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I was lucky enough to receive the advice you’re about to enjoy when I first started out. As a hesitant affiliate marketer with honest intention, I sure had a heaping pile of skepticism to match my budding optimism. I wasn’t easily fooled by internet salesmen and advertisers, but at the same time, I didn’t find it easy to trust honest people presenting real business models.
You can’t always tell a legit system when you see one. This is really unfortunate, because there are certainly a lot of good people out there. Personally, I have no idea why you would want to scam someone. It’s worth the time to seek out and provide quality information and tools to your customers because they will keep coming back to you. You don’t want future prospects running away from you for what you’ve done in the past. It’s hard enough roping in prospects as it is.
So what can you do in a mere 20 minutes a day to generate the traffic you’re looking for? I’ll break it down into three simple steps.
1. Hit the forums
Every morning as you enjoy your cup of coffee, check up on popular work from home forums. Forums offer a two-way street; you can use them for information, or for promotion.
They’re a great way to see what people are curious about, what people need to know, which products are hot, scams to avoid, services not being offered, etc. You can gather a lot of info that you can use to generate business ideas. It’s sort of like surveys. Companies monitor what people are looking for, and use that info to branch out their operations to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers.
Now for the part you can you use to really make some money. Include your affiliate or website links in your signature, which displays at the the bottom of every post you make. Offer information that readers will genuinely find useful. If they find that you really know what you’re talking about, or if you simply have an interesting pitch tied with your links, they’re bound to click through. Ask pressing questions, give inspiring, extensive answers. Be helpful, don’t be the bad guy.
Now, forums alone may not be your path to the good life, but especially once you achieve some kind of ‘gold member’ or ‘preferred member’ status, you will get a trusting following of readers that eagerly eat up your advice. And just starting out, it’s the easiest way to get your links out there for free.
Some forums are great for finding info, giving answers, and for your promotions. Other forums have a large amount of very experience users, so they’re great for asking in depth questions for the top dogs, but not necessarily good for promoting products, unless your products cater to the smart guys.
Powerful forums for promoting your website/affiliate products: workathomeforum.com, whydowork.com, workfromhomeboard.com, and workathomenetwork.com. These rank very well in the search engines, and get lots of readers and responders every day. If you keep your links at the top of these forums, you will be in great shape.
2. An Article a Day
Just do it! Stay right where you are on Ezinearticles and crank out a single, powerful article every day. High quantity and high quality content dominates Google. Do keyword research using free or paid tools, and just start writing. It’s not easy at first, but you break right through any signs of writers block once you get going. Just write as you would talk, and the info just flows right onto the web. Again, include your links in your signature as I have done.
If you provide your readers with great, current information that they can put to use today to start making money, they will be begging for more, and sure to check out your links. Make your writing fun, easy to read, but still as professional as possible. Don’t make silly grammar mistakes that cut down your credibility, but don’t dwell on making every piece perfect.
I love Ezinearticles because you can check out the stats on your articles each day. I look at which articles are getting a lot of views, and which ones are getting a lot of URL clicks from my signature. I take on the role of ‘research team member’ and try to determine why certain articles rank better than others. I consider word count, title length and type, category, etc. If you can get a feel for why your readers do what they do, you can start crafting your articles to cater to them in the most successful fashion.
Don’t just write about anything. Always make your info relevant and useful. Always. This establishes wonderful credibility, and when readers click on your author name to view your other articles, they won’t be let down. One guy has 15,000 plus articles! WHAT!? My goals are quite modest in comparison, but following the article a day rule, 300 plus a year is not bad at all.
Think tortoise, not hare.
Build your information base, and visitors will come. Read the Ezinearticles training series to make maximize your potential.
You may want to submit your articles to many popular article directories that also rank well with Google, but make sure you submit unique content to each. Once you get going, you’ll be able to easily knock out an article in 20 minutes or less. So, why not write 5 articles day? If you have the time, articles are possibly the best way to spend it.
3. Hit the streets!
Offline marketing is sometimes my favorite way to unglue my eyes from the laptop and get out of the house to start making immediate income. Head to your local campus, mall, or anywhere that gets a lot of consumer traffic. Especially look for low income adults and look for students. High school and college students are well known for being impulsive. Also, they are usually begging for supplemental income, and are generally either lazy or busy; working from their computer instead of mall or labor jobs will be a very appealing prospect.
Pass out flyers. This is very cheap and effective, as you can reach hundreds of people in a day. Bumper stickers are also a great idea. You can pay your friends a small amount to drive around with your site displayed as well.
I just throw out any kind of pitch that I assume I would fall for if I was driving behind someone or accepting a flyer.
Right now, it’s probably fair to play around with the idea that the economy is going down, but that your products are not affected. Try not to sound like a salesman, which can be very difficult when you are selling something that you’re excited about. Grab their interest but don’t be annoying. Lots of !!!!! and !?!?!!? is not necessary, as it reveals your true colors as a novice.
Make sure your URL is displayed prominently, and mention that there’s no harm in taking 1 minute to check out the site, as it could take their life down a whole new path or whatever lol.
Don’t be cheesy! Harder than it looks.
If possible, offer something for free then upsell once you have their attention.
Make your flyers or stickers exciting, colorful, yet still professional. Providing real numbers is very effective. Write ‘hundreds of dollars a day’ or ‘One minute to browse through the site’… You get the point.
If your website is a price comparison/review site listing the top quality products that have been useful to you in the past, it’s pretty easy to establish myself as some sort of authority or organization, not exactly as a salesman.
The best part about offline marketing is that there will be gullible people. This sounds bad, but it’s not necessarily and ugly thing. On the internet, everyone is so wary of scams, and so sick of hype. But your average person off the street will not be nearly as familiar as we are. Also, they will be less likely to research other programs, as they may not have a sense of how much competition is out there alongside you.
If you can sell something as exciting as Tupperware on a bumper sticker, there may be a place in the world for your website.
So there you have it. Once you put in a little practice, you’ll be able to breeze through the above routine in half an hour or less. I do.
Good luck out there! I hope these tips have been helpful.
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