Are you looking for an online income but lack money or experience to begin your own business? There are many online opportunities out there for first timers. One of the very best is affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a great program for first time online marketers. It gives you the opportunity to begin selling without your own product. It is very easy simply sign up with an affiliate-marketing program then choose your products. Affiliates are paid by the original merchant on a percentage or commission basis. You recommend the product or send visitors to their site and once a purchase is complete, you have earned your commission.
It is easy to become an affiliate in an affiliate marketing program and best of all it cost you absolutely nothing. In spite of all the potential earnings and bonuses offers by affiliate programs many people still hesitate. This may be because they do not have a website to start putting affiliate marketing on. That leads us to the real question of the day; do you have to have a website to participate in affiliate programs?
General consensus says that you can do affiliate marketing even if you have no website to begin with. In fact, you may never need to get a website at all. There are many ways to promote and market affiliate products without one. Some strategies even work better without a website.
Email Marketing:
Email marketing consists of maintaining a good customer list of email addresses. This is one of the most popular affiliate marketing strategies. What you basically must do is maintain the email ads containing articles of relevant information for your customers. Give your customers good content not just a spammy looking ad. These emails are annoying and counter productive. Instead, look for content that is informational then place inconspicuous ads within the text or in a small ad box.
Hard Copy Promotion:
Do not forget there are offline resources available to you also. Take out a classified ad in the local paper or better yet a free circular. You can make your own flyers and brochures and distribute them for free in the market place. Classifieds are usually better than the others are because you will reach a larger audience.
Free E-books:
If you have a talent for writing, you can write your own e-book to promote your affiliate program. No need for a website with the use of e-books. Similar to your emails it is preferable if your e-books are not overblown ads. Actually, give some good information that is relevant to what you are selling. Make it enjoyable to read and place your links and banners gently throughout the book, perhaps in links at the bottom of the page. Alternatively, use the last page as your advertisement adding links to your merchant’s site.
Free Ezines:
Still in the writing genre are ezines, these are articles or publications aimed at a specific topic. Ezines are great tools especially if you are not maintaining a website. Create good content and like the e-books add affiliate links. The nice thing about ezines is you have the option of submitting it to other sites for publication. Places like goarticles.com or ezinearticles.com are good places to submit your free ezine articles.
Free Online Discussions:
Online discussions, chats and forums are an excellent tool whether you have a website or not. Search out the boards that have topics similar to the product you are promoting. Then you can direct people interested in your product to the affiliate merchant. This will be highly convertible traffic because they have already expressed an interest.
As you can see, there are several strategies that really do not require a website to be profitable. You can start an affiliate marketing campaign with many of the resources that are currently in place. While it is easy to begin an affiliate program without a website the key is making it profitable. There is enormous success possible in affiliate marketing however; it is rare that a newbie achieves it.
You will not have to build a website for affiliate marketing unless the program owner requires it. It is still smart to begin working towards having your own website. To begin with it may not be necessary but the sooner you can afford one the better. A website gives you a permanent page that you can creatively market affiliate links on. This will get your information out to a potentially larger clientele.
Once again, it is not required that you have your own website to promote affiliates, but there are many advantages. A website will make your life much easier and that friend translates into a larger online income.
44 Comments
Jack
November 17, 2008Reed, How do you email market unless you have an opt-in email list to market to? And to email market, yes, you can join a giveaway, but you still have to have a website. Correct me otherwise, but I have not seen anyone build an opt-in email list without some sort of a website.
Jacks last blog post..Needmoney? Google Ambush Review and Discount!
Bruno Auger
November 17, 2008I’ve actually seen a lot of people promote products in a live chat but I always found it kind of like spam.
I have also see people use live streaming video sites to promote what they have to offer with some degree of success.
I think most of the new marketers struggle on the email list because they don’t have the proper tools and right series of mails to help them build a solid list. I know myself I have ran into this problem and get frustrated because it just doesn’t work until you get the right material.
Larry Johnson
November 17, 2008Reed,
For someone as young as you are, you have an uncanny knack at internet marketing.
Affiliate marketing can be very rewarding and I agree that having your own website is of utmost importance.
I will and have been following your advice, as it has proved to be timely and accurate.
In appreciation,
Larry
Laurie Brandt
November 17, 2008Excellent job. Now if I can get mine to look half this good I will be happy. I am working on it, found and incredible set of Videos that teaches step by step so wish me luck, I will send an invite once completed.
