Hi Dresco, Don't get overwhelmed. Have a break. Clear you head, take the dog for a walk or the likes. Take a step back, deep breath and begin the lesson again. Write down notes as you go if that helps when taking time to pause and absorb. The support is here for you and we have all felt the same way as you do right now. Overcome, you will be stronger and more eager to continue.

Adam
Thanks for your comments, you might be right to take a break, but I was forced to take a longer one than I might have done, sleep then back to my job this morning, your advice is probably spot on, with all the emphasis of the power of (keywords) in this article it does not make clear how this attracts customers to your site?? Amazon reviews are mentioned, but you cannot review unless you buy something then review it after??
I dread having to read this article again my head still hurts thinking about it.

Tommy

So awesome to hear, congrats on your client!

You understand the retail world though and how customer transactions take place though and the importance of relationships. Those are the most critical components to converting people. :)

yes this is good applied and tested experiences that would take you several steps forward on the Global stage rather than local community

Awesome, glad this offered clarity. When I create content, I try to avoid bloat or fluff (stuff that doesn't need to be there). :)

You want to include posts that target all stages. If you only included the early stages, they may like what you have said and decide to buy it, but they will buy it elsewhere.

The other factor to consider is most of our website visitors will only be on your website once. So that is why you need to target them all.
They may read your (research post), and follow your link through to your review (purchase stage) and buy it then and there.

A good mixture of posts is best. hope that makes sense?

John

Hi Natalia,

I'll PM you my keyword advice :)

Grace

Love it!

Necessity (hunger) is the mother of invention (the sale) ;)

Really liked your share about this story. It shook me a bit. Now I'm so ready for writing another content!

Thankx!

Zihinnelle

Thanks for sharing! I love it.

In other words - engage and interact with your customer/client. This takes it beyond just "selling" ;)

You definitely have experience with the process and sales and this is going to come in very handy as you build out your business.

You probably realized very early on that if you HELP people and you provide them with insightful information, you will build trust with them and they will convert better.

MHayes2,
I like your approach that you took when you were selling phones in the 80's (probably the bag phones and when the service was 5.00 a minute)sorry had a flashback. I will keep what you said in mind. Thank you for sharing. I don't have to say good luck to you. I am sure you got this in the bag.

Yeah, good thing you checked into it, but that is how your search started and how it starts across pretty much every niche. Your search initiates with that interest...and then it will evolve into finding the RIGHT product for you.

Glad you found WA, and looking back at your own process and what you went through to find WA is quite revealing as to what the customer purchase lifecycle looks like.

Your site is still in the beginning stages, just keep following the training step by step and Kyle takes you through adding affiliate links.
Your first goal is establishing your online business and starting to gain authority. That is what you are working on now.
Hope this is helpful.
Stacie

I think you want to go too fast. Two posts will not give you any significant traffic. !00 posts will do that. Why would you put products for sale when few people are visiting your website. It seems to me that you should follow the training here in order to make good progress.

well this helps me and answers my questions.

Glad I could help :)

In golfing terms what you said is a "Hole In One."


You have a background in this. That gives you a heads up.

Pleasure to meet you sir. Wishing you all the best.

Debs :)

Hard to argue with that.

Hi - it's just a series of steps really. Your blog is helping to solve a problem and then directing visitors to a solution. Say, for example, your niche is natural back pain remedies. Somebody searches for that in Google and finds an article on your site. This article will have useful and interesting information.

Within that article, you might say, I recommend "this product, see my review here". You would then add a link to lead them to your review where you explain how and why the product works, and hopefully they will purchase through your affiliate link. You can also do comparison reviews and "best of" articles.

In ,y own understanding of the customer buying lifecycle, you don't need to incorporate all the phases, the phase you need to incorporate most is the phase that's closer to the actual purchase.

Good advice

yes write a post and compare or review the product you are trying to sell. Search online and use the findings in your post.

What phase is closer to the actually purchase? I don't see any explanation of this, could you please brief me a bit on this phase. Thanks

Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I appreciate your help.

That makes sense. I want to have it all figured out ahead of time but I think the best way for me to learn will be by trial and error. I just need to do it. Thank you!

Thanks for the suggestion!!

Hi. Nor sure if this is what you're looking for but I copied an excerpt from the training. Perhaps this may help you. It's after they have done their research.

3) Purchasing/Action Phase.

The final phase is the one that is profitable to us as Internet marketers. No commissions will be paid unless there is an action that takes place! Whether this is a click, a lead, or a sale, a visitor needs to become a customer to fulfill the lifecycle.

