Have you ever experienced having to decide on what keywords to optimize, what products to promote but still, the money isn’t coming in? I have, and through my experiences, I have come to find out that there are 4 factors that should be met, to have a successful campaign in affiliate marketing, blog or any other online business.

Market Research

People are using the internet to find what they need, what they need to know or need to buy. Therefore, it is only logical to think of the search term they enter on search engines as potential market. Like for example, web design is a market and affiliate marketing is another market. And these market may be subdivided into different sub markets like real estate web design, small business web design or web 2.0 web design. If people are entering those keyword terms in the search engine, they want to know about those terms or buy products related to those terms. It only makes sense to know which keywords are used by the market to buy a product or search info about the product.

Searches

Are there people looking for a product or a solution to their problem? If there are, there is opportunity. Like the Law of Supply and demand.

Competition

I used to be afraid of going to competitive market. Simply because I am still noob at this that I look for market that are high in traffic and little to no competition. I have come to find out that this is wrong. The best market out there are those with high competition. Because many people are there, the market can sustain the spending of your competition in advertisement. I am now more afraid to take on no competition market because there must be a reason why no people are in there. Maybe the market isn’t buying.

You can easily do a market research by using google and their tools. One of the best tools out there and is free is google’s keyword tool at google.com/keywords.

Traffic

Bloggers are master of driving traffic to their site. They are good at creating and spreading buzz all over the intarweb. I am always amazed by how good they drive traffic to their site that my server crashes. I’m not mad or anything, just amazed. But with regards to this topic, are we getting the traffic that are related to our market?

There are 3 kinds of traffic

1. The Browser - People that are just passing by. Probably a friend or someone that knows you that want to check out your site from time to time. Maybe they buy, maybe not.
2. The Iffy Traffic - People that are on the edge of buying but still hesitant. They arrive at your site and decided to buy later.
3. Trickle Traffic - These are people that are ready to enter that credit card details. Trickle traffic is sometimes defined as low but laser targetted traffic.

With this in mind, are you getting the best quality traffic from the search engines?

Conversion

So you have a market and you got traffic going to your site and the people visiting your site are the right people. The next question is, are they willing to spend? There is no other way to test the market for conversion rate but to promote something and test it out for a week. Sometimes I will use amazon affiliate to test the market out or pepperjam offers. If someone buy within a month’s time, you know you got a winner market. According to survey, for every 200 visitors you should get 1 sale, this is to know if the market is feasible.

Product

Once you got your market, drove traffic to your site and you know that people in the market are actually buying, its time to find a real product. This can be your own product or services or focus on promoting affiliate product.

As you can see, the 4 factors should be done accordingly. People sometimes jump to the next phase as developing the product first before they promote and drive traffic to the site. Or they drove traffic to their site first before actually knowing if there are people searching for it. The good thing about the internet is that, you can never guess.

I’m excited for my new dedicated server. They are still on the process of setting up things that I still have to wait for few more days. I was totally working like a dog all day with web design jobs and tried my best to NOT SLACK at home. This is really hard, see, when you are in the office, you can not slack because your boss will make rounds and you’re too scared to be caught. If you’re at home, no boss will gonna catch you so I always always find myself slacking, watching movies, videos and playing games.

Here are some of the things I did to lessen my slacking habits.

1. Make A To Do List - I always keep a handy dandy notebook by my side to put up my task for today. I divide them by 2. Those that are pending works and those that are needed to be done today. I always limit myself to only 5 tasks everyday so I will still have time to… slack off, take a walk or do some exercise. Since its been raining for the past couple of weeks, I just went and worked some more.
2. Cancel All Noise - I have with me a headset that can cancel noise. In the house, my siblings are all noisy and the television is a big distraction. I’ll play a soothing music or just put the headset on so I can hear silence. This keeps me focused.
3. Momentum Is King - Momentum is a powerful force. Basketball coaches knows that. So you should also. If I know I am hyped to work, and I already did all the tasks, I do some more. Momentum is great as it makes you feel like you’re on fire.
4. Keep Your Work Times - Allot time for your work. If you’ll work for 8 hours today, do it. Separate work from personal life. If 8 hrs should you work, try not to do anything for personal reasons by that time and let the whole family know about it. Put a “Shhh… Genius at work” poster on your office door so everybody would know. LOL
5. Always Keep A Bottle Of Water By Your Side - Standing up and going for a drink is a distraction. I get to past by the television to get some drink which distracts me and makes me want to sit down and watch the television. I see to it that my bottle is full so I won’t get interrupted.

This work ethics applies to any kind of work. Should it be home based business, freelance jobs or working in the office. How about you? Do you have some tips?