and your host will probably have an easy way to install WordPress on your own domain.
Then you’ll need content to start attracting search engines so that people can find you.
You’ll need the autoresponder service where your list will reside, as well as the emails that you write, and you’ll learn through their tutorials (or on Youtube) how to set up your email lists and forms and how to communicate to the people on your list.
You’ll need something to entice people with, to convince them to sign up onto your list, and you’ll need the squeeze page so that they can do just that.
And then you’ll need to keep in touch with those people on a regular basis so that they don’t forget who you are. Those emails will serve to build up the “know, like, and trust” factor of you in their eyes.
Does that sound like a lot? Maybe it is, but as you take step by step, you’ll get to the end sooner that you might expect if you’re reading these words as a total newbie.
One of my online friends, began list building several years ago, and by the time that she had around 650 people on her list, she was earning over $100,000 per year, much of it from affiliate promotions.
True, that result isn’t typical, but it’s possible.
So take it slowly, do it right, and you’ll find that affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to earn a nice income.
However, I’m not recommending that you limit yourself. Most marketers, like myself, diversify their income streams. For example, in addition to my income from being an affiliate from several companies, I have my own products, my own affiliate platform for my products of course, books that I’ve self published, and lots of friends and followers that I’ve met over the years on forums, social media, and elsewhere.
It all began by doing the steps that I’ve listed above. My first list had 0 people on it at one time, and now it’s a lot more. I love to talk about making incremental progress, and this is a perfect example.
In your site, set up an entire category devoted to affiliate marketing, which will give you more ideas about methods of driving traffic to your affiliate offers above and beyond your own email list, what products you should consider promoting, how to increase your conversions (the ratio of clicks from your affiliate link to sales from those clicks), how to select merchants who have the most income-generating potential, and more.
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Amazon FBA Retail Arbitrage
What Is Retail Arbitrage?
Retail arbitrage simply means to buy something low and sell it high. In the case of retail arbitrage for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon, which is Amazon’s amazing service where they will hold your inventory, market it, take the customer’s payments, and pack and ship it for you), you’ll buy retail items, either online or offline, and sell them for more money on Amazon. It really is as simple as that.
Retail arbitrage is a lot of fun because you can do it in your spare time. Let’s say you’re shopping at Target or Walmart. You can simply head over to the clearance area, scan some of the items using one of the tools you’ve downloaded to your smartphone (such as ScanPower or ProfitBandit) and buy the items you know will be profitable.
Once you really start to get into this, you’ll be amazed at how many opportunities there are out there to profit in everyday stores, even in your local grocery store.
Some people who really get into this won’t let themselves leave a retail store until they know they will have profited enough to take care of all of their purchases – even the ones they are making for their household! That’s a really fun way to think about this business. It can pay for minor expenses and even build up into a full-time income.
You might be wondering if there really is that much profit potential out there. There definitely is. You can shop for a day and come away with thousands of dollars in profits, if you know what you’re doing.
Why don’t Amazon shoppers just shop these clearance isles or visit the stores you’re visiting? The fact is that what’s on clearance or available for a low price in your local area does not match up elsewhere. Amazon caters to people from all over the country and all over the world. People are willing to pay for the convenience of having Amazon ship items to them. You may have bought that toy for $5 on clearance at Target, but that person across the country is thrilled to pay $60 on Amazon for an in-demand toy that’s sold out in their area.
Products are marked down on clearance every day. Local stores price items differently every day. Many of these same items are highly in demand on Amazon.
Why not buy them low and sell them higher on Amazon for great profits? You’re helping people find items they can’t get, or don’t feel like finding, in their local area. They might live in an isolated location where there isn’t a Target or Walmart or Trader Joe’s or any number of other stores.
Yes, they could go online to the web sites, but often it’s the local stores that have clearance racks with inventory, not the online sites.
So you’re profiting handsomely by sending these items into FBA. It’s a great, exciting business.
Restricted Categories
Before you get too excited about finding products to sell, you should know that there are restricted categories. For instance, you can’t head out to the latest clothing basement sale in your local area, ship all those clothes to Amazon, and profit. Clothing is a restricted category and certain restricted categories are available only by application. Even if you submit an application, it can take a while to be approved. Just be aware of this and check with Amazon.
Amazon restricts hazardous materials, dangerous units, and other FBA prohibited products. Examples include vehicle batteries, anything that requires a prescription, anything that has been recalled, anything alive, tobacco products, alcohol, guns, and floating lanterns. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so I highly recommend you check out this link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200242640
Note that some products are okay to merchant fulfill (this is where you pack and ship the products to the customer by yourself, rather than sending them to Amazon to do the packing and shipping), but are not okay to send to Amazon’s warehouses via FBA. Some products require approval and others are outright banned.
Sales Rank Breakdown
One of the most important things that go into your buying decision is the sales rank of the product. You don’t want to try to sell something that just won’t sell. The lower the sales rank, the better. For instance, if a product has a sales rank of 2,500 in its category, that’s much better than a sales rank of 2,500,000. That product selling in the millions is probably not even worth it.
But one thing people tend not to understand is that sales rank can mean different things in different categories. For instance, there are many more books listed on Amazon than there are just about anything else. So, a book with a relatively high sales rank could still be a safe bet even if a toy with the same high sales rank is not profitable in its category.
The sales rank indicates popularity of a product. If it hasn’t sold in a