May 2019 – How to take your business forward using the Internet

What is the best affiliate programs

March 3, 2020May 24, 2019 by Peter Hanley

Here Peter Hanley discusses what is the best affiliate programs and who is the latest entrant to the market with better returns.

Best affiliate programs ( to suit you)

First of all their are virtually millions of programs of all shapes and kinds
Your decision is easy;

A program about something you care for
High-value products that return greater commissions
Quick selling products on the likes of Amazon
Recurring income products that build a business
Using a highly regarded company

Everyone is different yet we are all after the same pot of gold. We become affiliate marketers to make money, unlimited money the easy way with no stock, billing or returns, just a share of the booty.

You can be anyone, do it from anywhere, invest no money and gather a great return. If it sounds too good to be true it is.
I missed a couple of small ingredients. Training, time a touch of knowledge, some learned skills and most of all persistence.

However, it is still the best game around bar none so let’s have a look.

Yes you can really make money while you sleep

The dream of every marketer and particularly Affiliate marketers really do achieve the dream over and over again.

I know it sounds impossible but what if it is not all hype. What if you could automate all the processes so it works for you 24-7.

Ok what exactly is AM? Wikipedia says it is selling
The concept of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. Tobin, the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million per year on the Prodigy service. In 1998, PC Flowers and Gifts developed the business model of paying a commission on sales to the Prodigy Network.^[8][9]

There are referral marketing, pyramid sales and high priced services like gambling, Insurance, travel and lead generation all involved in this market.

So what should you sell and how do you start?

Know your basics and build a site on which to sell a product of your choice.

To become an affiliate in most cases you need to show an ability to promote a product but there are exceptions.
The great almighty Amazon is pretty easy to start but they want results, No sales no account it is that simple.

One of the better money-generating ideas is web hosting but saying that it is ultra-competitive.

I use and recommend Wealthy Affiliate
They have free training, a free website and access to the Affiliate program. If you upgrade to a premium package you get lots more and greater income.

The income is recurring so you build a business.

Importantly they also introduced an affiliate program where you can choose from thousands of different business and get access as an affiliate.

What programs are available.

Share a sale
Clickbank
CJ
Market Health
JVZoo
Warrior Forum
Zaxxy
Wealthy affiliate (yep new May 2029)

Within each of these is a host of things to sell as an affiliate that you have the potential to make money.

Basic training is the key to success

The returns are great but without basic training, you have little chance of success. The program below does not even list the new Affiliate booster because it was introduced in the last three days

Start the training, pick a product, do a plan and bank the money

Having a basic understanding is going to stand you well throughout your journey in income building. The reverse is a scramble and rejection from the things you want to achieve.

If you know and understand what you want to market the job is half done but for the others, it is a bit of a struggle.

Don’t pick low-value products with small returns. If you are selling .20 items at a 10% margin you Ned to sell a bundle of product to make a living.

However, a $500 product is $ 50 for the same work. Your choice.

Then a recurring billing product at$ 50 and 40% over 36 months $ 720

Once up and going you can also make advertising income on top of everything else.

Your goal is to build a business that will grow and feed you while you sleep in regular sales and thus income.

Affiliate income

Affiliate income is unlimited if done properly, Million dollar incomes can be achieved with the right application.

However, it takes time to build your platform before it will run on its own. that time is in your basic learning and product selection.

Your plan will tell you what to do and should include real figures that stretch the earnings over time. You should be reasonable in your estimates and timeline. Nothing is done overnight it will take some time to build to a point where you can sit back and take it easy and it is important that you forecast correctly to your first goal.

It starts with a web page, blog or Funnel

Yes, you can sell to friends and family, mail drop, socialise and get referrals but the big volume is on The Net. Viral members pouring into your web page, credit card in hand wanting to buy screaming Pick me.
Back to reality. It takes a bit of effort to set up a good webpage, blog or funnel but then it is there forever.

In the old days you would shell out $10,000 for a page now you can do it for free and in an hour or so of your time.
You need to understand Keywords and SEO as well as Headings and Pictures, Internal and external links to have a shot at this.

The good part is that it is not hard and there are lots training and support.

