Q: I am very interested in affiliate marketing and I am registered for Affiliate Summit West 2009. What would you recommend I read and what Web sites should I visit and review between now and then to become more informed about affiliate marketing, so I not overwhelmed by unfamiliar topics at the conference?
A: As far as the forums I go to on a regular basis, I go to Wicked Fire, ABestWeb, and 5 Star Affiliate Programs.
I also read a ton of affiliate marketing blogs. I would suggest going into Google Alerts and setting up a bunch of alerts from blogs based on relevant keywords like affiliate marketing and affiliate program.
That way, you will get an email each time there is a new blog post related to affiliate marketing. This could become overwhelming, so you might want to select the option to just get one email a day per term, which would have a list of all of the blog posts for that day.
As you track blogs like this, you can determine which are the most useful to you, and subscribe to those RSS feeds.
Also, if you’re not currently on Twitter, register for an account there, and then start following people who are into affiliate marketing.
After creating your account, go to Twitter Search and run queries for terms like affiliate and affiliate marketing. Then, you can see who is posting about those issues and follow them on Twitter.
And then there is FeedFront Magazine, the official magazine of Affiliate Summit. Subscriptions to the magazine are free. It comes out 4 times a year and the articles are written by the people who are working in the industry – affiliates, merchants, and network folks.
Additionally, the agenda is up for Affiliate Summit West 2009, so you can see what will be covered in the sessions.
You can see sessions on video from past Affiliate Summits on the Affiliate Summit YouTube channel for free.