Getting Started: From Scratch to Launch

2. Do Your Homework

I jumped in, head first, to my very first web site, www.MusicianTip.com, without a good plan, because I was convinced that affiliate marketing is a legitimate work-at-home business opportunity. I had learned that affiliate marketing wasn’t a get-rich-quick scam and that it would take lots of work, but as the U.S. economy began to tank and my income grew thin, I was willing to dig in and get to work. There was no promise of success, but I believed there was hope.

I have an amazing techie friend who offered to help me get started, so I took the plunge. In hind-sight I can see that I wasted oodles of her time and mine trying to tweak the appearance of the site, trying to figure out how to organize and add content, and trying to learn html/web-ology along the way. I should have waited a little longer until I knew better how to choose a topic and targeted keywords. I have learned a lot (I didn’t even know how to make links, even in emails, when I got started in 2009!) and I hope that by sharing what I’ve learned with you, that I can help you get started in a fraction of the time it took me.

My learning curve sky-rocketed nearly 2 years into this venture (…I know!) when I discovered some fantastic mentors in affiliate marketing. The two who made a pivotal difference for me: Rosalind Gardner and Michael Brown.

Read Rosalind Gardner’s Book(s)

Particularly her best-seller Super Affiliate Handbook: How I made $436,797 In One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online. Worth its weight in gold, Rosalind teaches how she achieved success as an Affiliate Marketer, and offers tips from brainstorming ideas to building an affiliate marketing business of your own, to maintaining that business once it is “successful.” The book is very positive and full of encouragement while guiding readers toward realistic goals. Completely eye-opening for me. I even gained some independence from my techie friend because I learned some basic HTML from this book. Click here to buy your own copy or to download it and start learning RIGHT NOW.

Sign Up For Her Free Newsletter

You’ll learn about Rosalind Gardner’s web site NetProfitsToday.com when you read her book Super Affiliate Handbook… Be sure to sign up for her FREE newsletter to read all of her latest info and free help. I signed up for this newsletter while I was reading the book and have grown to trust and respect her success tremendously. Signed up? Next…

Join Affiliate Blogger Pro

This is Rosalind Gardner’s online affiliate marketing/blogging training course. I finally joined in May 2012 because… I realize it’s a bargain for all that is included, I still have much to learn, and I need the support of the community that Affiliate Blogger Pro provides through the included forum – it’s nice to know I’m not going it alone! Rosalind provides video tutorials for just about everything and posts video site reviews. These are so helpful in seeing a variety of ideas and hearing what Ros (as she affectionately calls herself!) suggests to improve individual web sites and businesses. She’ll review yours, too, when you’re ready.

Do you have to do this right now in order to get started? No. But… if you can manage the low cost for monthly membership, click here to join and you’ll catapult yourself 2 years ahead of me!

Sign Up for Michael Brown’s Training Course

Michael Brown is the other person responsible for lighting the proverbial fire under my rear end. His training course, Niche Blitzkrieg gave me the confidence to build a web site from scratch and taught me some very useful “brainstorming” and keyword research, vital to an affiliate marketing business. I also learned about SEO (huh?) and how to “monetize” a web site.

You can pour over the lessons and videos for 7 days for less than $5. I like Michael Brown’s speaking style in his videos – he’s natural, wise and realistic. His text has typos often (like in his emails…), but he has great info to share! If you decide you need more time than 7 days, it costs less than $80 once for the “Lifetime” membership. Even though I was desperate for $$ when I tried it out, I was hooked after Lesson 1 and decided to make the investment for the lifetime membership. I still use Niche Blitzkrieg as a reference – it is definitely worth the price… Click Here to Try It Out!

That’s IT for this step. For less than $140 dollars, you can learn tons about affiliate marketing and gain access to forums that will help you throughout the life of your new business. If your finances are as tight as mine were when I got started, and you want or need to choose just one of the above resources to get you going, I would say start with the Super Affiliate Handbook…. Any of these, however, will offer you great insight into the business of affiliate marketing and will show you that anyone can do it with some elbow grease and determination.