The Super Affiliate Handbook

I really like Rosalind Gardner and her story is both extrordinary and inspirational. She turned an interest into a website...and a website into a business, a very lucrative business. Since releasing The Super Affiliate Handbook in 2004, she's turned telling people about  how to do that into an even bigger business.

Yes, she used Affiliate Marketing to make bucketloads of cash ($435,000) but what Rosalind Gardiner really did, was create a website about an interest, bus loads of people in (when pay-per-click advertising was dirt cheap) and then learn by trial and error how to best provide service for those visitors, so they became return visitors.

There's no doubt that the online landscape has changed considerably since then, in particular, with Google Adwords, now dominating pay-per-click advertising and advertisers frequently have to pay the resulatant high premiums for the service.

Consequently, Rosalind's methods may not appear as cutting edge as they once were. Nevertheless, there's much to be gained from what she does say in the updated version of The Super Affiliate Handbook:

• her list-building advice is superb
• how important blogging can be for an online business
• how to write articles for online directories (or find the best ghostwriters  for you), which should create targeted traffic for your site
• using Google Adsense to monetize your site
• researching affiliate markets 

Yes, Ms. Gardner doesn't have a great deal to say about keyword research and she's quite cautionary overall about over-reliance on SEO, stressing the human and service elements far more...but I think that's a good thing!

In essence, I feel that her approach is a feminine one, something of a novelty in internet marketing and not to be overlooked. Women are more than 50% of the population and spend far more time (and money) shopping online than men. A canny affiliate marketer will understand that and build sites accordingly. For them, Rosalind Gardner's advice could be very useful. 

I have some minor quibbles about the number of affiliate links but they really are minor, mostly because it's a bit old fashioned and Affiliate Marketing has grown considerably since The Super Affiliate Handbook was first released. Nevertheless, if you'd like a thorough introduction, especially if you're female or want to understand the female population's needs, I'd certainly recommend purchasing it.  

One of the real problems in internet marketing for newbies is that "they want everything to be perfect", when the reality is that it doesn't need to be. The internet allows you to grow a site over time, no-one's going to laugh at you, they'll just click away. So:

• give yourself a budget (e.g. $1,000 spread over a year is only $20 per week)
• find a guide (Rosalind is a particularly good one) and in doing so, unsubscribe from other internet marketer's lists. They frequently promote so-called must-have products that seem to breed hysteria rather than profits for the users 
• get a web builder and build your site slowly
• write some articles or have them written for you about the INFO in your site. They're a great form of promotion.
• if you follow my guide, you may even start to get substantial FREE search engine traffic. Then look at the web logs and see what keywords that they have entered in search engines to find your pages...and adapt your pages accordingly  
• once it appears that search engine traffic likes your site and is creating sales, then start using Adwords tentatively and be prepared for a brand new ball game 

Between Rosalind Gardner's The Super Affiliate Handbook and the intelligent use of resources on this site, I believe that most literate people could create a successful Affiliate Marketing within a few months. It's really up to you.  

The Super Affiliate Handbook