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With the way, the internet is now, selling products online for companies can be done in several ways.
This is the ultimate form of affiliate marketing and if done correctly can make you money every single month in your bank account.
But first, if you are new to affiliate marketing or marketing online, you will need to consider some things first.
Where Will You Get Traffic?
The number one thing for you to consider is traffic. Where and how will you get traffic to your offers? Without traffic, everything else will fail.
So, you need to consider how you will get this traffic. Will you start a blog and get traffic from search engines or will you use something like paid traffic?
Yes, there is free and paid traffic. But, free traffic is really not totally free because there is usually an investment of time involved with writing content.
Take time right now and think of the ways you will get traffic.
Starting A Blog
One great way to get traffic is by building a blog. Pick something you are passionate about and then you will need content.
Good quality content is what makes the internet work the way it does. Without it, the internet would not be the same.
It’s easy today to start a blog with a content management system like WordPress. All you need to do is pick a theme and then install it on a web host and you are half of the way there.
But, as I said you will need content and a good amount of it.
So, if you cannot write, then you will need to hire someone to write for you. And, there are many places you can find writers. But one word of caution here. You will want to pick a good writer and they may not come cheap. But, good content that engages readers can make all the difference to your blog.
Think of it this way. Have you ever searched Google and clicked on a result and read a really crappy article? Sure you did. And then what did you do? You clicked the back button as fast as you could to get away from that website.
You see, there is a huge difference with good quality content that is written by someone who knows the subject then by someone who just put together an article because they had to.
People can really tell the difference if you’ve spent a lot of time on an article or not. And so can Google.
So, make sure you either learn how to write properly or hire a good writer. Because remember, it will be your content that will provoke people to take action.
So how do you learn to write good quality content?
Well, let’s consider two people from the internet. One is John Chow and the other is Neil Patel.
First, Neil Patel is one of the foremost SEO experts in the world and do you know how he got that way? It was by writing quality content on his blog daily.
Neil now has writers but when he started he didn’t. So this meant he has to write every single day and churn out quality articles.
You can see Neils guide to content marketing, which is a really good resource for learning content marketing.
Neil covers just about everything you need to know to produce good high-quality content.
Another great resource to learn about content is from John Chow. John has been blogging for the last 15 years now and produces content for his blog daily.
The great thing about John is he will also teach you how to make money by selling products online for companies.
He does this by attracting traffic to his blog from search engines and then he offers a free Ebook you can download and learn more about making money online.
Another awesome resource to learn more is the content marketing institute.
CMI, features all kinds of articles by people like Neil Patel to get you started and more.
The Content Takeaway
Yes, content is that important to any internet marketing strategy, especially if you have a blog.
Content allows you to become the expert in searchers eyes.
Also, the one thing that stops many people in their tracks is giving up when it comes to content. People usually do not see an ROI right away from content marketing so they give up after a month or so.
The key is to stick through the times when you are getting no traffic and keep adding more quality articles. If you stick with it it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to start to see results.
But, once you do see results it will all be worth it and large amounts of traffic will start to roll into your blog.
All those people you watch on Youtube and read their blogs, think about it. Content is exactly what they are doing.
Selling Products For Companies Is Also Affiliate Marketing
If you are going to start selling products online, you are doing affiliate marketing. So what you want to do is start learning about affiliate marketing.
There are many places online to learn affiliate marketing but we suggest you only pick one place or program and stick with it.
One great resource is James Martell’s affiliate buzz podcast.
James and his wife talk weekly all about affiliate marketing and what you need to do in order to succeed with affiliate marketing.
It’s a great podcast that has been on the air for many years.
James will cover topics such as keyword research, content creation, website creation, online marketing and more.
And, one of the best ways affiliates sell products is through websites they created with really great content.
Now, you can surely use paid ads with affiliate marketing and many people do successfully. But you have to watch the numbers when doing paid ads. Some of the people online claiming they are making money with paid ads are not.
This is why we feel content marketing is truly the best way to go. Sure, it takes much more work and effort but in the long run, it’s so much more worth it.
Using Paid Traffic
Now, if you are not sure about creating content and having a blog, you can also use paid traffic.
But, it needs to be said upfront, you will need enough money to cover your advertising costs and we don’t mean tapping into your daily cash flow.
