seeking to make money online due to the little amount of money needed to get started. Sad to say, many people don’t succeed as they lack fundamental advice that can help guide them along the right path.

Here are some tips you need to keep in mind and put to use in order to succeed with affiliate marketing.

1. Set financial goals. Before you dive into affiliate marketing, it’s absolutely essential that you set some goals and objectives. How much money do you want to make with affiliate marketing? Make sure you write down your financial goals and review them often. Begin with a reasonable amount that you can realistically achieve and increase it over time. Once you begin affiliate marketing you will then have a clear destination that you can work towards.

2. Follow your heart. If you’re just starting out in affiliate marketing then it’s really advised that you stick to niches that match your hobbies and interests. While more experienced Internet marketers have more flexibility in this regard, beginners simply lose motivation if they are promoting a product or service that doesn’t appeal to them.

3. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Once you find a market that interests you, make sure that it is one that is profitable. This may seem obvious, but many people end up focusing on niches that lack in profitability. Nearly any niche can be monetized, but for the majority of the time if you don’t see other affiliates promoting that particular product or niche then you should seriously think twice.

4. Ensure credibility. Make sure the affiliate program you decide on is managed by someone with a good reputation. This is to guarantee that the product not only sells well, but also that customers will be satisfied and not ask for refunds. Remember, a refund sale means no income for you so don’t waste your time on dishonest products and services.

5. Understand your audience. Prior to promoting the product or service you’ve chosen, take some time out to study those interested in the particular niche. By doing so you’ll be able to engage the people in a way better than others since you will be able to relate to them and understand their needs.

6. Provide value. When you launch your website to promote the affiliate product or service, make sure it is helpful, motivating, and rich in content. People will feel more likely to follow through and purchase the offer you’re advertising if you over deliver on value due to the feeling of trust you’ve established.

7. Optimize your site. Along with strong content, make sure you choose the best keywords and use them properly to increase your ranking in the search engines. If your site can’t be seen in the search engines then you’re going to have a hard time driving traffic to it.

8. Build backlinks. There are many different types of backlinks and your site needs a variety of them to increase in ranking. When building backlinks, be sure to include your top keywords in the anchor text of the link so that you rank higher for these keywords in the search engines.

9. Track your traffic. Use quality tracking software so that you know exactly how people are reaching your site, what they’re doing once they reach it, and where they end up going afterward. An excellent, free solution to tracking is Google Analytics.

10. Do article marketing. Make article marketing a strategic part of your overall affiliate marketing plan. Writing and distributing articles for free on various article directories, such as EzineArticles and ArticlesBase, still proves to be one of the best ways to generate traffic to your site. It’s also a fantastic way to put the reader into the buying mood.

11. Diversify affiliate programs. Never put all of your hopes in one product or service. If something goes wrong and you don’t receive payment from the merchant or the product simply isn’t selling as well as it once did then you will still have other programs to fall back on.

12. Don’t give up. Affiliate marketing is not about instant results. This business requires consistency so don’t be easily discouraged if some time passes before you see sales.

Melissa Tamura Writes about Accredited Online Colleges for Zen College Life. She most recently wrote about the best online psychology schools.

What is Article Marketing and Why Should You Be Doing It?

One of the key ingredients to making money online is to generate quality traffic to your website or blog… and there are many ways to achieve this. You have to work on getting traffic to your site both directly and indirectly, and you should work on building your reputation within your niche at the same time. One method that can help you accomplish these goals is article marketing. When used correctly, article marketing can be an extremely powerful method of traffic generation, and the best part is it is FREE. Well it’s free if you write the articles yourself.

Article marketing is the actual process of first writing an original article(s) and then submitting it to a variety of online directories, databases, and magazines, but most everyone I know usually just submit their articles to article directory sites like; EzineArticles, GoArticles, ArticleBase, etc….

