As I am an intermediate photographer myself, I was looking for unique ideas to share with you to make money on the internet whether you are a photographer are not. This means you only have to have a passion (or even just like amazing photos) to start earning an income online.

The basic concept and planning for a profitable internet home based business is the same as what I have suggested for any other marketing niches.

One of the most important aspects to create a successful online income,  is a unique site concept. (I’ll assume you have your own domain and have read through all the tutorials.)

So here’s my basic brainstorming idea to take advantage of this opportunity….

Non-photographers:

Identify a specific niche within the photography market, i.e. lifestyle, transport, wildlife (even drill down to Africa wildlife), etc. or a niche in which you could sell photos ( cats, dogs … )

You have heard “content is king”… it is.

Publish editorial content to target keywords for the specific niche.

Sign up for a photo affiliate program and advertise specific photographs on your website. They provide a API/XML feed to fully integrate selected photos or categories into your site … enabling full customization.

Register with Adsense to earn extra money from advertising. Make sure to select the keywords with a highest bid rate.

Photographers:

Follow all the above steps with an added bonus:

Choose a niche where you can sell your photos to expand your online income too. Upload your photos and use the XML feeds to advertise you own photos on your website.

Here are some other agencies to register with as well:

PhotographersDirect.com (highly recommended)

Alamy.com

Istock.com

GettyImages.com

Zero … nothing … zilch … nada

I recently got a request to design a website for a private detective.

The strategies I used for this website is exactly the same I would use for my affiliate sites. The basics are:

• Design a search engine friendly  website and layout (The theme for the website was already there),
• Decide on the website structure,
• Can we use any testimonials?
• Research the keywords and evaluate the competition,
• Optimize the pages for search engines,
• Provide related content,
• Build one way backlinks to the site,

Although it is a local service business, the principles stay the same.

If you are an affiliate, doing internet marketing for a product, on page optimization is the easiest part of the marketing process.

Building Your Authority

Building backlinks takes time to get your well deserved share of SEM . You have to search for suitable and theme related sites with a high page rank (PR) where you could leave a link to your site. Submitting articles to directories are the most famous and safest way to built quality backlinks to your site.

Directory listings are also a popular method. Use the method as described in the graphic below when you use Guugle to search for relevant directories. Replace “enter your search terms” with the search term appropriate for your website.

Typical search in internet marketing as an affiliate

Get Some Link Love

What contribute towards link quality with your internet marketing efforts as an affiliate?

1. Theme relevance between you and a partner site.  What do you have in common?
2. Anchor text. The words you want to optimize for should be in your anchor text. If you are optimizing for “romantic ideas”, the anchor text should include those words.
3. Context surrounding the link for example, “Want to treat your partner to romantic evening? We have 101 romantic ideas you could use to set the mood”. Using your anchor text in this way looks natural and score points.
4. Link value. If a page has outbound (or inbound) links, a portion of the page PR are added to each page it links to. (You’ll also get a portion of the domain PR). Thus it makes sense when you are an affiliate in internet marketing, to have your link on pages where it doesn’t have a lot of link competition.

Warnings

1.  The SE algorithms are getting more and more like “humans”. The key here is to build backlinks on a constant basis.  Using software to submit your site to a gazzilion directories all in one shot might help for short term rankings, but the seo experts warn against this.

• Certain directories are called “link farms” a big SE no-no.
• A link to your site could land up on an unsavory site leaving you with no credibility.
• It could look as if you are spamming in which case you’ll be dropped from the indexes.
• Build steady and on a constant basis with your affiliate and internet marketing efforts.

2.  Some article directories, like A1articles.com give a “nofollow” link. The purpose of getting links is to build your website reputation with search engines.  In other words, you are building “votes” for your site. A “nofollow” link doesn’t count as a vote. Therefore it doesn’t contribute to increase your ranking in the search engines or to the page rank of your site.

3.  It takes about 3 weeks (sometimes more) for the search engines to pick up on your one way link.

4.  Keep it real. Building links in an organic way, although it takes effort and time will have a long lasting effect.  Keep a balance between articles and directory listings, i.e. more articles than listings.

Should you buy email marketing to boost your affiliate internet marketing efforts?

No! ( I didn’t suggest email marketing to my client!)

Why not?

Many South African companies who are doing so-called email marketing campaigns are spamming the inboxes of uninterested parties. They are harvesting email addresses from the internet to use in their email campaigns. They just don’t stick to ethical email marketing campaigns.  It would be money down the drain for my client and would hurt the reputation of the company as well.

Would you risk being banned by your hosting company or the affiliate network, after you have put in hours, days and weeks of hard work into your affiliate internet marketing?

I don’t think so.