Rome took over a day to Build, your website can be a lot quicker but it does take some time and effort on your part. See the link above

Pick affiliate programs that pay

There is more than one way to make money when you get going however chose your path properly when you begin.

Finding programmes is easy, getting accepted sometimes requires evidence that you can produce results. This is the reason I recommend starting with a few easy products before branching out.

If you Google a product and type Affiliate deals you will get a whole bunch of places to go.
If you go to the Wealthy Affiliate site they have an onboard Affiliate programme with selected retailers for you to Join

You can also start as an Affiliate with Wealthy Affiliate from day one with all the training you need.
They have a Keyword tool with Jaaxy that you can also get access to start gathering some leads
I have written more about online Marketing here

Moving forward with affiliate marketing

My purpose here was not to tell you how to achieve a working income but to provide an idea of what you need to do to achieve a result.

There are enough Affiliate programs to suit everyone
You need to know where to get basic training.
With some experience, it opens your opportunities
Using Wealthy affiliate as a starter spot has most of the options.
Allow some time to make it happen
Explore Amazon for ideas and content
Build a base of customers
make money and retire on the beach.

It is a great business, anyone can do it, you don’t need a bundle of money to start however it is rarely a get rich quick program. It takes effort and time to get into the blocks.

Think if you bought a standard business, say a coffee shop.
Other than all the capital purchases, rent etc you need to learn some things.
How to make coffee comes first, how to market your product, looking after customers, health regulations, legal implications etc. They all take time and training and that is before you open the doors and work out how to repay the hundreds of thousands in expenditure
The online business is the same. without the basics, you can’t make it
so your initial plan is to understand what is required. What you want to achieve and how will you go about it.
We all come in Gungho and full of excitement but that soon wears off with slow or even no initial results.
When you have a plan and a target you can forget the odd bad day and steam ahead to the finish line knowing the dream will come true.
You have done the work, you know what you are doing so the results must follow. It is the law of effort that the return will be greater than the input.

Online training for affiliate marketing

You will need to do all sorts of marketing to achieve a result and Social media is not an exception. This will direct buyers to your site and then to paying out money. I wrote on the recently at Online marketing

You may also notice that I don’t march you into any high priced opportunities of which there are many on the market. Get your basics before spending a cent or you may lose the dollar.

Tracking your affiliate links

We often wonder if our links actually work and send customers off to be signed up. If only we could really understand how well we are going.

I have a simple answer for you and it is called PrettyLinks. By using these links you can track everyone that clicks on your page and have a permanent record The best free URL shortener not only makes life simple it records every transaction.

What is the best affiliate program by Peter Hanley

Small business marketing strategy

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 by Peter Hanley

Small business marketing strategy is discussed here by Peter Hanley with the right ways to take your business to the new age of Internet marketing.

Where to start your marketing strategy?

Fixed business, local business
Online business , business, affiliate, or shop
free activity
Paid activity
Media, Video, SMS

All business marketing activity

Common to all businesses are certain strategies that need to be undertaken.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about an important subject

YOUR WEB SITE AND SEO

This is the hub of your sales, a place where you are found and it will detail specific information you, your company and what you sell
It could be a funnel or a sales page but the purpose is to sell your products to those that enter.

SEO

Search engine optimisation is necessary with your webpage so that Google, Bing and YouTube can find you
when people come knocking.

This is your starting place and most of you will need this to market your business.

If you need more on this I will send you to the training at Wealthy affiliate for free but I am assuming that most readers will be this far at the least and want to move on to things that push business.

Social media is a part of any business package

You will find lots of advice on Social media and in fact, lots of social media tools but the one fundamental that has stood the test of time is that your social programme is to deliver customers to you or your website. They are not there to sell a product. There is now one exception to this. (Instagram Beta trial below)

The other advice is not to send people from your website to social media. Why? is the general question.

Social media is a playground where you can get tempted off in all sorts of directions. This could be to other sites, competitors or new ideas completely. It is not designed to keep you tied down.

Your Social media is a feeder channel to your selling situation, web page or business and nothing more. However, its purpose is really important in filling the dam of potential lookers so we can not overlook it.

