Writing About How Easy It Is, Don't Make it So
It seems that the VERY popular fashion of article writing is notunlike real world clothing fashion in that; the same things keepcoming around with seasonal regularity. In fact, more so withthe fast paced development of the ‘home business’ or ‘work athome’ article topic conveyor.I’m probably guilty of the above for writing on this specificsubject itself, having seen a few others lament the continualrehashing of the ‘same ol’, same ol’. Although in my defense,today’s comment is...
... not so much the same lamentation but, in myeyes at least, an attempt to put the record straight about aspecific subject, of which I’ve read far too many articles aboutrecently.To be fair, I’m sure only good intentions (and a need forsomething to write about) are responsible for the latest roundof ‘Affiliate marketing is simple’ and ‘You’ll be earning onlinein no time as an Affiliate’ type articles. In so many of thesearticles, Affiliate marketing is touted as the ‘way to go’ foranyone who has a website (or EVEN NOT, which is rubbish for allbut a few).I currently run seven Affiliate websites, recently ‘trimmeddown’ from twelve because of the amount of time involved in allthat was required to keep each website competitive in the SearchEngines and interesting to visitors, both new and returning,chasing PR and generally maintaining what have become known as'affiliate content websites'. Some merchants supply completewebsite templates, which are helpful, provided you have totalSEO control, but even so, they are not generally well packedwith content and certainly they don't have 'ready to go' RSSfeeds, news updates, blogs and articles etc. So even though, asI said, they do help, there is still much to be done initiallyand maintained continually to end up with a comprehensive,interesting and SE friendly Affiliate website.I had to 'trim down' my activities simply because, even though Iam fortunate enough to be a full time Internet homebusinessperson, I did not have the time to keep that number ofwebsites producing viable ‘income for effort’. When you considerthe amount of work involved in just one affiliate contentwebsite, I’m sure most will understand why I have had to‘streamline’. At the same time, I hope a realization of theeffort and time involved will also become apparent.Of course, before we even start any of the following, we assumewe have the ability to build our own websites with a degree ofprofessionalism and functionality, templates aside. Withoutthese two aspects at least, anyone who does visit, will leaveshortly after. For the sake of the exercise, we have magicallyreceived the knowledge and experience to achieve this… overnight!Our website will need to be nurtured through a period of atleast 3 - 6 months of little or no activity (unless we alsohappen to be, again miraculously, well versed, experienced, andgame enough to throw money at PPC engines). During this periodwe will be setting up and making use of the advantages of RSSfeeds, blogs, content articles (both other’s and hopefully, someof our own). We’ll be updating and changing things almost dailyin order to achieve some targeted traffic through the SEs, whenwe’re finally out of the ‘sandboxes’ etc. While this is allcoming together, we’re spending a lot of time on a link exchangeprogram (not so much for PR, but because back links are animportant component in the SE results). This needs to be donemanually because the automatic programs do more harm to awebsite’s SE chances than help (but that’s another article!).Slowly, our website is gaining some targeted traffic, the onlykind of any use to an Affiliate website. We may even havemanaged a few sales, provided we have, again miraculouslyovernight, become confident and made good choices of Affiliateprograms and products around which we have built and nurturedour website.The traffic and occasional sale, although exciting to the‘first-timer’ serve only to create more time consuming work.These ‘hits’, as we call them, need to be analyzed. We need toknow where they came from, what particular promotional methodbrought them to us, what part of the world they originated, thereferring URL if any and so on, so we can concentrate ourefforts in the right places and forego those which don’t seem tobe successful.No serious Affiliate relies on a single product or program foran income. We all know about the security and sense in ‘multipleincome streams’? Well, the concept is a very important aspect inAffiliate marketing., so this ONE website we’ve just managed tobring to a point where it MAY BEGIN paying for some of the timeeffort and expense involved in it’s inception, really needs tobe one of a number for an Affiliate to hope to becameself-sufficient through Affiliate marketing.Of course, luck plays it’s role in all things and some do makegood quickly and sometimes, one product or program WILL besufficient for the desired income. Maybe, with some, the wholeexercise is more a hobby or interest and a little pocket moneyto pay costs is all that's wanted. These are all personalaspects, which are of no consequence. We’re talking about peoplewho are being told how easy it is to become an Affiliate for'income' purposes. Having now totally destroyed the Affiliatedreams of thousands, I will now say that it IS a marvelousInternet home business model and you can start and progress tothe point where you are making some income, without spendingvery much at all. In fact, the only outlay that is absolutelynecessary, in my opinion, is the domain and hosting for yourwebsite. In that respect, Affiliate marketing is TRULY the'no-risk' home based business model.Still again, there is much to know about the domain and hostingaspect of the preparation, which will have consequences if notconsidered correctly, before we even think about what I havespoken about above. Do yourself a favor if you’re relatively unfamiliar withAffiliate marketing or even halfway there, get the right advicefrom the right sources. The right sources are people who havebeen, and/or are doing it themselves and aren’t afraid toexplain that it’s not all that EASY, but certainly possible forthose who really WANT the 'work at home' dream for themselvesand their families.
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