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Mother Of Four Making Money From Home With Fitness
Equipment
GotDot.com profiles Arlene Martell, a
working mom, who turned a passion for fitness and balance
into a successful business.
The story of making money from home for this mother of four
from White Rock, British Columbia sounds like fiction, not a
reality that anyone can obtain. But it's amazing just listen
to Arlene's success and you'll realize that the dream of
being a work-at-home-mom is obtainable, it really is
possible to have it all.
Arlene structures her work day around the kids. When they
are at school she works, it's that simple. She has the time
to go on school field trips and is available if something
unexpected happens and with kids the unexpected always
happens. Plus, she has the time to do fun activities with
the kids and she has time for herself. She goes to fitness
class three times a week doing aerobics, Pilates,
cardiovascular exercise, and using weights with bands.
Exercise provides energy for the day and Arlene's days are
full of the good things in life.
Arlene says, "It's the ultimate work-family dream; there's
no more fighting traffic in Vancouver commuting to an
office, no more dressing up for the 9-5 grind, no more
corporate politics, no more stressing about asking the boss
for time off to run to the kids games or take them to the
doctor. There is balance."
What is Arlene's secret to making money from home?
In a word it's affiliate marketing. By now most people have
heard all about the success of Amazon.com. What they may not
know is that Amazon spawned an Internet industry in 1996, by
allowing independent website owners to earn commissions by
referring paying customers to them. This is known as
pay-for-performance-advertising or affiliate programs.
Arlene followed a simple 8-step-system for affiliate
marketing developed by her husband, James Martell,
entrepreneur, successful affiliate marketer, developer of
more than 70 specialty shopping sites, author of the
Affiliate Marketers Handbook and host of the Affiliate Buzz,
an audio newsletter for affiliate marketers.
Key Steps from the Affiliate Marketers Handbook
-
Step #1 - Explains how to get and stay organized - Compile
the tools needed to begin your business from a checklist
provided. Many courses completely ignore this crucial
element to your success.
-
Step #2 - Choosing the right industry - Takes you through a
tour of a major affiliate network to see what's available.
Thousands of quality merchants to choose from. Hundreds of
different industries. Choose an area that's both lucrative
AND interesting. You'll be like a kid in a candy store.
-
Step #3 - Keywords - the search engine building blocks -
What's in a word? EVERYTHING! Step-by-step process to build
a list of 50-300 popular words and phrases with an online
service that tells you exactly how many times each word was
surfed the previous month. Then build these words into every
page, so the spiders can find them. Leave nothing to chance.
-
Step #4 - Choosing a template - Ready-made professional
templates are the way to go these days. They offer a quick
and easy way to get going for those with limited FrontPage
experience, website design or HTML skills. You'll really
impress your friends with these beautiful, professional
designs.
-
Step #5 - Add keyword-focused content - This is fun. You may
have to disregard what your English teacher taught you in
high school, because 'spider food' rules! Yes, folks. If you
don't sprinkle tasty morsels of spider food on every page of
your site in the precise density, -- misspellings intact --
then the poor little critters look elsewhere. So, your new
motto is, BE KIND TO SPIDERS -- and they'll be kind to you!
Plus, you'll be taught exactly how to easily research and
write on ANY topic of interest to your visitor. Trust me.
Even if you think you could NEVER publish an article, you
CAN learn to do this. It's really no more difficult than a
grade-9 high school composition assignment.
-
Step #6 - Join some good affiliate programs - Lets go
shopping! Find out where the best affiliate programs reside,
and check out their commission structure. Hey, if they don't
pay enough, then choose another. You're in control here.
Don't you just love it!
-
Step #7 - Submit to the search engines the RIGHT way - All
successful Webmasters are diligent in submitting their sites
to the search engines. But, each search engine has its own
set of guidelines. So, be careful. Do it wrong and they
penalize you. Do it right and you're indexed highly. Nothing
better than high rankings!
-
Step #8 - Boost your rankings with link-popularity - Major
changes are afoot at the search engines and you'd better be
aware of them -- or you're toast. This technique is so new,
that I only added it a few weeks prior to publication. I
thought of selling it as its own manual -- so consider it a
bonus. Current Webmasters take heed. If you don't know the
precise way that link popularity works (and apply it) your
rankings will slip to oblivion overnight. If they have
already slipped, -- then now you know why.
Got Dot: What is it like doing affiliate marketing for
fitness equipment?
Arlene says, "had a pretty good idea about how well I'd do,
because early on I had initially developed two sites, one
featuring baby products and another featuring pet supplies,
but I was surprised at how quickly my site took off and at
how large some of my sales have been."
"Choosing fitness equipment and home gyms just fit. Getting
older, the middle zone starts widening you reach a point
where you just have to do something to stay in shape."
Arlene says.
Arlene first entered the multi-billion dollar fitness
equipment industry with www.1st-in-fitness.com, a web site
featuring abdominal tools, exercise bikes, home gyms,
treadmills, weights and dumbbells. Treadmills quickly became
a best seller and customer favorite; proving to be a staple
in the industry.
"In the beginning it surprised me that people would spend
$1500 - $4700 for a home gym or treadmill online, now its
routine." Arlene says. The convenience of shopping online is
phenomenal. The fitness merchants provide secure servers for
safe shopping, guaranteed by banks and credit card
companies. Customers don't have to hassle with packing heavy
equipment in a truck, merchants' ship right to the door.
Most companies even set-up the home gym.
Got Dot: What's the best time of year for fitness equipment
sales?
"The sales are huge in the fall, during Christmas and of
course in January following New Year's resolutions and again
at springtime when people want a slim, trim body for
swimsuit season." Arlene says.
This market is growing with baby boomers getting older and
gaining weight. Like Arlene says, "Middle age is not
supposed to be about widening middle regions! It's about
living life with balance, having the energy to do it all."
Got Dot: Explain how affiliate programs are tracked?
Arlene says, "My first attempt with affiliate programs was
made easy because of Commission Junction located in
Carlsbad, California. They are the industry leader in
providing third party functionality for affiliates and
merchants. Commission Junction acts as a trusted third party
and manages networking, tracking, and reporting on activity
and handles monthly commission payments."
The important thing to remember about the process side of
affiliate marketing is who is doing what. The participants
include: the merchant (advertiser), the publisher
(affiliate), and the trusted third party. Publishers join a
merchant's affiliate program and send visitors to the
merchant's web site. The merchant handles all order
processing, shipping, and customer service. Commission
Junction (third party) provides the tracking system and pays
the affiliates on behalf of the merchants.
Visit Commission Junction to see a partial listing of their
top-notch merchants offering affiliate programs.
How this process turns into commissions is easy...it's like
a referral business. Merchants (advertisers) pay a
commission on sales generated by customers, which the
publisher (affiliate) sends to their sites. Commissions on
sales average between 7-10% and are paid monthly by check or
direct deposit to a bank account.
Got Dot: What advice would you give to someone starting
affiliate marketing?
Arlene says, "There is a lot of confusing information about
affiliate marketing, particularly in the chat rooms. James
has been a bull dog at digging in and finding out what works
and sticking to it. That's the key to making money from
home."
Arlene Martell followed a simple 8-step-system™ for
affiliate marketing created by her husband, James Martell,
entrepreneur, successful affiliate marketer, and developer
of over 70 specialty shopping sites with topics that range
from paintball equipment, gear and masks , affordable
hosting services and Nikken air ionizers and is also in the
business of educating people on how to earn money with
affiliate programs and the Internet.
Article from:
http://everydaybusinessonline.com/
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