Once your article has been accepted by a directory (or directories) it is then added to their large database of articles and it will then become accessible for anyone to copy and paste into their newsletters, blogs, magazines, etc…. The more directories you add your article to the better, as you are exposing your articles to potentially thousands and thousands of people with each directory you submit them to. At the bare minimum you want to submit each article to the top 3 to 5 directories for sure!

The person using your article must display the article EXACTLY how you wrote it, and they must also include your resource box at the end of the article which contains all the information about you and your site, but we will get more into that in a minute. The key to understand here is once you submit your article (and if it is well written on a fairly hot topic)… there is a good chance many people will take your article and share it with all their readers. If lots of people do the same thing… your article could easily be viewed by thousands and thousands of people in a very short period. Plus your article will stay in the database for many years, so there is a good chance it could be viewed for many years to come and hopefully continue making you money online.

Now getting back to the actually writing of the article… generally you write articles that are relevant to the nature of your website. You can’t directly promote your site, and you wouldn’t want to anyway because it would just turn people off and that is the last thing you want to do.

Instead, you want to provide valuable, worthwhile information that can help solve a problem, answer a question or teach them something new. In doing so you will be proving yourself as somewhat an expert in your field, and hopefully people will begin to trust and respect your opinion. In this way you can make a name for yourself within your niche, and your reputation will grow.

While that’s great (and important), what’s even better is that every time you write and submit an article you get to include some information about yourself with a link or two in the resource box at the bottom of the article. These links can lead back directly to your site, targeting whichever pages you choose. Additionally, since you are the one creating the link, you get to decide the exact anchor text you want to use. This provides an opportunity to build up a bunch of highly targeted, highly valuable one-way links leading back to your website or blog.

By doing this, you will be increasing your site’s value in the search engines like Google, and hopefully you will start getting ranked higher for your desired keywords. This is because incoming links leading to your site are one of the largest factors for determining your site’s Google PageRank. Not all links are created equally however, and you want to go after links that really provide a good amount of value. Links from the best article directories are extremely valuable because they are from high ranking sites, and they are one-way links that you didn’t have to pay or exchange for. Additionally, you can control the anchor text and destination page, so the links have the potential to be very powerful.

Therefore, with article marketing you are indirectly boosting your traffic and your online presence by raising your search engine ranking. Additionally, you will also directly see an increase to your website’s traffic when people read your articles and then click on your links to follow through to your page. The more valuable and original your articles are, the more people will click through to your site, and the more interested these prospects will already be about your ideas, products and services.

Article marketing brings along many different benefits. By providing high quality articles you can help build up your reputation, both within your community and within the search engines. You will see an increase to your site traffic and you will end up finding more prospects for your website and online business. If you aren’t article marketing yet, you are leaving a valuable opportunity sitting on the table.

So if you are serious about making money online… go and write an article right now and get the ball rolling.

Increase Affiliate Sales Conversions Dramatically

This week’s making money online “Quick Tip” can help give you a much higher conversion rate when promoting affiliate products.

If you read my 2 previous posts on how to “Cloak” affiliate links (The Ultimate WP Affiliate Sales Tool and Simple Affiliate Cloaking Method) you know I am a big fan of cloaking affiliate links as you get a much higher conversion rate than leaving those big ugly URL’s that have your affiliate ID code displayed in them.

What works even better than those two methods at converting sales is registering a domain name for the sole purpose of promoting one particular affiliate product and forwarding the domain to your affiliate link.

Here is how it basically works. Let’s use one of my own domains for example. There is a product for making money online called Camera Dollars that has a really good conversion rate, and pays a whopping 75% commission. You earn $26.98 on each sale. They claim that 1 out of 10 people that visit their site purchases the course… which is incredible! The product is a course on how to make money with your camera by taking pictures and selling them online. You can imagine how popular this is nowadays with practically everyone owning a digital camera. Even though I have not tried selling any photos yet, I have purchased the course and it is really good. Someday I am sure I will try and sell some photos… but I am getting off track on what this post is actually about.

