Health Affiliate Training

Archive for the ‘Affiliate Marketing’ Category

Bum Marketing is extremely popular with many affiliate marketers. It’s simply a twist on traditional article marketing and got its name from the fact that anyone – even a bum – could do it because there is no cost involved. If you are looking for free options for promoting your offers, it may be a good option for you.

The reason successful bum marketers are always updated of what works and what doesn’t is because they know the value of proper knowledge. Bum marketing is a proven way to gain targeted traffic and make great money. People who didn’t know anything about Internet marketing are now making a regular income with bum marketing. Given below are 3 effective bum marketing tips to help you out.

Opportunities present themselves to bum marketers on a regular basis but many don’t recognize them. Bum marketing can be taken to a higher level when you keep in mind that you should only write about topics that a niche audience would find interesting. People tend to take action on things that they can relate to; so your main focus is providing content that people can relate to in some way. Some people buy on impulse so you should take that into account. You can create your article to target impulse buyers, rational buyers, or both. To make the most sales you should look at what your niche wants and then create your content around those wants. This tip can easily double your bum marketing results if you learn to use it right. There are very simple methods to uncover a person’s wants; once they are identified the sky is the limit.

When it comes to bum marketing, then you will need to be able to think a little independently. The thing is that your uniqueness needs to go into your articles you write. You do not necessarily need to write literature, but always avoid junking up the article directories with trash articles. If your articles look like everyone else’s, then you will be hardly noticed.

Not only with regard to writing the articles, but also the keywords you optimize for and the way you write your titles. You can easily make your articles unique by just writing in your own voice, and that will go far because you are unique. You need to decide if you want to write high quality articles or just so-so and write more.

This next idea is not well known and often ignored. When you are submiting articles consider using a pen name rather than your true identity. You will notice two advantages to this method. You can ignore the mistakes that may creep in by having a pseudo name or pen name. This means you won’t have to be emabrrassed by poor quality articles. Of course, this also helps keep your competition from gaining access to your vital information because they won’t know who you are either.

Finally, Bum Marketing is not for bums, it’s truely for those who want to work hard at making a generous income online despite the overall odds of success. The Bum Marketing opportunity offers a ray of sunshine in the quest for hope. Expand your horizons beyond your wildest dream with the freedom for your work that is offered with Bum Marketing. The hard work and patience you put into Bum Marketing will pay off with a bit of time.

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If you’ve already seen our post about why article marketing works, then you’ve likely made a commitment to boost your efforts in this area. And that’s a smart move as an affiliate because article marketing has been used for years to drive traffic to blogs and websites, to boost incoming links and increase page ranking. It’s a great way to get visitors to your affiliate promotions and grow your online earnings. Many affiliates achieve such fantastic results with article marketing that it’s at the top of their marketing strategy. 

Here are a few important affiliate article marketing dos and don’ts to get the most from this powerful marketing strategy:

* DO include a link to your website. While many article marketing directories do not allow you to place links in the body of your article, they do encourage you to link to your website or webpage in your author box or bio. Always include a link to your website.

* DO make sure your article is on a subject related to the product you’re promoting. Some affiliates make the mistake of writing content that is popular or in high demand in the hope that someone will read the article and click through to their website on an entirely different subject.

For example, writing an article on home-made dog treats and then including a link to your dating website just doesn’t make any sense. Your article won’t have the impact you want it to and any links you do generate will be coming from dog sites, not dating sites, which won’t help your SEO efforts as much… relevancy of the topic matters.

* DO spell check your content. Most article directories do not check your article for spelling and grammar before they publish it.  That’s your job.

* DON’T publish a sales page disguised as an article. It’s insulting to your readers and it won’t have the desired effect.

* DO repurpose quality content you already have to publish on article marketing sites. 

* DON’T publish the same article on different marketing sites; this is duplicate content and can get you in trouble with article marketing sites.

* DO pay attention to the specs for each article marketing site.

* DO provide valuable and original content.

* DON’T plagiarize; be original!

* DO provide relevant facts and figures to give your article credibility and authority. These are the articles which get re-published the most.

* DO format your article for reading online. That means short paragraphs, bullet points and lists, subheadings and a clear structure.

