Blog Your Way to Affiliate Sales

To succeed as an affiliate who makes money regularly you need to build a network of websites. These sites will feed each other traffic, pre-sell affiliate programs, generate Adsense revenue, and explode your opt-in e-mail lists.

You can start in many different ways: you can set up your own website, create a viral e-book, etc...and those are all pretty easy, but still not the absolute easiest.

The easiest way to get started is blogging. Wordpress is a great choice for a new blogger; if you can't afford hosting or a domain name, you can still start blogging. Do a search for free blogs. One popular free blogging service is Blogger.com.

The best part about blogging is that each time you post a message it "pings" syndicate services to tell them you have added new content. Many of these places then syndicate your content. This brings you backlinks and plenty of public awareness.

Blogging isn't for everyone. I know I struggle with it, because I don't really like talking about what I am doing – I would just rather DO IT. But a Blog is a great way to both accomplish something and DO something all at once. Give it a shot – remember you can start a blog up for free. You will want to add revenue streams into your blog by customizing it.

What Do You Base My Blogs On?

Many experts on the subject of niche blogs will tell you to pick high-paying keywords only. There are so many searches on so many topics every day that you really can get traffic and interest in just about any "sub" category you want.

What I am saying is don't make your sites about fishing – make them about Walleye fishing instead. A great free way to pick your topics is Google's Adwords Keyword Tool. Just enter in a major keyword and it will give you suggestions and help you find your competition.

Your first site should be about something you enjoy. Writing for search engine optimization isn't any fun, so pick a topic you know something about and just do it.

How exacly do you pick a topic?

There are many places to pick a topic for your site. My favorite is the Lycos Top 50.

It's not the most popular search engine, but the Top 50 list is a great way to find what people are searching for. They also keep archives.

If you're just starting out you can't compete with the top 50 that are listed, but with a little imagination, you can come up with sub topics based on what Lycos tells you. If you keep looking long enough, you might even find some patterns and be able to figure out some of the future top searches.

Use a keyword service. Many software programs help you pick keywords. If you are really looking to see what is popular, then go find some of the most visited blogs on the net. What are they writing about and getting people to leave comments? If people are taking the time to comment on someone else's blog, it's a good thing.

Just write about what you are interested in. Passion will win out every day of the week. If you turn out ‘real' content that serves a purpose, then the search engines will track your content and other sites will link to you. That might mean you have to leave the "internet marketing" field, but the rewards are tremendous.

Go to Amazon.com and "browse top sellers." This is a great way to find out what everyone is buying. The bottom line is: go to where the public interest is to help you with topic ideas for your blog.