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?

Just like investing in real estate, buying an affiliate website takes some research. If you plan to redesign the website to improve its income, then you need to make sure that goal is possible. Many affiliate websites that are for sale have a proven track record of performance, and it is difficult to improve them beyond that point. This is where being a true affiliate marketer kicks in. You need to know the ins and outs of the industry well enough to judge whether or not you can increase a websites earnings.

If you would like to just purchase an affiliate website as it is, then you have less of a worry. You can get a rough estimate of the anticipated earnings per month, and then decide whether or not the website would be a good match for your portfolio. If you would like to inquire about affiliate websites that we have for sale, please visit our contact us page.

Force Visitors To Wait

If you decide to feature a great logo, a video, graphics, and other multimedia on your website, you might actually be causing more harm than good. The internet audience expects to have fast loading websites. If your website takes those few extra seconds to load, they can easily hit the back button and visit another similar website. Streamline your affiliate website and retain those visitors.

Assuming Everyone Is Up To Date

How many times have you left a website after being informed that you needed to install a plugin or update your browser. Change is good, but do not have your entire website redesigned every few months to the latest standards. If you do, be sure to have options built in for website visitors, who, on average, do not update their systems often.

Stop With The Questions

It is understandable that you want to collect enough information about your visitors to make a sale in the near future. However, studies have shown that for every extra question you require on a form, you lose about seven to ten people from finishing the completion of the form. Get the basics and move forward.

These marketers are making money by building up local based affiliate marketing websites and then placing contextual advertisements in the appropriate spots. It is highly unlikely that a plumber, caterer, or wedding photographer is going to spend thousands of dollars on search engine optimization services. However, they do incorporate Cost Per Click advertising into their marketing program. In fact, you would be surprised how many Adsense ads exist for even the most basic services in small cities.

Take a few seconds and perform a search for a service related industry in a specific city. Notice the contextual advertising? Some may be local businesses, while others may be from international companies or businesses located in nearby cities. In either case, a market exists. Take a look at the results from your search. You might find that the top ranking websites are poorly designed and have little to no optimization.

It is easy to have an affiliate website built that will take over that particular local niche, the contextual advertising is in place, and a ready market exists and will continue to do so for a long time. Try your hand at local niche based affiliate marketing today.

Blogs Are Big For Content

The main techniques of old affiliate marketing involved building a nice landing page and then getting that page to rank well within the search engines. In the modern affiliate marketing world, you now have to compete with blog based websites. Hundreds of blogs in your niche, each with pages upon pages of content. In some cases, this content is auto-generated and mass produced.

Web Hosting Is Crucial

The day is long gone when you could buy a simple hosting account and place dozens of add-on domains on it. While you can comfortably host about three or four websites without suffering too much, search engines have caught on. They examine your website along with others stored in your hosting account. If the content looks spammy, expect to not rank as highly as you should.

The New Definition Of Spam

A one page website that is nothing more than a sales page. The content is basic, poorly written, and is obviously attempting to be overstuffed with keywords. Would you consider this a spammy website? How about a fifty page website, with original high quality content, optimized page structures, and plenty of backlinks from relevant and high ranking websites?

Would you guess that both of these could be considered spammy? If the website is designed only to sell, and is using a nice design and content to mask that fact, it will still raise a red flag with search engines. Providing honest value is the only way to go.

Wow, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Boy oh boy do I wish I could give you a stock answer, but I can’t. Because what program is best for you is going to change entirely from person to person and from website to website. Depending on what the focus of the website is, the expertise of the person, etc.

Because there are programs out there that can pay you thousands of dollars for a single referral. But it only works if you can send a qualified buyer to them, and in most cases, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Let’s look at this example.

Let’s say that you have a personal coaching plan, costing $12,000, that pays you $6000 per referral that buys their program. Sounds awesome, right? Yeah, it is, but now you have got to find someone that is A, qualified to buy something that runs over ten grand, and B, someone that will actually whip out the credit card and buy that program from your website referral. Now I’m not saying that these types of commissions don’t happen, of course they do, but they may be spread a little further apart than a program that costs a little less.

Which is why you need to pick out the right affiliate programs for you. It’s ok to promote our example program if you have a website that can sell it, but it’s probably not going to do much for you if you are promoting it on an unrelated site. Let me explain what I mean.

Many people add programs to their site simply because they pay well, not because it benefits their website users. If you have a cooking blog and are pimping a high dollar self help program, it’s probably not going to result in many, possibly any, sales. But if you sell them cookware, recipes, etc, then you probably have a higher shot at a decent conversion rate.

Don’t pick out affiliate programs simply for their payout, pick them for you and your site. Find relevant, appropriate programs to promote, always keeping your user base in mind, and you will go further.

Right?

Umm, maybe. Well, if you decide to do business with them, I guess that is true. But you do have choices when it comes to running your business, as do I.

What the hell am I talking about you ask?

Let me tell you a story…..

I’m an affiliate marketer. I make a living via my sites, and I don’t really have to do much else. I could cut out the whole design portion of the company and still do well. I like working with other would be marketers, and quite frankly I learn a lot from my clients, which is why I continue to work in the development area as well.

But I don’t have to. Which is something I think some would be clients don’t see. Here’s what I mean. Some people have these weird control issues, and they want to make sure that everyone knows who the boss is from the very beginning. Often coming off with very rude statements. Which in my case results in one thing.