Now we break down Social media into a useful source of information.

You should consider in all cases to employ both LinkedIn and Facebook as primary tools of the trade.

LinkedIn

This is the business persons international phone book where anyone can search for you by name or business.
It does require a picture and a BIO plus industry information and any other information you may want to pass on.

It is searched by all sorts of people wanting information about you or to understand you and your business.

You can not be shy, you are in business to promote your self when you can.
Just last week I witnessed a potentially large contract initiated with Instagram. A major travel organisation needed contact details on a local business. They searched on Instagram, found the appropriate contact and offered a package that would save the company many thousands of dollars.
They knew the owner’s name but not the new business operation and being in a different state they had initial difficulties in contact.

LinkedIn can be much more than a name list and you can take it as far as you want in marketing and advertising.
However, you must appear in the list in a current and professional format.

And so to FaceBook

This was the first of the new media with Facebook business being initially introduced in 2007. So, really only about 10 years old which is relatively young.

Then came advertising, remarketing, sharing and all sorts of cost centres to get you to spend money.

Again I see FaceBook as a delivery devise and information centre.
I market to businesses I do not know anything about in my initial client build.
Facebook is one of my first places to go because I can see things of interest, what they target, who follows them etc to build up a profile.

Social media must be current

What I do not like is Pages that are not updated and just have a few old posts from last year when they got a bit industrious and completed a post.
It is so easy to schedule posts way ahead of time and show consistency and care about your business.
You are there to entertain and get them to KNOW you.
( this is the first of the Know, like and trust principal in client respect)

I often struggle to find email addresses on a lot of company literature but an interesting aside is that most Facebook owners have it under details.

I will cover re-marketing and advertising in full at another time because they are a subject on their own.
Re-targeting or sometimes called re-marketing is when your small advertisement appears on another site when looking at anything on the net. The one concern most people have is privacy but it is simply a transfer of pixels and is no cause for concern. It is paid marketing and I try and stay with as much free stuff as I can.
It does work but it carries a cost with it.

Set up your business page from your personal one and set a time to log your exciting posts and get players to your selling point. Keep it up to date and log your results.

Adwords must be a consideration in many businesses

I have thrown this in before we cover the remainin social programmes

When you search google you will see the posts on the first page with a little word ad next to them.

They will be the first and probably last on the front page.
Remembering that the first three adds get about 80% of all traffic so not much is shared with the following 100 or so pages.
When someone clicks on your paid ad you get charged with an agreed amount.

The amount may be a few dollars or over a thousand depending on the value placed by Google.
The value is usually reflected in the cost of the sale.
I have friends that spend 10s of thousands of dollars monthly selling finance. The contracts to them are worth thousands so the payback is easy.

If you wish to guarantee traffic to your business and are prepared to pay for a successful click there is no better way than AdWords.

Back to social media for business

I am going to talk about just three more that you can explore without going through them all.

Twitter
If you have an interesting range of ideas this is useful in getting your name in lights. I always quote Donald Trump in this and even though he does not have the biggest following the press repeats more than make up for it.
I am increasing following more tweets in the political, literature and sporting section. Areas of interest to me.

You quickly get to love or loathe the writers but are drawn along with them and I believe this will be a much bigger target in the future.
Just start following a few people and slowly introduce your self into this market if you have the material.

In fact, I found myself seeing more and more feeds coming to my email. It may be political but writers and general information lead the way.

Instagram

This started as the domain for 18-30 year old young and trendy displaying all sorts of pictures and stories. Then their mothers followed and the Grandees widening the audience.
I see businesses now only using Instagram for marketing. Daily pictures of clothes, shoes, haircuts or cars creating a loyal following.

Instagram is wholly owned by the Facebook group who see a huge potential in the product in fact.

Try instagram in your marketing

Instagram direct selling a new idea

Currently, in the USA they are trialling buy now buttons in a post or picture with a fulfilment program.
A post, for example, new Nike shoes will have a Buy now button that takes you to a sales platform and completes the deal. This is exciting stuff and a lead to the future so watch this space. It is not currently available to all of us only to selected US corporations.
Watch this space and get in early.