Laurie Brandt
http://www.LaurieBrandt.com
http://www.YourSuccessWealth.com
Laurie Brandts last blog post..I am working on it, in time it will be awesome
Paul Livingston
November 17, 2008About email marketing…
You need a list to mail to, right? To get a list, you need a squeeze page, no? A squeeze page is a website, isn’t it?
I’m fairly new at this, but that’s what I understand about email marketing. Is there another way?
Oh, and thanks. Great post!
Paul Livingston
MY squeeze page:
http://plivingston.com/likes/isosp
Paul Livingstons last blog post..Wow, 34 Targeted Leads in 18 Seconds!
James Steele
November 17, 2008I agree that you do not need a website to promote th affiliate products. I have had limited success posting to free classified ad places like http://www.adlandpro.com, http://www.inetgiant.com, and others, but to date have only sold 1 product for Shawn Casey. I know that if I am just persistent I will make it. I am a Disabled American Veteran (Iraq) and can’t work, but am trying to make something off the internet, and it is HARD. So many people just want to make a buck, and I have paid over $1000.00 trying to find something that WORKS (and it’s so HARD coming up with that when you are on a disability pension that isn’t worth much at all) and promise a money back guarantee, and then you fight tooth and nail for them to honor that guarantee. So I hope one day I can find something that works for my family and I, before I no longer HAVE a family!
Paul Livingston
November 17, 2008Okay, something went wrong. I just submitted a comment but it didn’t show up. Here it is again:
About your email marketing paragraph…you need a website for that, right? I mean, to do email you need a list. To get a list, you need a squeeze page. A squeeze page *is* a website, right?
Granted, I am fairly new at the email thing. But that’s my understanding of it. Is there another way?
Great post, BTW. Thanks!
Paul Livingston
MY squeeze page:
http://plivingston.com/likes/isosp
Paul Livingstons last blog post..Wow, 34 Targeted Leads in 18 Seconds!
Paul Livingston
November 17, 2008Okay, something went wrong. I just submitted a comment but it didn’t show up. Here it is again:
About your email marketing paragraph…you need a website for that, right? I mean, to do email you need a list. To get a list, you need a squeeze page. A squeeze page *is* a website, right?
Granted, I am fairly new at the email thing. But that’s my understanding of it. Is there another way?
Great post, BTW. Thanks!
Paul Livingston
Paul Livingstons last blog post..Wow, 34 Targeted Leads in 18 Seconds!
Christine Imamshah
November 17, 2008I totally agree that affiliate marketing can be done without having a website but it’s kind of like giving away the potential future of your business to the affiliate product owners.
The reason I say this is that by directing all of your traffic directly to the merchant’s sales-page, you lose out on the opportunity to have your potential customer opt-in to your list which enables you to promote other products to them in the future.
If a new affiliate starts out this way, I would highly suggest that as soon as possible get your own website with opt-in capabilities.
Regards,
Chris
http://www.fastinternetmarketingtips.com
Jussi Koiranen
November 17, 2008Great tips and shows greatly the variety of ways to make money online. Even if you own a website adding these forms of marketing can be highly lucrative. Ezines and Ebooks are a great way to expose you as an expert in the field and create rapport with people who have taken interest in you.
Timothy Millar
November 17, 2008Hey Reed,Hows life treating you and yours?, I hope all is well. Even though you can sell others products without a website it is better to have one of your own because, you know what they say; The Money is in the List! Without a landing page or website you can’t build that list
but you can still make money,Just not as much and with no recurring sales available.Take it slow and learn all you can but make a website your ultimate goal.Have a wonderful day,Timothy Millar
Timothy Millars last blog post..Paid to Read update #3 Jacob mails
Shamsul Hayat
November 17, 2008Great post. First time i have read your article but very impressed. You covered it in great detail. I am currently training a few newbies and this kind of article is a great learning tool.
Best Regards
Shamsul Hayat
http://www.building-online-wealth.com
Jerry Goodwin
November 18, 2008Great article as usual. I always read the comments too, and I see that Paul makes a great point here that you should be sending people to a squeeze page and technically that is a website.
I think he is correct, but you can pick up website so cheap that it isn’t funny, I mean many sites come free and some that like 2 or 3 dollars a month will get you a site with no ads on it, another 3.00 or 4.00 for a domain and you have your squeeze page(website), opt-in page or whatever you wish to call it.
Also you really should have an Autoresponder so when you give away your ebook, report or whatever you can not only get the email but keep in touch without having to rewrite everything everytime.
