Category Archives: Affiliates

Amazon.com Online Shopping for Electronics Apparel Computers Books DVDs more

How to Build a Business Empire by Selling on Amazon

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Amazon.com Online Shopping for Electronics Apparel Computers Books DVDs more

Are you thinking of selling something online but don’t know where to start?

Answer this first: if you go online shopping, what is the first site you type into the address bar?

If not the first, Amazon is probably one of the top ten sites you go into.

In fact, according to a survey conducted by PowerReviews, Amazon surpasses Google as the beginning of their shopping journey.

Amazon is now the biggest online retailer and has become one of the largest search engines as well. And if someone does search a product using Google, it’s likely that Amazon is still the number one result.

Now, if you’re looking to do some side hustle online selling could be perfect for you. One of your options is to create your e-commerce site. However, this could take you a few weeks to months to finally launch. Not to mention the amount of money you will have to shell out for the domain, hosting, themes, and other expenses regarding having a new website up.

While it’s impressive that you can have a website you can call your own, there are better ways to do this that’s not costly and easy to set up.

And that’s through selling on Amazon.

Still interested in pursuing this new path? If yes, here are the things you’ll need to kickstart your Amazon business.

Choose a selling plan

Amazon offers two plans: Individual and professional. The individual plan allows you to sell 40 items or less and charges only $0.99 per sale while the professional one will enable you to sell more than 40 items but costs $39.99 per month. Both can incur other selling fees as well.

If you’re new to this, it’s probably best to pick the individual plan at first and decide whether you’re ready to the next level.

Pick your product well

The type of product you’ll choose will determine if you will be successful in this venture.

First, search for a product you’re looking to sell.

Is someone already selling it?

If no one is selling it yet, do you think people will buy it?

There’s a ton of things you’ll have to think long and hard to come to a final decision.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to choosing the perfect items for your store.

Price it competitively

When pricing your items, you need to search for competitors who currently have your products on sale. Pricing is really up to you. However, there are risks involved.

If you want to price it higher than others, make sure you have an edge against them. But if you don’t have anything up your sleeves, try to price it slightly lower than your competitors.

Handle inventory and shipping

Since you are reselling items, you’ll need to have an inventory. It could be your room or an empty basement.

Fret not. If you don’t have space at home and wants to be in this business, make sure to check out Fulfillment by Amazon.

Final thoughts

Selling your very first item could be a truly memorable experience. This could get you going and inspire you to continue and finally expand. If you need more information on starting your Amazon journey, check out this guide from Shopify.

Scaling your brand could be a matter of finding the right niche and knowing how to market correctly. It will take time, but as long as you stick with it, you’ll soon achieve significant growth. Good luck on your new journey!

Originally posted on November 15, 2017 @ 10:06 pm

5 Reasons You Are Not Earning Squat with Your Affiliate Marketing

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Image Source: Pixabay

Image Source: Pixabay

It is true – affiliate marketing is hard. Every phase of setting up a highly successful website, from picking a domain name to crafting content that converts, takes an incredible amount of effort and extensive research. Even if you manage to pull it off with a previous site once, it does not mean you can easily replicate the same results with another. This proves how difficult it is to compete in an ever-changing landscape that is online marketing.

This is why you need to have an adaptive strategy and be ready to employ optimizations – be it in the form of developing new strategies or correcting your current mistakes. If you are struggling to profit from your affiliate site, then you could be guilty of committing the following:

1. Insufficient Keyword Research

Choosing the wrong keywords or not researching well enough is one of the biggest mistakes that can jeopardize the profitability of your site before you even begin. While the biggest competitors may have access to the financial resources needed for the most saturated and in-demand keywords, the same cannot be said for startups and SMEs with not-so-deep pockets.

If you consider yourself to be a small-medium competitor in your niche, you need to perform deeper research on low-competition keywords that are still profitable. If you are yet to adopt low-hanging keywords in your strategy, then you need to learn how to with the help of the best keyword research tool in the business – SEMrush.

SEMrush

2. No Competitor Research and Analysis

Another critical aspect of online marketing is learning how your top competitors manage to stay ahead everyone else. This is why, as an affiliate marketer, you need to acquire the ability to find, observe, and gauge your competitors. Figure out the formula for their best content, study their keyword targeting and do everything you can to extract whatever tactic that you can duplicate or refine. You can use the tools featured here to help you master the art of competitor research and analysis.

NeilPatel

3. Content for the Purpose of Making a Sale

Online marketing has evolved to a point where you need to be consumer-centric to be relevant. Keep in mind that people do not use the internet to look for products, they look for answers and will gravitate to the resource that will give them the fastest and most convenient solutions. This is how the online audience determines the value of a website.

