The Internet Marketing Guide You’ve Been Waiting For!

Sometimes we stumble upon something so BIG we just don’t know what to do with it, but we know it’s going to make a huge impact on our future in a positive way. That’s what affiliate & internet marketing is for many of us. The problem is that there’s so many terms to get a firm grasp on that it could make your head spin, which is why this back-to-basics guide to online marketing has been created. Bookmark this page, keep it handy so you can always refer back to it anytime you want to quickly look something up in the future.

How to use online marketing guide:

Open up your ‘search function’ then type in the word you wish to look up. Sometimes the term you have in mind and the term as it’s spelled on this page will be different so just do your best to look up variations or just scroll down the entire list until you see what you want, each marketing term will be broken up into its general concept and then further broken down into its specific term.

Here we go…

The Absolute Basics

These are the broad, general concepts and terms used across the entire field of “internet marketing” so it’s best to learn these first.

Online Marketing / Digital Marketing / Internet Marketing (all one & the same thing)

• All three terms above basically mean the same thing which is to market a product that is digital and online. Although the product does not actually have to be connected to the internet at all times in the case of “Digital Marketing” and can instead be distributed with other means such as a CD, or memory card, often times you will find that most products these days are distributed over the internet and the practice of marketing these types of products are referred to as online or internet marketing.

Domain Name: www.domain-name.com

• You can think of this as the address to where your website lives on the internet. There are different types of domains such as ( .com .net .org ) and a whole bunch more, but when dealing with something important like your business, you usually want to aim for a domain which is .com in order to give your website that extra bit of prestige. You can typically invest in these domains direct from your webhost, or you can purchase them from domain registrars such as Namecheap.com or GoDaddy.com

Web-Hosting

• If a domain is the address of where your website lives, then a web host is the house it lives in. A web host is just a fancy name for a computer-server that you can upload files to, upload web pages to and point your domain name at so when people search for your website or click on your links they will be directed right to the appropriate place for viewing your website. A website can not exist without both a domain-name and a web-host, so keep that in mind when planning your own websites. One of the most popular web-hosts of today is called HostGator and they not only have excellent prices for you to choose from but their customer service is 2nd to none! Check them out if you wish, click this link to land on their website.

Website

• You probably already know what this is but in case you’re not sure of the technical explanation of what a “website” is then it’s simple this… A website is a collection of pages all hosted under the same domain-name. A website can be the host of different file types such as images, videos, ebook files and just about anything else that your computer can open inside of your web-browser. That’s it, pretty simple really.

Blog

• Blogs are in fact part of a website, which is why the term comes from an even older term which is “web-log”. Many times you will see a website have a separate section which hosts their blog, and you can do this too if you don’t plan on having a website which is only a blog. Blogs typically are just a collection of articles (much like the Powerhouse Affiliate blog) and inside those articles you’ll find a wide range of subjects covered for you to pick from. Blogs are a very easy way to get started online as a digital marketer as they give you a home base to run your operation from.

CMS

• Content Management System, this is a software which allows you to create things such as websites. WordPress is technically considered a CMS, in case you didn’t already know that. These types of software are great for those of us who are not very technical as it allows us to create complex things like websites in a very simple fashion. Often times these types of software are very visual in nature, allowing for you to create a “wysiwyg” type of website or blog. (wysiwyg) stands for What You See Is What You Get.

WordPress

• As mentioned just above, this is a CMS which has been adopted in a major way. As of the writing of this article, WordPress Sites Make Up 14.7% of the Top 100 Websites in the World, so you can see just how popular it’s become!

Niche

• You probably hear this word thrown around a lot. It simply means a segment of a market or a category if you wish to use that word instead. A great way to get a visual grasp of what a niche is, visit Amazon.com and take a look at their menu of different categories. You’ll notice they have the main categories (also known as niches) and when you click on one, it will usually expand down into further sub-niches. There can be a niche within a niche within a niche all the way down until you just can’t find any more niches the deeper you dig. Thanks to this little fact it’s practically impossible to run out of marketing options, all you have to do is keep digging or searching within different categories. By the way, Amazon is a great place to find brand new niche ideas if you ever run out of ideas on your own!

Niche Marketing

• This is the practice of targeting your marketing efforts specifically to your target niche. This is done by offering a solution to a “niche problem” which is genuinely useful.

Digital Nomad

• This is a fun term which you’ll sometimes see tossed around. It basically just refers to a person who is often times very tech-savvy and capable of earning a living online despite having no set place of business. Often times folks who work from home can be considered a digital nomad and even those of us who enjoy the freedom of that “laptop lifestyle” definitely classify as a digital nomad. Basically, it’s a person who makes their living online no matter where in the world they are and they aren’t tied down to one specific location.

