Adventures of an Amateur Affiliate

So exactly where am I starting this journey from? Here's the breakdown:

I have absolutely NO experience in any form of marketing. Online or other.

The only money I've ever made online was $50 when I sold my old mobile phone on eBay. And at the time, I thought it was awesome.

I studied creative writing at university, and writing and the arts are my passions. I plan to use my writing skills as a means of marketing affiliate products: write great articles, translate them into sales.

I'm very interested in the self-help industry, and finding ways of improving one's happiness and quality of life.

I've been searching for a legitimate way to make money from the internet for quite some time now. Throughout my research, I've picked up on lots of tricks used by scam artists to steal people's money. And it gets me very fired up! (Check out my lens on busting online scammers here.)

I'm really, REALLY lazy. Seriously.

An affiliate marketer promotes somebody else's products or services, and is paid a commission for each sale their promotion secures.

"If you fail to plan, plan to fail." Well, I don't particularly want to fail, so I think planning ahead is the best way to go!

Before I actually sign up with ANY affiliate programs, I'm going to do lots of research. I'm starting off by reading an enormous ebook by Ken Envoy, entitled "The Affiliate Masters Course." I downloaded it for free from SiteSell.com, and it's a whopping 152 pages! I'll let you know how useful I think it is once I'm done.

SIDEBAR: Like I said, this ebook was FREE, and that's exactly in my price range. My aim is to achieve champion affiliate status WITHOUT spending money on resources and programs. Surely, there are plenty of free resources on the subject out there, and I intend to find them!

UPDATE: September 24th, 2008
The verdict is in: I've finished reading The Affiliates Master Course. All 152 pages of it! It's actually designed to be a 10 day course, and the author Ken Envoy specifically states not to move on to the next day without completing the set tasks for the current day. I, of coarse, ignored this advice.

So what did I think? Damn! It was good! Seriously, with the help of this ebook I actually think I'll be able to make some serious money. Envoy covers every aspect of building a successful affiliate business, in depth. The best part? While he recommends registering your own domain and starting from scratch, all his strategies can be used to monetize a free Squidoo lens (like this one!) And all the info was FREE! Woo hoo!

Creating an online business through affiliate programs is a step-by-step process. It's important not to get too ahead of yourself. Start at the beginning:

1. Identify your niche market
This market should have the potential to be lucrative - that is, they should be interested in BUYING something. Otherwise, how on earth are you going to make any sales?

2. Create a website targeted at your market
This isn't as hard as it sounds. You could go all out, buy a domain and design your own site, or you could take the simple route and start a free blog or Squidoo lens.

3. Provide quality content targeted at your market
Unless your viewers have something interesting to look at, they won't stick around. Buy content, hire someone to write it, or create your own, but do NOT skip this step. It is VITAL. A website that is simply a list of affiliate links will NOT make sales.

4. Weave affiliate links into your content
You know who your market is, and you've got their attention with your great content. NOW you're primed to make affiliate sales. Without all the preparation is Step's 1-3 above, Step 4 will be fruitless.

Okay, yes... Perhaps it doesn't seem like I've spent a great deal of time planning and researching, but my aim is to continue planning and researching WHILE I'm creating my content.

Ken Envoy suggested that I come up with 3 website concepts that I can build into quality, Keyword-Focused web pages. Like I mentioned earlier, these concepts should be potentially lucrative. They should also be subjects that I ENJOY learning and writing about. Passion is a strong motivator, and without it, I'll get bored and give up. Remember how I said I'm lazy? I wasn't kidding.

The three concepts I've settled on are:
1. Achieving True Happiness
2. Ballet
3. Weddings

They might be broad, brush-stroke topics, but they have the potential to branch out into a million smaller ideas. My plan: to create an inter-linking web of Squidoo lenses based on these topics, then monetize them with relevant affiliate programs.

So basically, it's now time for me to do a WHOLE lot of writing. Ugh. Thank heavens for all that passion keeping me going...