Let’s start with an important fact. Though you can earn from affiliate marketing even without the benefit of having your own website, it is still a much better option that you get one. A website is the anchor of your work at home business. It will be easier to promote your business and products or affiliate products if you have your own pages in cyber space.

We have previously discussed the basics of creating your own website and optimizing the same for the search engines.

In this article, we’re going to tackle some initial steps you should take in securing an enrollment to an affiliate program and in ensuring that it will be a profitable enterprise. Study these steps carefully.

* Choose the right affiliate program as covered in last weeks article.

* Enroll for the said program. Keep in mind that before you can be a part of this work at home business, you must first opt-in, or verify your application, through your email.

* Once enrolled, you will be given access to a website where you must log in. Do not forget your login details.

* You will see the list of the affiliate merchant’s products inside. You will be given the option to choose a product for which a campaign will be launched. Once a product is chosen, you will be furnished an affiliate link. Do not lose this affiliate link!

With your affiliate link at hand, it’s time to move to the next level!

Your affiliate link is what will tell the affiliate program’s system that a purchaser was referred by you. Your pre-sells that end up becoming successful sales are actually coursed through your affiliate links, thus informing the affiliate program that commissions are due to you.

It is quite evident then that affiliate marketing as a work at home business is all about persuading a potential customer to at least check out the affiliate merchant’s products through your affiliate link. The reason why affiliate marketing is called, well, marketing is because you need some promotional strategies to induce a person to become a purchaser.

We will discuss these marketing strategies in the next article.

The success of an enrollment with an affiliate program as a work at home business depends on the amount of commitment and effort you invest in the same. Being an affiliate, you must remember, is an online job, but a job nonetheless. You cannot just sit down and let this home business earn for you, at least, not initially.

Eventually however, you should be able to automate most of the process by installing some tools for a self-sufficient system of your own. We will cover this thoroughly in subsequent articles.

About the Author:
Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: http://www.malkeenan.com

The second Affiliate Bootcamp was a little rough going because of technical problems with the new VOIP conference facility, but everyone huddled together and a work-around was soon presented.

Good thing because the second class has a lot of visual aids to help you to understand the concepts and tools presented.

The big lesson to be learned in the second class is something I learned years ago … the hard way. It's imperative to your business success that you work in an organized manner. Keeping records of your URLs, usernames and passwords is not a trivial task.

One of the tools James Martell endorses and uses is Affiliate Organizer. Affiliate Organizer's affiliate program is only open to customers who have purchased Affiliate Organizer.

According to James…

As a successful affiliate marketer and author of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook I learned very early on the importance of *properly recording* all the usernames, passwords, control panels, hosting companies, domain name registrars, software serial numbers, etc. provided to me by the various companies so that I could *find this important information when I needed it*.

Getting and staying organized can be a daunting task, however I could see that it was important if I wanted to succeed with affiliate programs, …so I had to figure out a way. I did, and then dedicated the first chapter of my training manual to the subject and titled it: "How To Get And Stay Organized".

It's that important.

That sums up my sharing a little about the second Affiliate Marketer's Bootcamp class.

In case you missed my first post on Affiliate Bootcamp ….

CJU 2004 — An Event To Remember

This 8-minute clip will give you an inspiring overview of an emerging new industry that allows anyone with basic computer skills and a Net connection to work from home.

PLAY VIDEO:

Windows Media: Cable - DSL / 56k

Real ONE: Cable - DSL / 56k

Visit Site: Click Here

Once you have your affiliate link, you’re ready to go!

All you have to do, as we’ve discussed earlier, is to pre-sell your affiliate’s products by marketing the same through your affiliate link. An affiliate link leads the would-be buyer to the affiliate merchant’s payment processing page. Once you have managed to do that, your job is done, and the affiliate merchant will take care of the rest. This system makes affiliate marketing a very convenient home based business for anyone!

Pre-selling, however, should be carried out through effective marketing strategies to make this venture really profitable for you. These marketing strategies should be able to ensure a high conversion rate, or the power to convert the people who would be exposed to your affiliate link into successful sales.

