Forensic Affiliate - Getting Started Guide
By now you should have chosen the niche you want to pursue, you
should also have done quite a bit of research to discover what your
potential visitors are "Hungry" for. You should also have chosen a
Point of View (POS) for your website.
Now it's time to put the rubber to the road and get that website going...
To develop your web presence you'll need a few things:
1. A Domain Name
2. Web Hosting
3. Website Software
We will cover all three of these things in this document.
Your Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your website. Google.com, Yahoo.com
and Facebook.com are all domain names. You have to purchase your
domain name (usually in yearly increments) you have the option of
renewing your domain name when the time is up. If you choose not to
renew your domain name, then other people have the right to purchase
it.
Choosing Your Domain Name
There are a lot of schools of thought on how you should decide on a
domain name. A few years ago, Affiliate Marketer's would buy what we
called "keyword stuffed" domain names. It wouldn't be uncommon to
purchase a domain like:
www.lose-10-pounds-in-under-10-days.com (That is a perfectly valid
domain name and it's available right now - if you want it. ;) )
In the past domains like the above would help you rise to the top of
Google. Today, however, Google places less emphasis on the actual
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domain name, so long hyphenated names aren't very effective plus they
look stupid! ;)
That said, for a niche site, it's not a bad idea to get your keyword into
your domain. It may not help you with Google very much but it will help
your visitors know exactly what your site is about. I just recommend
that you go with shorter domain names and if possible avoid the
hyphens.
You can often get a keyword rich domain name by simply adding a
word like "today" or "now" to it. Example, if your niche is "six pack abs"
then a domain name like:
sixpackabsnow.com may be a good choice (I just checked and this
domain name is available).
I would also recommend you capitalize the first letter of each word
whenever you write the domain name (in your sig files or on business
cards). Example: SixPackAbsNow.com, this makes the domain easier to
read and remember.
If you're not building a niche site and wish instead to build a more
general site then you'll have a more choices. Consultants can often use
their own name. For example, JimWilson.com or
JimWilsonConsulting.com or JWilsonConsulting.com. These
won't necessarily help you in the search engines but they do help you
with your branding and are easy to remember.
Lastly, if possible I always recommend going with a .com (in the United
States) , .com is most associated with business websites and just seems
to be more trustworthy to the general public. If .com is unavailable then
.net and .org are okay second choices. I would not recommend any of
the cheaper domain extensions (.info, .us etc...). If you're not in the
United States than it's you own country's extension is acceptable as
well.
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Purchasing Your Domain Name
There are a lot of places on the web where you can buy domain names
and while they are all selling the same thing, I always recommend that
people stick with the big names either Godaddy.com or
Networksolutions.com. I perfer Godaddy.com because they are about
1/3 the price of NetworkSolutions. At Godaddy, you will pay about
$12.95 to own a domain name (dot com) for one year. You can
purchase a domain for up to 10 years but I recommend that you just
purchase the one year then just keep renewing it yearly for as long as
you want to keep the website live. Godaddy, often runs specials, if you
google "Godaddy Coupons" you will usually find a 20% or 30% off
coupon to use.
When you're ready, head over to Godaddy.com and enter your chosen
name into the online form. If no one else owns the domain name you
selected, you will be able to make the purchase. Next click the "add to
cart" button and continue with the purchase. Now, Godaddy.com will
offer you a whole bunch of upsells, they all sound great but they're
really not, they are just a waste of money. I recommend that you NOT
take any of these upsells and simply buy your domain name for one
single year. When you get to the final checkout (and you will have to
wade through several pages to get there), your cost should be about
$12.95 (US) (less any discount coupons you may have entered).
Congratulations! You now have your domain name for one full year.
NOTE: The Next Section Is Only Necessary If You Chose NOT
to Purchase the "Done For You" Technical Package from Me.
Click Here For Information About This Package.
http://www.forensicaffiliate.com/done-for-you-technical-package/
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Installing Your Website
1. Obtaining Web Hosting
Next we need to do something with that domain. We need to "host" it
somewhere. Now, Godaddy offers hosting, in fact they included very
limited free hosting with the domain purchase. Unfortunately (as of this
writing) the free hosting won't work for your needs as we will be
installing Wordpress on the site and the free hosting doesn't provide the
necessary resources to install a Wordpress site. You can upgrade your
free hosting with Godaddy but I don't recommend it, their hosting
control panel is pretty clumsy and difficult to use.
So what kind of hosting do you need?
