Does Affiliate Marketing Really Require A Website?

I hear a lot of internet marketers claim doing business in the World Wide Web requires ones own web site, suggesting that your own website is your online headquarters. Its your very own digital store where you could lead or send prospects / potential customers and where you offer the products you have for sale.

I agree that having your own web site can help you dramatically in your endeavor to achieve online success, but a website is not the end all and be all of internet salesmanship, especially when talking about affiliate program marketing. You certainly could make a living online as an affiliate even if you do not have the benefit of your own website!

So it is possible to earn a living online and never have your own web site!? How is this possible and more importantly how can this be done? Read on, my new friend, as we discuss alternative strategies that will allows you to make the most out of your affiliate marketing campaigns without having your own webpage on the net.

Affiliate marketing is a program whereby the affiliate can earn some generous commissions for every successful sale they manage to refer to the affiliate merchant. The affiliates task is merely to pre-sell the affiliate merchants goods. The sales page, the payment processing, the digital delivery, and post sales services shall be the responsibilities of the affiliate merchant. This leaves you free to concentrate on affiliate program promotions.

As an affiliate you have to refer or direct people to the affiliate merchants sales page using your affiliate program link. Note: Your affiliate links is extremely important as they identify you instead of someone else plus your affiliate link is how the affiliate program owners know who to pay. They will tell the system that a visitor was actually referred by you the affiliate.

Without a web site to promote or marketing the affiliate programs you belong to you will need other channels to get the word out. This can be done through the following techniques:

Use Article Marketing

We all know how powerful affiliate marketing can be in link building campaigns. But instead of providing for links to your own website, you could provide your affiliate links instead. Article directories allow you a resource box per submission, where you could tell your readers about yourself as well as leave a link of your choice. Now, you have to remember that some article directories do not allow affiliate links in the bodies of the articles themselves, but affiliate links are perfectly allowed in the resource box. Great places to start your article marketing campaign are www.ezinearticles.com , www.goarticles.com and www.isnare.com.

Use Forum Marketing

Online communities, or forums, are likewise great channels where you could promote your affiliate links. Membership in pHp 2.0 based forums gives you a signature box where you could advertise your links. Use this to advertise your affiliate links. For every post you will make, your signature box would appear. Post a thousand messages, and youll have a thousand pages advertising your affiliate links! Want to know the forums which are relevant to the subject serviced by the affiliate products youre promoting? Use the tool at www.link-advantage.com/search to find the appropriate online community.

Advertise in eZines

This may cost you some cash, as many eZines charge for advertising space. Nonetheless, you could expose your affiliate links to highly targeted prospects using this approach. Imagine if the eZine has a list of 10,000 people. Youd immediately be able to reach 10,000 quality leads with one advertisement. Again, you dont need a website. Simply use your affiliate link in your ads.

The absence of your own website is never a bar to online success. Most of the strategies we have discussed here can be accomplished without spending a single cent. If you do not have the financial resources to register a domain or to subscribe to a web hosting service, you could still achieve success with affiliate marketing. Joining an affiliate program is free. Promoting your affiliate links can likewise be availed of without any charges. Good luck!

James Mann is a teacher and has been for more than 20 years. James has retired from the brick and mortar world of teaching and moved online where he spends his days helping others learn how to earn a living online.

Affiliate Marketing Campaign

Some business owners opt to start an affiliate marketing campaign as part of their overall marketing strategy. In most cases the affiliate marketing campaign is only a small portion of the overall marketing strategy but there are some business owners who opt to rely exclusively on this type of marketing. The main purpose of doing this is to save money while still achieving valuable advertising. However, once a business becomes more successful they should consider being more proactive and combining affiliate marketing with other types of Internet marketing such as placing banner ads and orchestrating an email marketing campaign. This article will take a look at what affiliate marketing is and will provide insight into why this is popular and how it can be used effectively.

An affiliate marketing campaign is essentially a situation where other website owners place ads for your business on their websites. These website owners are known as affiliates. It is important to understand how this type of marketing works. In general the affiliates are given code for your banner ad to place on their website and given the freedom to promote their own website as they see fit. In promoting their website they are also attracting attention to your website because of the banner ad directing visitors to your own website.

One of the most appealing elements of affiliate marketing is the affiliate is only compensated when he produces a desired result. This means the business owner is not obligated to pay the affiliate unless the affiliate is successful. Success may be defined as generating traffic to the website, resulting in a sale or even resulting in the Internet user registering on your website or filling out a survey. The compensation for affiliates is generally based on cost per click, cost per lead or cost per sale. Cost per click and cost per lead are usually paid in terms of a flat fee which is awarded to the affiliate each time an Internet user either simply clicks through the banner ad on his website or performs a specific action after clicking through the ad. Cost per sale may result in the affiliate being awarded a flat fee or a percentage of the sale depending on the agreement between the business owner and the affiliate.

The most effective use of affiliate marketing is to actively seek out affiliates with a proven track record of promoting the businesses which they support. Most affiliate programs are open to anyone with a website and it is not necessarily damaging to allow those who are not particularly knowledgeable about marketing to run your banner ad but it is far more worthwhile to seek out affiliates who are quite adept and generating website traffic to their own website. This is important because the more visitors they receive each month the more likely your website it to receive interest from visitors who click on the affiliates banner ad.

Another aspect of affiliate marketing which can contribute to success or failure is the design of your banner ads. It is important to remember affiliate marketing is viewed the same way other types of marketing are viewed and care should be taken to create banner ads which will be appealing to your target audience. This means everything from the colors of your ad to the size and style of the font should be carefully considered to create an appealing advertisement.

Strive Mazunga is a webmaster and administrator of Internet Marketing Harbour at http://www.imharbour.com Visit us for more information at IM Harbour!.