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Successful Affiliate Marketing? You Need Your Links to Be Found!

By Shawn Baune

So you're trying to make a little extra cash online, maybe help catch up on some bills in this struggling economy? I understand, I'm doing the exact same thing. I even spent some money on so-called "guaranteed" programs that pretty much wanted me to use deceitful practices to basically sell the same crappy program that I had just bought from them. This was very discouraging, so I decided to take a new approach.

I thought to myself, "okay, what do I know that I would be comfortable promoting?". The answer to that was simple for me, basketball...basketball and basketball training equipment. You see, I've played basketball for quite some time, and used quite a few things that were out on the market that I saw results with. So, instead of becoming an affiliate for work-at-home programs, I started looking for basketball affiliate programs. Even if I hadn't used the products, I knew enough about basketball and fitness to decide if I could legitimately tell others that I think they should get that product. Now I just had to figure out how to have my recommendations and affiliate links found.

The answer was simple, I had to target basketball players and other athletes with a basketball website. That way I could put my affiliate links in front of my target audience, those most likely to click on them and use the products, without having to spend a lot of money on pay-per-click advertising. The website gives basketball players free tips and training advice, and may recommend a product that could enhance their game or training. Not only that, but I could be more passionate about why something might work and hopefully be a little more convincing to get that commission off of a sale.

What's the point of all this? To be successful as an affiliate, you have to get your links clicked on right? But as I said, PPC advertising can be very costly. Another option is "legal" bulk-email lists in which people agree to receive e-mails for products so that it's not considered spam. The truth is, though, that most of these people are just like you in the sense that they agreed to do so so that they could send out their links as well.

So, what's the next choice? You need to have a website willing to let you put affiliate links onto it (rare if at all existent). I decided I would be the only one willing to do so, so I would need to create my own website. That's not good enough, though, you also need to get traffic to that site. I have been able to do that through some hard work, and want to emphasize that affiliate marketing isn't as easy as signing up for a program and then making money over night. You have to get people to click on your links, and in order to do so, they must be able to find them. My answer was to build a website of my own.

To summarize in very few words, there are only a couple of things that you need to be successful:

1. A place to place your affiliate links so that they can be found.
2. A decent amount of traffic to the area(s) where your affiliate links are available so that there is a better chance for conversion.

I found the answer in building my own website about my passion, basketball, and did so with no knowledge about website development to begin with. I also used a number of tips to improve my website's page rankings so that more traffic was exposed to my links.

I'm not going to go into the details of the help I found through SBI (Site Build It), but you can check out the about section of my website if you want to hear more: http://www.basketball-tips-and-training.com/affiliate-marketing-and-SBI.html

About the Author Shawn Baune is a full time profit analyst and former basketball player. He has a passion for basketball and still plays on a regular basis in his spare time, gaining respect from others on the court. Perhaps an even bigger passion, though, is sharing (especially with his nephew) his basketball tips on what he's learned.
Shawn has also been developing http://www.basketball-tips-and-training.com in his spare time to help share his passion for basketball. There are plenty of free basketball tips available at his site.
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Reproduction allowed with credit to website

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shawn_Baune

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