Since CameraDollars is a Clickbank product… it has a typical affiliate link (Hoplink) which takes visitors to the merchant site while tracking your affiliate id. Here is the hoplink for Camera Dollars:

http://YourClickBankNickName.camera.hop.clickbank.net.

So if I were promoting that particular product (which I am) I have a few options:

1. I could just use my hoplink which would be http://dotspro.camera.hop.clickbank.net. It is not the prettiest link in the world, but it works.
2. I could cloak the URL using one of the methods at the beginning of this post and it would end up looking something like: www.MakingMoneyOnline.com/cameradollars/ which is much nicer looking URL.
3. But an even better way would be to register a domain and redirect it to my affiliate link (hoplink). So what I did was register the domain PhotoRiches.com and redirected the domain to my affiliate hoplink. So anytime someone goes to www.photoriches.com they are taken directly to my affiliate link, and if they make a purchase I make $26.98.

Now of the 3 methods above, the 3^rd would obviously be the most expensive to implement, as you would have to register a new domain, as well pay for hosting for that domain. Now if you followed one of my earlier posts on “Never Pay for Premium Hosting Again” and implemented those strategies you would not worry about having to pay for hosting each time you register a new domain name. Also, as I mentioned before… this method definitely has a higher conversion rate than the other two and one sale would actually pay for the domain and hosting for year on a lot of sites.

Another cool thing about this method is it is much easier from a marketing standpoint online and off. Checkout this simple banner I just created to the right. A lot of affiliate banners that merchant’s offer for promotions have the merchants URL displayed right on the banner. Instead of clicking the banner, I know many people just type in the URL and they bypass the affiliate link resulting in no referral fee if they end up purchasing the product. With this banner… if a visitor clicks on it they will be taken to my affiliate link destination, as well as if they type in the URL. There is really no way to bypass my affiliate link as they do not know what the merchants URL actually is.

Imagine how great this will work for offline promotions as well. I could easily run inexpensive ads in newspapers, magazines, fliers, etc… that are extremely short and to the point. Here are just a couple examples of some simple ads:

————————————————————
Get Rich Taking Photos!
www.PhotoRiches.com
————————————————————
Got a Digital Camera? Learn How to
Make Money Taking Simple Photos!
www.PhotoRiches.com
————————————————————

I think you get the point. Those same ads could be run online in places like; Craigslist, Free Online Classifieds, etc…, as well as in your signature file on forums, in your emails, etc…. The more places you display it, the more chances you have of making money.

Now this post wasn’t designed to promote CameraDollars (even though it is a great product), it is to teach you another way to promote affiliate programs in general, and hopefully get much better conversions.

There are lots of big Internet Marketers that use this method and I notice most of them when registering a domain name usually choose something that is close to the merchants actual URL. An example would be if the merchant’s URL for their particular product is MagicalCashDonkey.com (which is a totally made up name)… you might want to register one of the following domains or something similar:

MagicalCashDonkey.net/org/biz/info/etc…
TheMagicalCashDonkey.com
GetMagicalCashDonkey.com
MagicalCashDonkeys.com

As you can see… they are all very close to what the original URL is, so when a potential customer uses one of those links, they probably wouldn’t even notice that the URL is slightly different than the one they are redirected to.

As for my domain PhotoRiches.com, it is actually quite a bit different than the product I am marketing, but the sales page is so good… it doesn’t really seem to make a difference to people.

So if there is an affiliate product (or several) out there that you really want to promote the heck out of… you might want to consider registering a domain specifically for promoting each product and redirect each domain to your affiliate link(s).

The Ultimate WP Affiliate Sales Tool on Sale

A few weeks ago I showed you a simple way to cloak your affiliate links using a simple line of php code to accomplish it. It still works fine, but it has some major limitations. I am still planning on using that system on many of our sites, but I am definitely making the switch to Ninja Affiliate (which I bought today on sale) for all our WordPress blogs starting right now. If you are serious about making money with your blog, you should definitely think about doing the same.

