Work Ethic in Online Affiliate Marketing

I have recently reentered the offline work place, but am still marketing online. To be clear I accepted a position with Carl Gregory Chrysler Dodge Hyundai as the Internet sales manager. I am making money online around the clock. During the day interacting with leads from the Internet and am still making money with affiliate marketing and selling advertising on my sites. (AdSense) My wife has taken over some of the work I did on a daily basis in affiliate marketing as she is not the stay at home parent. None of this has to do with work ethic so let me get back on topic.

Work ethic can make or break your online efforts. Affiliate marketing on the Internet is a job. Of course you can generate MFA sites and SPLOGS and make some quick cash but nothing sustainable. I know a lot of people online that generate their income that way but they are not truly successful. Meaning that their income fluctuates so much that they don't have any security in their online marketing efforts. Eventually they will run out of names and address to create AdSense accounts and will give up. Search engine spam is not a sound business model. If you disagree with that stop reading now!!

So you ask "Paul, how do I create a work ethic"? OK here is what I do on a daily basis. Now keep in mind I do work a JOB now but it does afford me the opportunity to monitor my online real estate.

Setting a priority in your online activities is very important. I prioritize my work in this way.

First thing every day as I am firing up "Betsy" (my cpu) I will check emails for important information and latest developments. I have a system for sorting my emails which I will share later. I receive over 1000 emails a day so they definitely need to be prioritized. I also use my email client to subscribe to several RSS feeds to look for breaking new in certain niches.

After this I check the prior days stats. I look at various affiliate accounts and my AdSense account to see how much money I made the day before. This is the ONLY time I check revenue. I found myself in a trap of refreshing revenue streams and not getting the work done to generate more revenue or maintain revenue. If I notice a problem with a revenue stream or if the stats are abnormally high I make note of that because that is my next order of business.

If I notice that a particular niche is fading or is generating more revenue than normal I try to find out why. Either to duplicate somewhere else or make changes to increase revenue on the floundering niche. Or I note it for follow up in weekly planning.

I do these two task every day. With an occasional day off but never more than two days in a row. Even if I am traveling or on vacation.

Some task required to be a successful Internet marketer are mundane and repetitive. I know that I need to create a certain amount of content so I set a weekly goal on content creation. If I have a new site that I am working on it will receive a higher priority than existing property. I also use free blogs, HubPages and Squidoo to generate supporting content and drive traffic to my sites. Do not use these resources to create meaningless content. Make sure it is on target and gives the reader a reason to visit your offers do not create a bunch of duplicate or meaningless content.

I am also experimenting with article marketing. Some of which can be automated but that is as grey as I go.

So my weekly task list may look something like this.

Create 20 Squidoo Lenses

Create 20 Hubs (I just joined HubPages so my content level is low :( )

Create 20 blog articles for free blogs. (Live Journal and Blogger)

Write and submit 5 articles to article directories.

Add one page of content to each site or more if I am working on establishing a new site. I may even outsource some of it, even though I love creating my own content. Currently I have 28 sites.

Create 100 links to existing sites, Hubs, Lenses and blogs. This can also be outsourced.

I currently have 12 mailing list that I mail to monthly or more often so I typically try to create 3 newsletters per week. This is a highly profitable activity. One site that I have if there is breaking news in that niche I fire off an update after I check my rss feeds and do some research.

Niche Research: I research one new niche or affiliate product per week to add to the arsenal. If you are relying on one niche or income stream you may be in for a big letdown when it falls out of favor. I also avoid MLM products or multilevel affiliate schemes.

That appears to be a lot of activity to perform on a weekly basis. I incorporate it in my daily plan. Also if I get on a roll I can knock out a section of it fairly fast. Like the newsletters that I do some of the niches are related so I can research content for them en mass. Affiliate marketing can be a highly rewarding endeavor or you can fail miserably. It really depends on how much work you put into it.

Just like sales it can be the best paying hard job you ever had or the worst paying easy job you ever had. Face the fact if you are an online affiliate marketer you are an online salesman. You have to get people to believe your message and take action on it.

Every month usually on the first or the month I review all income streams and online properties. Especially new affiliate programs. I have not been burned big with an affiliate program, yet. I hate using that word "yet' but it is bound to happen. I have had small losses for my time but nothing large yet.

Sometime affiliate programs have problems paying affiliates that is why I don't put all of my eggs in one basket. Also, I prefer managed affiliate programs versus direct affiliation with a company. Your payments are usually mores secure that way.

I also try to decide on new niches for research on the first of the month and also look for seasonal offers that may apply and add that content generation to my weekly task.

At this time I also monitor what I can expect to receive from each affiliate program for the prior month. Even though a lot of actions do not lock until the 10th. So I revisit that on the 10th of each month too. I then set up my own reminders in my auto-responder to send me an email message on the day that I am to receive payment. Most all of my payments are either wired or through paypal so I don't have to wait on checks.

If you have really taken the time to read all of this and are new to affiliate marketing or are not making sustainable income don't be overwhelmed.

Yes I did return to the workforce after being a full time affiliate marketer. I did this for various reasons, insurance being the biggest one. I have a child with disabilities that requires regular surgeries and medical care. So insurance is important and we cannot find a plan that will cover him that we can buy that will not exclude his care for two years. One hospital stay is usually over $50,000.00. Plus I love the challenge to take over a department at a big car dealership and market large ticket items on the Internet. It was not for the additional income as much as the challenge and insurance.

The biggest tip is if you want to be successful is to create a plan and work the plan. Don't forget to reward yourself along the way. If you set a goal to create 50 pages of original content over the course of a week. Which is only 7.14 pages a day reward yourself when the job is done. If you like ice cream don't eat any that week until it is done. Like to play golf? Don't play that week until it is done. you get the drift. Reward yourself once you complete an objective.

Personally, I don't feel that I am a good writer, but that does not stop me from trying. If you feel that your skills are lacking in an area but you know that it is a task that needs to be done, Just do it. I did not write this Hub for you I wrote it for me so I can work on my skills in explaining an abstract concept. I hope you found value in the information I have shared here, if not that is OK.

I realized that when working online as in any other profession you can make mistakes and learn new things as you go. The key is not repeating your mistakes and getting out of your comfort zone when attacking a new concept. Just remember each failure is one step closer to success.