BEST AFFILIATE TIPS

Affiliate programs can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your earnings is engaging your readers. Unlike traditional ads where you are paid for impressions or clicks, affiliates are only paid when/if a specific action is performed. The action might be a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, but regardless, you are not paid until you've compelled your readers to act.

With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success.


1. Know Your Audience
The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers. Consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience's problems.

If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.

The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them.

.2. Be Trustworthy
Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don't believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don't think you're being honest, they won't read anything else you have to say.

.3. Be Helpful
Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.

Don't put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information. That's what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get something for that.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

.4. Be Transparent
Always disclose your affiliations. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, and will feel better about contributing to your earnings. If they sense that you are being less than honest about your affiliations, they are savvy enough to bypass your link and go directly to the vendor just to avoid giving you referral credit.


Honesty and full disclosure is a necessary part to building a loyal reader base. They know they are supporting you by using your referral links. Make them happy and eager to do so.

.5. Select Carefully
Take the time to go through all the different options for products or services available through the programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones, and use different graphics and text to see which are the most effective.

It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

.6. Try Different Programs
If one particular 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 payout 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 colors and design so it fits better on your site's layout.

Also, check your favorite 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.

Integrate systematic ad testing into your strategy to maximize your profits.

.7. Write Timeless Content
Your old content can still be valuable even though it's no longer on your front page. Take advantage of the long term opportunities by making sure you provide timeless content.

If visitors come across your older content first, and find that it offers dated information, they will leave right away. Of course, information moves forward, so relevant content changes quickly. You can make your content timeless simply by adding links to your updated articles on your old ones.

Many platforms allow you to show "most recent" or "most popular" or "related articles" on every page, so no matter how old the article is, it will always show access to your new ones. Your old content can make money for you indefinitely.

.8. Be Patient
Affiliate revenue grows and builds up with time. Remember that some programs offer lifetime payouts. If you refer a visitor, you may continue to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn't come back to your site. Also, as long as you have referral links still active in your old posts, they may still payout for you.

Affiliate programs aren't a get rich quick plan, but it provides opportunity to make passive income in the future.

.9. Stay Relevant
Keep up to date on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more visually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.

Don't get lazy about monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities.

.10. Content Comes First
Above all else, your content must be your highest priority.

Your content is your foundation, the life blood on which the site exists. Without valuable and helpful content, readers won't come. Focus on providing excellent content, and the monetizing strategies will work out.

Once you start compromising your content to cater to the affiliate programs or any other money making venture, you will lose your readers. Once that happens, you will lose the opportunity to receive any earnings from any of your ads, be they CPM, CPC, or referral based.

Finding the ideal affiliate Company

I was winding my way up the levels of a very crowded parking garage the other day. The line of cars desperately seeking a spot ahead of me kept turning to the right.



So, of course, it occured to me that perhaps there would be less competition for a space if I went via "the road less traveled by", to the left. And indeed, there was.



Unless you are an Internet Newbie, you've probably learned by now that making money on the web isn't easy ... certainly not as easy as many sales pitches would have you believe.



Yet, this doesn't seem to deter the millions trying to compete in perhaps the most crowded web market of them all, namely, Internet Marketing.



This is not to suggest that great success is not possible in Internet Marketing. To the contrary, I can rattle off a number of names that were virtually unheard of a year ago who have done tremendously well.



They did so with innovative tools or insights that contributed something new and valuable to this marketplace. They also possessed outstanding copywriting and marketing skills that turned their innovations into sales. And in every case, they worked their tails off.



But compared to the huge numbers of people trying, real success in this field is something truly special, rather than the norm.



The fact remains, however, that money making opportunities still abound on the Internet. There are "green pastures" all around us and I believe smart marketers will use the skills they've learned in our very crowded marketplace to their great advantage elsewhere as well.



Where do you look for them? Well, I've found that digging around the search engines provides a wealth of information.

I found that the seach term "homework helper" was getting over 8,000 searches a month, which probably translates to at least 5 times that number on Google.



What's more, there were only 88,000 listings for the term on Google ... a far cry from the usual million+ results for the typical Internet Marketing term.



With more digging, many more opportunities in this niche were uncovered. The result? A new, profitable "non-marketing" web site was born.



This site, in just over two months, is now getting nearly as much traffic as my main site, over a year old, and looks to go roaring past it this month.



This opportunity potential is virtually everywhere. It's just a matter of doing a little research.



Here's a couple more quick examples:



Want to get into the "sun glass" business ... or set up an Affiliate site for this niche? "Polarized sun glasses" gets 3481 Overture searches, but only 23,400 Google listings. Again, opportunity.



Interested in paintball? "Paintball supply" gets 14,010 Overture searches, but has only 45,400 Google listings. Can the opportunity knock much louder?


I found both of these in about 7 minutes by jumping back and forth between Overture and Google. What are you interested in? Ready for a little digging?


I'm not suggesting that people abandon their Internet Marketing dreams by any means. There are certainly great achievements ahead. But why not, at the same time, "take the road less traveled by" and use your web marketing expertise in less crowded niches steeped in opportunity?