If you are not familiar with Ninja Affiliate, it is an extremely powerful WordPress plugin that helps turn your blog into an affiliate sales machine. I could go over all the benefits here, but they do a much better job explaining everything this plugin does on their site.

I have always wanted to buy it, but just kept putting it off for one reason or another. Well they definitely got my attention this week, as they are having a sale on Ninja Affiliate. For 4 Days Only (Aug. 18 – 21st at Midnight) they are giving a $30 Discount on the plugin.

(SALE has ended… but still a great piece of software at the price)

So instead of their regular price of $97 (which it is still worth), you can get Ninja Affiliate for ONLY $67.00… but only until this Friday night (Aug. 21st) at midnight! Then the price goes back up.

For me the the $30 DISCOUNT was the tipping point for me making the purchase. I knew I was eventually going to buy it, so when I saw it was on sale, it just made sense to buy it now and save some money.

I know there are many of our readers that already use Ninja Affiliate, as many of them have recommending it to me. If any of you are reading this, I would love it if you could tell us how you like it in the comment section below.

Quick Tip – Simple Affiliate Cloaking Method

The last 3 days have been super hectic around the office, so I have not had much time to write. My business partner Mark has been on a 2 week vacation and will be back to work on Monday, and in his absence I have had to do everything around here, so I am a little behind. Plus, my kids just got out of school Tuesday for summer break. So today is going to be one of the first of what I am calling “Quick Tips”. It will just be a quick tip on how to do something specific. I am thinking about making this a once a week type post, but we will see how it goes over.

Today I am just going to show you a quick way to “Cloak” your affiliate links. There are a many reasons to do this, but probably the best reason is it helps keep people from hijacking your affiliate links and stealing your commissions.

There are lots of different ways and services out there with which you can cloak your URLs. Simply do a Google search for “URL Redirection Services” and you will see lots of different options.

For this post I am just going to show you a really simple PHP script that you can create in seconds and works great for a simple redirection.

Here is what we use on a lot of our sites. Now this only works if your server is running PHP. Again, there are probably lots of ways to do the same thing, but this is what we have always used.

1) Open up a text editor like Notepad and paste the following code onto your page:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com“;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

2) Change http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com to whatever your actual affiliate link is.

3) You have 2 different options on how to save it and I prefer the 2^nd method (which takes an extra step or two), but both work fine.

• Give the file a name and end it with .php extension. For example is you were promoting an affiliate program for guitar lessons, you might want to call it “guitar-lessons.php”. Then you just upload the file to your server and you are done. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/guitar-lessons.php.
• With this one, you are going to need to create a “folder” with whatever title you like. For the guitar lessons example, you will probably want to call the folder something like “guitar-lessons”. Next you want to save the file you created above as “index.php” and save it in the “guitar-lessons” folder. Then you just need to upload the entire folder to your server and you are done. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/guitar-lessons. Another option you see nowadays using this method is;  create a main folder entitled “recommends” (or whatever you like) and they upload all the affiliate folders into that file, which also helps organize the folders on your server. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/recommends/guitar-lessons.

So let me show you step-by-step real live example. I will create a redirection URL for an affiliate link to Jamorama.com, which is one of Clickbank’s top selling merchants for Guitar Lessons.

Step 1) I pasted the following into a blank Notepad document:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com”;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

Step 2) I changed http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com to my actual affiliate link:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://mrdomains.jamorama.hop.clickbank.net”;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

Step 3) I created a main folder called “recommends” and then a sub-folder called “guitar-lessons” and I saved the file as index.php in that folder.

Step 4) I uploaded the folder “recommends” with everything in it to MakingMoneyOnline.com and I was done.

Step 5) Now, whenever I want to promote Jamorama, I just point people to: http://www.makingmoneyonline.com/recommends/guitar-lessons and it takes them right to Jamorama via my affiliate link. Give it a click and see it works.