I just read The Affiliate Trump Card written by Ben Settle and it blew me away. The content is valuable and practical with no false promises.

Ben does not claim to be a super affiliate or a guru. He shares his techniques that is helping him to compete in the market without being a “celebrity”.  It is straight forward advice, once implemented, will immediately increase your online profits for example:

* How to build trust and credibility that will convince people to buy from you and ONLY you (p.10)

* How to convince people sitting on the “fence” to buy from you (p.24)

* How to get even better in promotions than you already are (The world’s greatest marketers do this all the time without you realizing it) (p.13)

* How to double your profits with little extra effort on your side (Although I have heard this many times before, the understandable and sincere style in which it was written, suddenly got the message across) (p.30)

* Why you should never promote the product (and what to promote instead) (p.38)

(Why he doesn’t charge more for it… I don’t know, but anyway I am glad I could get it at an affordable price. I have bought products two and a half times more expensive than this…. which didn’t deliver …  leaving me with disappointment.)

The first few chapters are geared towards affiliate marketing newbies and the last few chapters covers a bit more advanced stuff.

The valuable tips Ray Edwards shares in the audio interview is worth five times the price you’ll pay.  Ray, also a copywriter, worked with Armand Morin, Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern and Matt Basack to name a few.

He got involved in affiliate marketing when his clients asked him to promote their products. You should expect Ray to know the “secrets” of affiliate marketing, but even he had some lessons to learn.

He shares his failures and successes and discuss six successful strategies to implement to increase your profits and outsell your competition through affiliate marketing. One of them is how to use bonuses effectively to maximise sales and conversions with product promotions. (There is a good and a bad way to use this)

The best lesson I have learned from Ray is how to stay true to yourself, use your own words and write from your heart.

I am sure South African affiliate marketers will benefit from Ben’s product as he gives honest and sincere advice. No rocket science …  in fact he clearly states and I quote:

I am NOT a “super affiliate”

I have NOT made a million dollars in affiliate marketing

And affiliate marketing is NOT my main “thing”

So why should you bother reading this eBook?

Three reasons:

1. I have a modest-sized (but ever-growing) list of customers, just like you have

2. ….. even with my small list, I am sometimes able to out-sell (or at least out-convert) marketers with much bigger name recognition …

3.  The reason I am able to do this is NOT because I’m some affiliate marketing “guru” or because I am some kind of super copywriter who can sell ice to eskimos. It’s simply because …

I leverage My List Better

Than Most OF My Competitors

And that’s what this eBook is really about.

What I really appreciate is the fact that they don’t try to push another product in the interview which happened so many times with the interviews I listened to.  This is straight forward, practical advice in an understandable “language”  … concise and to the point.

Apart from the ebook, you’ll also receive a series of interviews with:

Russel Brunson / Ewen Chia: Two well-known “super affiliates” .

Ray Edwards: Has written ads for top affiliate marketers to rake in six figure incomes.

Jay White: Reveals exactly how to write profitable emails

Greg Perry: Greg makes a small fortune selling on eBay.

Brian Clark: Explains how he got from 0 to 30,000 per day in just two years. (Brian runs Copyblogger.com)

John Ritz: Shares his top ideas how to run tele-seminars.

I have received valuable tips from Ben in my inbox during the past year. Since day one I have learned a lot from the content he has sent me. I remembered the email I got in August where he stressed the reason for split testing after an argument in a marketing forum about “7″ and “9″ in pricing and which is best. He didn’t say which one is best, he advised to  use A/B split testing. What is working for one market, might not work for another.  So if you were stuck on a “7″ or “9″ rethink your strategy.

The Affiliate Trump Card is practically being given away at the most affordable price of $19. (R152 at the time I bought at R/$8.00)

Visit his website for more information.

Happy marketing!

Would you benefit from her advice?

If you are looking for ways to generate an income from home and wish to start or build a business online through marketing other people’s products, Rosalind’s knowledge would surely start you in the right direction. This book explains the basic online techniques to generate a real and sustainable income from home.

Marketers who have been online and are not satisfied with their income, could also benefit from Rosalinds’ expertise.

Important Lessons Covered in the Super Affiliate Handbook

• What is Affiliate Marketing and how does it work?
• How to find a profitable niche. (She also mentions the “Evergreen” niche markets that’ll always be in demand.)
• How to evaluate market demand and profitability
• How to plan and build your site
• How to monetize your site
• The different types of commission schemes
• How to market your site
• How to manage and grow your business

Ample examples from her own websites are used. She refers to her “mishaps” which prevents you from wasting time and money. Follow her success methods to make your internet business work for you.

I appreciated her sharing how she tracks performance, using examples of her own spreadsheets.

