I hope you got some great ideas on how you can increase your affiliate commissions from your lesson yesterday.

Today let’s talk about how you can avoid some of the common mistakes that many affiliate marketers make without even realizing that they are damaging their business.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning an income online. It’s the way that I started my business many years ago and it has worked out great for me. It can be the same for you especially if you avoid common mistakes that can hurt your chances of success.

Like all businesses, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. Some of the most common mistakes can end up costing you a large portion of the profits you make and you may not even realize it’s happening. That is why it is better to avoid these mistakes from the start.

Mistake #1: Choosing the wrong affiliate programs.

We talked a lot about choosing the right affiliate programs in lesson two now let’s find out why it’s so important to your business that you don’t choose the wrong programs to promote.

You see, many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible and I can’t blame them. Who doesn’t like quick cash. But, in their rush they tend to choose what I like to call a bandwagon product. They choose this product because they think it is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them or their prospects.

This isn’t a very wise move and could end up hurting your business in the long run. Especially if you end up losing the confidence of your readers and customers by promoting products to them that they aren’t interested in.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try to choose a product that you and your prospects are truly interested in. Take the extra time to plan your actions and do some research about that product to see if it is in demand.

A quick way to find out if a product is in demand is to do a quick Google search for the product and see if anyone else is promoting it. If you see several Google ads on the side of the search results page you can be fairly sure that there is a good market for the product. On the other hand if there very few or no ads for the
product then you may want to drop that product and move on.

On a side note if there are too many ads for the product then your competition will be pretty stiff and you may want to reconsider promoting it. But market research is an entirely different subject than what we are discussing in this short course, so we will move.

Mistake #2: Joining too many affiliate programs.

Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiple affiliate programs thinking it will help you maximize your earnings. On some level this seems to make Spence because what do you have to lose by joining every program you come across.

While the idea of having multiple sources of income is a great one, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at once will only hurt your chances of success. Simply because you will lose focus and it will prevent you from concentrating on the programs that will make you the most money.

It is far better to focus your efforts on a select few than to try and stretch yourself to thin promoting every program you can find in hopes one of them will hit the mother load.

The best way in my humble opinion to get the results you want is by joining one program at a time. Ideally one that pays a 50% or more commission per sale. Then focus your attention on it until you see that it is making a reasonable profit, then join another affiliate program, preferably one related to the first one and repeat the
process until you have a whole network of related products making you money.

The technique may take a little more time and effort on your part, but what you will end up with is a solid foundation for your growing business and that is well worth the effort.

Mistake #3: Not buying the product or service you are promoting.

As an affiliate, your main goal is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find people willing to purchase it through your affiliate link. For you to achieve this goal, you must be able to relay to your prospective customers the main benefits of that product or service. This is very difficult to do when
you haven’t tried the product yourself.

While you may still have success promoting products that you haven’t personally used or at least reviewed, you will never reach it’s maximum income potential unless you can honestly and convincingly recommend it.

So, try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it’s really delivering what it promises. If you do, then you will be well aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your prospective customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in your review of the product and this will help
encourage them to try it out for themselves.

There you have it. The three most common mistakes that many affiliate marketers make. Now you can do your best to avoid making the same mistakes.

Remember time is the key. Take the time to analyze your chosen affiliate programs. Get a system in place for promoting them and then you will be able to maximize your affiliate earning and build a solid foundation for your business.

I’d love to hear from you! Please let me know if you have any questions and don’t forget to look out for your next lesson. We will be talking about some basic techniques that you can use to drive traffic through your affiliate links for maximum profits.

Neil

It's time for your third lesson in the Affiliate Marketing Profits Crash Course. I hope you learned a lot about choosing the right affiliate programs for your business from your last lesson.

In this lesson are going to go over some simple ways that you can boost your affiliate commissions. Which is always a good thing!

As we discussed in lesson one affiliate marketing doesn't require product development, dealing with customer support, complaints or refunds. As a matter of fact it is one of the easiest ways of starting an online business and earning more profits.


Assuming that you have followed some of the steps in lesson two and that you have already chosen some affiliate programs that you want to promote, what would be the next thing you would want to do?

How about double, or even triple, your commissions as quickly as possible?

If you answered yes to that question then you will enjoy this lesson!

I have some great tips to share with you in this lesson that will help you boost your affiliate commissions quickly.

The first thing you will want to decide on is which program the ones you have chosen is the best. Obviously, you want to promote a program that will enable you to achieve the greatest profits in the shortest possible time. There are several factors to consider when selecting a program to focus on.

Then narrow down your choices to the ones that have a generous commission structure and that fit in with your target audience. Check to make sure that they have a solid track record of paying their affiliates easily on time.

You can do that by performing a search for the product name plus the words "affiliate payments". If anyone is complaining that they aren't getting paid you will find posts about the issue.

