So... What IS Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work?

(Yes, that is how I act when I log onto my computer and see $$ in my account....believe me, you will, too! :)

I have been getting quite a few questions lately on what affiliate marketing is all about , especially from young moms that are wanting to make some money from home and do not have a lot, is any, money to invest into a home business...

So, I will try to give a brief outline on the term " affiliate marketing"...

I am sure we have all been to Amazon websites.... Amazon is known as the King of Affiliates as that is what it is. A place where we can buy almost anything under the sun from a variety of vendors too long to list.

Here is how it works - Amazon is only a gateway to the product itself that many people use and when we purchase products from their sites , guess where it is shipped from... not Amazon!

Guess who makes the products - NOT Amazon!

Guess who handles the products - NOT Amazon!

So, who is actually marketing the products - Amazon!

Amazon makes a commission every time we make a purchase thru their sites... affiliate marketing at it's finest!

We can do the EXACT SAME thing. Use the exact same methods. And make money.

You can do it with blogs, with websites, hubpages, Squidoo lens, any place where you can send people to...

Find affiliate products to market through places like Commission Junction, Linkshare, Amazon itself!, Clickbank and place links on your sites that are provided for you by these places and you can do the exact same thing Amazon is doing...

"But I have no idea how to get started", you may be saying.... which is why I have posted several tools that I personally feel are great to help anyone get started with affiliate marketing... you will see them scattered throughout this site here if you browse around.

Some are more advances than others but they will all help you get started... you will never be as big as Amazon, but remember they started out at some point too. Everything has to start somewhere, before it will get anywhere!

How to Make Money Blogging About Things We Do Already!

So... here we are with a blog all set up and no idea how to go about making money with a blog...

(First of all, there are many amazing and wonderful tools to help shorten the learning curve for you to get into profit more quickly with building a blog, and I have several of my personal favorites scattered around on my blog here.)

But is a few short words, making money with a blog is simply by looking at it as a 'showcase' or storefront in a way, as you know how in real life, outside the walls of the internet, if you want to buy shoes, you will go to a shoestore - or if you want pastries, you would hardly go into a pet shop...

Same way online... people are searching online for stuff, every seciond of every day.... if you are blogging about pets, then you will want the links on your site to go to pet items.

It would be silly to write an article about your Aunt Bonnies amazing pumpkin desert on your blog about pets - not only silly but actually the search engines will look at that and because nothing really matches up, they will pass over it whereas if everything is related to pets, and someone googles something like 'allergy pet skin care' and you have a blog post about something related to 'allergies and skin care' you just might get that traffic which can turn into a customer for you if your blog is related to what they are actually searching for.

I have seen blogs that have everything but the kitchen sink on them and then they wonder why they do not get traffic from the search engines!

Here is a simple tip that will get you more targeted traffic in a matter of days:

Write a post on your blog every day for a week - and keep it all very similar, and yet have it be fresh new content - for instance, let's use the pet care one since we seem to be on that subject!

One day, you write a blog post about 'pet skin care' - the next day it could be ' allergy free pet skin care' and the day following, you might do one that says ' sensitive pet skin care', etc, etc, and ping your blog each time you add a post.... if you have never pinged your blogs - go to pinggoat.com and follow the steps there - it is easy and free to register for it.

You should notice an increase in traffic very quickly with that one little trick... go one step further and write a brief article using the same keywords and link back to your blog with them - submit your articles to places like ideamarketers.com , goarticles.com and ezinearticles.com ...

Affiliate Marketing Blog - is it Worth it?

Is it worth it to spend some time to learn a technique that could pay out for months and years down the road...

Is it worth the extra effort it takes for those of us that have never gone much farther than to send emails or chat on facebook to be stretched into setting up an affiliate marketing blog that has the possibility of creating a mini gold mine ( and for some, not so mini!)

Ask Amy Bass ...she will quickly tell you that it is worth it all!!

Or Jennifer Ledbetter (also known as potpiegirl) she is another one that has not only mastered the art of creating not only one affiliate marketing blog but many blogs , along with Squidoo sites .... and she now teaches others how to do the same as does Amy Bass as well...

Amy has a program designed for the beginner blogger and Jennifer's is more for the experienced blogger and Squidooer... but the beautiful thing is that they both focus on using free sites and tools to make money with affiliate marketing blogs.

Amy's story is beautiful in the fact that she got to help her 50 year old mother, who had never done more then send an email - get started with affiliate marketing blogging .... You can actually hear her Mom's own story HERE...

Creating an Affiliate Marketing Blog is not for everyone!

Who Affiliate Marketing and Blogging Is NOT For!

• If you hate to learn or try new techniques...You don't need this!


• If you are expecting to get rich overnight...Please save your money!


• If you are lazy...This isn't for you!
  

The Niche Blogger Course is for the beginner, maybe a stay at home mom or an unemployed average Joe who is struggling to make ends meet.

The One Week Marketing Action Plan is perfect for those who have:

• Tried some article marketing, or



• Made some Squidoo lenses, and maybe



• Learned a little about keywords, and probably have



• Tried other free methods to make money online but can't seem to put it all together.
  

I know from personal, first-hand experience, that there is this place of complete frustration many of us come to when learning about affiliate marketing.

We are bombarded with information on SO many topics and methods to make money online. We try some of this and some of that, but nothing is "coming together".

Our eyes start to cross, our heads start to spin...and we feel like we are about to EXPLODE from frustration. We feel like we have run into a brick wall that there is NO WAY to get through.

It is at this exact point that you either get an effective and easy-to-follow action plan to create your very own affiliate marketing blog campaigns that work - or you quit....