Simon Dodd here and I am going to show you why affiliate marketing is often touted as being the easiest way to get into online marketing and why there are a few key things that you need to do if you are going to have any success with it.
#1 Find a Good Niche
The most successful marketers find a good niche with people spending money. It may seem obvious but if people aren’t spending money in your niche then you aren’t going to get any money out of it. Create regular new content for this niche and you will see your traffic constantly increasing, try to stay on top of the latest developments in your niche to help you with content. You can use current trends if you are looking for a short term niche with the Google hot trends service or you can find longer term niches using keyword research and by putting yourself in the position of a buyer.
#2 Don’t Overdo It
Don’t cram your website with loads of affiliate offers and flashing banner ads, this only distracts your readers from your content. Stick to relevant ads and links and try not to have more than one pop up. Try to steer clear of too many flashing ads as this can distract your readers unless they are at the top or bottom of your posts. You want them to learn from you before they click the ads so they are more likely to return to you.
#3 Work Hard
Affiliate marketing requires hard work, results don’t come overnight, you have to put time and effort into creating your site and then promoting it to generate traffic. You can’t expect to just sign up to an affiliate program and expect $1 million overnight. You need to treat it as a business not a hobby, set aside time every day to work on your business and then work on they key tasks to get you moving forward. Prioritize your work so you get projects finished on time.
#4 Buy and Review the Products You Promote
You must buy the products you are promoting and use them. It is no good just grabbing what looks to be making money for people, if the product doesn’t work you will get a lot of refunds. If you provide a review for your affiliate links make sure you don’t sugar coat it. If there are issues and you point them out your customers will be a lot happier than if there is a problem that you don’t tell them about.
#5 Build a List
You may have heard “The Money Is In The List” and it is so true, while you can make money from direct affiliate links on your site it is far better to get your readers to subscribe to your mailing list. You can then build a relationship with them and they are more likely to buy from your affiliate links in the future. A great way to start building your list is to create a free product incentive for people who sign up to your list. Once you have built a relationship with your list you will be able to send them affiliate links in an email and have a much higher click through rate.
Conclusion
To sum up, it is hard work to get started but if you have a definite plan from the start and are prepared to take advice and continually work on your business then you can have a profitable affiliate marketing business.
If you want more help with your business, I have some great free advice on my blog so feel free to ask me questions over there http://www.simon-dodd.com
Making money isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it. You just need to know the fundamentals first.
I currently have 3 FREE reports titled ‘Automatic Money Machines’, ‘Free Traffic Secrets’ and ‘Affiliate Organizer’ that will all help you to get started fast.
You can get these FREE reports at SimonDoddMarketing.com
I’d say don’t release any articles/reviews in first week, wait search engines to crawl your site first. While waiting, write much as you can, and release them one or two / day. That way you don’t run out of ideas right away.
Sometimes waiting is a good thing. :)
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Great tips there Urho,
I would say to keep writing as much as you can so you will always have a depth of writing that you can release whenever you need to!
Thanks for stopping by and I’m glad you got something out of my post.
Simon
Rephrasing: Sometimes waiting is a good timing.
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Thank you for the informative article. I will def. try harder to build a list. havent made a sale yet and started my site in feb. and obviously chose a product with a high gravity. for the wrong reasons. but i do try and make my articles interesting in the hopes that people would click on the links below them. Thank you for this post.
Hi Louise,
I can’t claim credit for the article. The article was written by Simon Dodd of simon-dodd.com
Yes, don’t just promote any old product from Clickbank just because it has a high gravity score. That’s what everyone does.
Trust is the important factor. Your list and followers must be confident that you are making recommendations in their best interests.
I, for example, only ever promote products that I own, use, have got results from and would put my own name to those products.
Articles are just a small part of what makes a successful online business. You need to understand the difference between info traffic and buyer traffic to make sales.
Furthermore, you need a pre-established relationship with your visitors and they must believe you have the solution for them. It takes time and effort to build relationships and credibility, so stick with it.
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Affiliate Marketing is not for everyone. This is a good article because it is important that people understand that it does not happen overnight. Everyone making big money as an affiliate marketer has spent many man hours building their business through several different methods. You must stay with it for a very long period of time. I know from years of trying. Thanks for the good read.
John
Great reminder of the fundamentals, Simon. In chatting with those who are just getting acquainted with the space (online and at events like Affiliate Summit), I think the ‘not get rich overnight’ component is one of the most important to have conversations around.
Relationships and trust–two of the most important things in Affiliate Marketing–are built with time, as is the success that results from them.
To successfully start affiliate marketing business then it is advisable for you to use the advantage of affiliate marketing because it help you promote your affiliate sales and products online.
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