Connecting customers and advertisers for mutual benefit.

As an affiliate or CPA publisher, you will need to master several critical skills. I’m breaking this list up into skills that CAN be outsourced, vs. those that CANNOT. If you are not willing to master the skills that cannot be outsourced, you will NOT be successful in this industry. I will list them out, then describe each one in a little more detail and point you to the resources I’ve found to be most helpful. Here they are: Skills that CAN be outsourced:

• Website / graphics design
• Copywriting / content writing / ad writing

Skills that CAN NOT be outsourced:

• Goal-setting
• Budgeting
• Market Research
• Pay per click mechanics
• Tracking and Analysis
• Outsourcing

Website and Graphic Design: I believe that you CAN and SHOULD learn some of the basics of making simple changes to webpages, uploading those changes, and creating a simple blog.  With this knowledge, you can have someone else build you a nice looking site (very inexpensive), but still make changes/updates to it later without having to pay for each update. With today’s WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, making changes is very simple. I don’t have a recommendation for doing basic html (just Google what you need to know), but the product I’ve found the most helpful in learning to set up a blog (which is NOT hard) is my friend Alex Sysoef’s Expert Worpress.  Writing  - Writing in its many forms CAN be outsourced, but as with websites it is a good idea to know some basics yourself. If you have your own product to sell and want a professional-grade sales letter written, that is going to cost thousands to do. (But will be well worth it if you have the money to do so.) Simple 300 word articles, used to drive free traffic to your sites, can be outsourced for as little as just a few dollars each.  The most inexpensive, but high quality, copywriting course I’ve seen is Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero’s Red Hot Copy. John Carlton is the guru here, I would definitely read his blog for ideas, but his programs are more to train professional copywriters who are looking to freelance for a living. In other words, he is training the guys that you will outsource to, not necessarily training you per se, unless you want to go down that route yourself. Goal-setting - I include this here because it is CRITICAL to your success. You need to create a clear plan of action, know what you are trying to achieve, and create intermediate goals to achieve and hold yourself accountable to deadlines. Missing a deadline is not the end of the world, but you must always be moving forward. This also includes educational goals and timelines as well. The key is to measure and track your progess, and hold yourself accountable. I don’t have specific recommendations here, but also include in this area personal growth. In that regard, I stronly recommend anything put together by Anthony Robbins or Brian Tracy. In addition to that, although not specifically related to goal setting, I’m currently learning from a great program put together by Bob Proctor called The 11 Forgotten Laws. Market Research - The ability to quickly, yet thoroughly analyze a market for: viablility, competitors, demand, etc is critical to your success. The advantage of being in an internet business is that there is a tremendous amount of research at your fingertips. The free tools that I would recommend are Google’s own keyword research tool, Microsoft’s Adlab, Yahoo Buzz and Lycos 50 to see what is hot now, and cbengine to analyze hot products being sold at clickbank. In addition to that, competitor spy tools are becoming essential in the affiliate marketing space. I actually don’t have a recommendation here because I am a member of Chris Carpentar’s Google Cash Detective, which is state of the art world-class stuff, but is unfortunately closed to new members. For SEO purposes, the best tool out there is Market Samurai. (And they will be adding in some adwords functionality soon too, so that is absolutely a program you should get if search engine traffic will be a component of your business.) Pay per click  - Since this will be the initial source of all of your traffic, you MUST master this. Your goal should be to not only learn HOW to do it, but how to do it quickly and efficiently. Campaign management will become essentially impossible to do at a large scale without using automation in some ways. The top 3 sources that I recommend here (other than Google’s training itself, which is actually quite good) are: Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Adwords, Mindvalley’s Adwords Exposed, and Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash. For automation, you need to learn how to use Google’s adwords editor. You can use that to export campaigns to Yahoo and MSN with a .csv file, but Microsoft has their own desktop editor, adcenter editor, (very slick in my opinion) which you should also learn. Being able to work with the templates and quickly add and modify campaigns in excel is also a huge help. Tracking and Analysis - You MUST track results down to the keyword level, or you will be working blind, which is obviously no way to build a business.  Further, you must carefully analyze these results and take informed actions quickly when necessary. I have two recommendations here. First off, the best tracking software I’ve used is called Affiliate Prophet. Fairly easy to learn, and very powerful. Next, just to give you an idea of how to track many simultaneous campaigns in a quick snapshot, go to Gauher Chaudhry’s site here and download his spreadsheet. He has a video on how to use that as well. Outsourcing - Simply put, if your goal is to build a large, profitable, and largely automated online business, you MUST learn to delegate. You don’t necessarily have to hire full-time employees (I don’t), but you must learn how to use outsourcing services. You time should be spent researching new markets, running tests and scaling profitable businesses. You should NOT be designing blogs or writing hundreds of short articles for free seo traffic. Outsource that work and create virtual employees instead. Some places to outsource work to are: rentacoder.com, www.elance.com, www.scriptlance.com, www.getafreelancer.com, www.odesk.com, and there are many others. A note here: "split test" your outsourced work by hiring 3 people to do the same (small) job. Hire the best person to do a larger job, and if they perform well you’ve got a "virtual employee" that you can hire on an as needed basis.

