Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook Review
Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate
Handbook review. Is the Super Affiliate
Handbook a scam? One of the most common questions you ask is, “How should I get started making money online?”
Implied in the question is a story that happens far too often: A person new to the world of making money online gets sucked into any number of scams out there, from blatant take-your-money-and-run scams to buying info products that promise zillions of dollars and just don’t work. That’s why, from when I first started erica.biz, I made a commitment to only promote products that are actually worth it on this site.
And there are surprisingly few of them. I am happy to say, however, that Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook makes the cut.
The Super Affiliate Handbook is a meaty 211 pages, complete with screenshots, and it guides you step by step through the process of selling other companies’ products to make money online.
Does Rosalind Have Actual Proof of Her Earnings?
Most “make money online” products show pictures of a glitzy lifestyle and big checks. However, these pictures are pretty easy to fake (and many of them, unfortunately, are faked.) One thing I look for when looking at “make money online” products is: Is there proof that the person creating the product has real income to back up his or her claims?
One of my favorite things about Rosalind is that she goes out of her way to verify her income. For instance, she regularly posts videos on her website showing checks she has received. Unlike the “Make Zillions In 10 Days!” headlines, Rosalind is the real deal. Her total income from affiliate sales is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year; in fact, the book was originally published with the title “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.”
Rosalind Gardner shows proof of her latest checks in this YouTube video.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
So, how exactly does Rosalind make so much money? The basic outline of her business model is this: She sets up websites, delivers good content, and promotes products on them. She mostly promotes other companies’ products, and when someone clicks through her website and buys the product, she earns a percentage of the sale. This is known as “affiliate marketing”–where you, as an affiliate, earn a commission for every sale you make of someone else’s product.
The Super Affiliate Handbook starts out with a look at being an affiliate vs. other types of businesses, such as becoming a distributor. You can sell just about anything online to make money–from books on Amazon.com to dating site memberships to web hosting. Most affiliate programs are free for you to join, making this a low-risk option for getting started. And since you don’t have to hold inventory, you don’t have to buy a bunch of products up front and then try to pawn them off on your friends and relatives.
Affiliate marketing is great for those of you who are looking to earn extra income from home, as well, since pretty much all you need is an Internet connection and a computer to make money. It’s perfect for stay-at-home moms and dads, college students, retired folks, and people looking to quit their jobs or who just want to earn a few extra dollars a month.
Rosalind’s Affiliate Sites: What Do They Look Like?
On page 14, Rosalind shows off a website she has developed to sell affiliate products. (This is another thing I love about her book: actual examples of real sites–not cheesy blinking red text crap sites–that she created to make money.)
The site she shows is a blog in the travel industry, and she points out the reader’s problem and how her blog post solves it. Then she explains how to set up an affiliate link. The book is designed so even the biggest technophobe can do something similar. Rosalind points out that she isn’t a tech whiz, either!
Starting on page 19, she reviews the tools she uses to manage her affiliate business. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with some of the tools she picks (she uses Eudora as her email client–I vastly prefer Gmail, or its counterpart Google Apps for Your Domain), but it’s still helpful to get this birds-eye view of her business.
How to Find a Niche That Will Make You Money
On page 26, the real meat starts: Rosalind drills down into how to find a profitable niche. Not every topic you might like to write about will actually make you money. Sure, you could write about an obscure topic, but you won’t be successful with it unless there are people searching about it and there is something for them to buy in it! Here, Rosalind takes you by the hand and shows you her method of finding niches that you can actually sell products in.
Next, it’s time to evaluate your competition. Rosalind reviews two free tools that will help you see what competitors are out there (I use one of them every day!) She then shows a dead simple way to find affiliate products in your niche…I love this particular trick.
Getting Your Site Online (Even If You’re Not a Techie)
On page 43, it’s time to get started building your site. Rosalind shows you how to set up a web hosting account and install WordPress so you can easily create a website. (Of course, if you’re just getting started, you can have my expert staff do all this via my Blog Setup site.) She also reveals a critical mistake many marketers make when they get started; don’t fall into this trap!
Then, it’s on to building content for your site. Don’t worry–it’s not as hard as it may seem. Rosalind gets you started with 10 headline templates and some recommendations to help convert more of your visitors to buyers. She even walks you through the process of hiring an article writer (something I’ve done as well for some niche sites I run–it’s well worth it if you don’t want to write.)
Making Some Money!
Okay, ready to make some money? That’s what the next section is all about! Rosalind gets you familiar with Google AdSense, which allows you to easily put ads on your blog. Then she introduces you to affiliate networks, which allow advertisers to connect with “publishers” (you’re a publisher now!) She shows you how to find matching products and sign up for their affiliate programs. She gives you twenty different questions to ask of every affiliate program to ensure that you will get paid. Finally, she walks you through setting up an Amazon.com affiliate account so you can sell every product that Amazon carries and make a commission on it.
The next step is to build traffic to your site. Rosalind walks you through 31 different ways to market your website!
She shows you how to set up a Google AdWords account so you can advertise on Google’s search engine and drive targeted traffic to your site, how to write articles that link back to your site, how to set up an opt-in email list, and even how to set up profiles on relevant forums and blogs and comment on them.
A word of caution here: She mentions eBay ads, but eBay’s digitally delivered goods policy no longer allows eBay users to run auctions for digital products. Digital goods must now be in their “classified ads” section, which doesn’t get a lot of traffic. I let Rosalind know about this. I’m also hoping that she will cover Facebook ads in the next version of the handbook. Still, this is an excellent overview of the various ways to get traffic to your site.
Turning Your Site Into a Business
Next, Rosalind covers some daily, monthly, and yearly tasks you can do for your sites. As you start making money, you can reinvest your profits in hiring people to take care of some of these tasks, but when you start, you can do these on your own.
I really like her section covering “How to Negotiate a Commission Increase”. Believe it or not, companies will often reward those who refer lots of happy customers to them…but you have to ask. Rosalind covers this neatly with examples.
The final section is on how to deal with the inevitable problems that come up: Your site is rejected as an affiliate; people steal your content; an affiliate program doesn’t pay you. These issues do come up, and I appreciate Rosalind covering them so extensively.
Though Rosalind makes huge amounts of money online, her method isn’t effortless. But as someone who has made 5 figures in a single month, I gotta say, when you get the check in the mail, it’s worth it.
Is This Book Worth Investing In?
Overall, Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook is an excellent resource for those who are getting started with affiliate marketing. If you want to learn how to really make money online and get started without a lot of money, definitely invest in a copy of her guide. It’s one of the most comprehensive resources I have ever seen, and it’s updated frequently.
The Super Affiliate Handbook is well worth it as an “overview” guide if you’re getting started making money online, and if you have a site but haven’t made money with it, the traffic tips are great. I recommend it in both these cases.
If you already have a blog and are making over $1,000 per month in affiliate commissions, you can probably skip this. But if you’re not there yet, this book will help you along the way. There is a full 60-day money-back guarantee, so feel confident in placing your order today.
Claim your own copy of Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook now!
