Gadooney.com

We left off last time after reviewing the three main ways to make money as an affiliate: pay-per-click (PPC), traditional affiliate programs, and quotes and leads. While there’s no rule that says you have to pick one model (in fact, many of your sites will probably be a hybrid mix), for the sake of simplicity we’re just going to focus on choosing one to get started with. I’m also going to pull back a bit and touch on the thought process that should be running through your mind as you try to decide not only what model to use, but what subject your first site is going to tackle.
I’ll throw out a few musings here which should be rolling through your head, then clarify them a bit:

• Focus on what you know and enjoy.
• Be honest with yourself as far as the time available to work on your site.
• Be realistic about your goals.
• Have no monetary expectations whatsoever for the first few months.
• Be focused.
• Try new things and don’t be afraid to fail miserably.

Yeah, I know, very general and broad. But now I’ll get into nitty-gritty details, trying to recreate my thought process when launching a new site, with the above as a framework.

Okay, it’s time to get off my ass and whip up some new sites, now that Bill Frist and company bent me over and imploded all of my online gambling affiliate ventures with the UIGEA legislation.

In the past I’d just crank some generic content out and slap some Adsense banners on it, targeting people looking for certain search terms, such as hotels in Phoenix or a divorce lawyer in Boise. I’d poke around a bit and do some research to get a general sense if those terms would pay me a decent amount per click then I’d throw together a site and get generic, not-so-exciting content up that was related to those terms. So I’d build a page for Boise divorce lawyers, then one for Ketchum divorce lawyers, yada yada yada. I’d actually start with major cities and work my way down, hitting every damn major metropolitan area, just grinding out content that was solely designed to get search engine traffic for those terms, which I would make money from if they landed on my page and then clicked through one of the Adsense ads.

But man, I’ve done that before, and it’s hard sledding, despite the fact that it’s a pretty sure way to make money. If you have no interest at all in the subject (and believe me, I don’t), it’s really hard to get excited and motivated about building a site like that. It also takes awhile for any site you build to get fully indexed in Google and other search engines, so there’s a lag time (usually a few months) where you’re working your ass off, churning out boring content, and seeing nothing at all for your labors. You can’t avoid that aspect, as any site you launch you put tons of work into it at the beginning with no return at all, but it’s much harder to do when you have no interest in the content.

So let’s scratch that one off the list. The poker blog was a valuable lesson, as that led me into the online gambling affiliate arena, which I did very well in, and was a good lesson for me, as I had no plans at all to try to turn the poker blog into a tool to make money via affiliate programs. Lo and behold, it turns out that it’s much easier to make money off doing something that you enjoy and love than it is to grind out content for the sake of grinding out content.

Hmm, so what other hobbies or interests do I have that’d make a good affiliate site? Or, more to the point, what interests or hobbies do I have that lend themselves to not only content for a site but also can make me some money, as that’s a big part of all this. Pet rats? Metalcasting? Pirates? Monkeys?

What about launching a site that’s about the whole affiliate business, showing people how to launch their own sites? I’m definitely interested in that stuff, content would be fun to write, and, as much as I hate to admit that I’m good at anything, putting together step-by-step guides for people is pretty much right in my wheelhouse, ala the whole Beginner’s Guide to Casino Bonuses that made me beaucoup bucks. And there’s money to be made in that arena, as I know Web hosting companies offer pretty nice payouts for clients you refer to them, and domain registration, too. Google Adsense ads would also kick in, too, as many of the posts would be filled with search engine friendly content.

It also has legs because it’s similar to the casino bonus stuff as far as it being a win-win situation. I’d walk people through the steps of getting an affiliate site up to make some extra scratch and, at the same time, make some extra scratch myself. It’s always much easier for a project like that to fly than to start a site hawking die cast models or something similar, as the surfer always wonders a bit as to why the site exists, if all you do is refer them on to someone else who sells the actual product, etc.