Freelancer

• A professional who works with more than one client and does so often times from the comfort of their own home. Think of this as a home-based employee under contract. A specialist who takes jobs based on their own skills and applies them to earn a living online (not necessarily as an online marketer). These can be writers, artists, fact-checkers, literally anyone who has a skill or a combination of skills they use to help others for a nominal fee.

Affiliate Marketing Terms

Here we go… the terms which are specific to the type of marketing Powerhouse Affiliate specializes in. Keep these in mind especially as it’s probably safe to assume if you’re reading this right now, you’re interested in affiliate marketing. So let’s continue with the below-mentioned terms described in this beginners guide to online marketing.

Advertiser

• Specifically speaking about affiliate marketing terms, an advertiser is a product owner (can be a corporation or an individual business owner) who pays 3rd party networks, specific websites or even other product owners in some cases (which is known as a JV or Joint Venture) in order to feature their product in an effort to sell it or to advertise it to affiliates so that they can sell it for a commission.

Publisher

• This is the reverse side from an “advertiser” and it just means the website, or individual who places ads on their websites which the advertiser has negotiated for. Think of it like this… the advertiser sees a website they want to place an advertisement on so they will contact the website owner and negotiate a price in order for them to put their ad on that website. When this is done, that advertisement is considered to be “published” which would then make that website the “publisher”. See what I mean? Although a publisher is usually a specific website, it could also refer to an individual whose business model is to find these advertisers and match them up with websites to put ads on. But for simplicity sake it’s easy to just remember it as a website that ads are put onto.

Affiliate Marketing (Affiliate Marketer)

• The two terms above are so close they’re explained as one and the same. These are people just like you and me who market and advertise other products in order to earn a commission. This is a subject which can become very complex with all the details that are contained within it, but for right now it’s best to just think of it in these simple terms. People who sell things for a cut of the profits.

Affiliate Network

• Think of this as a hub which connects advertisers with affiliates. These are places such as Clickbank, JvZoo, and all of the CPA networks under the sun. A lot of the time you’re going to have to apply to these networks and wait to be accepted but it’s all just part of doing business as your own boss.

CPA Marketing

• Cost Per Action is a very particular type of marketing which pays affiliates based on a direction action which is specified by the advertiser. This could be anything from simply getting someone to sign up to an email list, submit a form for an insurance quote or even make a direct sale if that is what the advertiser wishes to happen by the affiliate’s efforts. Some of these CPA networks are a bit tricky to get accepted into but if you take your business seriously and can demonstrate to that you intend to be a legitimate member of their network (and it doesn’t hurt to have your own website which looks professional) then you can usually get accepted into a CPA network. You may have to deal with being rejected then calling them up for a one on one talk, but again that’s just all part of doing business as a professional affiliate.

CPC Marketing

• This stands for Cost Per Click Marketing which is just a fancy way of saying “paid ads”. If you use things like Google, Bing, or even Facebook to run advertisements then you’re officially a cpc marketer, congratulations!

Guru (Expert)

• These words both have their own unique meanings outside the context of affiliate marketing. However, when it comes to this field it generally just means anyone who knows more than those they teach, which means you don’t actually have to be an ‘expert’ in order to be considered one in this industry… so be cautious of who you learn from, look into them a bit more than at a glance because this industry if full of fake “gurus” and that’s just a fact.

Product Review Site

• This is what it sounds like, a website which specializes in reviewing products and/or services. These are often times used as tools for affiliates to gain more affiliate sales by directing potential customers to a review which was written by them in hopes the reader will like what they see and decide to buy (using the affiliate link provided on the review) thus earning a commission for the affiliate.

Price Comparison

• This type of website falls under a subsection of the “review website” but this time focusing on prices which is important for some niches. Something you’ll discover a lot of physical product based websites do is a price comparison chart. A powerful tool for any review site is the price chart as it lets your customers see for themselves what is on offer at a glance.

Coupon Sites

• There is a good chance you’ve already seen a few of these. Ever hear of Groupon.com as they are one of the big contenders in this niche of ‘coupon sites’. These are actually an excellent way to advertise a product or service in a sneaky way as many of these websites get a ton of daily traffic and if you have something people want they’re bound to discover your coupon. It’s a powerful way to fit your offer into a market which it might not necessarily be available to otherwise.

Digital Product

• These are anything that isn’t physical in nature but still hold value of sorts. They’re things like eBooks, videos, photos, audio files like .mp3, anything else up to and even including access to a ‘members only’ website. Whatever can be sold in order to get access to, or distributed for free via some electronic device is considered a digital product.

Membership Site

• Speaking of membership sites, these are websites which have a blocked off section that people can access only by becoming a paid member of that site. Powerhouse Affiliate offers both versions of membership, the other type of course being free. However, if you wish to join us for free and like what you learn then you’re always welcome to upgrade and get all the excellent features and perks that are offered exclusively to our premium members. Check us out by clicking… Right here

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

• Have you ever purchased something and were then presented with an up-sell or “OTO” which stands for One Time Offer? Chances are you might have and in that case you already know what an MVP is… and nope, it’s not the “most valuable player” in this case. It’s what the base-product is, the thing that fulfills the promise given in the sales pitch but provides little to nothing else but the bare bones basics.