Some of the Autoresponders even will throw in a website of an extra couple dollars a month or “furnish” a squeeze page/landing page.
Many peolpe are now using their blog as their website and adding an opt in box on that, getting a URL for the blog and they have the web presence. You can get a blog absolutely free, but you really should get a URL for it or have it attached to your site like you have done here. My own blog is at http://www.bodymindgoalsnews.info
I have seen websites for as little as 2.99 a month, so why would anyone not want to have a website? Domains are now so cheap that it is unreal. I can remember when 45.00 would get you a domain for 1 year and their was only 1 place on the Internet that you could buy it from, so you were stuck. And payment processors could ask for 200.00 or more up front, and 5-7% discount rate. Competition has increased, prices have dropped considerably.
Websites now with WYSIWYG and FTP are terribly easy to put together and upload to the site, and most hosts have their own editor that you can use which is usually pretty simple to use.
normz2
November 18, 2008Good post again. There are many ways to be an affiliate. It is much better to have a website to use as a home base. I am still realatively new to internet marketing and am still searching for what works best for me.
Jussi Koiranen
November 18, 2008@ Great points Jerry! Prices have really gone down.
In Finland the prices are still pretty steep and .fi is hard to get, but that hasn’t stopped me. I got a free blogspot account and a rather costly, but well producing .com website (so I guess it evens out). You actually have to apply for .fi … There are many great and easy to use sitebuilders out there and lots of info to learn writing scripts and also ready made scripts floating around just waiting to be used.
@ Paul you already have some emails, right? There you have a list. You can also get other peoples emails all over the web. To make sure it isn’t spam you need to get in touch with them and ask for their permission. I’ve sent lots of sales letters looking for either invesments or jobs, no one has chosen to view them as spam. Or at least report me anywhere 🙂 Selling something online without a website can be tough, and doing it by simply emailing people can be tough. Me? I’m still learning how to approach strangers via email.
Terence - Digital Zips
November 18, 2008I can add another tactic that doesn’t require a website to promote an affiliate program.
Many publishers of affiliate programs provide brandable reports. You can easily upload them as pdf files to sites like scribd for downloading. I have had a few sales from this tactic. I use a tracking link inside the pdf files so that I know where the sale came from.
A list is needed to really make money though, and a squeeze page on your own website is the best way to build it.
John/Annette
November 18, 2008Very good information for all. Just take things one step at a time and you will make it.
Mathew
November 18, 2008Thanks Reed for your Affiliate Lesson again, and thanks also to all of you for your good comments and advise which mainly talking on a one website should have for your squeeze page to build your list. That is very true that with your list which is your customers or buyers, is very easy to blast your affiliate program out to each one of them. I am on this now still struggling to build my list in advertising.
By the way, I believe what Jerry mentioned that you should have an hoster for a Website to start off with your Squeeze page. If you don’t mind, I like to give you a hand on this. I have been using what Reed told me on how to build your list- you should always give Free Stuffs on your squeeze page website which you might have elready all aware of this to easily get your optin. I am now also using a free hoster for my squeeze page running fine and good service with them.
http://viralurl.com/jkmont/70456738
You can check this free hoster for yourself and see all the futures, I use to run my squeeze page website on this hoster. I did also run some of my product and also fine with.
Good day!!
Srinivasan
November 18, 2008You are an excellent and convincing writer. However I do not agree with you that you can make a success of your business without a website. Except for ebooks which you may sell through other websites non of the ideas are really workable. Even with funnel pages, squeeze pages etc. you find it difficult to build big targeted email lists.
Chats and discussions are a waste of time for any serious business.
Sri
Ari Lestariono
November 18, 2008Affiliate marketing has potentials market, some people succeed some people still struggling to make few bucks, the difference in conversion sales and getting traffics to your affiliate links becomes complex when you find yourself competing with so many affiliate marketer doing the same thing, the market can be saturated, the other way by having your own website to promote your links by content blending to it’s niche and many ways, keyword research at the beginning, there are so many IM affiliate marketing guru’s out there willing to be your coach or mentor, but have you ever ask a question to yourself that those IM guru’s also can not guarantee 100 % of your success, they are just giving the path, the real success you have to find your own path or create new strategy for your own IM.
Ari Lestarionos last blog post..7 Secret Benefits of Tomato as Natural Remedies
Geoff Dodd
November 18, 2008Reed, very useful methods discussed here. It is a mix of email, flyers, brochures, newspaper classifieds, ebooks, ezines and forums, bulletin and discussion boards. Just shows how much Action we need to take. Then: video sharing, joint ventures, article marketing and search engine optimization. It all points to continuous, relentless ACTION on the Promotion Front.