If you’ve ever tried to make money online, you’ve likely experienced this major problem:

You do a quick search on google, find an interesting looking page, and surf over there. The copy is GREAT, it pulls you in, and you sign up for a free report from a “guru”. Next, you surf away (maybe you read the report, or maybe it just collects digital dust on your hard drive) to find another compelling site, and repeat the process.

Over a few days or weeks, you repeat this process, learning some valuable (but extremely disjointed) information, and in the process are on 10 to 20 lists. You continue to get some valuable information that way, but it is usually loaded with the next “silver bullet” software or training program.  From here, you are introduced to many more gurus.

At this point, you are plugged firmly into what I call the “guru run-around”. They will spin you in circles until you are dizzy. You’ll have many e-books loaded onto your computer, and quite possibly some very expensive programs being shipped to you, or ready for instant download.

There are several problems with this, but the biggest one by far is the LACK OF FOCUS it causes you. There are MANY ways to make legitimate money online, but they only work when you focus intently on mastering one avenue FIRST.  (Some of the other issues are getting contradictory information, having expectations built up to an unrealistic level, and not being aware of how much work will truly be involved.  Every been to an Amway meeting? Picture being at 10 different ones at the same time!)

Now, I’m not saying that any guru specifically is giving bad advice, or shouldn’t be listened to in terms of what their message and methods are. BUT, you must focus on one path first. In fact, these people achieved “guru” status by truly becoming exceptional marketers and mastering their skill. They should rightly be respected and emulated as much as possible, but you need to selectively tune them out too or you will very quickly be broke and frustrated.

If you are looking to make money online, the way I recommend is to consider your various options and business models, do some research as to what market you’d like to start in, and then follow just one or two gurus who are experts in your chosen method. (And learning from 3 to 4 different programs to get a solid perspective.) Later, as your business develops and you want to add other revenue and traffic sources, expand your view as needed.

If you have some money to invest, I stronly recommend starting with pay per click search engines, particularly google’s adwords and yahoo’s search marketing programs. This will give you skills that you can use for the rest of your life, as well as teaching you how to write effective ads and give you extremely valuable test data as you accumulate your first failures.

(Yes, I said failures! Your initial campaigns will almost certainly NOT make money. They will provide a learning experience, and with the right tracking and analysis will allow you to tweak your loser into a winner.)

To learn the ropes here, I highly recommend four sources: Google’s training itself, Perry Marshall’s Adwords,  Mindvalley’s Adwords Exposed, and Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash System.

By building profitable campaigns, you can refine and maximize your websites for conversions, as well as know what are your highest value keywords. Once you know that, you can build other keyword dependent traffic sources like SEO, around those proven winners.

That being said, there are many internet business models to follow. I highlight 9 of them here. And, I cover the critical skills needed to succeed in an online business here.

FYI, I myself am on many guru lists, and pay attention to what they say, what is going on, and how they market. Between this (free) information and the concept of “moving the free line” (giving away solid info as part of the marketing process), you can get ALOT of really GREAT information at no financial cost. Just be mindful that your attention DOES cost you time, and DON’T let it take your focus away from your core, chosen business.

My favorite guru’s are: Gauher Chauncy, Eben Pagan, Chris Carpenter, Frank Kern, John Reese, Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins (StomperNet), Ryan Deiss, and the guys at MindValley. If I get an e-mail from any one of them, I will always read it, watch the video, and incorporate that knowledge into my business WHEN I CAN and IF APPLICABLE.

I hope you take this advice to heart. With a focus on mastering one skill at a time, and applying your skill sets to mastering one business model at a time, you can best leverage your most powerful asset: the ability to FOCUS your mind.