I got an e-mail from a blog reader recently. He really wanted to get some advice on getting a start in affiliate marketing. Like many people who are strongly interested in giving things a go, he’s been having real difficulty working out just what you have to do to get that first precarious toe hold on the affiliate marketing ladder.

I replied to his initial e-mail and asked for more information on what he was trying to achieve and asked if I could publish my reply to help other newbie affiliate marketers.

Here’s what Mark wanted to know: -

Well I have often wondered whether it still is possible to do ok in this field, people say so many different things it’s hard to know what to do, but deep down Im dying to give it a go and see what happens.

I suppose in way it’s not knowing which markets to aim for which are saturated etc. I think I might feel a bit silly If I put a site up and it’s a dud but that’s all part of the process I know. It’s one of things you tend to think I wonder if and that’s it you do no more.

Skills well Im not to bad at writing but not great I know a small amount about SEO but never touched ppc, I have bought a program for building web sites and it’s sat on my hard drive for quite some time now X-site pro you may of heard of it.

What I need to learn is how and where to find markets that is where I struggle, Thinking about it once you do get going it probably does get easier. As you say you think live and breathe it I would love to be that connected with it. Once your in that frame of mind things seem more clear. My mind works like a flip-flop sometimes that’s a electronic switch so you know,it goes yes no yes no.

I just want for once in my life for something to happen, me be in control and it work me and jobs just don’t seem to work. Hope I haven’t waffled to much and thanks for reading this.

Mark.

Dear Mark,

You are facing what is probably the biggest barrier to entry in this area of marketing, so you’re not alone!

It is still possible for newbies to enter and do well in this field. However, it is not the easy money that many of those e-books suffering from excessive punctuation (!!!!! $$$$$$) claim. The problem with learning about affiliate marketing is that you do have to rely on a lot of information that’s only other people’s own opinion. This means there conflicting information to sift through. The reasons for this are varied. What one person can make work as an affiliate does not necessarily translate to everyone giving things a go. People have their own areas of specialism which they have to identify and develop on their own. Nobody can do this for you. Also, those who feel they have a real winning formula on their hands are hardly going to tell the world how they do things. The best you usually see are hints and vague generalisations. This makes it extremely confusing to try and get your head around how to get into this field.

So How Do You Pass This Affiliate Rite Of Passage And Get Started?

The first thing you have to do is grab that switch in your head and jam it on “Yes”. If you don’t give it a go, you’ll never know if you missed out on what I believe to be the best career in the known universe.

You know you want to give it a go, and you’ve obviously done a bit of background research. So what now?

You need a site idea / market.

For a first site, I really do recommend keeping things small. Target a small non competitive area, or even a single product. Too many would-be affiliates try to create sites such as a shopping directory, online casino, or broadband comparison site as a first project. These are sectors I wouldn’t recommend anyone rush into. They are hugely competitive and it would take mountains of work and expertise to break into these areas effectively. It’s also important that you are actually personally interested in what you’re featuring on a first site. Ignore these two key bits of advice and you will be a lot more likely lose interest and get disheartened!

I always target smaller niches rather than big competitive sectors. My entire business is based on this.

Locate Your Niche
Sit down with a notepad and write down the kind of things you are likely to buy (or wish you could!) based on your own interests. Then hone your research by thinking about niches within your area of interest.

For example; lets say for the sake of argument you are interested in promoting car stereos. Trying to create a site covering every different type of car stereo or stereo accessory would be a mammoth task. Instead, target a smaller area of the sector where you won’t be locking SEO horns with the big guns.

Refine Your Niche
So, lets try to find a non-competitive niche which will still be profitable. Your first stop should be to check out how potential buyers behave in this sector. So lets head on over to the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool and check out what areas within the car stereo sector might be interesting.

Here’s what a search for “Car Stereo” reveals: -

http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?term=car%20stereo&mkt=uk&lang=en_GB

Look for search terms that are talking about specific product groups rather than general terms such as “find cheapest car stereo uk”.

Scanning this list, the following areas jump out at me:

Bluetooth car stereos
Ipod car stereos (you’d need to be VERY careful when registering a domain)
Mp3 player car stereos

These kind of areas would be very manageable for a first site, and have reasonable search volumes.

OK, so for the sake of argument… we have decided on Bluetooth car stereos. What now?

My next step would be to see if the area I’d identified was likely to make me any money.
So lets head on over to one of the networks offering merchant performance data and see how the car stereo merchants perform.

Edworthys http://www.edworthys.co.uk is on Affiliate Window http://www.affiliatewindow.co.uk. Currently, this programme offers 5% commission and is showing an average earnings per click of 13p. The average conversion rate is 1.57%

This means that for every hundred clicks you send this merchant, you’ll see around one and a half sales, and will earn around £13.00

When looking at performance data like this, bear in mind it may include traffic from very generalised sources. People searching on more general terms may be at the start of the research process and may not know exactly what they want to buy. Someone looking for a “Bluetooth car stereo” knows exactly what they want. This means you may see earnings per click and conversion rates higher than those suggested by the performance data because the traffic you are sending is more targeted and is therefore likely to have a higher conversion rate.

In this particular case, I might be a little concerned by the 20% reversal rate this programme seems to have. I imagine the car stereo industry probably has a fairly high rate of attempted fraud though. This kind of thing shouldn’t necessarily put you off, but you do have to take possible high reversals into account when deciding what industries you are looking to target.

Buy a domain

OK, lets head on to ye olde domain name purveyor and see what they can offer us. If you can get an exact keyword for a domain, so much the better. This will help your SEO efforts later on.

Good news! Bluetoothcarstereo.co.uk is available, as is Bluetoothcarstereos.co.uk I’d go for the plural myself, as in my experience people search for them far more frequently. If the .co.uk hadn’t been available I’d have looked at other extensions, and then looked for Bluetooth-car-stereos.co.uk or mybluetoothcarstereos.co.uk and so on.

Right. You’ve got the idea and now the domain. What next?

Content

I always plan out the content of a site before I start it. Think about the kind of information people will be looking for in relation to this product. At the very least, have some kind of buyers guide. Find out what the desirable features of the product is and highlight them in an article or articles. Create product reviews for all the stereos and stereo brands you want to feature. Give each one its own page. If you can write your own original product descriptions then so much the better.

Then…

It’s SEO time, but that article is going to be huge, and I haven’t finished it yet!