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The fact of the matter is…

There is an aspect of affiliate marketing that many seasoned affiliates – those who are struggling and some who have found success in varying degrees – are hesitant to discuss due to a perception that disclosure would make it more difficult to attract newcomers (newbies) to the business. This particular aspect is the cold hard fact that over 90%, but less than 95% of affiliates will actually make less than $100 a month; and those who exceed earnings of $100 a month, but haven’t reached the pinnacle of success, probably comprise another 8% to 9% of the affiliate workforce, leaving only one to two percent at the elite status of super affiliate marketers.

It is therefore important for any aspiring or newbie affiliate marketer to understand that s/he should not count on making a full time income unless and until s/he is able to acquire the tools, resources, online marketing skills and relationships necessary to launch the type of affiliate marketing business that will be sustainable for the first few years, and could eventually generate revenue on a consistent enough basis considered enough to meet the high bar of success as it pertains to the affiliate marketing business.

Basic elements and traffic flow

The basic elements required for kicking off an affiliate marketing career are:

A good web site that converts!
Adequate search engine optimization (SEO)!
Interesting if not compelling content!
Website visitors, or traffic in AM jargon!
Supporters: returning visitors who like you (via your site)!
Reputable and reliable merchants
Great products to promote!

The one thing an affiliate marketer must have in order to succeed is a constant flow of traffic from which s/he could establish relationships which will produce the base of followers/supporters some of whom, with minimum prodding or coersion, will purchase products via the affiliate’s website. However, this traffic-to-relationship-to-buyer conversion is a lot easier said than done, which is one of the reasons that over 90% of affiliates make $100 or less a month. Consider this ratio for a moment: 1:200 is the number of visitors who will buy products via a typical affiliate’s website!

So unless the affiliate is promoting high-end luxury products with big price tags (cars, yachts, jewelry, real estate, etc.), s/he will need a substantial traffic flow on a daily basis, and that’s where adequate SEO can be instrumental in getting that affiliate’s website listed in the search engines (preferrably on the first page) so more people will be able to find it. That having been said there is a misconception about affiliate marketing that oo many people buy into, and when they learn the truth about how they should actually do affiliate marketing it is often too late.

Dispelling the misconception

But contrary to popular opinion – or misconception – affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick type of program; and success is not achieved by placing a few product links and banner on a website (poorly optimized or not) and then money will start rolling in; and those who hold this belief should not be surprised if they never make a single sale or any money at all. There is a lot of time, work and creativity involved in developing and nurturing a successful affiliate marketing business, some of which have alreay been mentioned above; and even when the time and work have been put in, there is still more to be done.

Understand also – if you are that aspiring affiliate marketer – that there are no guarantees of success, or even that you will ever make your first $100 or how long it will take you make; because, as with every other affiliate marketer, how much money you make depends solely on how much time, effort and money you are willing to put in. If you are a quick learner and really good at affiliate marketing, you could make 2,000 in 2 years; and this is based entirely on whether or not you’re starting from 0 with another full time job that prevents you from devoting a lot of time to your affiliate marketing program.

In view of everything already said on this page, if you decide to give affiliate marketing a try, you would be doing so with the realization that it is not an easy business; but you should also know that the toughest part are the challenges you will be confronted with in the first five to six months; and if you check your stats and see that you are only making a few dollars, you might find yourself wondering if all the hard work was worth it; but the important thing to remember is to stay committed with your hard work, and the commissions should start growing as you keep working.

Practical expectations, realistic results

One of the biggest factors in affiliate marketing is the traffic that goes through your website; because even though you’ll get a lot of traffic passing through your website, only a fraction of the traffic will be buyers. The key however, is knowing your visitors and then being able to determine which affiliate programs you can offer to meet their needs. There is also the concept of pre-sale, which is the ability to put your visitors in the required mindset for them to actually click on one or more of your prduct links.

By sticking with affiliate marketing, you’ll learn more and more over the years; but you shouldn’t expect to be the best when you first start out, it will take a lot of hard work and dedication. Just keep in mind that by putting the time and effort into your programs, and building the necessary relationships and base of supporters, you’ll be well on your way to making it in the very profitable and exciting world of affiliate marketing, even if you have to endure a few years of growing pains before seeing measurable and/or acceptable results. Good luck!

Resume meets scanner

In this era of technology-driven industries and speedy, high powered communication tools, most job applications are done electronically, and most employers – no matter the job level – request a resume from job applicants. That having been said, we must be mindful of the extremely time consuming task these employers have in reviewing so many resumes. However, when we learn that employers don’t actually review every resume they receive, it begins to make sense that they would want to review resumes from various candidates for their job offers.

In this day and age companies use various types of software to scan the resumes they receive for key words and content specific to their available positions, especially the first round of resume review. In other words, if you are a job applicant who submit a resume to one of these employers, your resume must first make it pass a computer-generated scan before it can into the hands of a hiring manager, or other decision-making department head. So the number of resumes submitted to that potential employer is less problematic than we think.

Now that we’ve settled that question, think about your own well-formatted, well-written resume to which you’ve devoted so much time in perfecting. There is one more question you have to answer about your awesome resume: Is it scan-friendly? The answer to this question may lie in the number (or lack) of calls you’ve received from from potential employers, despite your excellent qualifications for the job. Put another way, your resume might not be scan-friendly; so take a look at the following tips for making your resume scan-friendly:

Making the resume scanner-ready

Special Formatting – Any kind of formatting that is not standard could cause certain letters to touch and blend into one character. This is especially true if a word is bold or italicized; so make sure that you review your resume and revise any parts where letters are joined together, so that the words can be scanned.

Font Type and Size – Since the type and size of your fonts are very important for both your printed and electronic resume when being scanned, it is important that the font is recognizable by the software; so stick to basic fonts, such as Ariel and Times New Roman. Also use standard font sizes such as 10 or 12 point.

Underlined Words and Phrases – In an electronic format, underlined words/phrases implies links to other documents and/or a web sites. Another feature that must be avoided is lines in the resume that touch the text, as this will prevent your resume from being scanned properly.

Alignment – All the text in your resume should read from left to right so that your resume can be properly scanned. Your should also avoid special formatting such as tables and columns within your electronic resume document.

Fine tuning resume before submission

Special Characters – Special characters may not be recognized by scanning software and could therefore render your resume useless to the employer. Special formatting such as bullets, use of ampersands, percent signs, copyright signs, or any other characters that may not be easily recognizable by scanning software should be removed. If you are quantifying information on your resume, make sure to spell out the percentage instead of using “%” as you are indicating increase in sales, for example. Whenever possibly, avoid using signs or special characters in your resume.

Numbered Pages – Even if you submit a printed resume, the document may still be scanned for key words to match your qualifications with available positions, so it is very important that your submission is on plain white paper and in basic font type and size. If you are submitting multiple pages, make sure that all the pages are numbered, and have your name in the top left corner. Do not staple multiple pages, because doing so will prevent all pages, except the top page, from being scanned.

Keywords and Power Words – The most important element of a scan-friendly resume is the selection of active keywords and power words. Do your research and make sure that you use the appropriate keywords which are relevant to the position you are seeking in your resume. Having appropriate keywords throughout your resume makes it easier for the software to find matches when scanning the document.

Research and review

Helpful tip: review the employer’s job requirements for keywords, and find out what the required qualifications for the job are, so you can make sure that your resume contains the same terminology as that on the job description, without direct copying from the text. When your functional resume is scanned the software will pick up these key words and you will be one step closer to landing your dream job.

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!