Ros' Ramblings

I got a TON o' great feedback on last Tuesday's NPT which profiled the success of Mike and David's new affiliate doggie site.

If you missed it, you can still see read Mike and David's story.

Highly inspirational reading, especially for those who may think that there is 'no room at the inn' for new affiliate marketers.

So, are you tapped into NPT feed yet? No? Input this URL in your reader and get the NPT delivered to your desktop:

http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/wp-rss2.php

Don't have a reader, or don't know how RSS works? Then go to:

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Today's NPT answers a bunch of questions like...

• Do I need my own website?
• What exactly is the 'Google Cash' method of affiliate marketing?
• Who throws good money to the wind?
• What's a cookie?
• How does having my own site SAVE me money?
• How will having my own site make me MORE money?
• How doing ONE thing wins consumer trust, increases conversion rates and makes more sales.
• What is the first step on the road to super-affiliate stardom?

For the 'HTML-phobics', or those who think building a web site is going to be way too much work, I've included a brief step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to build your very first in only FIVE (5) minutes... yes REALLY!

'Til next time, Learn and prosper!

Cheers,

P.S. Stay tuned... next week I'll tell you how to get the best kind of traffic... the kind you get for FREE! :-)

---

Rosalind Gardner is author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online.

Super Affiliate Handbook

Do I Need My Own Web Site?

Many affiliate marketers are making good money with the 'Google Cash' method of Internet marketing.

What exactly is the 'Google Cash' method?

In a nutshell, affiliates advertise in Google Adwords, or other pay-per-click search engines, and send traffic directly to the merchant's web site via their affiliate links.

Although the 'Google Cash' can and does work very nicely - in my not-so-humble opinion, I think this method throws good money to the wind.

How so?

Well, first of all, studies have shown that it takes an average of seven exposures to a product before a sale is actually made, so chances aren't good that visitors will buy a product the first time they visit the merchant's web site.

So, when you send traffic straight to the merchant's site, you have only ONE opporunity to make the sale.

Granted, if the merchant sets a long-term cookie, you may earn a commission if the visitor returns to the merchant's web site and buys the product at a later date.

A cookie, by the way, is a small text file that is embedded with your affiliate ID and is placed on the visitor's computer when they click your affiliate link. Cookies are set by the merchant to last anywhere from one day to several years. Cookies may also be deleted by the visitor.

With a preponderance of short-duration cookies, and even shorter attention spans, most visitors will never visit the merchant's web site again ... with your cookies still intact.

It's also unlikely that a visitor will click on your Adword seven (7) times to return to that merchant... and if that were to happen, your customer acquisition costs are going to be HUGE!

All things considered, having your own web site will actually save you money in the long run.

Because content sites get FREE traffic from the search engines, directories and inbound links, you'll actually get MORE visitors to your web site that you can then send to the merchant's site.

Furthermore, when your site is focused around a central theme and has pages and pages of great content and product endorsements, your visitors will see other products of interest to them ... which then gives you the opportunity to make even MORE sales.

Perhaps most importantly, if you don't have a web site you can't capture your visitors' information, and that's a COLLOSAL waste of traffic.

If it's been said once, it's been said a million times, 'The money is in the list'.

YOUR visitors WILL return to YOUR site... IF they hear from you.

But without a site, you can't build a list, and without a list, they'll never hear from you again - they won't even know who YOU are!

So, instead of sending traffic to the merchant's web site directly, send visitors to YOUR web site from Google Adwords. Place an email capture form, with an incentive for your visitors to sign up, on every page of your site. That incentive might be a newsletter, email course or even a free offer from one of your merchants.

Then use your list to send your subscribers great information, which in turn builds relationships, brings them back to YOUR site to read YOUR product endorsements and brands YOU as THE trusted source for information about the products that you recommend.

Third-party product endorsements ALWAYS have better conversion rates than merchant ad copy.

Sure, consumers can read features and benefits on the merchant's site, but because it's their product, of course the merchant will have nothing but good things to say about it.

However, when visitors read your well-balanced product review or endorsement, they're much more likely to then trust the merchant, and winning consumer trust is how sales are made.

So to answer the question 'Do I need my own website?'...

YES, if you are serious about doing business on the web, then you DEFINITELY must have your own web site.

Building your own web site is the first step on the road to super-affiliate stardom. Take that step today!

Build Your First Site in the Next 5 Minutes - Yes, REALLY!

As much as I love SBI! and the fabulous templates that are available out there, knowing how to build your own site is still the best way to go about building your Internet business - the right way.

Building a site is REALLY not that hard (or I wouldn't be doing it), and it saves you from having to wait for your webmaster or designer to get around to updating your site.

And although the templates at Boxed Art are absolutely gorgeous, you will still need to know some HTML to input your links and make them ready for the web and customers. That goes for ANY template that you buy online.

So, put aside your fears... I'm going to show you exactly how quick and easy building a web page can be.

For this exercise you're going to need an account at Yahoo!

Don't have a free Yahoo! account? Then set one up here:
http://my.yahoo.com/

After setting up your Yahoo! account, go to:
http://geocities.yahoo.com/

At the top of the page you'll see 'Build My Web Site'. Under 'Build My Web Site', click on 'Yahoo! PageWizards - Easy!'.

From there, you'll have the option to select a template.

I chose 'Fun D'Mental' and spent the next two minutes adding a few links.

Here's the page I ended up with:
http://www.geocities.com/rosalindgardner/2minutes.html

So, wasn't that easy?

Now we're going to move up a next level and try something more creative.

Go back to http://geocities.yahoo.com/, and instead of selecting the Page Wizard, click on 'Page Builder', which opens up a simple HTML editor.

Next, select the 'Text' button at the top of the editor, then click and drag your cursor within the window to create a box into which you'll add your text. (See Text circled in red in the diagram below.)

To add the 2 links, I first typed in 'Net Profits Today Blog' and the full title of the Super Affiliate Handbook. I then cursored over each individually, and added their respective URL's by clicking on 'Link' and typing the URL's into the box that popped up.

Here's the resulting web page:

http://www.geocities.com/rosalindgardner/basic.html?1109122164218

Yup, it's darned basic, but it's still a web page, and that only took me a minute to do!

Building web pages CAN be that easy. All you need to do is make some time and start playing with a few basics.

It won't be long before you really appreciate that building a web site ISN'T rocket science, and something that you definitely CAN do.

To build your own web site on your own domain, you'll want to learn how to do a few more things... like register your own domain (5 minutes), get a web host (5 more minutes), and build web pages to upload your host.

That can all become just as easy as building that first web site at Geocities.

It's simply a matter of making the time to learn how it's done... one step at a time.

Learn HOW to Build More Advanced Web Sites

How are you going to learn to build a more advanced web site?

Easy... the same way you'd eat an elephant... one bite at a time.

And fortunately, my friend Jim Edwards has just put together the best step-by-step web site building tutorial that I've ever seen.

It's an audio-visual package called 'Mini Site Creator' that will teach you everything you need to know about building a site that sells.

Don't let the name 'Mini Site Creator' fool you.

If you can build a mini-site, you can build a HUGE web site with lots of content too.

I've watched the 'Mini Site Creator' videos, listened to the audio and the whole package is absolutely fabulous! The best part is that you get to SEE exactly HOW it's all done, one step at a time.

I just wish Jim had done this years ago... I could have told you about it then, and many of you 'HTML-phobics' would have web sites up, running and making money by now.

It's here now, and that's what really counts.

There's simply WAY too much information included in Jim's 'Mini Site Creator' package for me to tell you all about it here, so go and visit his site now at:

Mini Site Creator