There are always non-competitive niches. And there are always non-competitive ways into competitive niches.

Only the ones who were unwise enough to let Google be their primary source of traffic (they were very unwise not only because Google can take that traffic away overnight, but also because it tends to be dreadful-quality traffic, for most affiliate marketing purposes).

If your experiences are anything like those of 99% of beginning marketers, the more you concentrate on search engine traffic, the less chance you'll have to build a profitable business. Personally, I always suggest to people that they shouldn't put time and effort into trying to attract SEO traffic, for two main reasons: first, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost; secondly, for me, search engine traffic has been uniformly (across every single niche represented in my business) the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use) but I'd hate to have to make a living just from that traffic. (A look around the forum will quickly show you large numbers of experienced affiliate marketers saying the same - but there are also, of course, a few people selling "SEO services" to newbies who don't like it being pointed out.)

No. Affiliate marketers are a subset of internet marketers. There are ways of making money online that have nothing to do with affiliate marketing at all.

Only you can decide this. But there is for other new people, even if not for you.

Yes.

It varies.

These posts/threads might help you ...

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8619548

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8561081

Affiliate Marketing will never be dead. As long as someone wants traffic and someone wants to buy something we'll have a job.

:-)

The Google update isn't tailored towards affiliate sites in anyway.

It's just unfortunate that most people in affiliate marketing no nothing but the black hat (short term) SEO.

Don't listen to their myth otherwise you will be at macdonalds soon.

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There are always posts like affiliate marketing is dead or most recently seo is dead....

The fact is that most things evolve and you have to as well there is very little point in not moving forward.

I still make reasonable money with affiliate marketing

Danny

Sounds like you have all the qualities needed to succeed...it's just selling using a unique channel. Selling will never go out of fashion and will always be needed.

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Agoda is paying me at least $1600/month so I can't say it's dead. I think is extremely alive and well.

My replies to your questions:

* Is being an internet marketer the same as being an affiliate marketer?

Yes, an internet marketer simply means someone who markets on the internet. Affiliate marketers market affiliate products on the internet. Anyone selling something online is a internet marketer.

* Is there a space for me yet in internet marketing, seeing that there are thousands of people doing it?

Of course there is, the term "internet marketing" is broad. There are many ways to make money as an internet marketer. You want to monetize affiliate products, so you really just need to figure out what type of traffic you want to leverage, and how best to turn that traffic into sales.

* Is it really that easy/difficult as they say it is?

It varies for everyone. Easy/difficult are relative to that person. Remember, everyone has a complaint about something, figure out what you're weaknesses are and fix them or outsource them.

* What's the best niche to start with?

Evergreen niches(health, wealth, and relationships) They have limitless amounts of cash in them. Everyone wants to look & feel good(health), everyone wants to be financially comfortabl(wealth), everyone wants a mate(relationships). Those niches never go out of style.

Without your own products, you cannot take an active part forever! Think about it, when newest version of the vendors' software is 4.6, but the version on your website is 3.0... do you really think the visitors will choose the product on your site?

Besides, if you are a affiliate, get ready to lose a large amount of orders...

I have to laugh at the number of times I see this 'something is dead' crap trotted out. And I have to laugh even harder at the number of Chicken Littles who scurry around in a blind panic as a result.

I've been making my money online since 2001 - a few years less than some of the hoary old geezers around these parts, but long enough to have read that most ways people make money online are dead or dying. Funny thing is that while tons of lemmings threw themselves at the latest ebook (or thousand dollar course) that told them how to deal with the impending disaster, most of the ones really making money just yawned and carried on.

Being a Jonas, or a Calamity Jane is a business model in its own right - feeding off the insecurities of people who don't yet have the experience or self confidence to know a snake-oil salesman when they see one.

Stuff changes online - the way you do things today may have to be developed a bit from the way you did them last year, but few things actually die. Even building sites to make money from AdSense - a strategy that had the Last Rites read over it many years ago - is still alive and well for those who know what they are doing. It is different to 10 years ago, but there is still a heartbeat.

Affiliate marketing is likely to be even harder to kill off. The principle is so simple - offer someone else's products to an audience and keep half (or more) of the price they pay.

It has put food on my table for years and I see no sign of it diminishing. Far from it!

But then, I've never relied on a search engine, whose motives are not to send me traffic but to give their own audience the best search results, to send me customers.

Taken at face value, Walmart is an affiliate marketer - selling other people's products and keeping a chunk of the money. I don't see their business model changing much. Or Amazon's.

All the time people have products to sell and there are people out there who are interested in buying, affiliate marketing will be alive and well. After all, in almost any market situation it is the middle men who tend to thrive.

Affiliate marketing is evolving and will only become bigger and more organized.

Of course, gone are the days when you could make affiliate commissions quickly by just writing a couple of articles on ezinearticles or building backlinks to a blog post to rank on page 1 of Google.
Now you need a proven repeatable process and a plan to succeed with affiliate marketing.

I did a few months affiliate marketing.
I think in the affiliate marketing space is very wide.
Do not worry about how it works.
You can find new ways of doing affiliate marketing on the web is much endless.
Continue to fight it.

I certainly hope not as I am looking for affiliate marketers for an organization in the States.