Youtube

Youtube is gaining popularity very quickly and in fact, it is used as a search tool nearly as often as Google and more than Bing.

Many businesses avoid this because of a perceived difficulty in doing a video but that is living in the past. Anyone can produce a video with an Ipad or mobile phone or any of the new technical opportunities.

how to do things
Demonstrations
Setting up
Selling
Branding
Entertainment

The list is endless but like any media, it must be consistent and professional in your approach to the market.

I recently did a review on Content Samurai and you can have a look at it

Building a list

This is really important that you know who your customers are, phone number, email address, contact name.
You get this from your invoices, asking the question, having a survey, raffle, special club or any way you can.

You can have this in an excel spreadsheet or a proprietary CMR paid for the program, even on your carrier page, it matters not it is the list that is important.

No list and no business from your existing customers see also Ways to promote my business

Online business directories

I recently wrote about Online business directories

Many people completely miss this opportunity and it is a big one and mostly free. Never pay them unles they prove the performance to you.

To find the online directories just google your company or Keyword and you will see them all on page one or two. People do click them and traffic will come to you.

This is a do it once and do it well opportunity.

Newsletters and email

This is one of the most important parts of this whole message.

Every business should do a newsletter, at least once a month. Nothing to sell but a gentle touch that keeps you in contact with your base. Yes, it costs you an email generating service like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp and a half hour of time however the rewards will come back 10 fold.

Like all media, it must be planned and consistent across the year and you will be amazed at the return.

Emails are far from dead

I send and receive emails every day. I send bulk emails most days to a range of old and new customers customers

The use of an Auto Responder makes this an easy process. You compose a dozen messages starting with an introduction and gently leading them into a place where they are ready to buy your product.

There is a way to do this and I looked at it more on a recent post I did on Mass marketing with Email

You can pull customers daily without a lot of effort.

Local Marketing works even better as you send out offers and specials to your selected area and watch them walk in the door.
Just today I had one from my Tyre service that had a great article on a new car release, from my computer repairer reminding me about the end of the year plus a deal on Fish and chips, might do that one.

They are people I shall turn to when I need their services.

Training on the Internet

Things are changing very quickly with Internet marketing so you need to be on the latest trends at all time. The small business marketing review has tried to get you there.

I use Wealthy Affiliate ( There is a free version) that keeps me up to date particularly with the members’ blog posts. I post regularly on their web with new ideas and resources as do many others.

In addition do not waste money taking fancy courses that promise the world, what they mostly achieve is taking your money and providing very little return. That is not to say that there are no good ones only to say there are a lot of bad ones.

You may however get lots of free training on any subject you want.

Don’t extend yourself to widely

Like life, a lot of half done projects do not equal one fully positioned product. Get your play into place and working before you move on.
I concentrate on Emails because I have found it works, my friend an Instagram only user and another ad words work for him with a high-value product.

Most of these take but a few minutes a day although that few minute is often hard to find in a busy schedule. If this is the case give it to someone else as a daily job function and know it will be done.

You can’t do everything but what you do then do it well

Why do businesses fail?

There are many resons for failure and mostly your own.

I recently did a blog on failing businesses that might be worth a read.

It is a long subject so don’t you be one of them.

Small business marketing strategy by Peter Hanley

Ubersuggest review

May 16, 2019May 10, 2019 by Peter Hanley

About Ubersuggest a keyword tool by Neil Patel

Ubersuggest review allows you to get insight into the strategies that are working for others in your market so you can adopt them, improve them, and gain an edge.

Introducing Ubersuggest the review

Website is
https://app.neilpatel.com/en/traffic_analyzer

Price; Amazing, it is free

Owners Name Neil Patel.

About Neil Patel

Neil Patel
He is a New York Times bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

His partner is Mike Kamo

Ranking 95 out of 100

General review of Ubersuggest

We all know how important Keyword research is for our business, Too much traffic and you never get seen and too little and you never get found.
For Busines owners, bloggers and anyone on the web this is a product you must review.

