I was asked a while back by a new member of my team what I would do if I was brand new all over again to the online network market or affiliate sales business. What would be my first steps to get up and running?

That got me thinking about something I haven’t had to do for a few years.

If I had no email list, no website, little or no experience – absolutely nothing, where would I start?

It’s a detailed subject so I’ll keep it to the basics. Here’s what I’d do if starting over again.

The first thing would be to build a list of prospects

It can be done in several ways but here’s how I’d do it.

If you have the budget and a willingness to learn, the quickest way to build a list is to slap up a quick capture page (use elance.com or other forums to find someone who can build you one cheaply and quickly) offering a free report, (something like “How to Drive Traffic to your Website” (buy a cheap PLR report at plr.com to give away) as an enticement then use pay per click ads on Google, Yahoo and MSN to build a list.

When done correctly, pay per click advertising works quickly and very effectively. Done with little planning or knowledge it can be a frightening money pit. If you plan to use pay per click I absolutely recommend buying a copy of the Perry Marshall guide or one of the others from reputable online trainers that will walk you through step by step on how to set up a PPC campaign. Trying to do it without the knowledge is a recipe for financial disaster.

My budget when I started was small and I quickly wasted it on paid ads that didn’t work. From there I started to discover other marketing methods that while they worked a lot slower once up and running were far more effective than paid advertising. Sometimes, slow is good.

One the best decisions I’ve ever made is do article marketing. It’s often forgotten by the internet “gurus” but the fact is it works (why do you I’m writing this)! If you can’t write yourself, go back to elance.com and hire a writer to write you 10 stories (I’ve paid as little as $5 per story). Make sure you stipulate it HAS to be original content. Post the articles to ezinearticles.com which is the “mother of all article directories.” That’s a good start but here’s a tip to expedite matters greatly in your favour. Subscribe to uniquearticalwizard.com and use it to submit your stories even further. It costs around $70 a month but is worth every penny. What is does is mass submit your article to sites around the internet creating 100 of back links to your page. This gets you ranking on Google which drives traffic to your site. Win win.

Here’s why I think the traffic you get from articles is vastly superior to traffic from paid advertising. Paid ads work but they also drive a lot looky loo’s and tire kickers to your site. This is doubly frustrating as these folks don’t buy whatever you have for sale and they cost you money to get there in the first place. By getting your site ranked and on or near the top of Google, you’ll attract a more highly focused viewer who is more genuinely interested in what you have to offer. My experience and testing has shown far greater response from the folks who found my sites through the search engines as opposed to pay per click ads.

That’s one way to do it. Next time I’ll discuss a different way to get your home business up and running the right way.

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