Furthermore, the online audience can quickly detect when things become too salesy, which is why focusing too much on the good side of a product for the sake of closing sales is a grave mistake. As affiliate marketers, remember that you need to offer legitimate solutions to establish yourself as a credible authority in your niche. Present the product from all angles and don’t be afraid to expose some of its weaknesses. Take this review of Bluehost at Colorlib for example.

colorlib

4. Failure to Establish Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the strongest and most effective communication channels between any brand and their target audience. It establishes a much closer connection that fosters trust and helps keep your name in your readers’ minds. Moreover, if you are still not paying attention to your mailing list, then you are missing out on a lot.

Keep in mind that trust fuels every sale that was ever made online. However, trust takes the time to build. It may also take a long time to get your leads into a buying mode, so you should develop a way to maintain awareness of your site, preferably by using emails as the primary medium. You can read this post for more information.

Marketing Land

5. Look at Your Readers as People

In the end, it is all about building rapport with your target audience. Appeal to them not as a seller, but as a genuine person who can understand and relate to their problems. At the same time, recommend courses of action and offer some free tips to gain their trust. You can do this by focusing on writing highly informative content and communicating with them consistently (through emails or social media updates).

Additionally, you should also aim to build your network as a professional marketer in your particular industry. Remember that relationship building not only works between you and your potential customers. It also works with you and potential partners, bloggers, thought leaders, and industry experts that can help you further your online endeavors. You can take a cue from this post to learn more.

clickbank

Conclusion

Earning with an affiliate website takes a tremendous amount of effort. It also requires persistence and the willingness to try new things and embrace changes that will optimize your site for the better. Hopefully, knowing your keywords, tracking your competitors, building your mailing list, and improving your content will get you the results you need. Just remember that there are no finish lines in business – there will always be new things to learn and improvements to make.

Originally posted on June 2, 2016 @ 9:26 pm

Writing Articles for a Living

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People are under the belief that being self-employed is a great way to make a living. There are many ways to make a living as a self-employed person but if you expect it to be easy, you are mistaken. Any job takes work and when you are self-employed you must be strict with yourself. You are your own boss and you will have to be able to get motivated every day to do your job.

Some people write articles for websites. Some make a good living at this while others struggle. The same is true of people who do website host review for a living. They must push themselves every day to get up and plan a long day. It is true you can set your own hours but it you want to make a living at it you are going to have to put in long hours. This is especially true when you are starting out. When you write blogs in the beginning you will have problems finding steady work. As you get better you will get more work.

You may have to settle for lower pay when you first start writing for someone. People who do cheap web hosting have the same problem. Once they get a name for themselves they will be able to charge more for their hosting. The same is true of writers. They must start off with lower pay and build a good reputation.

Originally posted on August 13, 2011 @ 12:42 pm

Learning about Affiliate Marketing

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There is one thing that I haven’t spent much time doing during my career as a blogger and that is learning about affiliate marketing. It seems like it is a whole strange world off on its own, with different rules, and business ethics. It looks like it can be very hard to compete and really make a living in the industry, with so many of the learned players gobbling up as much money as they can as quickly as they can.

I recently ran across a forum where many of the members are making four figures a day in their various making money online endeavours, and I must say, it is very intimidating.

Have you tried affiliate marketing, and were you, in your own mind, successful? Let me know in the comments below.

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Originally posted on May 7, 2011 @ 7:02 pm

Designing your way to winning graphics

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True multimedia connoisseurs are always on the lookout for events which will trigger their creative selves. Graphic artists, for e.g. are always hunting for contests based on graphic designing – logos, banners, stand alone illustrations or larger than life masterpieces, it’s an exciting world out there. Most of the graphic design contest events (about 80%) are conducted online – through related websites & blogs. It is very important to keep a tab of the dates (final date of submission, etc.). Also verify the genuine nature of the organizer of this graphic design contest – many are plain hoaxes. Do not forget to check whether you fit into the eligibility criteria of the contest – it will be a pity if you discover you are not eligible after you spend many hours & much more neurons over the masterpiece.

Get details about the specifications of the artwork. Many of the contests will be a part of some or the other advertising or promoting campaign for an upcoming venture, product or a social cause. Get information about the size, orientation (landscape or portrait) and the resolution of the graphic that is required. Many contests will restrict you to particular software or a group of software that can be used for developing the graphic while there are many who won’t care where the graphic comes from.

Check the output format desired & it’s parameters. While sending the raw file for verification, barcode it (see the available tutorials for your designing software) before you release it to somebody. This will help protect the originality of your artwork.

Originally posted on May 15, 2011 @ 3:47 am