Affiliate Programs: Hope for the Desperate

There are zillions of ads and whatnot on the web telling you about getting rich with affiliate programs. You can’t. Not rich-rich, anyway. What you can do though is buy yourself a little time and push the wolf a little further from your door.

Those ads that say “I made a million dollars doing nothing except affiliate marketing, and you can too!” are pretty much horsepoo. But I’m willing to bet you dollars to donuts that while the guy didn’t make a million dollars, he probably made a few thousand.

Just take it all with a grain of salt.

He probably made those thousands over the course of several weeks. Maybe a couple of months. So the million dollar thing? Lies. But the reality of a few grand? Well… why not? That cash can really come in handy.

Avoid a lot of yellow.

If you see a landing page with every other line highlighted in yellow, move on to the next one. Yellow seems to be the universal code for lying scammer. If you are the affiliate of a lying scammer, you are a lying scammer, too. That won’t help you sleep at night, and you will go to hell.

Is The Rich Jerk really that rich?

Yes, by now he is. He has been selling his system for long enough that he has made a mint on it. People want information, and he sells them information. Even I tried him out. Am I rich? Hells no. But did it work at all? Yes. Here’s the part I found most useful: The e-book.

The Rich Jerk e-book is full of information on making affiliate marketing work, even if you don’t go in for all his other gewgaws. The book is ten bucks, gewgaws cost extra. Get the book, and learn affiliate marketing.

So, how do I use affiliate marketing?

Didn’t I just tell you to buy that book? It’s dirt cheap, and it would really save me having to type everything out here…

Fine. Here’s a few things you need to get started.

• A domain name and hosting. You would need this for any type of venture, from freelancing to affiliate marketing to live streaming porn content. I use 1 & 1 (there’s a link to the right of this post) because they aren’t expensive, they never fail, and their customer service are all well-spoken, polite blond boys from Germany.
• An account with Clickbank and/or Commission Junction. These are the top affiliate marketing sites. Clickbank is easiest to use, and they both have great products. Get one for each. Then choose what you want to market.
• Use your copywriting skills to up-sell the products you are offering. Think of it as a writing exercise. Play around – what works best and delivers results? You will be honing your craft as you go along. A win-win.
• Use every trick in the book to promote your site. Backlinks, SEO, pay per click ads via Google, social media – whatever it takes. Get people to your site, and get them clicking your links and making purchases.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t make too many millionaires, but that extra few thousand bucks in your bank account will sure come in handy when the mortgage is due. And in this economy, who doesn’t need that?