* DO write a polished bio – you’re an expert, so present yourself like one. 

* DO include a call to action in your biography. Inspire and motivate readers to click through to your website.

* DO choose article marketing sites that provide statistics so you can see which articles are published most often and viewed most often.

* DO categorize your articles appropriately so readers can find you.

* DO give your articles captivating headlines! Grab your reader’s attention.

Each article marketing site or directory will have their own publisher’s agreement for you to review and approve. Be sure you’re aware of what the site requires and allows before you submit an article to them, and make sure you’re submitting to a directory that gets enough traffic to make your efforts worthwhile. Following these affiliate article marketing dos and don’ts will help you reach your article marketing efforts quickly.

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While the ability to achieve happiness and fulfillment may seem elusive at best, the truth is it is actually quite possible to find both. Affiliate marketers have a special advantage over those with ordinary jobs because they’re already doing something positive to move themselves forward toward success.

Here are 5 tips to achieve happiness and fulfillment in your life and work:

1. Know what you want and then put it in writing

What do you truly want? Visualize yourself feeling happy and fulfilled. What do you see? Are you sitting on a beach? Is your debt gone? Are you painting? Running? Playing with your children? Write down what will make you feel happy and fulfilled – consider it your life vision statement. Post it in a place where you have access to it and can refer back to it often.

From this vision statement, create small steps to make your vision a reality. For example, if you find fulfillment from being with your friends, then what can you do to make that a reality?

2. Be grateful for what you have

Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It reminds you of how important the small things really are. Each breath, ray of sunshine, plate of food and roof over our head is something to be grateful for. Make a practice of writing down what you’re grateful for each day. A nice practice is to wake in the morning and think about what you have to look forward to and end the day thinking about or journaling what you are grateful for.

3. Help others

We’re not saying you have to donate your life savings or volunteer 40 hours a week, what we are saying is that small acts of kindness boost your mood incredibly. And they have the effect of improving the lives of others. Small things, like holding a door for someone in need, saying “thank you” and “have a nice day” when you’re talking to strangers and helping to pay for someone’s coffee when they’re short changed, brings happiness to everyone around you.

4. Understand that you have the power

You’re ultimately responsible for everything you think and do. While that may seem depressing at first, when you consider the unfortunate decisions you’ve made (and we’ve all made decisions we wished we could take back) the truth is that this is an amazing power. You can choose to learn from mistakes, take advantage of opportunities, look on the bright side and control your life.

5. What is your purpose in life?

Is your purpose to help others, to learn, to lead, to unite? We all have a direction we want to take our lives in. Finding your purpose may not be easy. However, it can be a fun process in and of itself. For example, if you love learning new things then your ultimate purpose in life might be to learn. Regardless of what your work and lifestyle are, you can make time to embrace your purpose. Read books, take online courses, enroll in college courses, participate in community education.

You deserve to feel happy and fulfilled, whatever that means to you. Take the time to celebrate who you are and all that you have in your life. Understand what makes you ultimately feel happy and fulfilled and create strategies to make it happen.

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It’s the big question every affiliate asks at some point… does article marketing work anymore?

If you’re anything like most aspiring internet entrepreneurs, you wonder if techniques that were all the rage a few years back still work. After all, it seems like there’s a new tactic getting launched every other day. Article marketing is one of those topics that’s been talked about non-stop. But you’re probably wondering if it still works as well as it once did, right?

If you haven’t tried it yet, article marketing is one of the best marketing tools available whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or experienced business owner. It works especially well for affiliate marketers (hint, hint…)

Internet article marketing is the process of writing articles and publishing them on article directories and websites. It can give your website or blog the boost it needs to start getting traffic and making affiliate commissions. As you grow, article marketing will continue to establish you as an expert and drive much needed traffic to your website.

EXAMPLE: Here’s how it works for members of our health affiliate program – you have a blog or website that contains content and affiliate links to one of our health-related products. By marketing your website with articles, you’re able to increase the number of visitors to your site and accordingly, increase the number of clicks on your affiliate links. In the end, this should translate into an increase in affiliate sales commissions.