As an extra bonus, it’s easy to get it up and running and to start up other sites, too. It’s pretty narrowly focused and manageable, leaving time for other stuff. So it’s not like I’m planning on writing a biography for every major league baseball player throughout history or some other project with a huge scope that would leave other time for additional ventures. Since you never know exactly what sites will take off, or which will morph into something else, it’s always good to have as many irons in the fire as possible.

Okay. So I’ll start a site that’s a guide to affiliate marketing in general. I’ve already got hosting set up, so I need a domain name. Let’s call it something stupid like Gadooney.com.  Okay, done. Register the domain name, add it to my hosting package, and let’s rock and roll. That took two minutes. Sweet.

I’ll use WordPress and grab a theme here. It’s infinitely easier to adminster affiliate sites using WordPress instead of doing the HTML by hand and creating graphics and images yourself, and you can pretty much instantly be rolling with a decent looking site. If you’re a Web designer then sure, do your thing, but for the rest of us average monkeys with just a basic working kowledge of HTML, WordPress is an absolute godsend. Using the blog format is also a good idea as it’s conducive towards comments and interactions with users, which will be pretty crucial to the project.

I’m not going to get bogged down with how the site looks, as I can always tweak it later. I’m also going to resist the urge to keep it under wraps until it’s brimming over with complete, comprehensive content. One cool thing about the project is that I can let it unwind in real time, as I learn stuff and pass it along to readers, so I’ll launch it pretty quickly, filling in gaps here and there over time, as well as adding new content daily. That’ll keep my motivation high, as it’s frustrating to put much work into a site with nothing live, no users, no comments, nothing.

All righty then. Done and done. Whee. 

So there’s a little insight into my monkey brain. Remember, this is all about you, though, so don’t feel like just because I veered in one direction that it’s the way to go. Some affiliates make amazing money mass generating sites that are solely designed for PPC traffic. They get off on the idea of bombarding the world with 162,182,192 pages, knowing that if they cast a wide enough net, they’ll catch a few stray clicks, which suddenly add up into serious money when you have tons of sites and pages.

Other people have hobbies that lead them in different directions as well. If you’re a digital camera nut, you’d probably avoid PPC programs like the plague, as your sweet spot is writing reviews and guides to all the new digital camera models, and cashing in big time when someone buys a new digital camera through your link and you get 5-10% commission on their total purchase.

It all depends on your interests, really, and what skills and knowledge you bring to the table. This is getting longish so I’ll shut up for now, leaving you that to mull over, but this is a topic that I’ll hammer on a lot in upcoming posts, so stay tuned.

Good question.

There are basically three major ways that affiliates monetize traffic on their sites. I’ll quickly cover them, then ramble on with a few caveats and disclaimers.

1) Pay-per-click: You’re likely familiar with the Google text ads that you see on sites everywhere. What you may not realize is that the owner of the site that displays them gets paid a certain amount each time those ads are clicked. That’s all it takes to get paid, just a simple click. It doesn’t matter whether or not the surfer who clicked the ad goes on to buy something or not, doesn’t matter how long they stay on the site that is linked to the ad, all that matters is if the link is clicked. This is called a pay-per-click (PPC) model, and while programs other than Google Adsense offer it, the vast majority of affiliates who want to use this type of program use Google Adsense.

2) Traditional affiliate programs: These are programs that pay affiliates either a flat fee or a percentage of the total amount purchased when a surfer clicks through a link to their affiliate program and then buys something. In this model, the surfer must whip out their credit card and buy something. If you get 162,182,192 clicks but no one buys anything, you make absolutely nothing.

3) Leads and quotes: These programs are common in the car buying and online colleges arena, where you typically are paid a flat fee for everyone you refer who fills out a Web survey page to get a car quote, a catalog of college classes, etc. While you don’t get paid for each click, surfers also don’t have to physically buy anything for you to make money.

(You might be wondering why I’m not mentioning the old-fashioned method of selling advertising space on your blog, either through direct contact with potential advertisers or through a program like Text Link Ads. Yes, indeed, that’s another viable way that people make money from websites, but it’s a different beast from affiliate marketing in many ways. it’s also a case of getting the cart before the horse, as you need to build traffic first before you can make any real money using those methods.)So that’s the nuts-and-bolts details, as far as the major ways to make money as an affiliate. The real question, then, is which one is right for you?

