Finding An “Ideal Plan” For Affiliate Success

Truthfully, there is no “Ideal Plan” for affiliate successbecause everyone is different and have varied thoughtsand perceptions about what success means to them...Your individual, skills, interests, and overall goals willaffect how you decide to organize your network ofaffiliate sites. The important lessons to take away fromthis course will be how to produce and grow a networkof websites, how to make them viral, and how topromote them for search engine rankings and traffic.What this guide is not, is telling you how to use yourtime, efforts and money. This guide allows you to workat your own pace, and take it one step at a time.Only when you actually start the process, and continueto work your own personalized plan, will be able to seeresults!Determining a personal plan of action is the first stepyou should take. Eventually, results will come that willallow you to stop working for someone else andcontinue to grow your own business.The “IDEAL PLAN” so to speak, should be to FOCUSevery action you take to making your Internet presencemore productive and therefore more valuable to YOU –not someone else.4The “Affiliate Compass” is not intended to provide you away for you to cheat or use “black hat” methods onyour visitors or the search engines. At all times youshould handle your business in an ethical manner.A long-term business plan is the simple and straightsolution to starting a viral explosion of long termInternet profits.Plan your work and work your plan.This is not a get rich quick scheme. The ultimate goalhere is to show you how you can have your ownnetwork of sites growing for you each and every month.Every time you take action, your network will grow.If you’re wondering why this information isn’t readilyavailable in all the other “info-products”, it’s becausemany of the so-called “gurus” or “experts” don’t thinkpeople will actually put for the effort. It takes action tofulfill the goal of having a successful affiliate or onlinebusiness. Many will talk the talk, but few will put forththe real effort to grow something for themselves.Yet, that is not the whole story. Many “gurus” feel ifyou are willing to spend your dollars on a digitaldownload, why should they help or tell you what itreally takes to start your own network. Your successmeans you will also be their competition. Very fewsuccessful marketers want to reveal everything for fearyou will become their competition.How hard are you willing to work for your family andyour future success?5

Affiliate Compass

“To succeed at internet marketing you need a growingnetwork of websites. These sites will feed each othertraffic, pre-sell affiliate programs, generate pay-perclick(adsense) revenue, and grow your opt-in e-maillists.”There are several ways for you to do this, but they allrequire a basic skill set. We will assume you know thebasics of purchasing domain names, hosting, andcreating a website. If you have no idea how to do anyof this, it really isn’t that hard and there are numerousavenues where you can learn the basics in a shortwhile. Our site is devoted to helping people like you tofind the correct tools and develop the mindset forcontinued success.Visit http://www.dotcomsuccess.com to learn more.We’ll be showing you some tools later on that let youcreate websites and actually “SEE” what you are doingas you do it. So don’t worry, IF you are not quite surehow to put up your own website, get a hosting accountand all that other “scary stuff”, we’ll be there to help.It is really quite easy, and you will learn about much ofit further in this guide...

Affiliate Compass - Getting a Reseller or Bulk Hosting Account

The first step on your journey should be getting yourfirst website online. Although your first site will be alearning experience for you, you should also begin toset things up NOW so you have room to grow.The benefit of a Reseller or Bulk Hosting account is thecost. Why would you pay $20 to host a website whenyou can host 50 websites for just a few dollars more?There are many hosting companies that offer Bulkhosting or Reseller accounts. HostGator, TowerHost,DreamHost, and many, many others. Many of themeven have training videos to help you get started.http://www.towerhost.com/support/video_tutorials.php