That's a great question you're asking man. I would deff. say no to that. Affiliate marketing Is not dead at all. There will always be ways to become an affiliate through anything. People will always talk trash about online income due to the lack of commitment people really put into trying to make things happen for themselves.

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Not nessisarly, affiliate marketers promote other peoples products. Marketers promote there own. For example I create and promote my own products Im a marketer not an affiliate marketer. However I have affiliates who promote my products as well. They are affiliate marketers.

Considering that there are millions and millions of people buying every day Id say without a doubt yes. There is room for another person

In concept it is easy. In practice it is not. Being an affiliate requires a lot of effort, dedication, and self discipline. Something many people lack.

Niche selection is easy. Choose a niche that is something that YOU are interested in and know about.

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Your already half way there! Jazz is your niche!

Internet marketing and affiliate are two seperate things. IM is more of a broad term. There are many ways to make money online.

Affiliate marketing will never be dead and in my opinion is just getting going.

Internet marketing and making money online all comes down to supply and demand. What is cool is you can research everything online.

You can open up microsoft word and create your self a ebook on a subject of jazz. Maybe its how to get started or something. a tip is to go to google keyword planner and see what kind of volume there is for searches related to jazz and you can pick a niche there but provide some really good strong value in your word document and save it as a pdf and you can give that away in exchange for a contact name and email anotherwords a prospect and then you have a somebody you can suggest future products to whether they are your own or an your affiliated with somebody else. You do something like that you can target your local area using facebook ads and you can grow your list that way and then overtime build trust and the whole idea there is then you can market higher ticket items such as personal jazz lessons or something.

Also when you create your free pdf that you are going to give away maybe you can have a one time offer tied to it giving for a low entry cost to help give you some upfront cash to help pay for your advertising. Your one time offer can be a more advance version of the free gift and you can easily link that to either paypal or own personal merchant account!

Internet Marketing is simply a way of marketing. And all Marketing is sales.

So basically, Internet Marketing is selling using the internet. Affiliate marketing is simply selling someone else's products/services instead of your own.

Is affiliate marketing dead? No. It doesn't matter who does the selling, people will always be looking to buy online. The key is to stand out for all the other affiliates so people want to buy from you instead. You can do this by adding extra value to the products you are promoting (and a side note: I recommend only promoting products that you find great value in - don't promote junk)

Is there space for you? Absolutely! Again, differentiate yourself a little from the crowd and you'll do something that 95% of affiliate marketers NEVER do. And don't worry about competition - learn from the best (find a mentor) and model them (don't rip off exactly what they're doing, but model them). A lot of competition means there is a lot of money to be made.

What's the best niche? It's really up to you. There are people making lots of money in lots of different niches. An easy way to find a profitable niche is to look at how much competition there is THEN, stand out from the crowd in your marketing and it will make all the difference.

Last piece of advice that hangs a lot of people up, especially at the beginning...

Don't waste time on activities that won't make you money. Building websites, writing articles and blog posts, etc are not money making activities. Yes they're important, but the money is made in HOW MANY EYEBALLS CAN YOU GET TO SEE YOUR CONTENT!

So, spend a little time creating stuff (make sure it's good - don't get me wrong but don't worry about being perfect) - then market like crazy to get a lot of people to see your stuff.

Get clear with what your outcome will be and work like crazy to get it! You can do it!

Not dead, just CONSTANTLY evolving.

There is an art to this stuff and it requires learning a new skillset, however anybody can do it if they reaallly want it bad, are coachable, and seek out mentors.

There is no a,b,c process that = money every time.

Just get started, be ok with screwing up, and learn as you go.

If you can't create your own product or you can't offer a service then Affiliate marketing is really a great way to earn money without investing too much money.

Your success depends, If you just joined AM you can't afford to target high competition products, unless you master in building lists.

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Affiliate marketing is far from "dead". The Google updates hurt those trying to scam others, creating lots of low-quality backlinks, using copied content etc. That is GOOD news for those using quality original content and backlinking intelligently and ethically.

There are still lots of us making money with affiliate marketing. There are lots of good affiliate programs, Amazon being one of the best known, but lots of other good ones too, with different advantages and disadvantages.

Chris

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No its not dead but you really need to understand how it works just like any other business in offline.

It will never run dry, other say SEO is dying but it never will.

Today you need to be creative and think out of the box in order to bring quality and targeted traffic to sell your affiliate product. Good luck with that!

As long as there are companies online selling stuff, people online buying things and people creating websites who are not the end retailer there will be affiliate marketing.

In short affiliate marketing will (likely) never die. The only people who say it's dead are the people following flawed and out dated 'business' models that revolve around ranking single keywords in Google, usually 'review' sites in order to entice clicks.

Affiliate marketing AKA paying a commission for a lead or a sale pre-dates the Internet, and is just a form of B2B transaction. How can it die or be dead? Doesn't make any sense. I think people get wrapped up in their little worlds and don't understand the bigger picture.

Affiliate marketing is nowhere near dead. To say that is to almost say that selling from your own website is dead. And we all know that's not true. Email marketing my friend... that's the essential element needed to make money with affiliate marketing.

They're trying to devour all the profits! Muhahaha!