Here are some of the more popular types of marketing campaigns being used as promotional tools in this home based business:

* Promoting your affiliate links through viral marketing. Viral marketing is a very powerful strategy that would rapidly expose your business message, or your affiliate links in this case, in just a short period of time. Viral marketing tools usually involve eBooks, special reports and other information products. We will discuss this effective promotional tactic for your home based business in the succeeding lesson.

* Marketing your affiliate links through forums. As we’ve discussed in a previous articles, promotion in online communities is an affordable and efficient way in spreading the word about your products or website, including your affiliate links. You could try to be active in these forums, befriend other members if you have to, and before you know it, you’ll have more traffic for your site and more referrals that could rake in some good commissions for your home based business.

* Article marketing. As we’ve likewise discussed in a prior article, writing articles and submitting them in various venues, with your resource box firmly attached at the end of each piece, is a magnificent way of promotions. People would scour the Internet for information, and if you write something about what they’re looking for, you’ll win their favor and expose your affiliate links to them aswel. This could only redound to the benefit of your home based business.

* Search engine optimization. As we’ve mentioned earlier in these lessons, having your own website would help a lot in marketing your affiliate links. If your website carries your affiliate links, you could always optimize the same for the search engines and drive a humongous amount of traffic to your pages. Every visitor you’ll have would always carry with him the chance of clicking on your affiliate links.

* Create your own mailing list. With a mailing list in place for your home business, you won’t have to lose any visitors. You could always “capture” them, warm them up for an offer later on, or present to them new packages that they might be interested with in the future. Most successful affiliates make a killing with their mailing lists alone! We will discuss this in detail in one of the the forthcoming lessons.

These are but some of the ways by which you could market your affiliate links. If done well, they could assure for you a very successful business that can be easy to sustain as well.

Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: http://www.malkeenan.com

Thanks to LinkConnector, I'm going to be attending the Affiliate Marketers Bootcamp with James Martell, affiliate mentor associated with Commission Juntion.

I'll be talking about my training with James Martell and sharing a few tid bits along the journey. In the meantime, here's a shameless plug for Affiliate Marketers BootCamp complete with affiliate links (thanks for your support).

Affiliate Marketing Mastery Can Be Yours By Attending James Martell's BootCamp

Its been said that the very best way to learn anything is to study with a master.

And the reason is simply this: We learn so much more through personal interaction than from books or tapes.

With that in mind, James Martell has series of BootCamps — intensive, live workshops using animated screenshots of everything James does to be successful on the Net — to "mentor" his students on the essentials of running a first class publishing business to profit from "affiliate programs".

Many know of James' Affiliate Marketers Handbook — 2006, which was first published in May of 2002, but not everyone knows that James originally started teaching his "secrets" to a small group of lucky locals in 2001-2002.

At that time he got out of live trainings because it took precious time and energy away from his growing affiliate business.
And although his "downloadable" training provided everything someone needed to know to make excellent income from a home-based operation on the Net — many over the years have asked if he planned to teach a live class again.

Although he entertained the idea from time to time, he never saw the need, especially since so many were reporting mind boggling incomes themselves when applying the principles taught in the Handbook, his Google Mastery audio report and his twice-a-month audio newsletter, know affectionately as "the buzz".

But the demand was still there from those who felt they either needed a "kick-start" — or some advanced training about how to take their operations to the next level by modeling James more closely and putting a small staff in place as he has done.

And because he now has people trained to do much of the "grunt" work he and his wife Arlene used to do — he has determined that putting together another live class might not only be profitable for himself — but could also be quite profitable in the long run for those attending.

And, of course, James loves to teach so it seemed like a good decision to launch another live training — and one that promises to be "light years" ahead of anything done by either himself or others in this fascinating, emerging industry that offers so much lifestyle and income rewards to those who master the techniques involved.

More can be learned about this BootCamp HERE.

–== eComXpo Online VIrtual Trade Show! ==–
Enjoy three days of search, affiliate and interactive marketing education
and affiliate networking from the comfort and convenience of your desktop!
–> FREE ADMISSION!