After you have done this once, from then on all you need to do is create the file and affiliate folder and upload them into the “recommends” folder and you are done, which literally can be done in less than one minute.

This method also REALLY WORKS GREAT when you create eBooks and eCourses, or even offline affiliate marketing. I have even used this method on business cards.

5 Best Bribes to Build Your Subscriber List

As everyone SHOULD KNOW or you probably have heard… that the MONEY is in “The List”! It is still the best and fastest way of making money online and off, and it will probably always be that way. That is why you see companies like Google and other huge corporations spend BILLIONS of dollars on companies that have HUGE subscriber bases or followings. They want access to those users!

As for us small business owners who don’t plan on selling our businesses for billions of dollars (unless someone offers it to us) building a strong list of subscribers is of utmost importance for our long-term success.

Your list can be used for keeping your readers informed of what is new on your site, let them know of new products you have coming out, promote affiliate products, recruit affiliates to promote your product(s), etc… the list could go on and on. It is not uncommon for Internet Marketers with large lists to make many thousands of dollars in one day by sending out a simple email to their subscriber list.

As for collecting names and emails there are many different options, but one of the best and most efficient ways is to use an autoresponder. Not only can you build a subscriber list with an autoresponder service, but you can also utilize their built in autoresponders which is basically a 24/7 (working while you sleep) sales machine. I am not going to go over all the reasons why autoresponders are so great in this post, as you can read that elsewhere.

I would say however that one of the best autoresponder services on the market today is Aweber. They were one of the firsts in the business and are still the cream of the crop (IMO). We have had our account with Aweber for at least 6 or 7 years now and we have over 40 different autoresponder lists for different niches setup with just that one account. It is a must-have in our marketing arsenal!

But enough about that… What this post is about is the “Best Ways to Bribe People to Subscribe to Your List”. Yes, I said “BRIBE” people to subscribe to your list. Nowadays it is harder than ever to build a list, as EVERY WEBSITE you come to is designed to try and get you to give them your name and email address. So the best way for you to succeed is to literally BRIBE them with something in exchange for their precious contact information.

You see some sort of BRIBE on most sites nowadays as well… like the site owner that is offering you a FREE eBook or eCourse for simply providing your first name and email address. We even do that on this site with our Private Label Secrets, which if you haven’t signed up for, you are missing out on a great resource (Yes, that was a plug).

So here is a list of some great bribes you can offer your readers to help build your list and start making more money online…

1) An eBook. This is probably the most used method today and still works pretty good. We use this method on several sites and it works great. The key is to offer an eBook that really relates with the niche you are in.

2) An eCourse. An eCourse is similar to an eBook, but is usually distributed to the reader over a period of time via email. The good thing about this method is you are carrying on a continuous dialogue with your reader each day (or at whatever intervals you prefer). The key is to end each email with a little taste of what is coming up next to keep your reader intrigued and excited about getting your next email. If you would like to see this in action, sign-up for our newsletter and we will send you our eCourse on making money with PLR products. You can always unsubscribe at anytime if you like, but I don’t see why you would.

3. Run a Contest. We have had some great success with this method over the years and will probably start having contests on this site soon. Basically you just say something like, “Sign-up for our newsletter and get into a drawing to win _______”. Now there are actually several tricks to this one to help you build your list faster and to keep your subscribers longer.

