The hardest part about entering the world of online affiliate marketing is understanding the jargon. When I first started venturing online, I had a problem with the lexicon. I was very interested in the social aspects of the internet and chat rooms but for the life of me I didn’t know then what LOL or ROFL meant. I quickly understood why the use of acronyms was needed to replace often typed words. The same is true now when discussing online affiliate marketing.

When the newbie comes across acronyms like PPC, CPA, CTR, CPM, and SEO there is that instant Homer Simpson moment with the hand to the head saying “duh!” The problem is, if you want to be successful as an affiliate marketer then you need to know the terminology the same way you would need to know the terminology in any professional field. Knowing the terminology brings you one step closer to being a professional in your field. For this, you need a GLOSSARY.

I have created such a glossary and use laymen’s terms to simplify it for the complete newbie in the field. It’s a work in progress, but it contains the most often used terms and phraseology in affiliate marketing. You can find and bookmark the glossary by clicking on the link below. Be sure to share it with your friends that are in the field too.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

In order to sell anything from your blog you have to have traffic. You need eyes on your material or you stand no chance at earning anything from your hard work. One of the biggest mistakes newbie bloggers make is thinking that all they need to do is write a post and people will come find them. Sadly, that is not the case.

Recent studies have shown that at the end of 2009 there were approximately 109 million websites and over 25 billion web pages on the internet. So, finding a blog post without any search engine optimization is literally like finding a needle in a hay field.

Luckily there are several ways that you can attract visitors to your blog and all it will take a bit of your precious time. The main way I use to get traffic to my blogs is through the method by which I use online content. Writing unique articles and linking to my posts within the article and also in the author’s resource box is sure to bring in some traffic. This can be pretty time consuming as for each topic I write about on my blogs, I also write unique content for 8 other sites, mentioned in this post.

Another amazing method of generating traffic comes from creating Youtube videos. You don’t even need a camera to make Youtube videos if you follow the advice in the video below by Otis Collier. Also if you remember this post you can find out how to place affiliate links inside videos that have already been created.

Chances are that most of the visitors to your blog will be one time visits. Sometimes you can get lucky and that’s all you will need but it’s well documented that it takes at least 6 visits for most people before they are ready to make a purchase from a blog. So, you’re going to need not only repeat visitors but also loyal visitors, the kind that will bookmark your posts and share them in their own networks.
The best method to getting repeat visitors, besides having good quality content, is to build an email list and update your visitors when you have new material to share. Share a weekly or monthly newsletter with tidbits of your information.

Use Aweber to build attractive forms and set up an autoresponder. This way you can automate your list building activity. Also, many list builders have found that giving away some useful information, like an e-book or a free report, is a good way to entice visitors to join your list. Give Aweber a try for FREE TODAY.

There are elements you can add to your blogs to make them stand out and also drive traffic back to your content. Of course, driving traffic is only going to help if you have decent enough content for a visitor to stay and read and possibly make a purchase, if that’s what your blog is geared towards.

The number one element you can add to your blog to drive traffic is video. Making your own video would be ideal but there are tons of already made videos that you can borrow from places such as Youtube, which you can embed into the body of your posts. If you are promoting affiliate products then you can use a cool tool from LinkedTube to place a clickable link within the video you are borrowing. If you’re making your own videos then using LinkedTube is a great way to build backlinks when others share your video.

Adding pictures is another great way to drive some traffic back to your blog. If used properly, the pictures will be indexed inside Google’s image library and when someone finds your image and clicks on it they will be taken to your post. When uploading your images be sure to name them with keywords that you are targeting.

RSS Feeds are another useful tool to pull traffic back to your posts. Read this post to find out just how useful RSS feeds can be to bloggers and publishers.

In my previous post I explained how to select an SEO and niche friendly domain name. If you missed it you can get a more precise picture of what to do here at my article on finding a niche. You can also learn how to get down to the micro-niche level with my article on finding long-tail keywords.

Your blog is ready and now all you need to do is start adding some content. Write small posts that have detailed information on subjects that people are searching for. You can use Google’s very own keyword tool to find out the monthly search volume on a keyword to see if it will generate enough traffic on its own.
When you are relying on keywords to generate traffic then you have to do a few things to the post to make it SEO friendly. First, make sure your keyword is both in your title and in the URL of the post. Also, you want to write a post with a keyword density of around 3% to 8%. That means, for every 100 words of your post your keyword should show up 3 to 8 times.

If you plan to monetize your blog and you don’t have much traffic then you will only want to monetize each post. You can do that by placing links within the post to certain affiliates. A very good place to start is with the Amazon affiliate program. You can place Amazon affiliate links inside your post, and if someone wants to purchase the item you posted a link to then you will earn a small commission from that item. Commissions start out at 4%. Once you get some traffic then you can add an Amazon aStore to your Wordpress blog and make it look like it is part of the site.