The first Affiliate Bootcamp class was pretty much what you'd expect of an online class with a bunch of folks who aren't too good at using online formats. We had to help everyone get that hang of using the on line communication interface. There were lots of newbie questions asked, but surprisingly not about affiliate marketing as much as about how to use their own computers … things like how to plug in microphones and speakers.

That's a great eye-opener for me because I try hard to help the newbies and I put all of that information over on the Affiliate Guild. I'm realizing I probably need to add some information on computer basics as well.

So, the first class wasn't all that earth-shattering, but I wasn't expecting it to be. It was a get-to-know-you and get a feel for the room type of thing.

One thing that I did come away with was the communication environment that James used. The company is called iVocalize and the environment is pretty nice … not too hard to figure out. It allows for chat, voice by all members, slideshows, and a whiteboard … there might be more features, but those are the ones I saw. If you've a need for a fairly sophisticated conference room, need something more than your IM can handle, then you might check this one out.

LinkConnector appreciates your business and is pleased to offer two free tickets to the next Online BootCamp , hosted by the widely recognized affiliate marketing guru, James Martell. Classes are limited to 50 participants, so the Online BootCamp provides an excellent forum for getting all your affiliate marketing questions answered and for learning from a top expert in the field. Each ticket is valued at $997.00!

The Online BootCamp runs Wednesday evenings for eight weeks, in an online conference room. Each "night-school" style class is dedicated to one of the eight steps outlined in James Martell's top-selling downloadable Affiliate Marketer's Handbook. You will receive a free download of this Handbook prior to the course starting so that you can become familiar with the material. Kick off for this event is Wednesday, November 15th. Classes typically run for 90 minutes, commencing at 6:00pm PST (9:00pm EST).

You will be able to ask questions as you go, getting immediate clarification from James. Learn to build profitable websites and carve out your own online success!

Attendees of the Online BootCamp also receive 10 hours of new video, taped during a James Martell training seminar in Vancouver. This video provides unlimited access to a virtual library of training, allowing you to access James’ tutorials any time you want, even after the Online BootCamp has concluded.

To Qualify To Win

JOIN LinkConnector Affiliate Programs Here NOW!

To win one of the valuable seats to this Online BootCamp please write a mini essay, only 200-300 words, describing your success within the LinkConnector Network. Perhaps one of LinkConnector’s unique technologies or merchant offers made the difference for you. Writings will be judged based on candidness and thoroughness of the feedback. All entries must be received by Wednesday, November 8th. Winners will be announced on Friday, November 10th! Log into your affiliate account for more details.

Ros Gardner caught my eye today with her post about Kanoodle changing names and modifying their business strategies. It figures huh, right after Google dances on their affiliates again … we go over to Kanoodle and join, paying the stinking $1 for them to process us … really to get our credit card info, which is suspect … and then, they make these changes without notifing us in a timely manner.

Way to go Kanoodle/Seevast !!! Way to win friends and influence people.

I've had the new Kanoodle ads running now for about a month. Yeah, I was ahead of the Google beating most took. I have to say I'm not all that impressed with Kanoodle … okay, I'm not impressed at all and here's why.

Their ads are not relevant to the information on the web page, not even close.

Half the time their JavaScript code doesn't work right. For example, on some of my three-tall skyscrapper ads … where I should be getting three text ads, it only feeds one. Yeah, that looks real nice on the page. I replaced the code several times with the same results. I'm guessing that Kanoodle (Pulse 360) are trying to get to a place of relevancy, so their system screws up and only feeds one ad … which wouldn't be as bad except that the ad isn't relevant either to the information on the page.

Okay, so those are my personal observations with the newer Kanoodle (Pulse 360) contextual ads service. I'd really like to hear some feedback on what others are expereiencing.

Anyhow, according to Ros…

On August 8th, Kanoodle announced that they will break out their content targeted sponsored links business from Kanoodle into a separate business called Pulse 360. ContextTarget, LocalTarget, BehaviorTarget, and BrightAds will move over to Pulse 360.

Kanoodle will continue to offer search targeted sponsored links through their KeywordTarget product.

Each of their companies will be held under a new parent company, Seevast.

The changes should be in effect by late September, if not sooner. Advertisers will be notified via email when any changes are required.