Remember there are thousands of affiliate programs online so you can be picky. You want to take your time and select the best so

that you can avoid wasting your time and losing your advertising dollars.
Now let's get down to some quick tips that you can use to increase your commissions:

-   Participate in chat rooms related to the product you're reselling. Start a conversation with a person without trying to sell to them. Later on, while you are chatting, mention the product you're reselling.

-   Create a free ebook with the advertisement and link of your affiliate web site. The subject of the free ebook should entice your target audience to down-load it. Also submit it to some ebook directories for even better results.

-   Start your own affiliate program directory. Join a large number of affiliate programs and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory.

-   Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that does not give you an edge over your competition. Use a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates.

-   Use a personal endorsement ad. Only use one if you've actually bought the product or service for the affiliate program. Tell people what kind of benefits and results you've received using the product. Endorsements also increase the credibility of the product you are promoting.

-   Advertise the product you're promoting in your signature file. Use an attention getting headline and a good reason for them to visit  your affiliate site. Make sure your sig file doesn't go over 5 ines. You can use this in your outgoing emails, on forums and in blog comments.

-   Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other people's questions, and ask your own questions. If you can work in how your product can help solve someone's problem all the better for you and don't forget to include your sig file when you post.

-   Create a free newsletter build around the topic of your chosen product. It doesn't have to be fancy, just informative and helpful. Then use it to advertise the affiliate programs you've joined. Submit it to online ezine directories and promote it on your web site.

-   Use bonuses to help sell your products! Using bonuses is one of the easiest ways to motivate people to purchase from you. Remember, you're often competing with many other marketers. By offering a relevant bonus with the product you're trying to sell, you'll help tip the prospect's buying choice in you favor.

-   Start a private web site. Use it as a free bonus as well. Especially if people buy the product you're promoting. You could also allow people to join for free and then advertise your affiliate programs inside. This does two things. It allows you to keep in touch with your prospects and it makes them feel as if they are receiving extra value when they purchase form you.

-   As we discussed in lesson one use product reviews and testimonials. They are one of the best methods to help make a sale. That's why you will see so many testimonials on a sales page. Take your time and write intelligent product reviews of the products you are marketing and collect testimonials from the people who purchase from you.

-   Use a blog to provide useful information in your niche and include your well written product recommendations. When you post regularly you'll be able to start generating a steady stream of  traffic and sales from the search engines. Just be sure to keep your blog focused on good keywords that relate to the products you are promoting.

-   Build a list of prospects. The easiest way of doing this is by providing an email opt-in on your website. Ideally, create a system where you offer a bonus if the visitor joins  your list.

Use a good autoresponder system like Getresponse to collect email address and load a series of 7-10 emails with useful information and free resources. As time goes by your readers will find your information useful and you will be able to convert them in to paying customers.

Give some of these strategies a try. I don't recommend trying all of them at the same time. Just focus on two or three at first and set the difference it can make to your commission checks.

Look for another lesson tomorrow!  We will be going over some common mistakes that affiliate marketers make so that you can avoid making them.

I hope you are learning a lot from your lessons,

Neil

Welcome to the first lesson in the Affiliate Marketing Profits Crash Course.

Each day for the next few days you will receive a lessonthat will help you learn the
ins and outs of affiliate marketingand how you can use it to make more profits.

In this first lesson let's talk a little about what affiliate marketing is and some of the things that you can do to become a wildlysuccessful affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketing basically means that you are marketing for other people and businesses in exchange for a commission. The typical commission runs between 30 and 75% with 50% being the average.

When you first join an affiliate program you are given an affiliate link that goes to the website of the product owner. This special link is encoded with your unique affiliate id and when you send someone to the product owners site through your special link and they make a purchase you receive a commission. This works out great for both you and the product owner, because you make a nice paycheck and the product owner makes more sales and cuts down on advertising costs at the same time.

One of the main things that makes affiliate marketing so great is that having or creating your own product isn't necessary. Along with that there is the added perks like not having to deal with customers support, complaints or refunds. The only thing an affiliate needs to be successful is some basic internet marketing skills and the desire to succeed. Don't panic if you don't know anything about marketing online, because there is plenty of fantastic information available on the subject all over the internet.

I am assuming that since you are taking this crash course that you already have some basic knowledge under your belt, so we are going to dive right in today and talk about some simple tactics that affiliate marketers can use to increase their chances of success.

First, let's talk about using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. It's very important not lump all of your chosen affiliate programs together on one website just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site or at the very least a sub domain focusing on each and every product and nothing more. This way you can streamline and target your marketing efforts for better results.

Another thing you can do is to include product reviews on the product webpages you set up, so visitors will have an initial understanding of what the product can do for those that buy them. When possible collect and include testimonials from users who have already tried the product and add them to the webpages. This really helps increase credibility and convert more visitors into buyers.

