Internet Marketing

As with any business, you need to decide how you are going to market or promote your services or program, and what your budget is. Affiliate marketing is no different and there are many free ways to generate traffic to your site but for these to be effective, you need to invest time.

Don't overstretch yourself, work out what your market is and experiment with the many different methods.

Make sure you develop a strategy that you feel comfortable with in terms of budget and a realistic estimate of time you can invest.

Internet marketing Strategy

To promote your web site is always going to be 'work in progress'. The good news is that there are a range of promotion techniques and services you can utilise to make the job a little bit easier.

Slow down, develop a plan and work at it steadily. If you want to know what works, follow great examples! Who's successful in your industry? Who has consistent top 10 positions in the major search engines for your chosen keywords? What do they do?

Treat your web site like a business and write a plan to ensure your success. Use to plan when developing your own strategy:

You need to know what it is you're going to market

	Be passionate about it
	Choose an area of interest to you
	Is there an ONLINE market for your product or service?

Build an effective web site

	Get you own domain
	Get a reputable web host
	Either build in-house (learn HTML) or out-source
	Plan your site design - stickies and paper still work fine!

Set-up an automated sales system

	Make sure your web host has a secure server
	Source a reputable online payment processor.
	Get eCommerce software (check the forums for what's best)

Make sure you collect email addresses

	Use an autoresponder service.
	Develop a newsletter
	Keep in touch!
	Don't send SPAM

Automate Your Business

Use affiliate software to automate as many of your processes as you can

Drive targeted traffic to your site

	Develop a linking strategy
	Submit to classified ads
	Submit to search engines

Test and Track

	Be prepared to change advertising
	Try text and graphic combinations
	Use a tracking system

Follow Up

	Join Affiliate Programs
	Up-sell to your customers
	Do Joint Ventures
	Set-up your own Affiliate Program

Determine if your business is ready

	Choose the right software and network partners, if applicable Recruit affiliates
	Train your team

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