During the purchasing phase, it is very difficult to detour someone from their purchasing decision. They have done their research, made the decision, and now are fully prepared to buy. In an ideal world, you would be able to target all the people within this phase, but often times the research and searching is complete at this point. An example of a search term that would target people within this phase would be "purchase product_name, order product_name, buy product_name, best price on product_name".

The best approach at this stage: The ultimate goal is to get someone to this point, whether you are able to do so through manually walking them through the process, or you catch people in the decision phase and help them buy. If you are targeting the keywords as mentioned about (the buy type keywords), you simple want to point people in the direction of the product they are looking to buy (through your affiliate link of course) and you are sure to convert very high. This is the ultimate phase to catch someone in, but it is the most difficult to hunt these "ready to buy" crowd down.

This is interesting. Thank you very much I would really work on targeting these "ready to buy crowd ". I really appreciate this piece.

My wife and I have a recipe blog and we're not into selling anything either. But, the ads will be there to help make some money for you. I agree about the cheaply made websites all over the web. From what we've learned so far, you will be able to include as many or as few ads as you want.

I don't know if these sites are a driving force, but they do tend to make money.

Personally, we don't want alot of ads - just a few to help pay the bills.

Michael & Marsha

One o0f the biggest sellers today is information so why not add a couple of monetizing links for something in the same niche.
There are products on Amazon and Clickbank and you could try Commision Junction

If your niche is travel bags then your articles should be about travel and bags.and then link to some bags that the reader might like for their travel

You could keep doing reviews on travel bags, maybe small travel bags,weekend bags, travel bags for babies, pet travel bags... and other travel accessories. Then some affiliate banners for travel bookings... they can offer a good commission. Hope that helps. Best of luck ~ Andrea

If your page is about the Taylor made r5 driver then that would be the title of your post. As Kyle said in the lesson. If someone is looking to buy that golf club they are not going to click on a link that say how to drive a BMW. They are more likely to click the link that has the club they want in the title

From a customer standpoint I can completely agree with that! Balance is very important because you want to give your customers original content while also including humor and personality where it fits.

I felt the same way after reading this post! It was truly an 'aha' type moment!

Yeah, sometimes it takes a few times going through the lessons for it to really sink in. Then as you take action on what you have learned, it will sink in even further.

So glad you are enjoying the training Jessica!

Look for keyword phrases with "buy", "purchase", "order" etc or variations of that word. If people are looking for those keywords, they are letting you know they are ready to spend money.

Thanks for the advice. I will direct myself along that line. Good day LindaRiel.

Hmm looks like my reply to this got dropped - I will write it again. I would say that a relationship is certainly built and trust increases. In certain cases, it is with a person (what you refer to a "selling yourself"). In other cases it is the company itself (a respected brand). In other cases it is a spokesperson for the company (e.g. Michael Jordan for Nike shoes).

In the 2 cases, I can remove myself from the equation. For instance, if a person searches for "basketball shoes for kids" and my pay-per-click ad comes up saying "Buy the shoes Michael Jordan recommends" and the person clicks on the ad and then opts in to a mailing list and then 3 days later buys when a 10% off coupon is emailed to them. In this case, I did not sell myself at all. I sold them on Michael Jordan's reputation.

I see! That's right, very good example and I hadn't thought about it that way at all, thank you Prince!

Kyle and Carson really do know what they're talking about with their training and material.

There is no doubt this opportunity is available to anyone ready to step up and make it happen.

I have no doubt big things in the future for you.

Good luck to you!

Greg

We are all different people and we all have our own burdens to carry and the very fact that you are able to talk about them is a victory. If there is anything I can do to help you on your journey please feel free to contact me and I will do what I can when I can
Carol from Australia

Yes, I am that type of customer too...sometimes. Sometimes I do research, sometimes I buy right away, sometimes I research and don't buy at all.

We can look inwards at all of our buying activities and learn a lot about them, a the very least be aware that others go through that sort of process.

Merry Christmas to you and thanks for chiming in. Definitely not going mad here, I actually really appreciate your feedback and personal insights.

More power to you for taking a 'leap of faith' and trusting the process provided on WA. That alone is a major victory step for you!

It is great you have decided to put yourself out there and ready to carve a better life for you and those around you. I have no doubt in the months to come you'll be grateful you did.

You're definitely right! There is nothing but amazing support on WA.

I wish you all the possible success in the world and a ton of happiness in the future.

Keep doing what you're doing because you've made an excellent choice.