You’re going to need some traffic to your blog so you need to get into the habit of promoting your site. The best ways to promote your site is to become a member of social bookmarking networks and add links. But you have to be active on those sites so you can generate large amounts of traffic. Don’t try to go out and join every network you can find, you will only become overwhelmed.

Here is a list of places I like to use to promote my online content, they are all revenue sharing sites:

Hubpages.com
Shetoldme.com
Yousaytoo.com
Mytripledub.com
Mylot.com
xomba.com
snipsly.com
This one is not a revenue sharing site, it is my very own article directory:
411article.com

Now that you have your domain name and your hosting account set up, it’s time to set up the Wordpress software on your site. If you used Hostgator to host your domain then this step should take less than five minutes.
Log into your Hostgator dashboard and then scroll down and locate the Fantastico de luxe icon and click on it.

Once you have done that the Fantastico software services will open up and you can find the Wordpress setup function on the left sidebar. Click on it and just follow the instructions. This will setup the Wordpress software on your domain.

Wordpress is now setup on your domain so you can log out of your Hostgator dashboard and log into your Wordpress blog.

Every Wordpress blog comes with a default blog theme. Themes can be changed as often as you like but it’s a good idea to find one that you are happy with and then build on it. Most themes come as templates which are easy to modify with just a little knowledge of html and php. A simple Google search for “free Wordpress themes,” can find just about whatever theme you are interested in. Be more specific in your Google search by also stating your niche in the query.

Download and save your themes to a specific folder on your computer then extract them in the same folder. Use a free FTP client to log into your domain and upload your theme to the wp_content directory. Once that is completed you can then log into the admin area of your blog, select “appearance” and then select and activate your new theme.

Now you are ready to start blogging.

Once you have done your niche research and discovered a worthy niche to blog about, it’s time to find a domain name registrar and a domain hosting site. Sure, you can get a domain name and host the domain name with the same site but I don’t like to have “all my eggs in one basket.” That means, I feel much better when one site cannot fully decide my fate on the internet, especially after my blog is populated and has decent traffic.
You will want to use Godaddy.com to purchase your domain name. They are one of the cheapest and most reliable domain registrars around. You can purchase a domain name for as little as .89 cents (a .info) for 1 year. Thereafter, it will only cost around $11 a year to keep that domain name. And you will want to keep it and put it on automatic renewal. If you continue following my advice, this one site will be earning at least $3 a day in just a few months. There is a banner off to the right of this blog to take you to the Godaddy.com site and select your name.
You will also want to use HostGator.com for all of your domain hosting. HostGator.com allows unlimited numbers of domains to be hosted under one primary account. HostGator.com has baby plans that start out at around $9 per month and like I mentioned, you can have unlimited numbers of domains hosted. After you purchase your domain name, head on over to the HostGator.com site through my banner to the right and set up a hosting account.
The next step will be to get your domain names pointed to your hosting site, which is only a matter of logging into your Godaddy.com account and selecting your domain, then changing the Name Servers to have them pointed at HostGator.com. This costs nothing and you can do it as often as needed.
Read my full article on Hubpages.com on Domain Names and Domain Hosting for more details.
In the next post, I will discuss how to set up the WordPress software on your new domain.

Here are a few tips to consider before choosing a niche topic to blog about:
1. Choose a topic that you are genuinely interested in. Don’t choose a topic because someone else may be making money on it. Consider the time its going to take to build up a following. Are you passionate about the topic you chose? Will you be just as passionate a year from now? If the answer is no or even I don’t know then choose another niche topic.
2. Is the niche topic popular? Remember that the blogosphere is a global community. Are there enough people searching for your niche topic to make it worth your while?
3. Is your niche topic part of a fad? Find something that people will be searching for a year from now and not just some flavor of the week.
4. How much competition does your niche topic have? Competition is a good thing because it means the niche topic is popular, but being too popular means you will have a lot of work cut out to get your blog circulating. It’s not impossible.
5. know your competitions and deliver what they are not. Opposing view points are just as popular.
6. Do you have enough content to deliver on a regular basis? A sure way to lose viewers is to not deliver on the promises made by the blog.

I’ve written more about how to find a niche in my hubpages article.

Hey World I’m Here is a blog about teaching people how to blog. We start at the very beginning by learning how to select and map out a theme for your new blog. Next we learn how to select and purchase a domain name. Then we move on to learn how to self–host your new blog and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of self-hosting. Once the blog is up and running, we learn how to publicize the blog in order to get traffic and then we map out a plan to monetize the blog so at the very least it becomes self sustaining but with enough information to make this blog become a passive source of monthly income.
Blogging takes a lot of effort and dedication to make it a worthy income generator. Anyone that says they can make a blog turn a profit over night is selling snake oil. However, a blog can begin earning revenue as soon as people know how to find it and if it is offering a product or service that is being searched for on the internet.
With the right kind of search engine optimization (SEO), most products and services offered on a blog can often replace your day job income in as little as a year. If that is your goal then expect to dedicate a couple hours a day, every day, to promoting and SEO efforts.
Hey World I’m Here is dedicated to helping its clients find the success online they deserve!