Stay tuned for an in-depth look at each of the options above, as far as the thought process you should run through when deciding what type of affiliate model you’d like to target on your site.

One of the common myths that still abounds is that setting up your own Web hosting is difficult, expensive, and requires a ginormous amount of technical know-how. The reality is that getting your own Web host is simple, cheap, and requires only the technical know-how of clicking a mouse.

Technically speaking, you can actually make money via affiliate marketing with just a free Blogger account, so you don’t even have to pony up cash for a hosting package. I highly recommend that you don’t go the free route, though, as hosting is dirt cheap and it’ll open up many nice options for you that you won’t have with a free service like Blogger.

I recommend keeping it simple when you get a hosting package, and to not get bogged down in details. Hosting is becoming more and more commoditized as time goes by, and these days there’s very little difference in most packages, and they’re generally in the same ballpark price range. Don’t worry about how many gigs of traffic you get and how many users that is and how much storage you have, etc. Pretty much any entry-level package you get will be just fine your needs when starting out and you can always upgrade your package later if you need to.

Here are a few things to look for when selecting a Web host:1) Unlimited domains: Most hosts offer you the ability to put an unlimited number of domains on your hosting account at no extra charge. This is a good thing, as you’ll be creating a number of sites over time and you want to have room to add them to your hosting package at no extra cost. It’s fine if they’re just name-based domains and not unlimited domains with a unique IP address.

2) Support for WordPress and mySQL: I’ll touch on this more later, but the best way to get started with affiliate marketing is to use the WordPress blogging software as a content management system (CMS). When I say “support for WordPress” I basically mean that it’s a nice bonus if you can find a host like HostGator that offers an add-on package that makes implementing WordPress very simple. You can install WordPress on just about any hosting package that offers you mySQL databases, but some hosts make it very easy to install.As far as mySQL databases, look for a host that provides you with unlimited ones, and preferably one that allows you to create the databases yourself. This is pretty common and isn’t hard to find. If they insist on creating the databases on their end, that’s cool and not a deal-breaker, it just adds an element of complexity as far as contacting customer support and waiting for them to create the database. WordPress requires a mySQL database to work, so that’s why it’s listed here as something to look for.

3) Good customer service: Pretty self-explanatory, but you don’t want to be waiting for days to get a domain added to your hosting account.

4) Shared hosting is fine. When you have an empire of affiliate sites and ten billion unique users each day, then yeah, you need to go the dedicated server route. But for most of us normal affiliates, shared hosting is perfectly fine.

And that’s pretty much it. For comparison sakes, my hosting package at the moment is for 25 gigs of data transfer, 100000 MB of storage, and unlimited domains and mySQL databases, for $12/month. Anything in that ballpark is more than enough to serve your needs.

Below are some hosts that offer good entry-level packages that I’ve used in the past and have had good experiences with, that offer all of the above goodies:

HostGator

AN Hosting

1&1

GoDaddy.com

HostRocket.Com

One thing to keep in mind about affiliate marketing is one simple yet often overlooked thing: you’re an affiliate marketer, nothing more, nothing less.

You’re not a professional Web designer. Your success doesn’t depend on that, so don’t get hung up on it yourself.

You’re not an entrepreneurial genius, with your ultimate success hinging on coming up with the next killer app or the next hot website that everone flocks to. Don’t paralyze yourself into inaction by waiting for genius to strike.

You’re not a programmer. You probably don’t have the money at this point to hire a programmer. Focus on sites that don’t involve any programming.

Your goal as an affiliate marketer is to connect people who have questions with answers. When someone types “patio furniture” into Google, they’re looking for answers (Where can I buy patio furniture online? Where can I see different types of patio furniture? Are there reviews of different patio sets online?). If they land on your page about patio furniture, you’ve given them an answer. That’s all your trying to do and that’s what your success hinges on. Do it consistently and do it well and you will make many grandusands of American dollars. Or at least many hundreds of dollars. Or, you know, some dollars.
Everything else is pretty much irrelevant. So don’t get hung up on the extraneous stuff and make your job harder than it has to be. Some of the most successful affiliate sites are some of the ugliest you’ve ever seen. Keep it simple and always lift with your knees.