Affiliate Compass - Website Layout

Once you have your hosting and domain name situated,it’s time to start thinking about how your first site isgoing to look. There are quite a number of options inregards to how to find your own “look”.· Join a template membership site - This is not agood idea unless you are comfortable editingPHOTOSHOP files or HTML. Many template sitesare affordable and they do have a nice selection.Unfortunately, the membership is almost worthlessif you can’t edit the templates or pay someone todo it for you.· Get Xarawebstyle4 – Awesome idea with a lowlearning curve. I sometimes still use this on aregular basis. I also suggest getting Xarax whenyou buy webstyle4. XaraX is about the easiest touse vector based graphic system out there -· Get Dreamweaver or Frontpage – Frontpage has alow learning curve, but Dreamweaver gives you alot more room to grow. If you have any studentsin the household you can get the full DreamweaverMX suite for about $199 by purchasing theeducational version. Usually this version is nodifferent that the full retail version costing muchmore.There are dozens of books and on-line tutorials to helpyou learn it as well. Michael Worthington creates greatvideos on Dreamweaver.10· Don’t want to spend the cash? Try NVU:http://www.nvu.com/ it’s free!· Get XsitePro – this is a great “beginner” or“affiliate” site builder that has built-in templatesand an editor. This product is moderately pricedand can churn out so many OPTIMIZED pages thatit’s worth the investment.· If you just don’t have the time, energy, or skills tolearn all that right now and want to get started,you might want to consider joining a program thatsells Niche websites. Most Niche websitememberships give you completed products andENTIRE websites every single month. If you havean interest in purchasing ready made websites, youcan visit www.dotcomsuccess.com to learn moreabout where to find these (or they come includedin your membership).· You can also hire someone to make your website –although this will get VERY expensive as you addmore and more sites. A ten page targetedkeyword niche site is about 300 to 1000 dollars.Services like www.graphics.kellyifrah.com offeraffordable services, but can’t always meet demand– so you should probably have a back up such aswww.dotcomsuccess.com .· If you make sure your host has “FANTASTICO”(and many cpanel hosts do), you can install withone click several content management scripts,blogs, and other scripts to help with making a11

Affiliate Compass - The Simple and Easy Way To Get Started!

There are many ways you can get started, you can setup your own website, create a viral e-book...and thoseare all pretty easy, but still not the absolute easiest asthey do take time to research! These days, PrivateLabel Resell products are popular and give you a basisfor your own e-book.Probably the easiest and most popular way to getstarted these days is to begin your own Blog. Runninga Blog that you can install via Fantastico is a newwebmasters dream. One click installation, and then allyou have to do is add content. Wordpress is a greatchoice for a new blogger, but even if you can’t afford toget hosting or domain names yet, you can still getstarted blogging and Wordpress is free.While you can do a search for free Blogs, chances areyou will end up wanting to use Blogger.com fromGoogle – they are free and the Blogs are quite nice andeasy to set up with full instructions on the site.The best part about using most Blogs is that theyactually “ping” services to tell them that you haveadded new content. Many of those places thensyndicate your content and that brings you back linksand plenty of public awareness. This can result inadditional traffic as well.Blogging isn’t for everyone. I know I struggle with it,because I don’t always like talking about what I amdoing – I would just rather DO IT. But a Blog is a great

Affiliate Compass - Website Themes

Many experts on the subject of Niche Sites will tell youthat you have to pick high paying keywords and shouldonly base your website on those words. There are somany searches on so many topics these days that youreally can get traffic and interest in just about ANYcategory or “sub” category you want.What I am saying is - don’t make your sites aboutfishing – make them about “Walleye Fishing” instead.A great free and easy way to find topics is Nichebot:http://www.nichebot.com/ Just enter in a majorkeyword and it will spit out some other suggestionsthat will give you additional ideas, as well as help youfind your competition.Your first website should be about something you enjoyif possible. Writing just for the best Keywords isn’tmuch fun, so pick a topic you know something aboutand then JUST DO IT.

Affiliate Compass - Picking A Topic

There are many places to look for a good topic for yoursite. My favorite, and the one I’ve subscribed to is theLycos Top 50.It’s not the most popular search engine, but the Top 50list is a great way to find out what people are searchingfor. They also keep archives. Here is the URL:http://50.lycos.com/If you’re just starting out, you will not going to be ableto compete with the top 50 that are listed, but with alittle imagination, you can come up with sub topicsbased on what Lycos tells you. If you keep looking longenough, you might even find some patterns and be ableto figure out some of the future top searches and planahead for future site ideas.Use a keyword service. There are literally hundreds ofsoftware programs that help you pick keywords. I likeKeywordElite and SeoElite both by Brad Callen. Theseare proven products and very popular with Affiliatesand Marketers alike. Both are a bit pricey but willserver you well for the long term and are updatedregularly. The support is also exceptional.There are other services offering keywords on particularniches for as low as $15 per month. I suggest shoppingaround until you find one you are happy with and youcan visit us at www.dotcomsuccess.com to learn aboutother good services.16If you really want to find out what is popular – go findsome of the high traffic Blogs on the Internet. What