How would you market online affiliate programs without owning a website? May I suggest Google’s URL link shortening service at: http://goo.gl This is basically a redirect service operation.

Here’s how it works:

_ Enter your affiliate link into the text box at http://goo.gl

_ Click the ‘Shorten’ button _ Copy your shortened affiliate URL

_ Use the shortened link in your advertising and emails, or wherever…

Yep. That’s all there is to it. No website. No problem. Use http://goo.gl

Because the shortened URL defaults back to your original affiliate link URL, I don’t reccomend you use it for affiliate links in the Internet marketing niche.

Given the chance most people in the IM niche will change your affiliate id into theirs and steal your commission. Right or wrong, it’s a stone cold fact…

There are quite a few other free URL shortening/redirect services online. Personally, I wouldn’t use them. Here’s a short story of why I wouldn’t use others:

Dependning on your knowledge of online marketing history, you may know these kind of link shortening, or redirect services have been around for at least 9 years.

You’d also know that these service providers are known to go out of business at a blink of an eye.

_ Usually they don’t bother informing service users they’re no longer supporting the redirects.

_ Usually, the service user continue sending leads to those link redirects.

_ And, usually they ain’t turning leads into prospects or customers.

Which is bad enough. But, to add insult to injury, you’ve got all these dead links that you have no record of what the original affiliate links were.

If you’re not reading between the lines, let me break it down. Typically, when we’re new online, we’ll join a lot of ‘money-for-nothing’ programs. We haven’t yet learned the wisdom of keeping an offline journal of important links, URLs, passwords, user names and id’s.

Someone, probably our sponsor, tells us about such & such URL redirects which we can use to have a unique affiliate link to promote.

In other words, knowingly or not, the sponsor is actually using the redirect services to get people who don’t have a website to join the program.

Nothing wrong with that. You can make money without a website. Yet, sooner of later you’re going to need a website of your own.

“Pardon me while I clear my throat…ah hemm”

Which was a prelude for me to talk plainly about a web hosting company I use and am an affiliate for. The company: Host Gator. I’ve used them for years. No complaints, either.

If you get their unlimited domain hosting service deal, you can host, well…you can host unlimited domains on the one hosting account. In my experience, it’s the way to go. Most Im’ers will try a lot of different niches and business models until they get something clicking for them.

No shame in this. It’s how we all start out, failing time and time again until we get a hit. Usually the hit’s not a home run, but a weak single puts you on base…

When you’re ready I’m asking you to check Host Gator out at my gator affiliate URL:
http://onlinebeginnersguide.com/gator.htm

Yup. That is most definitely an affiliate link & I would make a commission if you bought through it. So what? You’d still get the same service you’d get if it wasn’t my affiliate link.

Unlike ‘ClickBank’ affiliate products, you’re not allowed to join gator’s affiliate program and then make a commission if you buy hosting through your own affiliate link. Besides, I’m old, befuddled and need the money for sex, drugs & rock N roll…

Until you need web hosting though, check out Google’s http://goo.gl It may work for what you’re doing now. But, do get your own website soon.

Stay casual,
Edward ‘Mr Ed’ Thorpe “He helps the most people Wins!”

How To Market Online Affiliate Programs Without A Website is a post from: How To Start An Online Business...

How To Market Online Affiliate Programs Without A Website http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

Making money online from home sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? And a lot of people all over the world are doing it. Doing it, doing it, doing it, picking a niche and targeting it…

Yep, Internet marketing has become the vehicle many have used to live the ‘cottage industry’ lifestyle of yesteryear. Marketing moms get stay home with their kids. Online business owner Dads are turning up at school events and are no longer a shadow figure to their children.

Many people who used to struggle financially are now living the Internet dream of family, home, healthy bank accounts and creating value out of their ideas. What else could a person wish for?

No. Don’t answer. That’s a loaded question without a definitive answer.

Anyway, how do people make money online from their home?

There are basically three ways to make money online. All of them can be done from home. Or from a tree house. If you have an Internet connection in your tree house, that is.

1. Information marketing
2. Affiliate marketing & commission based marketing/selling
3. Hiring out your services (working, doing jobs for other online marketers, and business owners.

Excuse me if those 3 methods are a little skimpy on details. So is: “I wanna make money online from home”.

A day dream can be fuzzy and still make you feel good. But putting a daydream into action requires planning and execution.

When we get serious about this business, there’re two things to keep in mind:

1. People buy solutions to problems
2. People buy to fulfill a desire

We either solve problems people are ready to buy a solution for, or we help people better fulfill their hobbies and their desires.