The singlest biggest obstacle when you get started with affiliate marketing is not letting it all overwhelm you, as far as feeling like there are 192,102 things you don’t know, and only a few that you do. It’s easy to feel like you’re all alone, floating in an enormous sea, and that you don’t even know what direction to start paddling in.

That’s natural. Because, guess what? You are alone in an enormous sea, with no idea which way to paddle.

The good news is that it’s all pretty simple stuff to figure out, even if you’re starting from scratch. Sure, you’ll muck up things here and there, and will waste much time on the silliest of things that will take you 0.2 seconds to do later on down the road, but that’s all very natural.

If you can write reasonably well, you can make money in affiliate marketing. It really is just that easy. Programs like Google Adsense let you write about any topic under the sun (that people are searching for in search engines) and offer a way to monetize your words.

So don’t let the things you don’t know overwhelm you. We’ll walk you through all of the steps, with the goal of making it as uncomplicated as possible.

Type-in traffic is when a visitor to a website types in the URL directly into their browser instead of using a search engine. An example would be someone interested in NASCAR who types in “nascar.com”, working under the assumption that typing that in will get them where they want to go, without having to bother with searching via a search engine.

The obvious advantage to type-in traffic is that you don’t have to do a thing to get it, other than to be lucky enough to own a domain that gets type-in traffic. You get the best of both worlds, as you can compete for search engine traffic along with other sites but have the extra benefit of having some guaranteed traffic locked in from type-in traffic.

A domain that is conducive to getting type-in traffic (something like sex.com, cars.com, etc.) is commonly called a “good” type-in domain.

Once you’ve settled on a domain name, registering it is pretty simple. Nearly all Web hosts offering domain name registration services, too, but many people recommend that you use a different company to register and manage domain names, one that ism’t the company you use for Web hosting. The reason is that if you ever change Web hosts and have issues with that, it’s much easier to resolve if you use a separate company for managing your domain names.

You should expect to pay between $5-$10/year for registering a domain name. Some domain name registrars offer you a discount if you pay for more than 2 years upfront, but I’d recommend against that. You’ll likely find yourself registering more than a few domain names, and sometimes projects don’t pan out and you never even get around to utilizing the name to begin with, so I find it’s better off to stick with registering the name for 1-2 years.

Domain name registrars don’t do much heavy lifting so there’s not much to shopping for a good one. If you get with a large, reputable company, you should be fine. All you’re really using the service for is to reserve the name, and then you’ll log into the control panel section you get access to so that you can renew domains in the future and to set your nameserver information, once you have a Web host lined up. Don’t forget the nameserver part, especially if you use separate companies for Web hosting and for registering domain names, as your site won’t display unless the nameserver info is pointing in the right direction.

Some people go nuts and also reserve the .net, .info, .biz versions of their domain names, but there’s really no point. The reality is that your site isn’t going to be the next Amazon so there’s no need to fear that someone will see how popular your site is and swoop in and steal the .biz version of it and try to ride on the coattails of your success. Most affiliates churn through tons of domains in their lifetimes so all yo really need is the .com version of your domain.

Below are some domain name registrars I’ve used which I’d recommend:

GoDaddy.com

HostGator

1&1

We all like to make money, right? And the more money, the better. So if your job involves networking and you haven’t gotten your Cisco certifications yet, you really need to check this out. You can get most of your certifications within two weeks, too, if you do the boot camps, so there’s no reason to drag your feet saying that you dont’ have time for it, you’re busy, yada yada yada. Within a month after completing a CCNP boot camp I was promoted at work and got a 10% raise. And the program I did couldn’t have been easier, as I just paid one price and it included everything (like those vacations to the Bahamas where you pay upfront and never have to pay for meals or drinks or anything) so I didn’t have to worry about booking a hotel or finding a flight or anything. And don’t think that just because you’re knocking out the work in two weeks that they rush you through it and don’t teach you anything, as the better programs have professional instructors that make sure you learn everything you need to know. You put in all the hours and all the time in practice labs, it’s just really intensive and crammed into two weeks. Believe me, I wish I had done it years ago, as I kept putting it off and putting it off but it really was one of the best things I did for my career and paid for itself in just a few months with the raise I got.