• Run a raffle for your subscribers once a month, or more often if you like. Give away something that your readers will want. Use your imagination on what you can do for prizes. If you have a marketing budget you can buy prizes, but if you don’t, you will have to be creative. Do you have a skill that is valuable that you could offer as a prize? I have seen designers give away complete site makeovers, banner creations, logo creations, etc…. What do you know how to do that would be valuable to your reader? There’s gotta be something!
• For one of our other blogs we are getting our prizes from local merchants for advertising on our site. They actually pay us to advertise on our site, plus they give us free stuff that we can give away to our subscribers. Not a bad deal for us at all. I have sitting in an envelope on my desk right now; eight movie tickets, four $25 gift cards for our local brewery, two gift certificates to Extreme Pita, four free 20 inch pizza coupons from our favorite pizza shop, and more things coming in the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to be able to give away one prize a day, Monday through Friday, 52 weeks a year. That should definitely help build up our subscriber base.
• (ADVANCED METHOD) Sell the eBook that you created instead of giving it away like I mentioned in #1. Create a simple sale page for it and charge $24.95 (just an example). That way you are giving the book an “actual value” instead of giving it away and saying it’s worth $24.95 (the “perceived value”). Next… you run a contest and use your eBook as the prizes. Maybe you give away 10 copies a month, or if you have lots of traffic, 10 copies a week. It really doesn’t matter to you, as you were going to be giving it away for free anyway. This can actually work better than just giving the eBook away, as many people assume if you are giving something away, it doesn’t have any value. But if they have a good chance of winning something of value, you have better odds of getting their name and email. NOTE: If you use this method, make sure that you take the extra steps to create a really good eBook, as you might actually sell some, and you want to be known as someone who over-delivers whenever possible.

4. Subscribers Only Gifts and Deals – Let your readers know that your loyal subscribers get free stuff and deals that regular visitors don’t. You can do all sorts of stuff with this technique. You can occasionally send your subscribers free gifts like ebooks, software, maybe some custom graphics… use your imagination. You could create them yourself if you have the skills, you could have someone else create them for you, or you could customize some PLR products you have. There are all sorts of ways to come up with worthwhile gifts.

You could also offer your subscribers discounts on products you sell. We plan to use this method for the new product we have coming out. We are probably going to be selling it for $7.00 (as per the $7 Dollar Secrets Method), but we are going to give all our subscribers a $5.00 OFF Coupon Code so they can get if for only $2.00. So again, if you are not subscribed to our newsletter, you should sign-up right away.

5) Access to Membership Area – Here’s a way to really build up a subscriber list, but it probably takes the most work. Again you can do this in a couple of different ways as well. You could have your main site that has lots of really good information on it, and then create a free membership section where you offer something more. Maybe something like “advanced techniques” or “how-to videos”, just something special that the regular visitors don’t have access to. To get free access, you readers will need to join by giving you their name and email address.

Another method would be to create just one great website and only allow access to subscribers. This method is a little harder to build your list, unless you already have a good reputation built up. With the first method, at least the reader has a chance to view some of your work first, so they can decide if they like you before they give up their contact information.

Ok… that’s it for this post, as it is starting to get REALLY LONG! I could probably add several more techniques, but my fingers are starting to get tired.

Why don’t you guys give us some more tips in the comments section below? What is something people could give away to bribe people to subscribe to their list?

Selling Information Products – Why People Buy Them

Selling information products is one of best ways to start making money online. It doesn’t really matter what niche you are in, as people are always looking for information about something. It doesn’t even matter if they can find the information for free by doing a little searching online. There are still people that will pay you for that same information, as long as it is all put together in a nice package for them to get fast access.

So the first question you should ask yourself is, “Why would people give you their hard-earned cash for your information product, when they can find the same information for free online?”

Well I am going to answer that question in this… “Part 1” of my series on “Selling Information Products”.

There are lots reasons why people buy information products, and knowing “Why” will hopefully motivate you to get started creating your own.

1. People are just Plain Lazy – Everyone is busier than ever nowadays and most people just don’t have the time or energy to spend hours on Google trying to find the information they need in bits and pieces.

2. Perceived Value of the Product – When people see a beautifully packaged product (which is usually just a well designed eCover) they assume that they are getting a high quality, thoroughly researched product. They figure it is better information than they can find online for free.

3. People Need Information Now – Most people that are searching for something online need the information right away. It makes sense that if they can get all the information they need from one source, and it is reasonably priced… why not buy it.

4. They Have Too Much Money – There are people out there that just have too much money and when they find something that they love or just want to know more about… they buy everything they can on the subject. I love those guys!