Greg

Hello Sky and welcome to Wealthy Affiliate. I completely understand where you are coming from because I WAS a victim. Not any more. I don't carry that label. Anyway, you will get there too.
I think that what Kyle is saying is not that people shop like that because we all do things differently but I think what he is saying is that in the buying cycle a customer is more likely to converse if they type in the keyword Buy golf club, or whatever that golf example was. Anyway, it is the keyword that is being searched like Buy-------------, or compare these two---------------------. As opposed to someone customer searching keyword golf club. Which they may be wanting to draw a golf club and not buy one. Does that make any sense? Just let me know if you need anything.

Sorry if my texting is a little messed up... It is 5 a.m. and I have not had any coffee..

Sometimes you may, and what is the thing or things that triggered that? Sometimes you will do more research, what are the sites that you really started to trust?

Yeah, this is great insight an you can leverage your own activities to understand the process of other customers.

You will find that this is the best education and training on the internet. There are no scams, no upselling here only genuine information and help and you will find that out for yourself as you progress through the lessons. We are all here to help and if there is anything I can do to help please feel free to contact me and I will do my best as will all of us to help you to achieve your goals

Carol from Australia

That is the great thing, all of our purchasing styles are somewhat different, but we all have commonalities. The key thing is understanding that there is a REAL person on the other side of the transaction, that will change how you approach the sales process.

If you get people to like you and you help people, conversions become that much more efficient.

Hi Kyle,
I think I understand what you are saying and will keep it in mind.
I think I will write myself a note to remember that.
Thank you
Lady Esther

WA does not use CPanel. There should be an option to paste a code from Google into your site code (which you can do with various tools such as the "Haders and Footers" plugin or simply by entering it in the appropriate spot in the All In One SEO plugin. the code should look something like this (characters changed):

BFCiXeux36aFTUvx4HgFnl3Pex7pgADZ6-xexrT504x

I took my code and pasted it into the All In One SEO tool under General Settings > Webmaster Verification > Google Webmaster Tools.

Setting Up & Verifying Google Webmaster Tools You can verify your search console without cpanel.

If I understand your question right, Yes, that is what Jaxxy does and it can also be done on google. Using what kyle refers to as the alphabet soup technique.

Only for that other site.
If they join through your site then you get the credit.

Robert, thank you so much for clarifying this matter!

Now I understand that if a visitor has landed on WA site through google search or through other blog site but did not sign-up, NO sticky cookie is assigned to the visitor. But when the visitor signs-up for free membership though a blog or ad link, only then s/he gets a cookie or gets tied to some other sort of record keeping.

Is my understanding correct now?

You are going on the scenic route with this question.

If a person comes to your site from another site and joins WA through your link then the referral is yours no matter how many cookies other sites have.
If they signup from another site through a link that is yours, you get the referral credit.

Of course if they signup through someone else's link, even if its on your site then the other person gets the referral credit.

All clear?

Enjoy your Sunday.
Robert

So as long as the person visiting your site clicks on YOUR unique WA affiliate link and joins WA, that person becomes your referral.

It doesn't matter how many times they've clicked on other people's WA affiliate links prior to this, as long as they click on your WA affiliate link LAST, and then join WA, you get the referral.

And once you have that referral, they are yours for life. So you earn when they upgrade to Premium, when they complete their account setup and when they buy domains.

Excellent question James!

Well, as you pointed out, the best way is to actually try it out

But I guess that's a bit difficult if you are promoting luxury travels or private jets ... In which case you'll have to do a VEEEERY detailed research

So are you suggesting that heavily researching the products you are wanting to review could be/is an alternative?

I know that using them or testing them first hand is the best way to review but i think that even if the products weren't 'luxury holiday' expensive then reviewing a few or basing your sales around the review stage will become very costly.

Yep, that's my point :)

would you say that researching products in depth is a viable way to review? Or do you think that it is a bit risky and could potentially lead to negative feedback/lack of trust?

In my opinion is achievable. There are endless possibilities to access reliable information

Not to mention that you could create and run your own surveys before writing your own review

That's a good question. I've written a post on this:
https://smartaffiliatesuccess.com/how-to-write-a-product-review-without-owning-product/

That is not always the case, far from it. That is a cliche and a general rule of them on the entirety of the purchase process, you can walk them through all 7 within a well design marketing process...and you can also catch people that are much further along in the life cycle.

I am in the same boat however I do not think that middle aged women want my anti ageing products lol
Thank goodness I am my best customer
Carol

I know that was a joke. That's the best time to start. Either the environment destroys our skin or the food we eat makes us age faster in looks. Says the middle aged woman.