I always recommend Linix based servers that include "cpanel". It's not
necessary for you to know what that means, when you're looking for
hosting simply google "linux cpanel web hosting" and you'll find a bunch
of acceptable hosting options. My favorite hosting (besides my own) is
Hostgator.com. They meet our specifications, are competitively priced,
their support is excellent and the servers are dependable.
2. Change Your DNS
Once you have purchased your hosting, you'll receive an email from the
new host that details necessary settings (Make sure to save this email).
The next step is to "point your domain to the new server". We call this
changing the DNS. The DNS settings are included in the email you just
received from your host. The following video will walk you through the
process:
Here's A Video Showing How To Change Your DNS on
Godaddy: http://youtu.be/pH6on6W_cP4
Once this step is complete we have to wait for the new settings to
"propagate" across the web. The rule of thumb is that this can take up
to 24 hours but it almost always takes less then an hour. After the
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Propagation process is complete, you should be able to type your
domain name into your browser's address bar and find your hosts
"Coming Soon" page.
3. Install Wordpress
The next step is to install Wordpress on your server. Most web hosts
include an auto-installer program for you to use. Hostgator uses
"QuickInstall" for this purpose. The next video will show you how to
install your website with QuickInstall:
Here's A Video Showing How To Install
Wordpress: http://youtu.be/5mLFzTHPqNo
4. Configure Wordpress
Once you install Wordpress you will have a fully functional website.
However, there are a few settings and addon's that I recommend. I'll
outline them below:
1. Change Your Permalinks - Include Post name in url.
2. Install SEO Plugin ("All in one SEO")
3. Install WP Super Cache (Speeds up your pages)
4. Install Fast Secure Contact Form
Here's A Video Showing How To Configure
Wordpress: http://youtu.be/nIGdhQ-hu6o
5. Add Your Theme
Here's A Video Showing How To Change The Default Wordpress
Theme: http://youtu.be/6cDNdBkwrus
At this point you've come a long way. You have domain name,
web hosting and a working website that you can start adding
content to.
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Now What....
Autoresponder
Now we get to the really fun part. We can start "working our site" The
first thing we need to do is to obtain an autoresponder - to capture
email addresses of our visitors. I always recommend that you use a 3rd
party autoresponder because email spam is a serious legal issue and
you need to protect yourself. The reputable autoresponders will force
you to comply with the current anti-spam best practices. The top three
choices are:
aweber.com
getresponse.com
mailchimp.com (mail chimp offers a free trial for up to 1000 email
address - but they do limit some of the features on the trial).
Once you've created your autoresponder account, you'll need to follow
the directions to create a campaign and an opt-in form. This is done at
the autoresponder's website. Since all systems are different, you'll have
to follow their instructions to create this.
When you're done, you should have "code" that will have to be pasted
into your website to generate the form.
List Building
One of the crucial components to being a successful affiliate marketer is
to collect email addresses from your visitors. When you do this you are
building an asset, a list of people who are interested in the niche that
you are working in. You can then promote products to the list as often
as you want, giving you an income stream that can last for months or
even years.
You see, getting traffic to come to your website is difficult. Search
engines are constantly updating their algorithms - you may be getting
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hundreds of hits everyday for months then suddenly Google makes a
change and all of that traffic dries up --overnight.
Your list(s) can keep you earning even if you're not getting any fresh
traffic to your site.
Now, you can't force people to join your list ---but you can bribe them!
The standard way of getting someone to opt in is to offer them a bribe.
A bribe can be a report that you wrote (or had written) it could be PLR
product that you have the rights to. It could even be a video that you
created to help solve a problem within the niche. What's key here is
that the "bribe" addresses an issue that concerns the niche
(relevancy converts) Here's an example...
Say your in the dog training niche, and looking at your traffic stats, you
see that you are getting a lot of traffic each day for the key phrase
"how do I get my dog to stop chewing furniture" (and related phrases).
A great "bribe" here would be a report, giving six or seven tips to get
you dog to stop chewing the furniture.
So, you would write (or have written) this report. It doesn't have to be
long, a few pages is fine but you want to give good useful information.
You want to really address the specific problem or issue you are
"promising" to. The idea here, is to genuinely help the visitor with their
problem so that they know that you are "there for them".
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SIDEBAR
Here's a real life example that I used a few years ago. Back around
2006 or 2007 there was a pretty popular product on ClickBank called
"Get Google Ads For Free". It was an ebook that sold for $67 or so.
