Getting started with affiliate marketing

First you need to learn how to cloak your affiliate links, this is easy I use a process called php redirect. Here is how you do it, you first open up a blank text document. Now the easy part, just copy and past the code below, insert your hoplink and save the document as a .php file.

http://insert your hoplink here'); ?>

Now you just simply upload this file to your web server. If you do not have a web host check out Flux Services They offer great hosting packages starting at just $9.95 a month. You want to use this link in all of your marketing methods. This will help to protect you from affiliate thief's, it is not fool proof but it will help protect your hard work.

Now that you know how to cloak your hoplinks, lets find out how you are going to promote your product/service. This is where it gets lengthy, so everyday I am going to post a new method of promoting your products. There are some methods that work better than others, that is where your research that I described in the previous post comes in.

Today I am going to talk about the easiest way to get started where it will not cost you any money, but will require a bit of work on your part. As you may have noticed many of the publishers on clickbank have great sales pages. You can use this to your advantage by simply writing short articles, and submitting them to article directory sites like ezinearticles.com. These articles do not have to be many pages, you are not writing a book. They must be informative and be an article that someone would want to take the time to read, and what you really want re-post your article on their site.

There are some basic things you will want to include in your article. One is a hoplink to the product or service you are trying to sell. The other is a brief bio about yourself tell your readers why they should listen to you. Explain in your Bio what qualifies you to write the article you have written. Remember you want to cloak your hoplink if you don't feel comfortable cloaking links on your own you can use Covertlinks to protect your affiliate links, it is the easiest software I have found to cloak links.

Now that you have written your article you want to post it to one of the article sites, and promote your articles in forum post and even social networking sites, like digg.com and even your friends on myspace. One very important thing to remember don't be a spammer, be helpful in your forum post and add the link to your signature. This will gain you respect in your chosen niche.

I bet you think you are done right? Wrong. You want to write on average of 2-3 articles everyday. Don't just change the title of your article, re-write the article. Even chose another product to write about. Everything is really about numbers. If only 10 people read your single article your chances of getting a sale is slim but if 10, 20 even 1000 people read one of your 50 articles your chances of success have increased significantly.