Affiliate Marketing Secrets They DonT Want You To Know About

By: Josh Green

Well, here it is folks, the three secrets every beginner must know before starting his or hers affiliate marketing home business: effort, time and money. Ok, I admit that despite the catchy title, I?m not really teaching you something you don?t already subconsciously know, but believe it or not, these simple rules of thumb are things that many novice webmasters often forget.

Let me elaborate. Despite what you may have heard, starting an affiliate marketing business takes a considerable amount of effort. If you?re not willing to keep up to date with the latest search engine optimization strategies, learn at the very least HTML and CSS basics or take some time and write quality content for your website, well I sincerely think you?re embarking in the wrong field.

Secondly, you will need to invest money if you wish to make money. Affiliate marketing is perhaps the easiest and cheapest home businesses to start, but you will inevitably have to invest in some books to refine your knowledge or pay for a good quality hosting company. Even though there are many free strategies you can use to maximize your site?s traffic, you will also have to invest money on good quality targeted advertising or paid inclusion in quality directories for example if you wish to increase your chances of success.

Finally, when investing your hard earned money in a project like this, you must be patient. The expression "patience is a virtue", is none more applicable then in the case of home internet businesses. Many claim to have made incredible amounts of money within a very short period of time. I don?t mean to sound pessimistic but these are either the luckiest people on the planet or what they are saying is simply not true.

The most important thing to understand about this type of business is that there is no magic recipe for success, because if there was, I wouldn?t be writing this article. I would be to busy rolling in all my money. You may find that some of the strategies you?ve read on the web or in books actually work in getting traffic to your website, but none of your visitors are actually buying anything. There are literally countless factors that come into play that will determine your level of success.

Without getting into the specifics and intricacies of affiliate marketing, I will try to point you in the right direction. First of all, an important aspect of affiliate marketing is the website itself. Like I said earlier, getting a hit on your website is one thing, but actually having that hit translate itself into a sale is a completely different thing. If your website doesn?t offer compelling content and simply relies on nice pictures, catchy slogans or cheesy testimonials, well I wouldn?t expect off the chart results. You might get the odd user to buy your product, but don?t expect him to come back. Just take a look at all the major corporate websites on the net: simple and easy to use design, fresh and informative content. That?s why most people go back to these websites. In layman?s terms, a professional looking website is a must, even if it only looks professional and you ended up designing and writing the content yourself. There are numerous templates or detailed tutorials available on the net that can help you design an efficient and professional looking website. There are also great article search engines where you can find free articles to use on your website.

The last thing I would like to elaborate on and probably the single best advice I can give any new webmaster willing to try his hand in such a competitive business is simply read. The more you learn, the better your chances are. You must study your competitors; understand your targeted audience, read any book that you can get your hands on; visit any website that can help you with your project, etc. Finally, apply the things you?ve learned even if it?s a relatively small venture. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who give up before they even get started, often because they realize that it takes a lot more work than they thought. But if you?re willing to push yourself and learn, you just might hit that home run.