Make sure you have some money upfront that can be disposed of.
The reason is, when you are first starting out with paid ads there is a learning curve and you will most likely waste money learning how to do things properly.
Using Facebook Ads And A Landing Page
When it comes to paid ads and affiliate marketing, one of the best and easiest ways is to use Facebook ads, a landing page, and capture emails.
Once you capture emails, then you can email to these people on your list over and over or until they get off your list.
Without emails, you are doing nothing more than hit and run marketing and that’s not profitable.
Below, John Chow explains why the hit and run affiliate model is not profitable.
So with this business model, you need mainly four things.
You need:
- To sign up for Facebook Ads
- Landing page software
- an email autoresponder provider
- Content that engages your audience
Do you see number four? This is why we always talk about content. Because, even if you do not have a blog, you still need some form of content to get started. And, once again your content needs to be high quality, interesting and capture your reader’s attention.
Your first step is to sign up for Facebook ads. However, you will need some training on using Facebook ads first.
Head over to Youtube and search for Facebook ads. Or click here.
For number 2, landing page software is needed. Now you have a few choices here. You can use something like Clickfunnels or Lead pages.
There are also other options you can search for in the WordPress marketplace which are cheaper. Point is just get some landing page software.
Next will be signing up for an autoresponder. There are many providers for this.
You can use either Aweber, MailChimp or Getresponse. However, there are others if you do a Google search.
Then, last but not least is you will need content for your email list.
So, what you do to put it all together is you run Facebook ads to your landing page software and capture people’s email with a lead magnet or a really well-written landing page.
But, keep your landing page simple here. You are just trying to get the lead and their email.
It will be the content of your emails that will help to make you money. And again, your content can be simple but it has to be well written.
Your Landing Page
The landing page is very important. It’s what will help you capture leads and emails.
So, you will most likely want to A/B test landing pages. This means having two different variations and serving them both in a split fashion so you can see which one is better.
Conversion XL has a great article for landing pages you can read more about how to structure them, optimize them and more.
The landing page is very very important because you want a high converting landing page, so do not overlook it.
Your emails to your prospects will be about the most important thing you do with this business model. You also have many chances here to make a sale because you can email them many times.
But, the important part is helping people. You see, if all you do is send blatant promotions with every email, you can lose the trust of your prospects.
This is not to say, there are not any successful marketers using nothing but promotions.
But if you send helpful content in the form of videos and articles that actually help people with whatever your niche is, you will have an easier time getting them to sign up for whatever it is you want them to.
So, always be truthful and honest and people will take you seriously.
In summary, we showed you, two simple models, you can use to sell products from companies. Selling these products is really a form of affiliate marketing.
The blogging way or free traffic way does take much longer to get off the ground but it’s also one of the best if you just trust in the system and forget about getting traffic for at least 6 months.
But there is one caveat to the free traffic method. And that is, A search engine can at anytime change they way they look at your site and your traffic can tank at any time.
So, you want to think about that and have some kind of plan in case that happens.
Your plan can be using paid traffic or having a 2nd website as a backup.
We do not recommend going after hundreds of websites in different affiliate niches. However, this model looks to you, it is not the best use of your time.
When trying to update many different websites, you will see you cannot do it all and it can cost a fortune in outsourcing costs.
It’s much better to have only a few websites that you can actually update and give some love to.
So, think about which model you will use. Do you want to blog or use paid traffic strategies?
Using A Landing Page On A Blog
By the way, you can also use a landing page on your blog. This is a great strategy when you have enough traffic.
What you do is grab software like click funnels and you have a link somewhere in your top or side navigation that will lead to your landing page.
At the bottom of your landing page, you can have an option to capture emails.
Consider how Nathaniel of the one more cup of coffee blog does it.
As you can see from the screenshot, he has a very simple navigation leading to his number one recommendation.
After you click on his recommendation you are taken to a landing page where at the bottom you can sign up for his email list.
This is a very brilliant and simple way to do things.
Your visitors cannot get lost easy or fed up with too many options. He keeps his blog simple and clean and this also makes it more trustworthy.
So, his backup plan is his email list where he is collecting emails daily from people interested in an online business.
Sure, if his website takes a hit in Google, you can and will most likely lose business and money but because he built an email list, he can use that as his primary source of income until he figures out what to do about his blog traffic.