It checks Keywords for volume and ability
annalyses your site
provides an overview
shows the top sites
SEO annalyser and backlink checker
Plus a great training school
It is free

What is good with Ubersuggest

Pro#1 It is easy to use, colourful and very simple for anyone.
There is no messing around with this, type in a keyword, be it long or short and you will see the results.
Pro#2
Your choices are good for both site review and new word selection
Pro#3
Keyword ideas. We are all searching for great keywords so here you find them with traffic results and potential so you can market professionally
Pro#4
The backlink analyser shows where your site sits on the table.
Pro#5
Neil has attached training on many of the questions you will want to ask.

Any bad things on Ubersuggest

Con 1
It takes a few times around the site to find your way even though it is very clear. Like anything new, it has a lot inside to find that works for you.
Con 2
I believe most search terms originate from Bing

Who is Ubersuggest for?

This is for a wide audience that has some idea of websites, keywords, affiliate marketing, blogging or website and business interaction including advertising
There is no more important product than Keywords and doing it properly, this takes you there.

Tools and training with Ubersuggest

First up the training page is great with topical calls to action. One example of training tells of the upgrades coming at Ubersuggest all in easy to read format.
The tools are clearly shown and easy to use.

Support at Ubersuggest

I have not used the support page but it does come with email chat and presumably a quick return. Not much can go wrong so I am not concerned with no Telephone support.

Ubersuggest Pricing

This certainly is a great part of this service in that it is free to all without an upsell.

My final summary of this tool

I use a keyword tool every day so this is a great alternative to both compare and grab extra information.
The whole thing is free, unlike most other finders which is great for anyone marketing products of any kind.
Neil and his partner Mike have presented a really good platform and it will be interesting to watch it grow.

Product is Neil Patel UberSuggest

Web sites is
https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

My Opinion is 100-100
This is not a scam site
completely legitimate and a tool for everyone in business or online.

Competition

Jaaxy keyword tool Free and Paid Version
Noble Samurai Paid
Buz Sumo paid
Keyword tool.io paid
Longtalepro Free trial
Wealthy Affiliate tool free

Ubersugest review by Peter hanley

What is business marketing?

July 1, 2019May 8, 2019 by Peter Hanley

Here Peter Hanley asks the question of what is business marketing? And how does it affect you? In a fixed or virtual business, proper marketing is essential.

Without marketing, you rely on just goodwill

Whether you be a local shop, larger business or even an online entrepreneur marketing is the backbone of a business. It drives customers into your shop or store.

There are, however, many forms of marketing that may be long term or one hit wonders and they all add up to a result. Here Wikipedia describes it for you.

Where does marketing start and finish?

This starts with an idea and the finish is up to you but my first place goes to a brand.

Do you have a brand?

While this is set up early it lasts a lifetime so it needs the relevant respect.

Great brands include Amazon, Apple, Samsung, Google, Facebook etc which are names that roll of the tongue.

However the name means many things but all are liked and trusted the key ingredients, as well, they have a massive revenue spend on marketing.

Most interesting is that they are all new age names outranking the AT and T of this world by a long way. Remember Walmart and Microsoft as well as the world bank of China in ICBC in the top 10.

In addition, as little business, we can not compete on the world market but we do have our own sandpit to lord over. Just how can we do that?

A Name a logo and a USP

All businesses start with these three things and yours should to although change can be made.
Your unique selling proposition is what your business is about.
A good example is Samsung who reinvented the failing brand by entering the mobile phone market and pushing
quality, design, and price as its USP.

Another that reinvented itself was a small Korean company called Lucky Goldstar. They made TVs for the market that were rebranded to other names. A good name in a small Asian country but not a well-known name like LG where “Life is good”

Every business needs to identify what and who they are with a USP. You can search these for hours and they all say something about you.

There is a little bakery around the corner from me with a bland name like Brighton Road Bakery. They tag everything with ” 3 times voted the best tradesman pie”

We all know Tradies love a pie and they often have a discussion along these lines and the Brighton Road wins every time.

So you have a name, a logo and now add your USP.

Virgin Airlines, make flying fun, made it different from the traditional safety aspect like Qantas who push absolute safe flying.