The biggest trick is finding those people.

When you do, trade them something for their contact info. Build a relationship with them . Offer them your solutions to their problems. Or, charge them for you to help them better enjoy their passions.

Search for people with problems needing solved. Search Amazon & Ebay to find out what people are already buying. You already know the two types of things they’re buying. Your job is to get the specifics and start getting in front of a niche of those buyers.

You can make money online from home. People no smarter than you are proving it so every single day. We’ll do a more in depth discussion on this subject soon.

Until next time, call your folks. But, call them long-distance.They’re busy with their own lives…
Stay casual,
Edward “Mr Ed” Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Make Money Online From Home is a post from: How To Start An Online Business...

Make Money Online From Home http://onlinebeginnersguide.com

Finding an online business plan isn’t too hard. After all, the Internet ‘how to make money online’ niche is blanketed with different marketing ideas & business plans, isn’t it? With so many options to choose from, it should be a blessing for new Internet marketers.

And, it could be…

IF there was a little more logic and order about the differences between the multitude of how-to online business plans. Unfortunately, honest, ethical marketers selling Internet marketing business plans are hindered by the limits of how to present the same features & benefits without sounding like their competitors.

Not an easy task.

Online or offline, there aren’t many significant differences involved with the basic steps of making money without working for a boss. (We’ll discuss those later.)

Starting an online business is simple, inexpensive and easy.

On the same time, too much ‘how-to-start-an-Internet-marketing-business’ information can make starting an online business complex, expensive and harder than the cement between your teenager’s ears.

We’re not talking about anything new here.

As adults we know to start a new process as simply as possible and still make measurable progress. We know, and appreciate the commonsense theme of the tortoise and the hare story.

We also understand the basics of comparison shopping. We realize the hardships that come from not taking on expenses which overreach our income. And, most of us can balance our checkbook.

If we were lucky to have had positive role models in our formative years, we learned most that ‘being an adult’ stuff from watching role models do it, didn’t we? Yet, only a few of us had role models who didn’t work for a boss. Which is OK, because working for a boss can be a wonderful, fulfilling life.

If we’ve not had the opportunity to model someone who makes money without a job, what are we to do? Wait. We’re getting ahead of our story…

Remember when we said the options for making money without being an employee are limited? Let’s look at that for a minute…

The Two Ways To Make Money Without Working For A Boss:

1. Sell something you own for a profit.
2. Sell something someone else owns for a commission or percentage.

We know the devil is in the details. Yet the bottom line for making money without a job, is clearly one of those two options. Or, some combination of the two.

Which is why the most common business start ups are service providers. You know, people who have an in demand skill start offering/selling their services for money. Plumber Joe quits ABC Plumbing and opens ‘Joe’s On Time Plumbing’, kinda thing.

Notice that Joe didn’t open ‘Joe’s On Time Chiropractic Services’. Or, ‘Joe’s Discount Electric Wiring Services’.

Joe knows better than to open a business he knows nothing about. He knows plumbing and he sells his skills. He may do well and expand his business by hiring a helper, and eventually an apprentice.

At which time he’ll stop being a self-employed tradesman. With expansion, and employees, Joe becomes a business owner who makes money leveraging other people’s time, knowledge and work.

On the other hand, what would Joe probably do if he decided to open an online business while he continued to work for a plumbing company he doesn’t enjoy working for?

Statistically, Joe and many of us other new Internet would be business owners, get online and forget we didn’t fall off the turnip truck last night. Typically, we make poor business decisions which don’t make a lot of commonsense.

Just about anyone who can read, write and send email messages can pretty much make money marketing affiliate programs. At least in my opinion they could if they tried. On the same time, they’d do better if they found a honest affiliate training plan they could learn and test for their business.

Not every new online business person wants to market affiliate products. We know that. Yet, whatever business model you want to use, you’ll do better if you get a training foundation to follow.

I’ve been making money online for almost 10 years. Yet, I don’t know everything there is to know about Internet marketing. And, I don’t have time, or the desire, to know. 

I assure you that a single business strategy which is making you money is worth a thousand times more than trying to learn everything new online business owners are being chided into believing they must know, and use, to succeed. 

No matter how brain-dead simple your profitable tactics are, they’re far better than the newest Internet marketing product everyone’s trying to sell you.

That’s it for today. Until next time, may all your failures be lessons learned and each of your successes make you easier to live with…

Stay casual,
Edward “Mr Ed” Thorpe “He who helps the most people Wins!”

Online Business Plans & Ideas is a post from: How To Start An Online Business...

Online Business Plans & Ideas http://onlinebeginnersguide.com