Work at Home Business Opportunity in Canada

Affiliate Business Part 1: How to Find an Affiliate Program and Get a Website



by Glenn Beach


I'm going to give you a step-by-step plan for the next month, and I will be focusing on those of you already involved with affiliate marketing. But just in case there are a few of you not yet actively working in the field, here's some tips for getting started.

Part One: Finding an affiliate program and getting a website.

Step 1: Making your list, checking it twice: so many programs, so little time.

Goal: By the end of this step you will have a list of possible affiliate programs to join, and a list of content sites for content ideas.

First, find your passion--here's a list to get your mind working:

  • airplanes
  • aerobics/exercise
  • boats
  • bicycles
  • cars
  • children
  • crafts
  • organic gardening
  • natural products (biodegradable cleaners, organic cotton
  • products, organic food etc.)
  • pets
  • do-it-yourself
  • movies
  • tv
  • music
  • sports
  • theater
  • novels/magazines
  • home business
  • wine
  • beer
  • cheese
  • chocolate
  • coffee

Take your passionate ideas and run them through the Overture keyword search tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
to find the "hot" keywords, the ones that have been searched the most in the last month.

Then do a search on your keywords at several of the engines - Google, AltaVista, Overture, MSN, AOL or any of the others. Have a quick look at the first ten or twenty listings. If you use SiteBuildIt!(more about that later), the Manager will automatically show you ten related sites for each keyword.

You will find two different kinds of websites in your search, merchant and content. Remember when you are looking at these 10-20 listings that what you are looking for is affiliate programs selling the products you want to offer.

Look at the merchants' sites and see if they have a product you'd like to offer your visitors and if they have an affiliate program. If so, they go on your keep-in-mind merchant list for that keyword. Next check out the content sites. Maybe you'll find ideas for content, but you're mainly there to see if they link to merchants. If so, visit those merchant sites as you did above.

If you still don't have a list of 10 merchant sites, you can try any or all of these options:

1. Do another search for your keywords plus the word "affiliate". For example, if your passion is gourmet cheese, then type in gourmet cheese affiliate or affiliate gourmet cheese. You will find merchants with affiliate programs or content sites that are affiliates. Again, for the merchants, you'll see if you like their product and affiliate program. For the content sites, you'll check their links.

End of Step 1: you have content ideas and merchant sites organized by keyword.

Step 2: Check affiliate directories and networks.

Goal: Choose your affilate program(s)

You will check your list of merchant sites/affiliate programs against some directories and merchant sites, looking for reviews and recommendations.

Here's some places to try:

AssociatePrograms.com, Refer-It.com, CashPile.com and Associate-It.com.,Commission Junction, BeFree, LinkShare, and/or ClickTrade

And there are others; do some searches (Google, AOL, MSN etc.) if necessary until you are satisfied you have made good choices. Then sign up.

End of Step 2: Success! You have your affiliate program or list of programs and you've signed up.

Step 3: Establish a web presence

I'll assume you want your own website. There are no-cost ways to do it, and there are systems you can buy into.

No-fee websites:

  • http://www.finitesite.com No-charge hosting without any ads; but you have to build your own website.
  • Bravenet: http://www.bravenet.com
  • Geocities: http://geocities.yahoo.com/

Website systems:

  • SiteBuildIt http://quicktour.sitesell.com/marketing101131.html
  • SFI: http://www.work-at-home-business-opportunity-canada.com; ask about Work at Home Team website options
  • PlugInProfit: http://www.pluginprofitsite.com

Beginning html/website help:

  • http://newbieclub.com/
  • http://www.pagetutor.com/
  • http://www.htmlgoodies.com/nontechintro/

Alrighty now, you're up to speed and kickin'...you're ready for Part 2: Traffic and Money

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About the author: Glenn Beach is a poet, writer and home business entrepreneur in Nova Scotia, Canada. Free newsletter, more articles, and business start-up info at: http://www.work-at-home-business-opportunity-canada.com


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Work at Home Business Opportunity in Canada