As affiliate marketers we are often looking for the big kill. Quick and clean, easy money if we can get it. The problem with this is that there are an awful lot of us out there, all looking for that big win, competing with each other in the same niches and markets.
Some are willing to put in more resources and money than others, which makes it even more difficult for new internet marketers to get a piece of the action. Especially when it comes to the low hanging fruit, easy money programs.
Which is why you have to do a lot of thinking outside the box, and a lot of long term strategy planning. If you don’t have a lot of money to invest in PPC or other traffic venues, you are going to want to focus your attention on the organic search results. You are going to try and find niches with little or no organic competition and seat yourself in the top of those search results if possible.
But to do that, you have to be forward thinking and get into niches that are not really populated yet. So today I want to share one secret with you that has been working for me that I like to call “versioning”.
What is versioning?
Simply put, I try to find software and programs with good paying affiliate programs that sell their products in versions. If they are currently on version 6 of any given piece of software, I start looking at the possibility that they might put out lucky number 7. Now I’m going to forwarn you, this can be a crap shoot, and you may or may not win here, but if done correctly, you can get some long term listings that will pay off.
Let me give you an example right here on this blog. I like to use a program called ‘Dragon Naturally Speaking”, which is a voice to text typing program from a company by the name of Nuance. For the last couple of years I’ve been using version 10 of their software, and have been very happy with it.
About a year and a half ago, I started promoting their products. What I found was that they converted reasonably well, even with just a banner ad. So I decided to do some forward planning and a little speculation. A little versioning.
Here’s what I did.
I wrote a really long blog post about a product that didn’t exist yet, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, which was still a long way off, since version 10 had just come to market a few months before. I then did a little search engine optimization (SEO), to get that page noticed and backlinked using that term. Then what I had hoped would happen did, a discussion started among the blog users. What most affiliate bloggers don’t know is that these discussions in the comments area are the key to a page and it’s success. Google likes active pages that are updated often, and rewards these pages with good listings.
The result was that the page began to rise in the rankings for terms relating to both version 10 and version 11. Resulting in sales via the banners and links within that post for version 10. Now, the cool thing has yet to happen, but I’m fairly confident it will. That being that version 11 will actually be released and the search volume for that term will go up substantially. The good news is that I have the top listings for those terms and expect a lot of traffic when that release actually does happen. The even better news is that I happen to know the new version is going to be released very soon. In a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact. I spoke with their customer service yesterday and they confirmed it for me.
What I think will happen is that there will be an onslaught of new searches in a few weeks for this term. What I think will happen is that I’ll make a lot of sales on this product. All because I planned it out, well in advance.
So how can you benefit from this? You can find some products to promote by doing a little versioning of your own. Now I showed you what I’ve done with only one product, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret…. This is not the only product I’ve done this with. I do it often, and I make pretty decent money with this strategy.
You can too. But you’re going to need to set up a real plan with ground rules, which you need to decide. Simply developing sites and pages around any product with a number is not going to work. You need to pick good candidates that have been successful in the past that you think will have enough demand for a new version. What is the best way to do this? By looking at your software shelf, by looking at the products you actually use.
Do a little homework and find out if other people use it too. In fact, do a lot of research and find out if it’s got a large following. Then go to work. You need to actually know a little about the product to write about it well enough to spark discussion, if you’re going to promote it on an affiliate blog. If you are blowing smoke about a product you don’t, or have never used, you will get your cover blown in about thirty seconds. If you want versioning to work for you, you’ll have to really work at it.
But in the end, the result can be awesome. It can make you even more money and can help you get to affiliate financial freedom. Which is what we are all looking for. Right?