Note: This is an example of bad affiliate content, in case you come across it in the archives and wonder what the heck this is.

CCNP boot camps are designed to provide you with your Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification as quickly as possible, with the least amount of disruption to your life. No more night classes that drag on for months or endless weekends spent in class or practice lab when you can quickly knock out your certification and be done with it.

Many CCNP boot camps offer all-inclusive packages, so that you simply pay one price and all of your expenses (airfare, meals, classes, loding, everything) are taken care of. The better boot camp programs offer a variety of locations around the country and have expert instructors on staff, ensuring that you not only get your certification quickly but that you learn everything you need to know.

Most CCNP boot camps are offered as 14 day programs, although there are some 11 day programs as well as longer 24 day boot camps that allow you to get additional certification in CCNA/CCDA/CCDP. Prices do vary from program to program, so be sure to shop around. You should also look for programs with many references and testimonials on their Web sites, as that’s usually a good sign of a quality CCNP boot camp.

Note: This is a sample page illustrating how to write good affiliate content, if you happen upon it in the archives and wonder what the heck this is all about.

Here’s a dirty little secret. In this day and age, if you’re starting a website for affiliate purposes the domain name you pick is nearly meaningless. Yes, in some very rare cases you can do much research and unearth a peach of a domain name, but it’s almost always wasted time.

A “perfect” domain name would be one that has your key topic in it (or, in affiliate marketing parlance, your “targeted keyword”), as well as one that gets type-in traffic and is memorable. So let’s say you wanted to promote affiliate programs for cigars, and somehow, in a magical world, no one had registered cigar.com. That’s a perfect domain name for you, as it has your targeted keyword plus people simply type in “cigar.com” into a search engine if they’re looking for a cigar but have no idea who sells them online, just like horny monkeys type in “sex.com” for the same reason.

So that’s the theory of the perfect domain name. Now let’s bust it to pieces.

Search engines continue to move away from attaching any value to terms in your actual domain name (such as ranking you higher on search terms for “widgets” if your domain name is “justgreatwidgets.com”), because even a retarded chimp can game that system.

People like to pretend that understanding the inner workings of search engines are some secret, alchemical art, but in many cases it’s common sense. If you rank pages higher if they have the keyword in their domain and suddenly see an onslaught of domains and pages like “http://www.widgets-buy-online-great-super-widget.com/widgets.html”, well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that you should move the other direction, and stop rewarding spammy pages like that.

(Sure, argue with me all you want that Google still gives you a boost if your domain name has your targeted keyword in it, but I’ll bet you a box of doughnuts that over time that will steadily dwindle to nothing, if it isn’t already there.)

As far as great type-in domains and/or memorable ones, well, this one is obvious, as they’re pretty much all taken. The only ones not taken are too obscure to do you any good. Sure, midgetgoatsex.com is still available, but what in the world are you going to do with that? Umm, forget I asked.

People waste far too much time when getting started with affiliate sites searching for that perfect domain name. The reality, too, is that you’ll crank out mnay sites over your affiliate career, and it’s often better to launch new ones as stand-alone domains. If you’re about to start a new site and are struggling for a domain name, don’t sweat it. Just pick something. It matters very, very little.

Gadooney.com is a good example of the above. When faced with possibilities like “makemoneyfromaffiliatemarketing.com” or something equally silly, I couldn’t help but throw up in my mouth a little. So I picked a random nickname for a coworker that developed from Jebus only knows what dumb inside joke we were riffing on at the time. Within ten minutes from the decision to launch this site I had the domain registered, added to my hosting account, and was up and running.

Don’t get bogged down on choosing the “right” domain name. There is no “right” domain name. Grab something and get to work.