While I have actually been doing Affiliate Marketing for awhile – I know that there is still a lot I need to learn, so I decided to do my own case study of a method that I am trying.  Basically, it consists of setting up niche blog sites – taking a lot of information from a man who has seen quite a bit of success with this model.  You can get access to a ton of free information and videos outlining every single detail of getting set up at www.supersimpleblogging.com

I already know how to set up a blog and had a pretty good idea of keyword research already, but I still picked up some very good tips that I didn’t know about.  I didn’t watch the videos about installing the WordPress blogs or anything like that, but for those of you who are just starting out, and who have no idea of how to do any of this stuff – trust me, there is no better resource out there.  He literally walks you through every single step.

Anyway – I am kind of adding some of my own twists to it, but for the most part, I will be doing things as outlined by him.

The first blog I decided to do, was actually one I have had for awhile but hadn’t done anything with.  It is a site about cats – so following with this model, I decided to use Amazon to display products that people would be interested in.

In the course, he says to find a keyword rich domain name, which this blog isn’t, but I wanted to do something with it, so thought this would be a good one to start with.  It is already getting traffic to it, has been indexed and has some age, so I thought that would be an advantage – even without the keyword domain name.  The site is www.aloveforcats.com

The first thing I did, after I decided I was going to try using Amazon for most of these sites, was get a plugin that would make my work a lot easier.  I know that a lot of people say that Amazon is a waste of time, because their affiliate commissions are so low, but my thinking is that everyone knows about Amazon, and has already likely shopped with them – and they already have that trust factor, so it is easier to convince people to purchase.  Plus, they have a ton of stuff to choose from – more than just books – so it makes setting up niche sites very simple.

I will likely still do some sites using Clickbank products – because the payouts are very good – but for now, I am setting up these Amazon sites.

If some of this seems foreign to you, or if you are confused about any of it – I do really suggest you sign up and start going through some of the videos he provides – very informative information that you can use in all areas of Internet Marketing.

So!  I had mentioned getting a plugin which pulls in Amazon data.  I did some research, and ended up going with one provided by a fellow Warrior at the Warrior Forum.  The plugin is www.wpzonbuilder.com.  It is very simple to use, and it seems to be working very well.  It was affordable too, and if you are planning on doing a bunch of these sites, this is the most cost effective and simple way of getting them done.

Once I got the plugin set up, I started doing some more keyword research.  I already had an idea of keywords I would be targeting, but I went through and did some of the things I learned about in the videos – and found some more.

Then, I simply set up my categories, and started adding the products through the plugin.  It took me a matter of maybe two hours, from start to finish – and a lot of that time was me having to redo some things that I did wrong (I forgot to add categories to some of the products – so I had to go and redo that).

But, everything went fairly smoothly – and I am pretty impressed so far.  I have it set up now that more products will be added over the next few weeks – and meanwhile, I am moving on to the next step today, which is building some links, submitting my sitemap and some other necessary tasks to get the traffic built up that is coming in.

I hope you will follow along – and give me a kick every now and then if I am falling behind!

And, go ahead and sign up at www.supersimpleblogging.com – like I said, it is completely free and you are going to learn a great deal about affiliate marketing and some of the more technical things that might be holding you back from starting.

Enjoy!