Geoff Dodd, Australia
Rich Sears
November 18, 2008Reed,
I must say,I do not know how your email got into my inbox but keep them coming.Your insight and the comments here are very useful in my new adventure with my online activities.
thanks for the free knowledge.
Rich Sears
Lasbenols
November 18, 2008I agree with the majority you need your own site, but if someone does it without a site more power to them. I’ve only been in this internet marketing for about a year so I’m no expert by any means but I know articles work, proper SEO works and forums work I’m still trying to get the jist of blogs though. I have sold a few things but nothing to brag about but I’m not giving up though either. hey being self taught on a part time basis is hard especially if you’ve never done it before. So all I’ll say is it’s not how many times youfall down thats important it’s how many times you get up.
Lasbenols dboconc@yahoo.com
lASBENOLS
November 18, 2008WEll this is the third time I’ve posted in the last 10 min so here goes I agree with the majority about having a site but if there’s a better way Please tell me cause I’ll definitely try it. My experience haqs taught me that articles work,seo works, forums work ,blogs work and links work too. Without a site your just one more fish in the ocean. BUt if someone knows a better way plaese let me in on it. Doug Olson
North Dakota USA
Frankie Teo
November 18, 2008I started without a website promoting affiliate programs through free advertising resources. Yes, manage to make some money initially enough to pay for a couple Domain Name & Hosting fees.
To see progress on-line, it require a lot of patience to test & twit on what we’re promoting. To really make money, I believe we need some sort of website to grow. Look for a mentor or a coaching program.
The most important is taking ‘ACTION’. It requires some work & time initially to set-up your online biz unless you just want to make an affiliate commissions.
Cheers,
Frankie
http://www.affiliatemillionsmarketingsystem.com/
PV Reymond
November 18, 2008Hi Reed,
I agree with you, it is possible to make money using affiliate marketing without a website, it is a little harder than having a website but it is possible… You already explained it.
Something that I see really hard is to use email marketing without a website because in order to capture names and emails you need to put up an opt in form.
I know that there is a method that you can use with some autoresponders…
You can tell people to send an email to listname@autoresponder.com and then they can subscribe to your list, but I don’t think you’ll get good results using this technique.
Thanks,
^PV Reymond
http://www.startup-internetbusiness.com
PV Reymonds last blog post..Internet Marketing For Newbies… The First Step
Julia
November 18, 2008Hi,
I am so happy I found this site. Great information from both you and your readers! This is very helpful for someone who is new to online marketing.
Thanks so much!
Julia
charles chan
November 18, 2008There are many alternatives ways to markets affiliates products. If you check online freebie websites are just as good as owing your websites. There are not choice offering beutiful templates but still giving you a belonging sense. You can even use blogs too and are free from google. If you do like to know more on how to get free websites. Please email at fooyan@yahoo.com.sg and would happy to provide this informations to you.
Cheers
From charles chan
Ray Cassidy
November 18, 2008Your postings are very informative REED. For the rest of your readers, another very informative blog is Kenneth Koh’s LeadsLeap blog and newsletter. he comes at things from a slightly different angle that I am only just beginning to appreciate. The articles tend to be complementary to Reed’s approach. It’s always good to take an alternative look at a topic before you dive in blindly! That is not an implied criticism of Reed’s information at all.
Slavica
November 18, 2008My experience is not satisfactorily.I got involved in many Affiliate programs,i liked that, made own Web Sites to promote them,used classified ads,forums….
But i didn’t make money/by the way,i have no Pay Pall and Click Bank account,my country is not listed/I believe, the only way to make money as an Affiliate is probably to have a big opt in list.
Now i made my e-book ,write on self improvement and favorite masterpieces ,and doing a very few Affiliate programs/to be in contact and see what is going on,i don’t mind to do it for free,i am glad for doing it//
If i don’t make money with my e-book it makes me a great pleasure-because it is my product.
Thanks,
Slavica Todorovic
Slavicas last blog post..Long Live Witches
Taufik Ramly
November 18, 2008Thanks for this article.
Actually i started affiliate marketing using free blog. I did sign up for hosting and making a website but i found for a non techie uneducated like me i need more time to learn and make better website. It’s comsume a lot of my time.In the end i had been loosing money just for keeping my website.
