Seven Affiliate Marketing Tips for Increased Commissions
Affiliate marketing is exploding on the Internet.
It doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. And
for good reason. Affiliate marketing is the quickest way
to get started with a home based online business. But, while
it's the quickest, it can also be the most demanding.
Again, for good reason. Because there are so many people
involved with affiliate marketing today there is a lot more
competition for web site visitors. But, anyone can create an
incredible online business with affiliate programs if they
follow seven simple affiliate marketing tips.
Affiliate tip #1 Preselling must be your top priority
When a new client comes to me for help with advertising the
products they are affiliated with, I begin with this first tip
everytime. This is where everything else begins.
Preselling is basically "warming up" your visitor to
click to the merchant site and want to buy
something.
This must be your top priority.
For example, let's say you have a great auto accessory site that
has a bunch of links to several car part merchants where you
make a pretty good commission for every sale made through your
affiliate links. You receive ok traffic from Adwords, ezine ads,
link exchanges, etc., but not really a lot of sales. Sound
familiar?
The problem with this type of "put up the links and wait"
approach is that you are wasting, and losing, a ton of money.
Those people that are visiting your site are leaving, without
buying, and probably not coming back. Unless you spend more
money on advertising to get them there.
Preselling takes the initiative in providing the site visitor
what they want. After all, that's why they visited your site in
the first place. To find something they want.
Ken Evoy has written "the" resource on preselling called, "Make Your
Content Presell" that provides you with all the step by
step information you'll ever need to tackle preselling.
Affiliate Tip #2 An ezine follows on the heals of
preselling
Preselling is the top priority of any affiliate business, but
having a weekly or monthly ezine is immediately behind it.
An ezine is your way to keep in touch with the website visitors
that have taken an interest in your site, but haven't made the
decision to buy yet. This helps you build a stronger
relationship with them by continuing to show them that you are
the place to find relevant information.
Affiliate marketing depends on low cost advertising strategies
to keep it profitable. A weekly newsletter is the ultimate in
keeping costs low.
Affiliate Tip #3 Be a content provider
This tip is a result of the first two. Affiliate marketing
riches is built on content. Putting up banners and a ton of
links on a page just doesn't work anymore. Google Adsense has
really made the fact that content is the most important
advertising strategy really stand out.
Your daily tasks should be centered on the thought of content.
Articles, product reviews, interviews, how-to's, short manuals,
ebooks, free reports, and the list goes on and on. Take these
articles, reviews, and how-to's and syndicate them everywhere
you can find withing your particular niche (topic).
And not just any type of content. Relevant, up to date, and
informative content.
Let's use the car accessory example again. Each page should
center in on one different topic to presell one different item
or multiple items that are very closely related. Several how-to
articles on how to install different accessories and reviews on
separate types of seat covers, car stereos, tires, bolt-ons...
whatever, should dominate those pages.
This means that people will be finding what they are looking
for... content. That makes them happy, which in turn creates
buyers.
Affiiate Tip #4 Link up with others
A byproduct of all the content you will be providing on a
consistent basis is that other people will love to link with
you. This is something you, as an affiliate wanting to keep
costs low, will want to be aggressive with. It's a win-win
situation for them and you.
Search engines love content, thus will rank you higher. Other
potential linking partners, within your niche (topic) will want
to be a part of that. This does two things...
From the view point of your site visitor, it shows you as
the "expert" because other people are linking to you, and
you also receive traffic from the sites you link to that
wouldn't have found you any other way.
Win-win. A great way to find linking partners is with Phil
Tanney's free service Links-for-you.
They deliver willing link partners to you without you having to
search for them.
Affilite tips #5 Multiply yourself
Now that you have started one site dealing with a specific
topic, do it again. And again. And again. And, well you get the
picture. Why do this?
One of my clients recently signed up for my Power
Niche Package wanted to know why I provide content for a
full year. I told them because they just can't stop with one
site to be successful.
Basically, affiliate marketing is a numbers game. The more
traffic coming to multiple websites, full of preselling content,
means successful marketing. To take advantage of the highest
number of traffic, you need to set up multiple web sites on
different niches.
Affiliate tip #6 Be creative and test
I love being creative, taking a risk, doing something different
than everyone else. That means that my affiliate sites never get
stale. And I test everything to see what works and what doesn't.
Success can be as simple as where you put your Adsense ad block
on your site. Recently people have been experimenting with
putting graphics directly above the small blocks. Income from
these ads went way up. It worked.
I, myself, like Affiliate
Sensor as an alternative to Adsense. I tested it out on
a few different high traffic sites to see what would bring in
better income. One site with Affiliate Sensor, the other with
Adsense.
It was split. One site, a golf site, performed much better with
Affiliate Sensor and the other, a home audio site, had greater
response with the Adsense ads. Diversity makes for a healthy,
growing, and profitable business.
Be creative with your content also. Test to see which page
headings work best, which products people are clicking on the
most, where to place our affiliate links within the content, and
whether graphic ads or text ads work best.
Don't get stale.
Affiliate tip #7 Always be re-evaluating
Affiliate marketing is powerful, if you stay on top of it. You
should never stop researching the "hottest" markets, what people
are looking for, what kind of information do people need.
Again, for example, with the car accessory site, you should be
always on the lookout for new merchants, new products, and
products are selling now. What time of year is it? Winter would
bring different needs for content. What turbo boost are people
looking for the most? This stuff changes all the time and the
successful affiliate has content ready almost immediately.
Affiliate marketing is an awesome way to get started with an
online business. You can even make it your only online business,
many people do just that. But, it takes passion, determination,
and following these seven tips.