Affiliate Marketing

[Grace Hall]

If you want to make money online, you either have to sell your own product or service. If you were to promote other internet marketer’s product and services, you would be an affiliate.

Right-So why is it still extremely difficult for Beginners and Intermediates alike to build up their business online with affiliate marketing?

1.Join Affiliate Program:

Join affiliate programs of products you know and trust. You can find thousands of affiliate programs, each promising to be the highest converting or offering the biggest payout. But in the end, the best converting programs will be the ones that you are able to confidently recommend to your visitors. Write a personal review of the products to show your authority and build trust with your customers.

2. Get Traffic:

Focus on building traffic to your site. Work on your search engine optimization (SEO) so your site ranks organically in search engines. Then try a PPC campaign and have your ads linking to relevant content on your site. Just be careful of Trademark policies of the merchants that you’re an affiliate of. Many companies will not allow you to bid on their brand names, so make sure you read through the affiliate agreements carefully.

3. Focus On Content:

Write good content. Customers don’t want to just see ads. They want to know why you are recommending products and you need to convince them why they NEED the products. Use a combination of banners and text links to find what works best on your site for your customers. Make the product promotion natural and not a big sales pitch.

4. Affiliate Relationship:

Disclose your affiliate relationship. The FTC requires that affiliates disclose that they are compensated if a customer purchases through their links when they are writing a recommendation or review.

5. Promoting Program:

Do lots of testing. Find out what works for you. Try promoting different programs and see which your customers respond to best. Try rotating different banner placements on your site to see which converts better. Use Google Analytics and affiliate reporting to measure click-through and conversion rates.

6. Good Affiliate Manager:

Get to know your affiliate managers. A good affiliate manager will be happy to take the time and review your site, give you feedback and work with you to promote their brand. If you can consistently generate a few sales per month, ask for a bonus or commission increase. Then use that bonus to increase your marketing spend and drive even more sales! It can be a win-win for both you and the company you are promoting.