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How to Create Residual Income

Small Business Websites

How to Create Residual Income

Written by Charles Mburugu for Gaebler Ventures

Many new online marketers think they have they can earn a residual income without putting any effort into affiliate marketing. But is this really how it works? Many affiliates have embraced this mindset and have ended up making nothing because they create a website and don't do anything to encourage people to visit. If this is your way of thinking, maybe you should forget about affiliate marketing all together because you can't just sit and expect cash to roll in. How can you create a residual income as an affiliate marketer?

Many forget that affiliate marketing is your own business and not that of the vendor.

It is online advertising which requires you to actively market the vendor's product so as to make some money. The following are tips you can follow to create a residual income for yourself.

Know the product

You should know the product you will be promoting as much as possible. This gives you more credibility in your niche and with your website visitors, particularly if you have written a product review. How do you become an authority of the product you are promoting? The quickest and most effective way is to buy the product yourself. By doing this, you are able to share with consumers about your experiences in using the product.

You can also write an individual endorsement or a sincere recommendation about it. However, if you are just starting out or your budget is limited, you should at least do some research and check several sites promoting the product before writing your review about it.

Build trust

To build trust with your visitors, it is important that you have a personal domain (website). Make sure the domain name is short (less than 20 characters) and simple to remember. You cannot expect your visitors to recall some long and incomprehensible domain name. If you decide to use free websites, it could take longer to get indexed.

Use the right affiliate marketing tactics

There are several ways of encouraging visitors to buy. You could start a membership site and grant access to it for anyone who buys a product from your affiliate link. This bonus offer would encourage someone to buy. Membership sites provide you with an effective method of advertising the back-end affiliate products which end up creating residual income for you without much work. Remember, the content in your membership site should be relevant to your visitors and must help in solving their problems.

Another great strategy is to create your own content. Don't use the pages supplied by the vendors unless you will be exclusively using Pay Per Click Marketing. Writing your own pages gives you an advantage over the other affiliates promoting the same product.

You should also participate in discussion boards, forums and chat rooms related to the service or product. You can begin your own chat or sign up in an established chat room. However, don't promote your product immediately. Build trust first then look for opportunities to promote the product.

Use email opt-in lists

Create your own mini-course or newsletter which will be sent out to those who have opted in, with the main aim of educating subscribers about the niche you are promoting. In your mini-course or newsletters, don't always advertise the product as this will offend the subscribers and cause them to unsubscribe. Rather, find a way of integrating affiliate links in certain sections of the newsletter. Ensure that your opt-in forms are visible to your site visitors

Charles Mburugu writes for us from his home in Nairobi. He has a graduate degree in Business Management from Kenya Institute of Management. He is interested in writing about branding, CSR and intellectual property.