Monthly Archives: May 2014

Affiliate Marketing: A Rewarding Career

We are all conscious and aware of the growing internet users and the extent of dependence on it. Digital marketing has a big role to play here since it connects businesses to their customers via the virtual medium. The emergence of digital marketing saw a burst of avenues paving way for new business opportunities and job roles. One such emerging business opportunity is affiliate marketing which has  become very lucrative.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

While most people are aware belonging to the industry are aware of it, here’s a concise idea about affiliate marketing, for those who aren’t aware. It’s inspired from the oldest kind of marketing, previously done offline, where you refer a product to someone and when he/ she purchases it you make a certain amount of commission.

This same idea is used in affiliate marketing which a small change. The modification is that you, the business owner would be showcasing products from various clients on his website that already has a huge traffic coming in through quality blogging. The commission gained could however range from $1 to $10,000 depending on the kind of product being promoted. The person promoting the products is referred to as the ‘Affiliate’.

How does it work?

For someone who wants to engage into affiliate marketing, he/she has to get a website made. Once done, they need to sign up for the affiliate marketing program with companies who consider this. Registering for the program will generate a unique tracking code which would be used by the company to track your promotional activities and sales.

When you’ve successfully registered for the program and received the unique tracking code, you need to begin blogging about the products. Depending on the quality of your content and how successfully who are able to project and recommend the products sales will occur. In a similar way you can affiliate with multiple brands to promote their products. Opting for more brands helps you increase your scope of earning.

How can you make your blog successful is a topic in itself which will help you understand the various ways n which you can promote your blog and the tools that can help leverage it.

Skills required for Affiliate Marketing

There is no such skill that required for being an affiliate. However, you should have a fair to good writing skills and should have an inclination to read. Reading is required because you not only gain an idea about products and services but you’re also able to develop an opinion on them and when it comes to affiliate marketing, consumers do give importance and value personal opinion and recommendation.

How can SEO and PPC training help you manage affiliate marketing successfully?

This is a common question that most individuals ask when they approach us for trainings on Affiliate Marketing and we suggest them SEO and PPC training for it. For a novice, SEO/ PPC training for gaining an insight on affiliate marketing may make no sense. However, they are interconnected.

Affiliate Marketing banks on the volume of traffic that your website has. The more the traffic, the better the visibility and the more you’re able to sell. Essentially to gain visibility for your blog you would need SEO and PPC as tools. Knowing SEO will help you gain organic visibility and an insight and training on PPC will help you gain good visibility over the internet by creating campaigns that work.

Hence, enrolling for a PPC and SEO training is beneficial for being successful in Affiliate Marketing.

Case Study: John Chow 

An entrepreneur, blogger and speaker, John Chow is one of the renowned names in the internet arena. Ranked 16 in Ad Age’s Power 150, John’s blogging took off when he came across affiliate marketing, promoting his blog from earning nothing to over $40,000 a month, in a matter of two years.

Working 2 hours a day, John managed to set an example to the internet community as to how blogging can be monetized. He has promoted brands like ReviewMe, Kontera, AdSense, BuyMeABeer, etc.  Today, he is an author of various e-books like Make Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul, John Chow’s Secrets Revealed and many more. He has over 200,000 daily readers who actively read and comment on his blogs and has featured in a number of eminent magazines and shows worldwide.

Find John Chow’s Earning Report

Case Study: Harsh Aggarwal 

Begun as a passion but developed into a full time job, blogging gave young Harsh Aggarwal much more than gratifying earnings. Born and brought up in New Delhi, India, Harsh’s first stint in Affiliate Marketing was with Dreamhost where he earned $47 though he had begun blogging long before.

Harsh has had immense success in his blogging endeavors and suggests all individuals with an inclination to be an entrepreneur, to try it. His earnings over a period of 5 years have been $80,410 which is commendable. Harsh has been an affiliate for various brands like Hostgator, Amazon, Theme-Junkie, Media Temple and many more. In his blog ‘A Blogger’s 5 Year Affiliate Earning For Inspiration : $80410’ he has provided a comprehensive report on his earnings in the past 5 years, where he has been fairly eloquent about the brands he worked for and how much he earned from each of them.

Find Harsh Agarwal’s Adsense and Affiliate Earning Report

The Future: Will It Sustain?

For individuals looking out for an opportunity to earn money with little investment, this is one of the best considerations to make. The future is bright as the markets for affiliate marketing are improving over time. More and more brands are coming out of their shells and shedding their inhibitions about considering it.