Including articles that you write or with reprint rights that highlight the uses of the product and posting them on the website as an additional page will also help increase your free search engine traffic and chances of success.

Be sure to make the pages attractive, compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the product is about and will make them want to find out more. That is when they
will click on your affiliate and help you make more commissions.

Next let's talk about collecting contact information by offering free reports to your prospects. This does two important thing for your affiliate business. It allows you to further educate your prospects and follow up with them in the future with more information on the products you offer.

For this to work you will need a good autoresponder service. You will want to create a short report and series of seven to ten autoresponder messages that will be mailed to people who sign up to receive your free report.

Did you know that according to research, a sale is usually closed on the seventh contact with a prospect? Hence the reason you will want to create a series of follow up messages.

When you are creating your content focus on important points like how the product can make things easier and more enjoyable for people who purchase it. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the words because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk folder before anyone reads them.

Do your best to convince those who signed up for your free report that they will be missing something big if they don't take the time to at least check out the product or service you're recommending. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Don't make it sound like a sales pitch. Keep in mind that by providing useful information to your prospects you will increase
your chances of making a commission.

Before we end today's lesson I want to touch on one more thing that you can do to increase your chances of affiliate marketing success.

That is getting traffic. The kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think about it this way, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back.

One of the best ways to get this kind of traffic is by writing articles for submission and publication. A good rule of thumb it to try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and submitting these articles to you can generate as many as 100 targeted prospects to your site in a day.

That may not sound like much for all of the work you put in but statistics show that 1 out of every 100 people are likely to make a purchase. If you can generate a 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can make 10 sales based on the average statistic and the best thing is that the articles will continue to work for you even after you have moved on to another product.

None of the tactics that we have discussed today are very difficult to do, if you think about it, it just requires a little time and an action plan on your part. Once you have completed the process for one affiliate program you can move on to the next and you will end up with a good source of income along with a thriving affiliate
marketing business.

We have a lot to go over in the next few days if you want to learn how to make even more affiliate marketing profits, so make sure you look for your next lesson tomorrow. We will be talking about things you should consider before you join an affiliate program, so that you can choose the best ones for your business.

Thank you again for joining,
Neil

It's time for your second lesson.  I hope you found lesson one informative. Today we are going to talk about affiliate programs and what you should look for before joining them.

Let's jump right in and start with one of the best ways I can think of to choose a product to promote and that is by deciding weather or not you are interested in purchasing the product yourself. If that is the case, chances are, there are many others who are also interested in it as well.

Of course, you can't just base your decision to promote an affiliate program on weather or not you like the product, but it is a good place to start. Now let's go over some other thing you should consider.

- You will want to look for a program that is of high quality. For instance, look for one that is associated with many experts in that particular industry. This way, you can be assured of the standard of the program you will be joining
.
- Look for the ones that offer real and viable products. How do you know this? Do some initial research. If possible, track down some of the members and customers to give you testimonial on the credibility of the program.

- Does the program cater to a growing target market? This will ensure you that there will be a continuous demand for your referrals. Do a little research and make inquiries. If there are forums and discussions groups related to the product topic participate and look for reliable feedback.

- A program with a compensation plan that pays out a residual income and a payout of 30% or more would be a great choice.There are programs offering this kind of compensation. You just have to look closely for one. Don't waste your time with programs that do not reward substantially for your efforts.

- Be aware of any minimum quotas that you must fulfill. Some affiliate programs impose pre-requisites before you get your commissions. For instance you may have to make more than a $100.00 or make ten sales before you receive your paycheck. If the sales target is too hard to achieve you may want to rethink joining.

- Select programs that have plenty of pre made tools and resources that can help you grow the business in the shortest possible time. Not all affiliate programs have these capacities.
- Check out weather or not the program has an automated system that allows you to check your referral statistics and compensation at any time.

- Does the program offer strong incentives for customers to make additional purchases or for members to renew their membership. Affiliate programs that  provide continuous help and upgrades for its products have the tendency to retain more customers. These things can assure the growth of your business.

Always get to know the product and program you are considering. Knowing the kind of program you are getting yourself into will help you anticipate and prevent any future problems you may encounter. Do some research and don't be afraid to ask questions before you join.

Here are some of the questions you should ask:
- Will it cost you anything to join?
Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

- When do they issue the commission checks?
Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice.

- What is the amount of commission paid?
If the program pays per sale (which are the ones I prefer) you can expect to make anywhere from 5% - 75% depending on the program. You will also find programs that pay for each hit or each impression. The amount paid for those type of programs is not much at all, so you must be prepared to send large volumes of traffic through your affiliate link to make a nice paycheck.

These are just some of the questions that need answering before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with all of the important aspects of your chosen program. They can help you select the right program for your affiliate business.

Look for another lesson tomorrow! We will be talking about some great ways that you can increase your affiliate commissions.

I'll talk to you then,

Neil