Still need some convincing? Here are a few reasons why article marketing works:

1. Article marketing is a great way to generate traffic.

Each article you write will have a bio or resource box. Your bio will include a link to your website. Then, as website owners republish your content on their own website, they’re required to keep your links back to your website intact. People who read your content on these websites and on the article directory itself, will click through to your website to learn more. Additionally, the incoming links that article marketing creates will help boost your search engine results, which drives traffic to your website.

TIP: Make sure your article is well-written and interesting. Your resource/bio box should be catchy and make the reader want to learn more. By crafting your resource box to be an effective call to action, you’ll maximize click-through traffic to your website or blog.

2. Article marketing helps build your credibility as an expert in your niche industry.

Provided the articles you write and publish offer valuable information and benefit to your target audience, as they’re published on relevant websites with your signature box and biography you’ll begin to establish yourself as an authority.

3. Article marketing helps to increase exposure and brand awareness.

Article directories have a broad reach and extend to people all around the world. Each website your article is published on has their own target market and visitors who will, once they have read your article, be aware of you and your business.

4. Article marketing increases your recognition.

Advertising experts agree that it takes between 3 and 7 exposures for a person to develop recognition. This means it takes time for them to think of your business when they have a need, see a logo, hear a slogan and so on. As your content and name become prevalent online, your prospects will start to develop recognition. Article marketing helps you reach your customers and prospects repeatedly.

5. Article marketing gives you the opportunity, sometimes, to promote your products or services.

Some article marketing sites allow you to have internal text links. That means that within your content you can link to product pages, sales pages, or promotions. They generally limit the number of links you can have, but this can be a great way to simply drive profits. Note that it’s important to make sure your content provides value, and is more than a sales page thinly disguised as an article.

You can also accomplish these results by submitting articles to relevant websites for publication. However, because most article directories are free and writing content is fairly easy, article marketing works particularly well for affiliate marketers and those on a limited budget. All it requires is a bit of your time. So, get busy and start submitting those articles… lots of them!

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December 1, 2009 marks the effective date of the FTC’s Guidelines for Endorsements and Testimonials that all marketers must adhere to. As a result, the Affiliate Agreement for promoting the products here at HealthAffiliateTraining.com has been updated.

Please review the new agreement here.

As an affiliate, it’s important that you understand how these guidelines effect you and your business practices. In general, the guidelines seem to address honesty when advertising and marketing products to the public. No one benefits when consumers are mislead and it seems that the FTC’s primary objective is to protect the consumer. This is a good thing for everyone.

So, what should you do as an affiliate marketer to comply with these new guidelines?

First of all, I am NOT an attorney and nothing here should be taken as legal advice. You should consult your own attorney if you are unsure about the steps you need to take in your own business. I will, however, tell you my opinions and what I am doing in my own business.

1. Familiarize yourself with the FTC’s guidelines and follow them where applicable in your business.

Here are 3 excellent resources you can use to educate yourself:

The Actual FTC Guidelines:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotice.pdf

Special FTC Disclosure Report from Attorney Mike Young:
http://mikeyounglaw.com/ftc-disclosure-special-report.pdf

Interview by Jim Edwards with FTC Assistant Deputy Rich Clelend:
http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/ftc-change-interview/

2. Maintain a high level of honesty in all of your communications with website visitors, email subscribers, etc. Do not make false claims about a product just to make sales. Be upfront with people and you will be seen as a trusted source of information rather than some sleazy marketer who just wants to make a fast buck.

3. Be transparent. If you’re earning an affiliate commission from recommending a product, you need to disclose this fact. It’s up to you how you do it and you should consult the guidelines to determine the right way to go about it. Although I recommend very few affiliate products on this particular blog, there are some tools (such as Aweber) that I do promote and earn a commission on when someone signs up through my link.

I have added a “Compensation Disclosure” document to explain this type of affiliate relationship and there is a link to it with the other legal documents in the footer section of this website (NOTE: You cannot simply copy this agreement – it’s copyright protected. You’ll need to make your own disclosure or purchase the rights to a legal package that allows you to use such documents as your own).

Whatever you do, don’t just ignore the guidelines and do nothing. When you do business online you are subject to the same rules and laws as any other business. You and your business will prosper only when you play by the rules and treat your customers and visitors the right way.

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