Affiliate Marketing Basics

Web traffic will ultimately determine the success or otherwise of your
site. Affiliate marketing is no different from any other form
of online marketing regarding conversion rates. Only a small percentage of those
who see your offer will actually convert into a sale. Its really  a
numbers game - the more people you get to see the ad the sales you are likely to
make. The metric used to measure sales relative to views is known as the
conversion rate  and it shows the number of sales per hundred chances. So
if 100 visitors see your sales page and 1 actually buys the conversion rate is
1%. Whatever your conversion rates is a lot of visitors are needed to achieve decent sales
volume.

However it is not just a matter of getting
traffic. Getting loads of senior citizens to a mountain climbing
adventure site  is less likely to meet conversion expectations
than a similar volume of young adult viewers. The objective is to
attract traffic with the greatest potential for conversion into
sales. This type of web traffic is  known as targeted traffic
and your level of success relates directly to your ability to
attract lots of targeted traffic.

Generating web site traffic

There are basically two streams of web traffic, one is
paid for, the other is free. With a new site the likelihood of significant
volumes of free traffic is pretty remote so realistically we all start out with
predominantly paid traffic while working on maximizing the amount of free
traffic.

Buy Web Site Traffic

The goal is to get sales with the least outlay of
advertising revenue.  Pay per click (PPC) advertising like Google Adwords
is probably the most popular method for paid traffic. With PPC you write an
advertisement which is displayed when the content is relevant to the search e.g
in Google if someone searches on "dog training" and you ad is relevant it will
appear. However where it appears depends on a number of factors the most
important of which are how much you are prepared to pay each time someone clicks
on your ad and also how popular the ad is. PPC is like an auction - the highest
bidder gets top spot etc. But as you only pay if the ad gets clicked on its no
use to  the company selling the advertising space if no-one clicks on your
ad.

The biggest drawback with PPC advertising is that
competitive search terms or keywords attract high cost per click rates making it
difficult for those on limited advertising budgets. However there are other
means at your disposal. One area that is generally overlooked is redirected
traffic from expired domains. Many people try their luck online, put in the
effort to build traffic to their
sites and then for one reason or another don't persevere and let the web site
renewals lapse. Anyone can buy expired domains and redirect the traffic from
these domains to their own sites but it's time consuming and needs experience.
There are however companies who do this as their  core business and sell
this OnClick = "javascript: urchinTracker('/events/www.redirectedvisitors.com);" >redirected traffic
This is where you stand to benefit. A fixed sum payment ensures a set volume of traffic.
Obviously the more traffic you buy the
lower the cost per visitor.

With CPC you are in a bidding war for ad exposure and
remember that unless your ad appears in the first 8 positions (i.e page 1) its
unlikely to even be seen. Of all those who see the ad only a small percentage
will click on it. The closer you are to top position the more clicks you are
likely to attract. The bottom line is that with CPC its a competitive situation
of you versus the rest.

Buying redirected traffic is viable both as an alternative
to CPC and to complement it. Unlike ordinary lead generation services the
visitors you get from this method are redirected from a related expired domain.
Don't confuse this with out of date traffic. These are current searches to live
domains, the only difference being that ownership of the domain has changed. The
business model for the new owners is to route any incoming traffic from their
web site to yours for a fee which creates a win win situation for both sides.

This method really needs to be tried for your particular
market. The broader your market the greater the greater the potential to
successfully utilize redirected traffic.  The other consideration is the
cost relative to other paid traffic models. To spend $100 with PPC is really not
difficult in fact in competitive markets you would be lucky to get a couple of
hundred clicks out of that. That same outlay could buy you
OnClick = "javascript: urchinTracker('/events/www.redirectedvisitors.com);" >25000 redirected visitors

Ezines

Ezine advertising is another good targeted traffic generating strategy.
Ezines are newsletters (containing advertising) delivered by email to
subscribers. Ezines are plentiful and cover an enormous range of interests.
Obviously if there is a good match between your product and the interests of the
ezine subscribers you're likely to get sales.

Some suggest that you try the ad in Google first and if successful continue
to ezines . Its best to know something about the ezine before advertising in it
and this is easily achieved by joining the subscription lists of these ezines.
To gain access to ezines in bulk join the Directory of Ezines

Links

Web traffic from other sites relies on links between your site and
theirs and here too quality content plays a major role. Link popularity
is one of the two major factors in search engine positioning (the other is
keyword relevance. Link popularity refers to how many other sites on the web
link to your site. For the recipient site a good quality link is a positive
recommendation, likely to boost site traffic. Linking is a great way to boost
profits without heavy spending but remember that good sites will only want to
link to other good quality sites so don't think of linking until your site has a
fair number of quality content pages.

Blogs are great for getting links back to your site. Look for blogs with
related themes to your site and leave comments together with your site link
included. Submitting articles with your web address for publication in e-zines,
etc is another way to increase links.

RSS

RSS provides a means of sharing your information with others. It's an
alternative way to distribute or publish electronic content (e.g.
advertisements, newsletters, ezines etc) without using email and therefore
bypassing email spam filters. This means that a lot more people are likely to
receive your content via RSS than would be the case via email. RSS delivers
headlines and content to opt-in subscribers.

RSS does not use the HTML format so to be able to read information via RSS
the recipient needs an RSS reader (aggregator). There are many available
including BlogExpress which is available as a free download.

The advantage for a recipient or RSS subscriber its a fast and easy way to
get the latest updates etc from a site without even having to visit the site or
read their emails. Also with RSS there is no spam.

RSS is free so you are not competing financially against bigger budget
players. Its an even playing field driven by content not money. There are no
barriers like spam filters to RSS delivery so your potential reach is greatly
improved. Its also an excellent way to continuously have new content on your
site.

Showing your headlines and content summaries on other sites with
add my site buttons can increase your sites visibility, credibility and
targeted traffic and link popularity.

Blogging

Another avenue is blogging and its free. Blogging is simply writing about
something (your interests or personal journal) on your blog which you regularly
update and intend for public viewing. To create a blog is easy just go to
Blogger.com.

Forums

Get involved in newsgroups, forums and discussion boards related to your
website and make your presence known. Each post provides another no cost link
back to your site. Get known as an expert and others will be keen visitors to
your site.

Buying leads

One method involves the use of "safelists. Basically you join a list and give
permission for all the other members on the list to send you their email adverts
in exchange for you sending them yours. Some of these lists are free to join,
others are not and some have both, but provide more benefits to paying members
like Your Lucky List. Be aware that everyone on the list is interested in selling not buying so are unlikely to even look at your emails. Also its really not much fun to be on the receiving end of masses of irrelevant emails.

Another option is to sign up for a co-registration service where you buy
opt-in leads either single or double. There are sites that provide lead
generation services for a fee like ListOpt<>, Traffic Oasis and Lead Factory.
You provide ads or newsletters and whenever somebody responds with an email
address you get the details. If you choose to use this method I suggest not
going for recurring monthly plans as the lead quotas are not necessarily
delivered in total within the month. Try them all and then decide. The quality
of the leads is the important issue here not delivery time.