The last chapter covers the “Troubleshooting” where she gives advice how to handle problems, but more importantly, how to avoid it.

The Super Affiliate Handbook is written in a very relaxed style which makes it easy reading material. Her sense of humor keeps it lighthearted and interesting. I couldn’t help to burst out with laughter when she said “but NOT tarantulas, NEVER tarantulas”. (May be Rosalind is not too fond of spiders? ).

Overall, I believe the Super Affiliate Handbook is excellent value for money for South Africans who wish to build an online business. Her knowledge on all the potholes are not only time saving, but you’ll be able to avoid some major and costly mistakes.

Being South African has one big advantage: The exchange rate. Many international affiliate networks have opened their doors which enable us to earn a global income. Some affiliate programs pay their affiliates by international wire transfers which eliminate the risk of losing cheques in the mail.

More on Rosalind Gardner.

Rosalind Gardner, of “super affiliate” status, has generated a 6 figure income after she left her full-time job as an air traffic controller. She launched her first website in 1996. In 1998 she entered the online dating market. Within 10 months she earned $5,000. She quit her job in 2000 to become a full time internet marketer. By the end of December 2002 her net profit for the year was $436,797. The first edition of the Super Affiliate Handbook was published in June 2003.

Rosalind featured in San Francisco Chronicle’s “Work with Marty Nemko”, the Revenue Magazine and FeedFront Magazine’s “Women of Affiliate Marketing” issue. She has participated in 100’s of radio interviews, teleseminars and podcasts. As a successful internet marketer she worked in JV’s with Anik Singal and Jim Edwards.

Get more information here.

I have posted two articles earlier today:

Affordable web hosting that rocks and

How to make money with insurance programs

Here’s what happened.  After I published the second article, I checked to see if it was indexed by Google.

Here’s the proof! It took two minutes for my last post to be indexed… I am amazed!

Insurance is probably not your favorite expense, but everybody who buys a car on credit has to have this monthly expense. You can cash in on this lucrative industry when joining affiliate marketing networks who manage the affiliate programs on behalf of the insurance companies.

Major South African insurers leverage from internet marketers (who also earn an income to promote these companies) to increase their market share. These internet marketers are people like you and me. They own a website or blog and add related industry information writing short articles about the topic.

Is this your opportunity to earn some extra cash in your own time? By following the marketing guidelines and principles specific to the internet, you’ll soon know how to make money at home.

How does it work?

If you don’t have a website or blog, it’s time to get one.

• Register your unique domain
• Get affordable web hosting
• Install your blog on the hosting servers (Wordpress is quick and easy to learn)
• Do the keyword research as discussed elsewhere on this blog
• Start writing content on insurance and use your chosen keywords in the article published on your site
• Join the South African affiliate networks. They will give you an unique affiliate id which should be included in all the promotional links
• Get the banners you would like to promote (remember your affiliate id)
• Build backlinks to your blog or website to increase the page rank and attract organic search traffic. (Post articles to article directories, use social bookmarking and post videos to video sites)
• If you’re really into it, you could advertise on Google through their Adwords program

These few steps are the basics of the whole internet marketing game.

The Super Affiliate Handbook is a great resource to start with when you are serious to learn how to make money at home. You can read more about it here.

Affordable Web Hosting

Searching for affordable web hosting that delivers can become an overwhelming exercise.  How do you identify a company just by looking at their website?

With so many reseller accounts going around in South Africa, I sometimes wonder if they’ll be able to give proper support to their users.

My greatest concern was the bandwidth and disc space you’ll get when hosting a website.  As we all know South Africa is not first in the row where bandwidth is concerned.

The internet access programs in South Africa cater for international and local bandwidth. Many users increase their local bandwidth with less ability to access international sites to save on internet access fees.  (The 3G options are excluded from my last comment).

Next on my priority list was the availability of services. It will not help much if you have paid for a professionally designed website and the servers are down half of the time. Your website is a global advertisement and should be designed to bring more customers.  There is nothing as irritating as an error message when the website is not available.

I came across affordable web hosting from Amplehosting.  I have been using their services for a few months and I can honestly say that I have been impressed with the support and availability of my websites. I have installed a blog and a website, directed towards the South African market, on their servers.  It makes thus more sense to host with a South African company, than to risk the exchange rate fluctuations.

I recommend their international hosting packages for it has, in my opinion, better resources than the South African packages at a very affordable price.

Get all the details of your website hosting service here.

Through affiliate income from the many pet products available, non-profit organisations like these can generate an income to make them less dependable on donations.  They have willingly become part of the cats, dogs or pet niche markets through their dedication and hard work to help animals in need.