Going natural is hard these days for a lot of Middle aged women that's why so many still wear makeup.

Well I got onto a product that has stem cell technology in it and all the brown spots on my hands have gone and the few I had on my neck are fading so I do not mind promoting a product that
a) I use and b) that works. They have not brought out a supplement with the same technology and I take them. - one in the morning and one at night
The second one is Pure Essential Oils and I swear by them and of course they are natural products. I hate anything synthetic and I don't wear make up - just take care of my skin and my diet.
I think that if you use a product and know the advantages you are much more of an authority and people can sense that
Anyhow onwards and upwards
Carol

You are absolutely right. I blogged about the necessity of being an authority in your niche.

But that's one thing I don't like about the WA set up, I can only blog once a day and if I miss blogging that day I have to park my blog until the next day.

Anywoo, I would love to learn more about THAT product, it sounds great and something I need.

-Lakesha

You are not alone, a lot of the time people dehumanize the process when it comes to the online world, when in reality it is even more important to humanize your communications and interactions. T

his is how you build trust, this is how you can be in a position to make product/service recommendations and have someone heed to your recommendations.

So true, it really is a journey... you already know more than 80% plus of the population by being here. Once you've crafted the basics the possibilities are limitless. I have 4 main products/tools and that's it.
Much success
~ Andrea

Well said on professionalism of the website.
Someone outside WA community actually queried why I'm writing such long posts (targeting 1,000 words) and I told them, it's all about credibility!
They were left speechless, and we all know the effect of a masterpiece piece of music on us all...

Greetings Nader,

It sounds like you are just more in need of getting traffic to your writing, is that correct?
Do you plan to sell your work from the website you are creating?

Many folks here are learning to write reviews of existing products and make recommendations to their followers for affiliate sales.
Let me know what you are trying to accomplish, to see if I can assist.
My best,

Gary

You are still solving a problem. The problem is not having an excellent book to read, and if you have that book or can connect them with that book, then that solves the problem for them.

Hello there!

From the get-go, I was made to understand through training here that, your niche doesn't really matter as long as you have a passion for it.

I would suggest, on gaining skills learned and interpret your passion in your website -- that attracts traffic which again, you'll learn to convert.

Best,
Linda.

It is true, if someone knows what they want they will search for the specific product themselves. Many people will follow you because of your blog and the information & personal attention they receive from you. Many people need help making decisions & love to receive tips from someone they trust.

thanks, this is why I am thinking at the moment that the only chance of a real USP over the big online retailers is 'you' in effect, which means building up your own profile as well as your site content potentially, to get people to want to take advice from you personally, vs the thousands of people that provide reviews in the big retail platforms ……. very daunting and not easy I suspect! I am thinking it's going to take video content as well as written content to draw people in. This really is a heart and soul investment isn't it....what's your experience?

You would be amazed at how many people do not know about Amazon. There are millions and millions of people in the world so I do not think you need worry about getting traffic. I would look at affiliates outside of amazon - and there are thousands and thousands of affiliates - and choose ones that have the highest commissions. They are out there believe me - I have looked for my own niche.
All the best
Carol

thanks for that advice :) I will look around xx it's quite a specialist product set so google seems to have the biggest range in one place vs other retailers :-/

You are welcome - put affiliate programs into your browser and then you will get an idea of what I am talking about.

Please share this info with me also if Kyle responds. That would be great to know even if he says we’ll get to it in a later lesson.

This certainly is not. We teach you how to build a long term and sustainable business, while establishing a SOLID brand. That is how all great businesses are created, and that is our approach to business.

There is reason why we are the most trusted organization in the industry, but not just that, the community is building out their businesses in the exact same way.

Likability is a big deal when it comes to relationships. People that like you, trust you, and buy from you. If you can create that environment, you are going to be very successful online. ;)

Hi Linda,
You were asking a valid question.
I believe what you want to accomplish can be done through e-mail marketing whereby you capture their email, build long term business relationship.

Jay has created a lot of training on this, one of which I shared with you below. Email Marketing Walkthrough Hope that answers your question.

Joe

I think you should leave the about me page, it let's people know you are a real person and they will trust you more and feel better about buying from you.

You don't have to take down all your posts. Just keep them there.

Thank you its so confusing

Thanks Jerry But am going to try to clean them up because the guitars thing I have is a mess

I see.