Physical Product

• This is anything that’s not digital but instead can actually be physically touched. Books, CD’s and even stuff like USB Drives which contain digital products on them can all be considered physical products. Outside of the typical stuff associated with internet related products, physical products also extend to stuff like exercise equipment, clothes, shoes, food, anything at all that exists in the physical world.

Content Marketing Terms

Here we have the terms which are particular to marketing with content such as blog articles, embedded videos, digital books and etc.

Content

• This is a generic term referring to the ‘stuff’ on a website, contained in the pages of a book, a video, anything that exist for someone to consume and learn from or be entertained by.

Content Marketing

• This is the act of taking that content mentioned above and distributing it with the focus of using it to promote a product or service. A lot of times you’ll find blogs featuring articles or posts which promote something to the reader, this is a form of content marketing. The same thing can be done in videos and audio-based podcasts. It’s basically a more elaborate form of advertising.

Scannable Content

• A great example of this is what you are reading right now. It’s content which is broken down into sections and subsections so it’s easy for the reader to skim through it to point out specific details from it at a glance.

Round-Up

• This is typically a post on a blog (but not always) which features things like quotes, interviews, and overall wise bits of information shared by experts in any particular industry. It can also be something similar to a review site which will instead ‘round up’ things like physical products for customers to review and make an informed decision on.

Listicle (List Posts)

• A listicle is something that takes a bunch of information around a single topic and compiles it into a list, often times in terms of most to least importance (but not always). Sometimes these are done in just plain text, sometimes they’re done in the form of an ‘infographic’ which is a more visually pleasing way to present a list of information.

Infographic

• As mentioned above, these are visually impressive presentations. The easiest way to demonstrate this is to simply show you so here is a link to Google Images which will show you what an infographic looks like: Infographic Image Search

Evergreen Content (also applies to a niche or product)

• This is just a nice way of saying “something that’ll always be relevant and in demand”.

Clickbait

• The act of sensationalizing your headlines and titles in order to compel viewers to click on it and read more. Clickbait is something you must find a middle ground on because going too far with “clickbaity titles” will usually lead to your viewers disliking the content and often times repelling them from coming back in the future.

Landing Page (squeeze page / homepage / lead page)

• A landing page is just a page that your viewer lands on after clicking a link. The link could come from an advertisement, a link on a blog or other type of website, even content found on social sites like Facebook or Twitter can have links which direct someone to a webpage which would be considered a “landing page” in this case. It’s literally just a web page someone lands on after clicking a link.

CTA (Call To Action)

• Every effective piece of marketing (and most advertising) will have a call to action. Often times this is just a piece of content, be it a sentence or an entire paragraph which compels someone to perform an action, often times that action is clicking a link in order to visit a sales page to buy something.

Blogging & Vlogging

• These are two variations on the same thing, one being in written form while the other is in video format. You can blog or vlog for just about any purpose under the sun from promoting something to just keeping a video journal because you enjoy doing it. YouTube is a very popular place to find plenty of vlogs, a lot of times you’re going to discover many popular vloggers use their platform to also promote various products and services as an affiliate.

Influencer

• This is someone who’s gained notoriety in their field. Someone who’s considered popular and has a lot of followers on sites such as Instagram, YouTube and even Facebook or Twitter. An influencer has such a big following that just a single post or video from them can influence the market in some way in both the positive or negative light. If you can work with an influencer you might have a powerful means of advertising something, just keep in mind working with influencers can oftentimes be very expensive.

Webinar

• This is a video seminar, often times they are interactive between the host and the attendees. A webinar is a very powerful way to promote expensive products and services as it allows you to host a live event you can then make a sales pitch and responder to any lingering doubts on the spot. These webinars can often times be recorded and used as video sales letters or even learning tools for future use as well.

Podcast

• Think of a podcast as a modern day radio broadcast. Sometimes they’re video based and other times they are audio only. They can be done live or recorded for publication at a later time. Podcasts are a powerful way to reach out to an audience and are also a great platform to sell advertising spots on once your podcast becomes popular enough to entice advertisers.

Let’s Wrap Things Up

This list could go on and on for miles and miles… we have only covered the base needs in this internet marketing guide as they pertain to online & affiliate marketing. The best thing to do in case there’s something you need to figure out that is not covered here is to just perform a Google Search for the term.

Powerhouse offers a lot of lessons on a variety of these terms and many more not covered here. If you’d like to team up with one of the most powerful affiliate training platforms in the industry today then give our homepage a look, just click on our logo below to land on the appropriate page.