Joining internet marketing affiliate programs and networks, the internet income opportunities from products range from books to pet accessories and even pet food.  If you run a South African rescue center or one of the non-profit organisations, you can also participate in an international affiliate program like Clickbank and sell for example books on dog training.

Use the  Google’s external keyword tool to determine keywords as discussed in the article  “How to start your internet home based business” .

The most important factor to build a site that attracts traffic on the net is to publish unique articles on the website. Optimise the web pages for words like “pet rescue south africa“, “pet rescue” and “animal rescue” combined with  “dog training tips“ or other keywords and phrases. Using proper  search engine optimization techniques would:

• Bring free traffic to the website.  (More traffic will increase affiliate income as more visitors will utilise the various products or links on the website.)
• Get the website “out there” for people to notice

I am sure they would rather buy a product from an organization that supports a good cause, than from the other shops. Humanity wants to contribute to make the world a better place.

Many internet marketing affiliate programs make use of banners as part of a pay per click program. Every time a visitor clicks on the banner, the website owner earns some money. Normally it ranges between R1.00 to R5.00 in South Africa, but it’s still worthwhile.  As the traffic to the website grows, so does the income too.

Internet income opportunities also exist with the Google Adsense program. The principle is the same as with banners explained above. When you display Google Adsense on your website and the visitor clicks on the link, you’ll get a percentage of the amount the advertiser is paying Google to advertise.

These are just a few examples of the many internet income opportunities you may want to pursue by joining internet marketing affiliate programs to sustain the non-profit organisations.

• Learn the ropes to  create a website or blog.
• Identify profitable niche or site concept. (What are people buying?)
• Identify profitable keywords. (Keywords or phrases people use to search for information or a product in the niche on the internet. Use keywords with little or no competition.)
• Create keyword focused content pages with profitable keywords. (Create a page or post for every keyword or phrase you identify.)
• Identify reliable affiliate programs or affiliate networks to integrate affiliate marketing in your website. (You want to sleep like a baby knowing  you’re going to receive a check the end of the month.)
• Promote the affiliate products on your website. (Write honest reviews and recommendations.)
• Promote your website or blog. (Forum posts with signatures, publishing articles on different article directories, list with directories or use PPC marketing to build traffic to your pages.)
• Quick tip: All your keywords and phrases should contain the word or words of your site concept. ( If your site concept is about dogs, the word dog will appear in each keyword or phrase you choose to build a page or post.)
• Don’t confuse the issue… stick only with one concept per website or blog. (Don’t sell dog and baby products from the same website.)

The above is only a shortlist how to take advantage of affiliate marketing with your money making ideas. The challenge is to become an expert in each of those steps.

Looking for any profitable site concepts to implement successfully is a challenge in itself. Travel seems to be highly profitable but the competition is fierce. Build a concept around your travel website. Instead of doing the conventional travel booking or accommodation listing website, why don’t you use another angle, for instance pet friendly resorts or hotels and accommodation close to golf courses. You can even do fly fishing destinations.

Join Travel 247 or the international HotelsCombined affiliate programs.  HotelsCombined does bank transfers for international affiliates. If your website concept is about wildlife,  SafariNow would be the ideal affiliate program to join.

There are as many money making ideas with affiliate marketing as your imagination would allow.  The most important part is to get the right angle in a profitable niche. Spend time with this and you’ll reap the fruits of your labour for years to come.

Here are the reasons to join the South African affiliate networks:

• Electronic transfers are done directly into your bank account (no more waiting for snail mail and risk the disappearance of a cheque.)
• Some big corporations in SA are involved.
• Earning money through country specific niches e.g. insurance and loans, are possible.

The South African affiliate networks are growing steadily. New programs are added on a regular basis.

A content website or blog is a prerequisite for joining the networks.  Before joining any program, read the affiliate agreement. Important points to consider are:

• Is the network company reliable and trustworthy?
• Do they have an affiliate agreement?
• Would you be able to terminate the agreement, and if so how?
• Is a fee payable to join the program? (If so …  run!)
• What are the criteria for acceptance? (There may be geographical and country related issues that prohibit you from joining.)
• How and when are payments made? (If you are a South African citizen and you come across an international network company that pays commissions into a Paypal account, it’s best not to join. Although South African citizens may use Paypal to do payments, we are not allowed to accept and withdraw money from Paypal … Any ideas for a petition?)
• Does the program pay life-time commissions? (i.e. your customer stays in your commission structure as long as they use the service. )
• Will you get credit for recurring sales?
• Do they offer real time statistics?
• Does the merchant offer advertising material such as email templates, banners, etc?

The major South African affiliate networks are Offerforge and Trafficsynergy. Keep the above questions in mind when you read through their agreements.