I don’t work with them. Period.

I am fortunate in that I have a choice in who I accept as a new client. If you send off flares, giant red flags and obnoxious warning buzzers before we have even begun, I’m going to opt out of any type of relationship with you. No matter how big your development might be. Because if you are a pain in the ass before we’ve begun, you’ll be an even bigger pain afterward. At least, that’s what experience tells me.

So yes, as a client you have a responsibility as well. That responsibility is to treat me and my staff with respect and common courtesy, which should go unsaid. But unfortunately it can’t, because some people feel that if they have paid for a service that they have also bought the people offering the service and can treat them any way they want.

Nope, you can’t. Common decency is required at all times, it’s a basic rule for being a human being.

You do not get better service by being a bully.

Like my grandma used to say, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

So to the would be client that sent me that rude inquiry today, no thank you. We won’t be adding your project to our client developments. Because your email was just plain rude.

It’s too bad. We’re extremely good at what we do. I’m sorry your actions have forced us to reject any relationship with you.

Yup, as a customer, anywhere, there is a certain etiquette required. So please be nice. It will take you a long way.

One of the requests we are getting quite often right now is to build custom affiliate tracking scripts. Basically, a script to pay affiliates for sending sales to your website.

More specifically, it seems that more and more online stores and companies that sell products online are realizing that they need to offer some sort of reward to the affiliate community to gain their traffic. Which translates into offering a new slew of affiliate programs. Probably in the hopes of getting them up and running before the Christmas season.

You can’t hardly blame them, this Christmas looks to be huge, with the economy bouncing back and all. I know it’s showing here and the phone is literally ringing off the hook with new clients requesting custom affiliate tracking script solutions.

Cool.

We’re always glad to welcome new clients and it’s also good to see a bunch of new affiliate programs on the horizon. Even better when we get to build the script.

Lather, rinse, repeat. That’s the instructions they give you, because that’s what works. Interestingly enough, these same instructions work well when it comes to building affiliate websites.

But first we have to build a site that is successful, right? And what, exactly, is a successful affiliate website?

That’s pretty easy to answer, if you ask me. It’s a website that makes money. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, it simply needs to make a profit. Here’s how it works.

It can really boil down to a website that makes a dollar a day. That’s right, one stinking dollar a day. Let’s do some math.

If you want to make $3,000 a month, let’s say, than that breaks down to $100 per day. If you have created a website that makes a buck a day, then all you really have to do is build 100 more like it.

I can hear you groaning…. 100??? Are you friggin’ kidding me??

Nope, I kid not. This is the way to make a solid living via affiliate websites. You need to find a method of marketing that makes you money, first and foremost. You need to understand HOW you are making that money via your website, then you need to make sure that it’s consistent. Once you have that in place, duplicate it.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Just like it says on the back of the shampoo bottle. I know it’s kind of boring, but nobody said that making money via building affiliate websites was going to be glamorous. Just the opposite really. To make a living this way, it’s actually kind of boring.

But it is also pretty rewarding once you have some sites in place.

And it doesn’t have to take 100 websites to get there. This is simply an example. If you can get your site making a consistent income each month, then move on to the next site. Try to focus on the things that worked in the last website and add them in the new site if you can.

one word of caution though, and we’ve covered this here before. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT put all of your eggs in the same basket and promote the same affiliate program across every one of your sites. It can and will come back to bite you in the end. Diversify and limit your risk as much as possible. Build similar sites using similar programs if you want, but get your income from several different affiliate programs if at all possible.

And yes, this does include Adsense too. Don’t build a portfolio of adsense only sites either. Broaden your portfolio and the affiliate programs your websites promote. In the long run, you’ll have a healthy bunch of websites making you a good living.

You see, it helps to actually know something about whatever it is you want to promote. Because it’s not as simple as just putting up an affiliate banner and waiting for the cash to roll in. There was a time when this was ALMOST true, but those days are long gone. These days, it’s all about promotion.

So, because you have to live with your niches, sometimes for a really long time, you need to know something about them. At the very least, you’re going to want to have a little interest in that niche in order to do some research.

Here is where some marketers are going to disagree with me and tell you that you should promote the highest dollar program you can, whether you know anything about it or not. There are several problems with this approach though. The main one being that you don’t know jack about what your supposed to be writing about.

That’s right. If you are promoting an affiliate program, you’re probably going to be doing some writing. Whether it’s on an affiliate website, an affiliate blog, or somewhere that you are trying to get a link from, you’re going to be writing about the topic. Which means you’re going to have to know something about it. Or, look like an idiot.

Here again, there’s a group that would say that it’s o.k. to look like an idiot, as long as you get some links and some related words indexed somehow by the search engine spiders.

But let’s remember the real people out there too. And those real people are not going to follow the advice of an idiot. They are not going to believe in your suggestions for a particular product or service if your promotion doesn’t make them see a reason why they should.

Are you following me here?

Promotion when it comes to affiliate marketing is multifaceted. You’re going to be spending some time setting up pages and backlinks to those pages that contain sales text. Reasons for people to buy the wonderful things you have to offer. It’s how you make a commission from your affiliate programs. So you need to become an authority in your respective niches. So you can promote them well, in the end, hopefully making some money.

Affiliate websites are not easy, contrary to popular belief. But if you work at them and really get into the marketing side of things, you can make some very good money.