How the world sees your brand

What is business marketing — A Branding example we all know

What is your shopfront like, your Webpage, all your basic marketing materials like flyers, invoices, calling cards?
Consistency is King and great companies never vary. No logo change, no colour changes, same font etc.

Shop fronts are a window of your business. They invite people in and are fresh and portray what to expect.

Perhaps it is a restaurant with an old world look or a hotel with a large outdoor area and people having fun.

It could just be your website or your Social media call to action. It is what connects to your USP.

Virgin, for instance, have Sir Richard Branson having fun anywhere in the world and Apple with the absolute quality pushed by Steve Jobs.
This is all basic stuff but will make a difference to your result and you can go back and start again.

Then came Social Media

For years we were stuck with written marketing like the Yellow pages or similar that delivered a message to a small area.

Now the world is your market or maybe just your local village the choice is yours.

Facebook a must have
LinkedIn is necessary
Instagram the new favourite
YouTube is a must do
Twitter in some cases
Web Page and SEO
Funnels and sales pages
others as you wish

Then other things you must do

Email marketing
Autoresponder
Newsletters
SMS
Adwords
Networking
Flyers
Cold calling
Door knocking
E.Books
Blogging
and more

Your marketing. Is your head spinning yet?

If you did every one of these properly you could not handle the business. Each of these can work to send you business.
Yet it is virtually impossible to do them all without a couple of agencies working for you.

Time in business is important and you need to spread yourself over many areas so how can you ever compete in this market?

Business marketing made easy

Nothing is easy but we can at least have a go at simplifying things.
You must have a good webpage and SEO for any business. It must be ready to sell or direct people to you to take the money. It is a shopfront and back and the one thing that you must do and do properly.

Furthermore, what to do next is very dependant on your business and where you get the most benefit.

Then consider the age are your customers, where do they live, what are their interests and what will draw them in.
Then you design a customer Gravitar and that is where we start.

Facebook is now for the 30 plus group
Instagram 18-30 years old. Storytelling
YouTube 10-60-year-old. Brand and how to do things
LinkedIn for business owners and professionals
Twitter more the educated or academic. Probably good for accountants, Lawyers, writers, political observers and for following the lives of the rich and famous

First of all, you and everyone in business should have a LinkedIn page with a good Bio and Photo promoting your business. When people want you this is the first place to search.
Just this week I had two friends on either side of the country and haven’t spoken for years. Now Jo sells travel and Stanley is in Overseas construction. When we were talking about this Jo Immediately went to LinkedIn contacted Stanley and started negotiation for the $200,000 travel package.

This takes very little time to set up and manage, costs you nothing and If you get the traffic you can upgrade and market your business based on results.

Facebook is dying

Well, actually no it is not, it is just changing and still remains the biggest media on the market.
Think of this as a signpost to your business, it does not sell anything it is there to get interest and deliver people to you directly or by retargeting in paid advertising.
It must be kept up to date and it allows for message scheduling so you only need to do it weekly or longer.
However, a neglected site is not the look you want.
Do your Facebook and do it properly.
I often look at a Facebook site to get an idea of a business, how they are doing or not doing.

The Youtube opportunity for business

YouTube is ideal if you want to share how to do things, display things, unpack boxes, Brand your product and even as a sales site.

Interestingly Youtube has nearly as many monthly searches as Google so it can not be ignored. I offered a free trial of a great product on a prior blog under YouTube Free
Perhaps you can use an Ipad, mobile phone or camera just take in a few basics first,

Local directories

While you won’t see this mentioned all that often but it does work. There are over 100 local directories where you can add your business for free. The top three will generate millions of calls per month over the subscribers.
To find these just google your business name, town or product and have a look at the first couple of pages and you will find a half dozen or so listings, I recently blogged on this at Online directories

Finally to Instagram, ignore this at your peril

This is the new kingmaker because with a bit of effort it can work really well for many businesses, particularly retail.
Social media has always been about entertainment but Instagram is about to turn stories into selling tools with online buy now buttons. It is a story on its own but makes sure you set up a business account and post regularly.

When your business is failing seek help