Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is obviously not the easiest thing to do because many people seem have a go at it, but soon give up due to the lack of any real success.

So what can you do to improve your chances of becoming an affiliate marketing super star?

Here are a few vital tips to point you in the right direction. But bear in mind that it takes dedication and persistence to be successful in affiliate marketing. Your first attempt may even fail! But keep on trying and success will eventually come calling.

Buy a few good affiliate marketing books

It pays to learn a bit about affiliate marketing before you put your toe in the water. Here are a few popular affiliate marketing books available from Amazon.co.uk and I strongly suggest you read one or two of these. They will help you to get a firm grasp of affiliate marketing techniques.

The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs (Paperback) by Bruce C. Brown

Make a Fortune Promoting Other People's Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich (Paperback) by Rosalind Gardner

Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires (Paperback) by Scott Fox

e-Riches 2.0 (Hardcover) by Scott Fox

Also make good use of the Internet to find informative articles on this subject. And don't forget to check out blog's and forums based on affiliate marketing.

See top affiliate website's for even more ideas

Another good tip is to check out some of the top affiliate website's to see how they have made their money.

For example check out Jeff Johnson at the underground training lab.

There are 3 main types of affiliate program

Pay per Lead

With Pay per Lead, affiliates are paid a fee for each customer they refer to a merchant’s 4 site that completes some sort of information query. Information gathered from lead generations may be used by the merchant site itself, or sometimes sold to another party.

In all fairness to your own site visitors, you should offer a disclaimer that the information they provide in a lead query is captured and could be sold to someone else.

This type of affiliate program is the least effective for generating income because unless you have a very specialised website that serves a focused purpose (i.e., offering information about dog food) most people are not going to take the time to fill out lead queries.

Pay per Sale

The Pay per Sale method is where a merchant site pays an affiliate when a customer, referred by the affiliate’s website, makes an actual purchase. Pay per Sale programs, like the Amazon Affiliate program, may offer a flat fee for each sale, or a percentage based on a variety of factors, or even a combination of flat rate and percentage payments.

This affiliate payment system is the most reliable way to earn income from your affiliate programs. It is easy to track what people are buying, how much you are earning and make adjustments in your affiliate program advertisements to maximum selling potential.

Pay per Click

With Pay per Click, the merchant pays you for every click from your site to the merchant site whether or not a sale results. This may sound like a really easy way to make money but it is not. Unless you have very high traffic to your website this payment system not an effective tool to use and may actually detract from the quality of your site.

There are flaws in the Pay per Click system. Merchants are often targeted by individuals who sit and click repeatedly from their own sites or ask family and friends to click for them - people who have no intention of ever buying anything. This practice is unethical and unfair to other business owners.

If a merchant believes you are artificially inflating click-through's or using automated methods to increase clicks they have the right to refuse to pay you anything at all.

Initially, choose a topic you know well and love

By using what you know you should be able to build a simple website and add a few nice touches. You will be able to write good and informative copy that draws people to your website.

Starting with this personal project, you can then grow your affiliate business by creating other website's that focus on more profitable niche areas.

There is no best merchant program out there

Just as if you were buying something in a shop, it always pays to shop around for the best and most appropriate merchant to sign up with. Some people start with Clickbank, which has thousands of merchants to choose from.

Keyword research

Once you have a good idea about the products or services you want to provide you need to gather targeted keywords and groups of keywords that will be woven into your web sites copy.

Use one of the 'free keyword analysis' tools to help you come up with this important list.

You must do this research before you buy a domain name and build your website.

Buy a domain name

Once you have decided what your first site is all about you will have to purchase a domain name that is keyword rich and clearly reflects your target market.

Build your website

Either create a website yourself using commercial or free software, or sign up with a web host that has an online web design tool. All these options should give you plenty of choices - especially the hosting companies who offer a range of professionally designed templates that make it easy for you to get started with your first affiliate site.

Write compelling website copy

Above all else, your page content must be your highest priority.

Without valuable and helpful content, visitors will not come and visit your site. They will end up with one of your competitors who are providing exactly what they need.

If you focus on providing excellent content your affiliate marketing strategies will work out to your advantage.

The larger your website is, the greater your traffic draw from your valuable content will be. The higher your traffic rate is, the more likely you are to be successful with affiliate marketing.