Hi and welcome - yes the training is great as are the webinars every Friday evening with Jay. There is also nowhere else on the internet or in main stream business where you have such easy access to the co-founder in Kyle. Considering that there are 1 million users on this platform that is a great achievement. If there is anything I can do to help you at any time - providing I am online - please feel free to contact me.
Carol from Australia

Hey Hans,

This training is labeled "The Customer Purchase Lifecycle", and so is assuming you do have an affiliate link to add.

Your target should always be your customer's best interest whether you have an affiliate link to offer or not. This is how you gain a good reputation.

Hope this helps you.

Yes you´re absolutely right,it`s the building up trust and have reccuring visitors aspect I overlooked here.

No actually in the step of the training that I`m in I havent finished my site nor got signed to n affiliate program. I suppose I`m a bit ahead within the steps here going through "The Customer Purchase Lifecycle" at this point.

Thanks for your reply it gave clearity :)

Not really. If you know a product is really a SCAM you can write reviews about the product, why it is bad and why you recommend not to buy such product. As long as your reviews are based on solid research, you are actually helping others not to fall into some bad marketers' trap.

Joe

Thank you!

Here is my .02. Initially, it's important to build your site content and focus on content creation to build your traffic. At this stage, a simple 'contact us' button, rather than a full-on email capture system is preferable.

Once you have about 100 posts and/or 1k visitors per month, then you can invest the time/energy into setting up an email capture system and begin to email your customers.

Content creation is so important, yet many new marketers get caught up in doing things that are of no benefit to them if they don't have traffic.

Thanks for that insight @onmyownterms I get what your saying.

You're welcome.

Revisiting this comment is real eye opener for me.

Maxine

That is the best way to make a sale. Make a friend, and then your recommendations will not meet resistance because at that point you have a great deal of trust with your audience. ;)

Hi Thomas,

In order to collect email addresses you need to use an email provider service like AWeber for example, which will allow you to created automated pre-defined email series sent to every single subscriber in a given chronological order defined by you

And yes, the free bonuses (whatever they are) will help you to generate certain desired actions like social sharing, subscription, etc

Regards,
Zed

It is against Amazon's terms and conditions to use prices

Oh thank you very much! Could I still compare quality of various types of a product?

I think maybe the domain may have something to do with it. health production market seems to indicate that you are producing something like a farmer. Are you checking Google Analytics to see who is visiting your site. Other than that I cannot help you. Your website has to reflect what you are doing. For instance my website which is an anti-ageing site indicates that I am selling or promoting anti-ageing products so people interested in anti-ageing products are going to look at the site.
Hope that helps
Carol

I will see if i can change my domain

I went and looked at your site and it looks great so I think the name it putting people off. If you need any help just reach out and I will do what I can to help
Carol

Hi Richard,

As you go through the training, this will become more clear why and how this works. No, you don't just have a website and have products on it.

Instead, you're going to be writing articles about things in your niche and as you're writing about your niche, you will then recommend products to your audience that would help them.

This is why the training will tell you to write about something that will help your audience to solve something or figure out something.

The training will teach you to also write about product reviews where you can recommend two products and why one is better than another... people who are reading reviews like these are in the buying stage and so if you had a page like that, they will likely to buy from you if you have strong arguments for the points you talk about in your post.

They will more likely to click on your links when they can see you know what you're talking about and can help them solve what they need.

Your website is the bridge between the customer and the merchant. You are connecting the customers who are searching for the right products to help them solve a certain problem and your job is connecting these people to the right products and sending them off to the right merchants to buy those products that will help them with what they need to solve.

I hope this helps you understand a bit more how the process works but it's not a shop you're building here.

This is about talking about various things in your niche that will help your audience in some way and at the same time recommending them products that will help them too. This creates trust and you're not directly selling per se, but rather more of a hey check this out if you want to cure your smelly feet and here are the reasons why I think this one product does the job... and then you list your reasons.

And then you would close that article to tell them to check out that product at http://Amazon.com (for example) and that text will be an affiliate link you get from you applying for the Amazon affiliate program.

I know this all may not make sense to you but you will understand more as the training progresses.

You can ask me more questions whenever you have them. :)

Grace

Awesome post Grace!
After reading your reply above it is very clear why and how you and so many others here at WA (including Kyle and Carson!) are so successful.
Thank you so much for taking the time to compose such a thorough explanation - it's as if "explaining things" was your niche!

Thank you! You're right, I've been doing that a lot lately, explaining things. LOL

Glad you could benefit from the above essay. :)

Yeah, there is a lot of new information here at WA each and ever week and there is always something new to learn. :)