Copyright (c) 2011 Andrew Holtom

So what does an effective marketing strategy look like? How is it put into play? To be straight to the point, an effective strategy will involve bringing as many targeted visitors to your product sales page as is possible. This will involve selecting a product or a service that is guaranteed to be popular and to be of interest. Then it is all about converting these visitors to customers.

Merchants of products that are sold through effective affiliate marketing will do all that they can to help you convert to sales. This will include tweaking and fine tuning their product sales pages so that their product is the most compelling offer possible. They will turn an offer into something irresistible that people will insist that they want to buy.

When you look for products to sell, spend time on the sales page. Does it have a compelling and engaging headline that sucks you into the sales page? Is the rest of the page clean and easy to read? Are there testimonials that make you feel comfortable that the product really does what the merchant says it does? All of these questions should be answered. However, one of the most obvious questions that you should ask - is whether you would consider buying this product yourself. If the answer is no, then this is not the right product for you to sell.

In order to sell effective, you should feel passionate about the product - it will make it easier to sell. Another element of a good sales page is having a time sensitive offer. There needs to be a bit of time pressure - ie 'if you buy this product today - you will get 50% off' or perhaps the consumer would receive a bonus product for acting fast.

The next step in the effective affiliate marketing strategy will be to send as much traffic as possible to the offer. There are various marketing channels to use to accomplish this. For example, you might want to try pay-per-click advertising, classified ads or even Squidoo.com. Sites such as Squidoo.com can perform very well for you but you will need to check whether your product fits in with their guidelines.

Other ways to bring through traffic are by blogging or article marketing. You can provide useful information about the topic and attract visitors who are seeking more information about your niche.

One of the most important parts of any effective affiliate marketing strategy is to select suitable keywords. Once you have selected a product, spend time identifying and determining which keywords will bring you the type of traffic through that are most likely to purchase your product. As a beginner, you might want to select keywords that you are able to compete on to start with. This will be keywords that are under 2000 searches per month.

Use a tool such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool to help you find a selection of keywords that might be suitable for the task. Once you have built up some traffic to your website or marketing material then you will be able to select more competitive keywords.

To find out more about how to start a business online and use an effective affiliate marketing strategy to sell your products, take a look at my Internet Marketing StartUp Kit. This kit has helped many newcomers to earn their first incomes online.