If done systematically with due diligence, Affiliate marketing can be very rewarding, sometimes way above your expectations too!

What are your thoughts on Affiliate Marketing? Do you consider it as a lucrative business opportunity? Post your thoughts, opinions or queries; we’d love to hear from you.

Necessary Skills Required to Be An SEO Expert; No Institute will Tell You!

Be it business owners, budding marketers or SEO career enthusiasts, knowing and understanding SEO in an era of internet and digital marketing is of utmost importance.

If there is any amount of resentment with relates to SEO, then that’s because of the huge number of spam agencies that have taken business owners for a ride. Marketers now have to face the brunt by having to face a tough time making businesses realize the significance of SEO. Hence, both business owners and marketers need to know SEO to save their grounds.

As for individuals seeking a career in SEO, here are some of the required skill sets that can help your career take off as an SEO pro. Read on to know.

Required Skills

  • Knowing the functioning of Internet: To facilitate easy grasping of SEO, knowing the basics of how the internet works is important. While basic surfing skills help a lot, have a sound knowledge of the internet fundamentals like IP addresses, HTTP coding and how they can work with a web browser and a server is necessary.
  • Being internet savvy helps: What we learn out of our own interest lingers longer in our minds than what is forced upon. Its never enough to be a book worm, you have to have the urge to learn more than what’s served. Only then do you flourish.
  • Sound HTML knowledge is required: Knowing HTML coding well, is a weapon that will help you fight throughout your SEO career. Without sound knowledge of the language, you’ll find yourself heading nowhere.
  • Communication (Writing and Oral): It’s never enough to emphasize on how important it is to be strong in communication, written and oral. A lot of individuals perceive that SEOs do not have to face the customer’s upfront. But that’s a misconception. You’re the person working on the client’s website, so its ideally you who he/ she would want to contact incase of any issues. Besides you may be called up for inputs and guidance to trainee SEOs. For all this and more, you need to be strong with your communication.
  • MS Excel Skills: Proficiency in MS Excel is an advantage for every individual but for SEOs it’s a prerequisite to keeping themselves organized and on their toes so as to pull out and analyze data as and when required.
  • Fundamentals of Blogging: Blogging basics like creating WP accounts, adding and editing posts, installing plugins, Authorship installations etc should be known to an aspiring SEO.
  • Elementary knowledge of Social Media: Knowing the platforms and how they function, understanding the features like paid ads, sponsored stories, how to integrate them into a website, etc.
  • Google Analytics: Google analytics is a vital tool for monitoring on-page and off-page performance and measuring the results thereof. Understanding its functionality and being able to use it is therefore very important for an SEO aspirant.

Initiative-taking Habits That Will Pay

  • Inclination to learn: It pays. SEO is ever changing and evolving and the best way to tame the horse is to stay updated with the latest tools and developments. These updates would however not be available to you in the theoretical books and handouts. Hence, inculcate the habit of reading industry updates to stay ahead in your league. Besides, having the latest update will have people approaching you for help and guidance.
  • Creativity in link building strategies: Undoubtedly link building is a very important aspect of SEO that helps in rankings but post the Penguin and Panda updates, link building requires being done creatively using a combination of blogging, guest blogging, press releases, etc. Finding creative ways to attain links will help you gain better authentic rankings for your clients.
  • SEO is dynamic: Accept the fact that SEO will no longer work in the traditional stereotype way. Getting rankings and visibility for the client is of utmost importance and to achieve results you have to be dynamic, adaptable and flexible to learning and change too.

If you’re looking at a career in SEO in an organization, you may also be tested for your team player skills, leadership skills and presentation skills too. This is mainly because an SEO expert’s KRA is not just limited to performing the mechanical on-page and off-page activities. You will have roles where your soft skills will be put to test and being able to deliver under such situations will validate and enhance you as being an expert.

The primary goal of SEO is to drive in traffic and leads into a website (your own or your client’s) followed by branding. Organizations mostly hire SEO specialists (individuals or firms) therefore leading to the huge demand of SEO professionals.

With more and more people having access to internet, digital marketing has become the preferred medium for businesses to market themselves. Moreover, SEO comprises of a considerable chunk of digital marketing and its here to stay. So, if you think you have what it takes to be in this profession, take the plunge without thinking too much as it’s one of the very rewarding careers one can opt for.

What are your thoughts and takes on SEO as a profession? Are you looking for SEO training? Post your comments below or visit our website for a comprehensive training program on SEO.