Affiliate marketing is a great way to make some extra cash from the comfort of your own house. If you would like to create an affiliate site, but have questions or don’t know where to begin, then this article is for you. Follow these simple and easy tips to get started on a successful affiliate site.
Consider the tracking software that an affiliate company uses on their site. If the tracking software is unreliable, there is a good chance that you will not be credited for purchases that are made. Be sure that they track the phone, fax, and regular mail to be sure you are credited for all orders you send their way.
Review the reputation of the affiliate program you want to work with. Unfortunately, the world is filled with people running scams. There are affiliate programs out there that will avoid paying out commissions you’ve earned. They will close up shop and open up under another name. Work with companies that have a reputation for fairness.
Along with all the other options to account for with an affiliate marketing program, look at how ad placement affects your revenue. Certain ad positions on your site (and even on individual pages) will garner more visitor interest than others. If you track the results you get from individual positions you can fit the most profitable ads to the most visible placements, boosting your revenue.
Before you publish or submit your article, read it to yourself out loud to check its flow. Hearing your words will help you locate clumsy phrasing and confusing structure that may trip up readers. Taking your article in through your ears gives it a novelty and lets you evaluate it with less bias.
When you’re deciding on an affiliate marketing program, be sure to pay attention to the fees, costs, and length of the contract. Many programs include a number of fees for things like setup and transactions. They may also charge you for creative content such as banners and other ads. Make sure you choose a program you can afford.
To market your business in a personal way, take advantage of streaming video. Sites like Youtube will host a video for you at no cost. Being able to see you talk about your products will draw customers to your site and let them feel like they know you. Because Youtube has a high page ranking, this is also an excellent way to get more search engine traffic.
Affiliate Links
When building affiliate links on your blog, don’t forget that you need traffic on your site first. If no one is reading your blog, there’s no one to click on your affiliate links, no matter how glowing your recommendation or well-place your advertisements. Build a readership for your blog and then join an affiliate program to take advantage of that traffic.
Be aware of the types of products you are linking to before actually making the commitment. After you have figured out the best link arrangement, you should see improved profits.
Find out the exact location of what is driving your readers to click on your affiliate links. Is it the links within your content or your sidebar? Did it come from a video you posted or a review of a product? When you discover what is driving the traffic, focus on that content.
Look for “hot pages” that generate an unusual amount of traffic relative to other content on your site, and customize your affiliate pitch for those pages. A lot of affiliates market their products the same way on all pages of their site but, integrating affiliate links more tightly into a hot article can increase conversions more than focusing on a site-wide marketing campaign.
Try to figure out what the trends are going to be before they become trends and then capitalize on them through your affiliate marketing strategies. If you know the Olympics are coming up in the next year, begin integrating articles about teams or players sprinkled with affiliate links so that when people start searching once the Games have begun, they’ll find YOU at the top of the listings!
Add a page to your blog where you list the most helpful tools and resources for anyone involved in your niche. Include free resources and tools in your list along with paid affiliate products. Not only will your readers be happy to have a handy list of helpful resources, but you will also most likely make some sales from the affiliate links you include in the list.
Try writing an extremely helpful ebook on a popular topic and then giving it away for free. Scatter affiliate links to useful products throughout the book. If you do this right, your book may go viral, resulting in many sales from the affiliate links you included. The key lies in making the book as helpful and interesting as possible so that people will want to read and share it.
Consider adding an opt-in newsletter to your website to help remind your audience that you’re posting new content daily. Only post affiliate links in the emails sparingly so you don’t overwhelm readers with your sales pitch, and ensure that you include content which is fresh and worth reading to keep them coming back.
If you want to make a profit through affiliate links, you MUST build a decent amount of traffic to your website. It’s great if you can convert 10% of your readers into purchasers, but if only 100 people visit your site per day you won’t be making much of an income.
When working to build your social media accounts so you can post affiliate links there, retweet or repost other people’s content. This will build your audience as that person will realize you exist, and they may just like what you have to say so much that they retweet or repost what YOU are posting, too!
A successful affiliate site needs to be attractive to your online customers and audience. In order to do so, you need to put in consistent updates and effort to make sure your site is up to date. If you persistently follow these tips, you will see a large boost in your profits and results.
PS: The traditional way of doing business will never be the same, which means that those who truly want to live differently and take advantage of the digital economy will have an opportunity to do so in the quickly expanding and evolving world of eCommerce and online business…