The promise was that the author was going to show you a sneaky
way to get targeted Google PPC traffic (adwords) sent to your site for
Free. Like a lot of people, I was intrigued by this notion so I
purchased the ebook. Anyway, the trick was that you would buy (pay
for) Adwords traffic in your niche and you would bid enough so that
you were in the top spots. Once you were getting a lot of targeted
traffic, you would sell ad space to vendors in that niche (earning
enough to pay for your PPC costs) so with your PPC charges covered
- you were essentially getting "free" adwords traffic from Google.
Anyway, there was a lot of talk in the forums about how
this couldn't be possible so I went ahead and wrote report called
"The Secret Behind Get Google Ads For Free" and I gave it away as a
"bribe" to anyone who wanted to opt in to my list.
This was a six page report that divulged the actual secret, I also gave
the product an overall good review and recommended it as a viable
method. I of course included my affiliate link in the ebook and some
people did go on to purchase it.
So I made a few dollars in affiliate sales and added a whole bunch of
people to my list. To this day, I still have several hundred list
members who downloaded this ebook.
Once you have people on your list you can start promoting products to
them as often as you like. Though, I would recommend a certain
amount of restraint as if you simply mail affiliate offers to everybody -
everyday - you're going to see most of them opt out pretty quickly.
I would also recommend that you sprinkle some helpful
information occasionally that isn't promoting anything. Say an
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interesting video you find on youtube. You could embed that video on
your website, then mail a quick note to your list telling them about this
awesome video you just posted and give them the link to the specific
page that the video is on. This isn't selling anything, it's giving the niche
content that they are interested in but since it's on your website, they
may even hang out a bit and check out some of your affiliate products
:)
What do you write about In Your Emails?
Many affiliate programs you will be promoting will have "swipe files"
(pre-written emails that you can send out as-is, just insert your affiliate
link). There are pros and cons to using these. On the "Pro" side these
emails are often written by professional copywriters who have a good
knowledge of the audience and know the "hot button" issues to write
about. On the con side anyone who is promoting this product has
access to these same emails so there's a good chance that members of
your list will have already seen these emails from other marketers.
It's usually a good idea to start with one of these pre-written emails and
rewrite it in your own words. This will give your emails a more unique
feel to them.
SIDEBAR
While I often do use the pre-written emails, I actually prefer to create
my own completely unique emails. When I write, I try to tell a story
and tie my offer in to the story I'm telling. I also like to use news
headlines to come up with an angle to write about, I then make sure
to reference that headline in the subject of the email. This often
substantially improves the open rate as people have usually heard
about the topic and are interested in learning more about it.
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Supporting Players
In this course we've discussed building your website, list building and
how to "talk to your audience", so far however, we've avoided one
other component. And that is....
Social Media
It's out there and we can't ignore it. Most SEO people say that Google is
using Social Media indicators as a big part of their algorithm and they
say this is only going to continue...
So what does that mean for us Affiliate Marketers? Well it means that
we have to go social and we should start right now.
If you already have a Facebook account then adding a "page" for your
affiliate marketing website(s) is a pretty simple task. Simply log into
your account and click on the little gear icon in the upper right hand
side of the toolbar. Then select "Create a Page". You will be presented
with a menu driven system that will ask several questions about your
page (what type of business is it, do you sell products etc). Once you
get through the form you'll have your Facebook page ready to start
working for you.
Now comes the fun part, you have to really work your Facebook page.
In other words, just having a Facebook page will do you no good, you
have to get followers and add content to it.
So, any posts you make to your blog should go to your Facebook page -
there are plugins that will do this for you automatically. You should also
have "like" and "share" buttons on your blog and an each post you
make. Ad of course, any written material (business cards, flyers etc...)
that you may use should have the URL of your facebook page and a
"call to action" to "Like" us on Facebook.
Twitter is another important Social Site and you should have a presence
there as well. There are Wordpress plugins that will autopost to twitter
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just like they will for Facebook so you should have one of these along
with a "Retweet" button on your site.
Similar to Facebook, Twitter will do you no good if you are not actively
using it and getting followers. For both of these sites and for any other
social sites that my crop up over the next few months or years, I would
recommend you watch your competitors - to see what they are doing
then mimic that until you've developed your own "voice".
Final Words And My Commitment To You!
I don't know what the secret to success but I do know that it involves
"doing" things. Now I can't force you to take action and sadly I know
that many of you will simply read this ebook then move on to the next
new training course that comes along, without ever taking action. And
that's really a shame because getting started is 99% of the battle.
I can (and will) be there to help you along the way. You just
have to start applying the steps in this course and contact me whenever
you run into trouble.
I promise I'll do whatever I can to help when you need it.
Now lets get the next chapter of you life started ----Right Now!
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