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9Feb/100

Knocking The Mythology Out of Affiliate Network Marketing – Affiliate Programs

Knocking The Mythology Out of Affiliate Network Marketing
Isaiah Hull

If you have worked as an Internet marketer for any amount of time, you have probably heard repeatedly that affiliate network marketing opportunities are the most lucrative, cleanest, quickest way to make an income on the Internet. And if you have actually tried affiliate network marketing for any amount of time, you more than likely ended up broke or never achieved more than modest, fluctuating success. . .like almost everyone else who goes into the field.

So what prevents you and 97% of all other affiliate marketers from succeeding while 3% continually rakes in 70% of the profits Are they smarter than you are Do they work harder and longer than you do Do they know a bunch of obscure secrets that you do not--No, but they do have a totally different mindset.

In order to become successful in affiliate network marketing, you must destroy the mythological mindset that most people bring to the business. You must stay firmly grounded in reality if you ever want to succeed.

How many times have you heard about some little old lady that only spends 3 hours a week on her computer and somehow earns $50,000 a month And how many times have you read an ad that tells you how you can make $10,000 in one month from now if you sign up right away

We have all seen these ads and we have all responded to them at one time or another. Chances are, if youre in an affiliate program now, you were hooked by a line like that. But what separates the "gurus" from the people who make little or no money is that the gurus understand what this really is: mythology. These stories, while they might be true, promote mythological thinking that tricks people into trying every opportunity that looks good at the moment, rather than focusing on a single opportunity.

These "opportunities" not only prevent you from succeeding, but they have an even nastier byproduct: they promote the mythology that you either succeed on the Internet in 15 minutes or you will never succeed at all.

This is simply not true, yet it is the reason why almost no one succeeds with affiliate marketing: they can never stay with one opportunity more than a couple months. If they do not have instant success, they give up and move on--restarting the same building process they abandoned. They never reap the profit of cumulative efforts. They build a foundation, they leave before starting the actual building--and then they move to another company, start the foundation, and then leave once again.

Without exception, every successful Internet marketer has spent an enormous amount of time both researching and experimenting with online business. Most have failed miserably a number of times and most have spent a significant amount of time working their way to the top and achieving profit. It really is pretty hard to earn an income on the Internet, but it is entirely doable if you are following a proven plan and if you are willing to abandon lofty mythology for a plan rooted in reality.

Affiliate marketing is one of the best places to start making a profit online. In fact, almost every successful Internet marketer I know started her career selling affiliate products. Many of them still do. What made them successful is that they found a legitimate opportunity to make money whether or not it was the best one available, they found replicable processes that got them visitors and profit, and then they repeated those processes and reinvested those profits until they got to where they are now.

Most people cannot accept that making money with affiliate programs is this simple. I have found that most affiliate marketers who do not earn an income online either a do not want to do actual work or b have developed a mythological mindset from reading affiliate program advertisements--and can only think in terms of making money on the Internet through magic, rather than results-oriented action.

In closing, I will summarize and then dispel all of the popular Internet affiliate marketing myths, so you can skip the learning curve and start building your empire today:

Myth #1: There is an affiliate program out there that will do all of the work for you and make you rich without requiring effort on your part.

Truth: You have a much better chance of earning an income on the Internet if you work on the affiliate program you are in currently in as long as it is a legitimate opportunity than if you search the entire Internet for a better opportunity. There is definitely a lot to be said for having a responsive, successful upline, but ultimately, your success will depend on your actions. You can sell anything on the Internet; you just have to spend enough time in the building and learning process.

Myth #2: You must spend an exorbitant amount of money on advertising to make money on the Internet.

Truth: Every single successful Internet marketer puts heavy testing, good design, and reliable follow-up over heavy spending. They minimize costs and they make sure what they are actually spending produces empirically-acceptable results.

If you ignore this you will fail. A lot of real life corporations spend thousands of dollars monthly on PPC campaigns and end up making no money at all because they dont start small and test their results. They just throw money at the problem and hope for sales. You dont have thousands of dollars to throw away, so dont do this.

Myth #3: You will succeed or fail on the Internet or on any Internet money-making venture within month.

Truth: Most Internet marketers have spent time building an enormous empire with big mailing lists and regular website visitors. They worked to become successful. You must also.

If you want to find an affiliate program that makes you rich instantly without putting in any work, then continue spending money. Send me an email when you find it because I have personally looked at hundreds--and while some are better than others--none offer success without action.

The Internet is riddled with mythology. If you want to succeed, you must reject this mythology and look for clear, work-for-results solutions. You must create plans and put them into action immediately. You must build and cultivate a base of subscribers and visitors. And above all, you must accept that you can only achieve profit through sweat, not luck.

Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull

About The Author

Isaiah Hull is the CEO of an Internet business, a publisher of two business newsletters, PTL of several affiliate programs, and a business trainer for his affiliates. On 11/10/04, he released a brand-new free Internet income course to address the major changes in Internet marketing: http://www.workathomerightnow.net

9Feb/100

Seek Engines: What If Seek Had Bumped Out Search – Site

Seek Engines: What If Seek Had Bumped Out Search
Kevin Kantola

In the early days of the World Wide Web, when things were just getting started many geek speak terms were jockeying for position to be the standards for years to come. I used to drive by a California-based company every day that had named itself YKK and think, "What a pity."
Then I think what if the World Wide Web had lost out to the World Wide Subway System WWSS or some other less noble term Then I take it one step further and think, "What if the term search had lost out to seek" Lets think about this for a moment. Seek is a good word with a nearly identical meaning to search. In fact, in the Oxford American Dictionary with the torn off cover and publishing info it states that seek means "

5Feb/100

Viral Marketing! Are You Missing Out – Site

Viral Marketing! Are You Missing Out
Alec Duncan

Many of you are reading this article because you would like to further promote your Internet business and are looking for new ways in which to do this. You have read lots of articles covering various Internet Marketing techniques and are still looking for the "Holy Grail" strategy that will take your website to a higher level. After all, others are achieving this so why shouldnt you.
Here, I will describe a technique that, with some creativity and effort, can significantly boost your promotion efforts while at the same time setting it on autopilot. Is this the "Holy Grail" For some it has been but like everything else it all depends on you.
"Less Work, Greater Results"
If this sounds good to you then do read on.
Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is the creation of a message that gets passed on from person to persons. It gives each recipient the ability to pass on your message to even more people with little or no effort. This is the strategy that helped make Hotmail what they are today. Each Hotmail user passed Hotmails message on to everyone that they emailed and it spread like wildfire.
Ok so we know Hotmail did it and at a time when it seemed there was more opportunity for this. Not true. Companies are still doing it and it is still working and it will never end. Some of the top websites today are using it and you are being exposed to it without even realizing it.
"Ok so I know what it can do but how do I do it".
Your Viral Marketing Strategy
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself:
What is it that my target market would love to get for free
This question is easily answered with a little research. One obvious ways to determine what works is by seeing what works improving it. Visit your competitors sites and see if they are using any viral strategies and see if you can improve on this. If you have a creative mind or have access to a creative mind then it would be good to start something fairly unique to get a solid foothold on the market share. People are always looking for cool new things and love to talk about them when they get them so this would be a definite advantage.
How can I provide this for them
This would depend on what you decide to offer. It could be something you pay a small price for as well as something you create. It doesnt have to be something highly technical or expensive, just something people will enjoy or find useful.
For sake of simplicity lets use a common example of this. Well written articles that identify with the readers problems and explains to them ways in which to solve it. This can be a great form of viral marketing.
There are so many articles written and published daily and the majority of these do not take advantage of viral marketing. Some authors just dont know about it and some just dont care. For those of you who care, one way you could make your articles viral is to add permission for others to reprint your articles in your author bio. Other webmasters that are interested in your content will simply grab the article and publish it on their site. Quick and easy! People love that.
If you would prefer them coming to your site first then you could have it additionally say something like this "To publish this article on your site see our guidelines" with guidelines linking to your site. You can also use the landing page from this to let them know about other articles you have written that are free to be published.
How can I make this work virally
Not to worry it already has. With each webmaster that publishes your article, for example, the potential that your article will be published by other sites that visit his site have just significantly increased. So now they promote your article then someone gets it from their site and they promote it and so on.
"Ok now I have my article on lots of OTHER sites, how does this help me"
There are many benefits to viral marketing. One obvious one is traffic. Depending on what your article is about you can inform the reader that if they would like more information on the topic or an aspect of the topic that they can get this at your site.
Another benefit is link building. With your article spreading across the Internet you now have more and more inbound links to your site. You can add keyword rich titles in these which will help with your search engine rankings. You are not only able to link to your homepage but also to inner pages depending on how your article was written. Some authors overload their articles with links pointing to their sites but this technique is often frowned upon by publishers. Be smart about it. Envision yourself as the reader and use that to guide you in your writing.
Conclusion
Though I have only touched upon one example of viral marketing there are many more ways to implement this with the only limit being your imagination. You dont need to implement them one at a time. You can have several viral marketing systems working for you at the same time with similar or different goals.
One thing you must avoid is reading this, thinking it sounds good and not trying it. One of the main reasons something wont work is not giving it a chance in the first place. So to your list of marketing strategies add "Go Viral" and reap the benefits.

About The Author
Alec Duncan is the founder of Lil Engine a Search Engine Optimization resource. Visit Lil Engine for great SEO Tools and Internet Marketing strategies and also check out Developer Tutorials for web development tutorials.