It was a bitterly cold, moonlit night many years ago, when my venerable Internet Marketing Master, a small, bald Chinese guy called Tag N’Ping, decided it was time I learnt “The Way of the Affiliate Warrior”.

He taught me the simple, ancient principles of The Way as I sat almost freezing to death, yet spell bound at his feet, beneath an extremely large bonsai tree.

I would like to share his valuable, mystical teachings with you today.

“Follow the simplest path. Avoid the clutter. Ignore the noise. Seek harmony. Be at one with the Chi energy of the Internet young Phillip” he said in a raised voice, to ensure he was heard over the chattering of my teeth.

“Wow” I thought. (more…)

It started innocently enough. A bit here, a bit there. No problem. I can control it. I can give up any time. It’s what we all tell ourselves . . . isn’t it?

It’s now been over 10 years and I’m ashamed to say my addiction is worse than ever. I indulge on a daily basis. And to make it worse, I no longer hide away. That’s right, it’s so bad now that I do it in public!

Ahhhhhhhhh! What have I become?

I find it utterly amazing that more people haven’t succumbed to its charms. Yes, there are pockets of addicts scattered across the globe but until recently I had never really met any of them in person. And because of this it was such a lonely existence.

They just don’t understand. They think they know what’s best for me. “You’ll go blind Phil” they tell me in their judgemental tone. (more…)

Selling is a process. You have to guide your customer to take baby steps. Else they’ll be gone if they get scared by huge amounts of new content or inconsistent information. Or they’ll simply get bored.

Affiliate marketing success is about providing the right service, at the right time for the right people (the people willing to spend).

To start off, make sure you are tracking your visitors. Google Analytics is a free tool used to generate detailed statistics about your visitors. Keep your eyes on “Time on Site” and “Bounce Rate”.

Bounce rate shows single-page visits (visits in which the person left your site from the page they just entered from). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. (more…)

In my previous post I wrote about the importance of conversation. But it’s not enough to get people to listen to you, if they’re not believing you, you’re just fudging. Achieving credibility is a long term process. Credibility is something money can’t buy. And it takes a lot of attention to details.

It’s harder to get people to trust you than to get money out of their pockets. A customer can order a product but still be skeptic if it works or even if you deliver on time (or at all). If the product delivers for your customer what you said it will, then you have earned credibility. It’s only hopes and dreams ’til then.

The aspects of your site which you need to tweak to increase credibility are: content, design and navigation, company or personal image, and feedback. (more…)

What I’ve learned from affiliate marketing is that marketing is about talking. Talking yourself into it, talking about yourself and talking about the products you’re selling.

At first, I was afraid of these three “c” words: connection, communication, conversation. Every article or book I read about selling online kept scaring me away with these words.

I saw them so fancy and high demanding that I refused to apply them. So, I just kept it simple; I rewritten some articles, started sending e-mails, submitting to directories, posting blog comments and talking on forums. Then I started making sales… and it hit me! I was making sales because I was doing those dreaded three “c” words. (more…)