My email is bombarded on a daily basis with offers to try this or that scheme to earn money online or work from home. Probably 99% of these schemes will fail or are just a way to get your money and then you never hear from them again. Also, if you’re like me, you don’t want to spend a lot of money on 'start-up stock' of say health products or vitamins to sell via a multi level marketing scheme. Who wants to fill their garage with boxes of items which may never sell? Instead, I'd rather spend my money investing in a strong foundation setting up my own business. Last year I attended a seminar on how to start your own business by earning money on the internet. The advice given was quite informative and helpful but there was a catch. By the end of the seminar, you had to decide whether you wanted to commit your hard-earned money to this company. To some it may not have been a lot of money (around $2500), but to others, this was a month’s wages. I would say over 40% of the 600 attendees signed up that day, however I was not one of them. I took the information I had gathered and thought why can’t I do this myself? Essentially, the company was offering you one of their websites, full 24/7 support and other tools. They were talking about Affiliate Marketing. I had never heard the term before this. Affiliate Marketing is a way for would-be entrepreneurs to earn extra money without the need to physically stock the products being sold. You act as a middle-man or affiliate for one or more merchants and receive commission for sales made through your website. You can select from thousands of online merchants and decide which ones you want to promote. They will pay either a fixed amount or a percentage of proceeds from each customer sale referred by your site. Even if you have no prior experience in sales or website development, you can develop your own site and be up and running in a matter of hours. Advantages of Affiliate Marketing: - Low start-up costs
- Easy to get started
- Loads of free resources available on the internet
- Earn money 24/7
- No need to rent office space, stock goods or employ additional staff
- Your website can sell to customers worldwide To get started, you will need: - Access to a computer!
- A website (this can be free or hosted)
- A domain name
- Website creation software (many website hosts offer free tools)
- Membership to Affiliate Marketing partners After completing your website design you should fine-tune it to attract more visitors and look into SEO (search engine optimization), listing with search engines, creating links, writing articles, etc. Do a Google search for free Affiliate Marketing tools and you will find things such as free rebrandable e-books, reports, articles and even software. Once your website is up and running and you have marketed it effectively to attract visitors to it, you will see the money ticking over, enabling you to save extra cash for that holiday, new car, house or ….? The sky's the limit! Linda Wong is relatively new to affiliate marketing. In creating this article and her website, she has done extensive research and found invaluable tools and free resources (available at http://www.OzAffiliateMarketing.com). |
