Colin Klinkert Dot Com

If you have the ability to write compelling sales copy, but can’t build a website for the life of you, it’s not really a problem, because a website isn’t required to be a successful affiliate marketer.  This is done by utilizing a variety of Web 2.0 sites,  which allows you to build an online presence using the in-place infrastructure of already popular websites.

There are a lot of content websites that are completely dependent upon user submitted content.  Sites like Associated Content and eHow are comprised almost exclusively of articles that are written and submitted by average users.  These sites get a lot of viewers and are usually at the top of many searches, so use that popularity to your advantage.  This isn’t some sort of nefarious scheme, it is an equal trade; the content sites get quality content you produce, and you get free space to promote your product.

Here’s how you can make it work:  write a bunch of articles about the product you are promoting or the about the topic in general.  Make sure that each of these are unique, because if you submit duplicate articles to many different sites, search engines like Google won’t count them and could even penalize them.  And make sure the articles are rich with the keywords related to your product.

These sites will usually allow you to place affiliate links either in the body of the content or in a special resource box on the page.  People searching for those keywords, will come across your articles on these sites (because web 2.0 sites generally achieve very high page ranks) and, if your sales copy is compelling, they will click through your affiliate link and purchase the product.

The amount of success you will have is completely dependent on the quality of your sales copy, but the beauty of this method is that it requires no start-up costs.  You don’t need to register domain names and build websites.  Just write the articles and start making money.

The one-way link to your website from somebody else’s is one of the main factors for search engines in deciding whether or not your content is important. When other web users decide your content is worthwile, they create a link to it either on their own website or a social bookmarking site – or so goes the search engine logic.

With that said, here are a few proven strategies that you can use to begin generating links to your site in no time:

• Article marketing through sites like ezinearticles and other similar sites provides you not only with the ability to link to your site, but also a way for you to give people a preview of what sort of content you offer. If people read your articles and then decide to click over to your site, they will be highly relevant traffic.

• The AddThis and ShareThis buttons are small widgets that you can insert into your webpages. Visitors to your site can then use these widgets to submit your articles to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc. If you have regular content updates and readers who will click these widgets, then you can generate links without doing any actual work yourself.

• Link directories are kind of like the internet version of phone books, as they separate websites into different categories that you can submit your link to. Some are free to submit links and others require a payment. It’s a good idea to stick with the free ones at first, until you learn more about what kind of traffic you can potentially generate and what sort of descriptions and advertisement-like text you should enter. Once you have this refined, feel free to try out a paid site, or avoid them, if the free ones are having a good effect and spending extra money wouldn’t be worth it.