I could add several more reasons, but those are my top four. The point I want you to take from this is there are millions of people out there with credit cards in their pockets ready to spend money on information products on their favorite niche. Why not create one for them? It is probably a lot easier than you think.

In “Part 2” of the series I will let you know about some simple ways to create your first information product.

Buy, Test, Review, Earn Your Money Back, Profit, Use Forever, Keep Making Money… Sound Good?

Over the years we have spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars purchasing products and services online. Quite a bit of it was absolutely wasted money, as we never used many of the products for one reason or another. Sometimes it was because the product sucked, and we were too lazy to ask for our money back. Other times we were lured into purchasing products that we really didn’t need because of great copywriting.

Fortunately for us and our wallets we have learned to be much better about spending, but more importantly… we have learned 2 great lessons that will not only save you a TON OF MONEY, but you will also (hopefully) end up getting your product for free, and then start making you some money.

LESSON 1: Don’t Be Afraid or Too Lazy to Ask for a Refund –

I can’t tell you how many times I have been a victim of both those mistakes. Just looking around my office and closet, I see lots of things that I purchased over the years, that I have never even taken out of the box. Also, on my computer’s backup hard-drive there are lots of ebooks and reports that are just terribly written, and taught me nothing, but I still paid for them. Fortunately, in the last couple of years I have made a conscious effort to cure myself of both those money wasting bad habits. Here are some steps that will help you cure them as well:

First thing… make sure when you purchase something, that it comes with a Money Back Guarantee. Also, READ what the requirements are to get your money back. Most of the time merchants will state that they have a “No Questions Asked” guarantee, but other will make you jump through hoops to get a refund. If you really want to buy something and they have one of those guarantees (that takes some work for you to get a refund), make sure to print out their return requirements. That way, if you end up wanting to return it… at least you will know exactly what you need to do to get your money back.

Secondly… don’t be afraid to ask! If you don’t like a product, ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK. Merchants offer a Money Back Guarantee for a reason, and if you are not happy, take advantage of it. Money is money, and in this economy especially, you do not want to be throwing money away at something you are not going to use. There are many unscrupulous merchants out there as well, that prey on the lazy and fearful, by offering money back guarantees on products they know are crap, because they know in general most people won’t ask for refunds. Don’t be one of those victims.

LESSON 2: If You Like the Product or Service, Let the World Know About It –

What about when you purchase a product and you LOVE it? Then you need to let the world know! Since you are going to be telling everyone you know, why not make some money at the same time? MANY (if not most) merchants nowadays offer some type of Affiliate Program for the products and services they offer. Some pay small percentages like 5 to 10%, while other pay up to 75% and even some pay 100%.

An Affiliate Program is basically a program setup to reward you (the affiliate) for referring new customers to their products or service. It makes sense that if you like a product or service, why not take advantage of the merchants affiliate program and make some money with it.

What I try to do when I have purchased something I really like is… I go straight to the merchant’s website and see if they offer an Affiliate Program, and if they do, I sign right up. It is best to do this right away, as you are still feeling that “new toy” joy you get, and you want to use that feeling when you promote it.

Next you want write an honest review of the product or service, with your affiliate link attached. I find that the longer and more detailed you can write about the product, the better conversion rates you will have. Also, if you can show that you actually use the product(s) that makes a TREMENDOUS difference in conversions as well. And for even better conversions, if you can make a video of you using the product or showing how it works, you can really turn up the sales.

Once you create the review, you can post it on your Website or Blog, you can add it to your Review Site (I love those), or you can send it to your subscriber list. Even better, add it to all of them. If you really like the product, it will show in your review and there is a GREAT chance that others will like it just as much and purchase the product through your affiliate link.

Once a couple people purchase the product through your affiliate link, it will probably have paid for your original purchase, and then all the rest of the money is profit in your pocket. Not only did the product end up not really costing you anything, you get to use it forever, and you will hopefully keep earning money from the referrals for months and years to come.