Whew! I haven’t posted here for awhile, but at least it was for good reasons rather than bad. The end of the year is always a busy time for my web design business and I rarely have time for much else amongst the happy Christmas chaos and end of year concerts. I even managed to squeeze in a few weeks holiday over the Christmas break. We also have at least one family birthday every month from November, with 5 in January, and so it’s certainly a crazy time of year!

With many businesses looking at taking a fresh approach for the new year, I thought today I’d chat a little about keyword research. By spending a little time analysing the keywords you’re targeting on your website, you can find whole new markets, and also stop wasting time persuing ones that aren’t worth it.

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This is the final stop for the Affiliates Blog Tour! The time has flown by and some great content has been shared. We’ve welcomed many new affiliates to our program and that’s exciting stuff!

We’re going to wrap things up today by answering some questions those considering affiliate marketing often ask.

I’m not a salesperson and affiliate marketing is selling, right?

Well yes, affiliate marketing involves selling. The good news is that it can be tackled in a variety of ways. Some affiliate marketers are very passive in their approach, incorporating relevant recommendations into their content and trusting on that relevance to produce results. Other affiliates take a more pro-active stance, creating sites designed specifically to sell products. Many more create something in between the two.

There’s no right or wrong way. You build what suits you. I will say this: No matter how laid back you prefer to be, you’ll have to get used to the idea of writing a clear call to action if you want to do well.

Do I have to have a website?

Yes, I believe you do.

There are a few who like to say you don’t. They promote article marketing as a way of spreading affiliate links without the need for a website. I’m sure it can work given enough effort, but honestly – if you’re serious about building an income online, you need your own home on the web.

If you don’t have a website now, head on over to MomWebs and get started with a Wordpress site. You can even order a ready to roll blog set up with affiliate product content from our Mom’s Talk Network program and other mom friendly groups.

Do I have to know HTML?

Only a tiny bit. We use HTML to create text and graphic links. Most of the time this code is provided to you by the affiliate program but it helps if you understand how it’s put together so you can fix problems if you run into them. Don’t let this scare you off – there are great tutorials explaining HTML on the web, just google for it.

How long does it take to start earning?

That depends a lot on what you do. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll have the opportunity to earn commissions.

I can tell you that I started to see small results in just a few weeks but it was about a year before I felt I was earning a significant amount of income. It was then that I really stepped up my efforts to increase those profits. I wish I’d focused more and tried harder sooner!

Some affiliate programs have minimum payout requirements, so even if you make a sale right away you may have to make additional sales to reach their minimum. (The Mom’s Talk Affiliates program does not have a minimum – you receive every penny you earn each month.)

Everyone else is promoting the same thing, wouldn’t it be a waste of time for me?

I hear this question a lot, especially from those in the Work at Home Mom community. Everyone seems to be promoting the same hosting programs and learning resources. Since so many people are promoting their own links, is it crazy to think that they could ever make a dent in the market?

I used to feel that way. It held me back from affiliate marketing for quite a while. But then I noticed some moms who were newer to the community than me were making sales and I thought, ‘Hey! If they can do it, I can do it.’ Thank goodness I did because I earn between 25 and 30% of my monthly income from affiliate sales.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Everyone has some influence – and even a little influence can go a long way. People will respond to your advice if they know you and trust you. There may be a dozen promotions flying around, but they’ll choose to act on yours because of the relationship you’ve built with them. So don’t hold back for fear of competition.

I hope that we’ve lit a fire in your mind about affiliate marketing over the past few months. If you haven’t already signed up for a few great relevent programs, I hope you will soon!

Kelly McCausey is the host of Work at Home Moms Talk Radio and owner of the Mom’s Talk Affiliates program that offers a variety of learning resources and coaching opportunties for internet marketing moms.

Welcome to the third instalment of Marketing Monday! If you missed the first two posts you can read them here:

Week One

Week  Two

The topic for this month is turning subscribers into buyers.

This week I’m going to let you in on some secrets on how to make sure your email marketing list is targetted.

Although many readers will know the importance of building your list up, you may not be aware of how a highly targeted opt-in list will give you much greater rewards.

First, think about who is your business’s target market. Knowing who these people are and what they value  not only gives you something to focus on, but will help you find new contacts that will be interested in the information you have to provide.

Start with a broad topic – is your site about parenting, online shopping, business information or services, or something else? From there, think about the more specific areas of your business. What is the unique services/products and qualities that you focus on. By narrowing down your area of expertise you’ll have a well defined niche to market to, rather than loads of broad ‘hit and miss’ exercises.

Don’t be alarmed if you see people unsubscribing at first, it’s much better to have a highly targetted list of a few hundred than a huge mailing list who aren’t really interested in what you have to say.

If you would like to have more than one newsletter, you might want to break your niche into smaller chunks again – for example ‘babies’ and ’school aged’ or ‘home business’ and ’small/medium enterprises’. This will allow you to send highly targetted information to these smaller segments of your list. Some email marketing software also allows you to create segments within your list that you can automatically send to without having to bother with a whole new mailing list.

Once built, a targeted and specific niche mailing list is the key to making money from your list. Specialising makes it easier to become the expert and provide a range of highly targetted, quality information.

Once your subscribers gain that feeling of trust with you, they will recommend your site or mailing list to their friends. This is one of the great ways your list will keep growing; only now it’s with people you know are very interested in what you have to offer.