So , i started back using free blog, free social network website and forum.
In the mean time i usually send my free items (ebooks etc} using free file hosting.
Everything seem picking up now.I don’t have to worry much about my hosting ,paid autoresponder and domain fees anymore.
Well, this is about me,a part time non techie internet online marketer.
Just google around and we can find how to market for free!
Regards
Taufik Ramly aka danielave
Taufik Ramlys last blog post..Turn Key Cash Kits -Get Free Here!
John Bonzo
November 18, 200811-18-08
Reed,
I really agree with your comments in this blog. I’ve written articles along the same idea. I am just getting started and don’t have a lot of money yet, but the possibilities with affiliate marketing are limitless. The most important thing for new marketers to remember is just roll up your sleaves and get to work.
Thanks again,
John
wealthy affiliate member
November 18, 2008There are soo many different ways of marketing on the internet and you dont allways need a website ,theres article marketing , email marketing and so many others.A good place to learn all of the different methods is wealthy affiliate ,Im a member myself and the stuff it has tought me is invaluable.
Dave
November 18, 2008Great looking blog my friend, and very well organized.
I recently received an e-mail that the gent
made an incredible amount of money without a website, and no product of his own. In the 5
figure range.
Wishing you a great day Reed.
Luca - Internet Marketing for Beginners
November 18, 2008Hi Reed,
Affiliate Marketing does not need a website but will help. In order to get an email list you’ll need at least a squeeze page. PPC is the other way to go but be careful as it could get costly
admin
November 19, 2008Since a lot of these comments address this I will start with it.
Common sense tells us we need to have a web site in order to build a list but that isn’t always the case.
Here are just a few unconventional ways
1. Coregistration leads (there are some autoresponders that will support this) and it can be profitable but do your research
2. Giving out free reports in exchange for someone emailing your autoresponder oftentimes you can setup yourlistsname@autoresponder.com and whenever someone emails that they get added to your list
3. Some giveaways events will host your squeeze page, freebie etc on their end
4. JV’s I have something setup with a few joint venture partners that tells people to join my list on their thank you page. I could easily have that be a form instead of a link.
5. Offline marketing
6. eBay you can have it so when someone buys they join your list
7. Ezine Advertising
8. JV brokering you can have other people promote others products and you earn a commission
9. Signature file in your forum posts and emails
10. Social networkings (twitter or a myspace/facebook group)
Etc…
@Jack please see the text above this.
@Bruno yeah that can be really spammy so be careful
@Larry thanks, well I should know this pretty well since I’ve been making money online since 1999
@Laurie thanks
@Paul please see above
@James I suggest watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQhehu1KqcE and after that I suggest checking out my coaching program http://www.thejvbootcamp.com/
@Chris that is true you should focus on building a list but if you are just wondering if this works I think making that first $1 online can be a big motivator
@Jussi agreed
@Timothy very good thanks
@Shamsul thanks
@Jerry I agree people should have a web site but this post is meant to give people one less excuse.
@normz2 and you will find one that works for you
@Terence nice tip
@John/Annette agreed
@Matthew free hosting is alright if you are on a tight budget but I highly recommend paying for it
@Sri see my reply at the top of this comment
@Ari Actually I think they can guarantee your success or your money back. If you aren’t able to apply their methods and make it work you should be able to get a refund even if it’s way past the refund time but that’s just my opinion.
@Geoff yep promotion is where the money is
@Rich you’re welcome
@Lasbenols I’d suggest building a list
@Frankie Agreed taking action is KEY
@PV the email @ autoresponder is a great tip I think a lot of us forget about it.
@Julia you’re welcome
@Charles agreed there are many ways to make money online
@Ray agreed don’t blindly follow someone it’s good to get other opinions.
@Slavica it sounds like you’re in a country that makes it hard to make money online I’d suggest paying attention to people like Codrut Turcanu or Ladan Lashkari as they have had similar problems
@Taufik you’re welcome
@John agreed they have to get to work
@wealthy that was a big spammy
@Dave awesome thanks for sharing that
@Luca please see my earlier comment
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admin
November 26, 2008@Anatoly what?
Jitinder
December 2, 2008Please do not publish Credit Card Information on Posts as it will be misused.
Jitinder
admin
December 6, 2008@Jitinder that is good advice.
doug
April 7, 2009I still don’t know enough about finding valuable keywords for my PPC campaign. Losing money is not fun! anybody have a reliable plan for getting targeted keywords that work?
Thanks!
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Kelly Shores
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