The beginning of a journey

On my 1st blog "Where are we at?" I said I was going to look at different types of home based business, then I attacked MLMs right off, because I felt it was my civic duty. This week I am going to divert my blog to a new project I am doing.

This week I started into Affiliate Marketing. Just recently I was given an IPod from my son, who bought himself a new one, and didn't know what to do with the old one. Yes I downloaded several artists musical offerings on the little machine, but then I got hooked on Pod Casts. This is where I found out about Affiliate Marketing.

I have been listening to Pod Casts on this subject for over a week now. Listening to leaders in the Affiliate World such as: Linda Woods in Affiliate Marketing Insider, and to a few others. Some have been relevant, while others have been outdated.

After six or seven of these Pod Casts (some over an hour long) I though I was ready to launch myself into the Affiliate Marketing world, and launch I did. I did it kind of my way. I looked at several different Affiliate Marketing sites, and felt a little overwhelmed. There were so many choices, so many offerings: Where was a guy to begin. One of the programs I listened to talked about a "Landing Page," and "Niche Marketing." The only thing was I didn't quite know what my niche was, or what a "Landing Page" was for that matter. After a day of searching, I found a site that pandered to the "Newbie Affiliate."

The sight was http://www.clickbank.com/ a wonderful site, it helped me out by sorting out niches, and giving me links. It showed me how much I was going to be paid for each person that bought off my site. I was excited. I looked at several of their different categories, and found one that fit me perfectly (at least in the situation I am in now). My niche... Employment and Jobs. I like Click Bank, because they show you where you are at, as they track your progress.

My next step was to create a "Landing Page" which to find out was where your prospective customer "Lands" and it is the Affiliates job to keep them from hitting the back button out of the website. I had just created one for my wife on http://www.intuit.com/, and it was pretty easy, so I started one for me. Plus it has a great opt out, if I don't make any money. So I opened up my little website as http://www.odysseymarketing.biz/, I set up three pages, and checked it with Google's Adwords. now we shall see how optimal my website really is. All I need is 10 people to go there and order one of the products, and I will keep the website.

My last step was to try to advertise it. I was listening to some of the Pod Casts, and there was a commonality among all of them: Social Networking. I was on MySpace for a while and a site called Yearbook, but it seemed those were only for dating, I am married, so I did not see the point in keeping with the sites. Now I am reconsidering (Not because there is a problem with my marriage, but it is a great place to get noticed). I also have signed to a twitter account, and I sent off my first tweet.

All these things are well and good, but they go nowhere if nobody reads them, so I must go and try to "advertise" my site.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a comment.