Choose ads that fit with your website's purpose

Keep your affiliate ads tuned to your website's purpose and content as much as possible. You can be broad and creative, but remember to consider the interests and sensibilities of your website visitors. Affiliate ads should complement your site - not compete with it or swamp it.

Adding too many ads to a page and using annoying pop-ups and flash ads will usually accomplish only one thing - it will distract and annoy your readers who will just go somewhere else to find the information they want.

Keep your site fresh, content-rich and use ads as an added feature which has the appearance of being an extension of your site, that is, a service or convenience feature for your visitors, not as a primary way to get rich.

Try Google AdSense which targets ads based on the copy on your web pages.

Be Prepared to Work for Your Affiliates

If your affiliate ads are not working well on a page or section of your website, move them, change them, or remove them completely. Affiliate programs will drop you if your site is not performing well for them.

If you lack good results it tells you that your readers are not interested in the particular ads an offer you are showing them, or that they are ignoring them for other reasons (which are often due to placing far too many ads on one page).

Try Different Affiliate Programs

If one particular merchant program doesn't seem to be working for you, try another one.

Affiliate programs don't look the same. They offer different products, services, and payment structures. Some programs will have a lifetime pay-out on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the types of ad units available, as well as colours and design, so that they fit better with your website's layout.

Also, check your favourite vendors to see if they run their own affiliate program. Sometimes you can go directly to the source. You're not limited to big affiliate networks.

Advertise using Google AdWords

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is one of the best and fastest ways of targeting prospective customers to your website, no matter what merchant program you choose to run with.

One of the most widely used PPC advertising models is Google AdWords, although Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Advertising adCenter are similar PPC products.

When you sign up to your preferred PPC provider you select targeted keywords or phrases that your potential customers will use when searching for your featured products or services. These Pay Per Click advertisements are usually called 'Sponsored links' or 'Sponsored ads' and generally appear next to or above the natural or 'organic' search results.

PPC advertising is not always easy to do, especially if you have not had any previous experience, so here are some of the key steps in setting up a Pay Per Click advertising campaign and here is how to write effective PPC ads.

Banners - are they a good idea to use?

Are banners a good idea for your first and subsequent affiliate website? Many commentators seem to think that banners are a waste of time, yet many large and successful website's still use banner advertising and seem to profit from them.

Article Marketing

Articles bring in the targeted traffic you need to run a successful web site with affiliate links. They build those all-important one-way back links and create those even more important top rankings in Google for your chosen keywords and phrases. Article Marketing can also build your online reputation and credibility in the eyes of your visitors which builds trust in your product recommendations.

You can also place your articles, or links to them, on FaceBook, MySpace and the other social networks.

Getting your articles on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon etc can bring in a lot of traffic and improve your sites rankings.

The popularity of free article directories has grown and some of these sites have very high traffic numbers.

Article marketing is still a very good way to get your site and name on the web. It can still bring in traffic and help build those all important back links and search engine rankings.

YouTube

Turning your articles into short series of "how to" videos and placing them on YouTube, and your own site, can open up a whole different flow of traffic to to your website and your targeted affiliate links.

Even if you are not keen on doing this yourself, consider getting some help with video production. It will certainly boost your visitor numbers.

Make good use of Google Analytics

Set up a good system to capture traffic information. QBS PC Help like to recommend Google Analytics but your own web host may well provide a good statistical package such as AWStats so that you can easily track your sites progress.

Both these methods of tracking your sites performance can tell you, among other things, the sites and search engines that refer your best customers as well as which pages draw the heaviest traffic. Such tools also enable you to identify return customers, new prospects and understand how users typically navigate through your site - where and what they clicked. You can then adjust your design or products accordingly.

Work Hard to get the site making money

The payoffs aren't usually instant and can take a while to build up. It could be a few months before you can make enough money to cover your start-up costs. It takes perseverance, dedication and patience to succeed in affiliate marketing.

Do not quit if you first attempt does not produce the results you're looking for. Try a different angle.

Beware - crooks can steel your commission

To be successful at affiliate marketing make sure you cloak your affiliate links so that thieves cannot steal and redirect your links for their own benefit.

When you use a full and unmasked affiliate link there's always a possibility that others can replace your affiliate information with their own and earn commissions themselves instead of you.

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