Of the many ways to make money online, affiliate marketing is one method that has been the most commonly propagated. It is also one method that has been tried by many, succeeded by some and failed by the majority. Fact is, affiliate marketing though being professed by so-called Internet Marketing Gurus to be an easy way to make money, is not as simple as it seems.
For all that you have read, I will place my bet that 80% of those who has written about Affiliate Marketing is either not an affiliate marketer themselves or has never succeeded in making much as an affiliate marketer.
Transforming Yourself Into An Affiliate Marketer
One usually does not start their lives in the Internet as an Affiliate Marketer. Nobody can claim that they are born Affiliate Marketers. Affiliate Marketers are made or transformed and not born. Most start their lives on the Internet as a blogger and slowly transform into an affiliate marketer.
Even if you were never a blogger and your first attempt to join the Internet Kingdom was with an identity of an affiliate marketer, you would have been prowling around the Net for years doing your research, getting to know the ins and outs before you took that first step. In that essence, you too were not born as an affiliate marketer. You only successfully transformed yourself into one. Whether you succeed in becoming a successful one is another story to be told on another day.
Affiliate Marketing Is A Different Ball Game
If you are a blogger, eager to go into affiliate marketing because whatever monetization methods you have attempted did not bear much fruit, you have to change ball games. The basic rules may be similar, but the playing field is different. The players will be different and the spectators too will be different.
With the assumption that that you already know the basics of keyword research and getting traffic, you will now have to change your target. When before, if you are using Adsense and you are targeting traffic that searches for specified information, the target now is traffic that is looking to buy certain products.
Trust me, getting people to fork out money to buy rather than depending on them to click freely for more info is much, much more difficult.
Heed these Rules.
Rule Number One – Do Not Be Apologetic About Becoming An Affiliate Marketer
The first and foremost rule in becoming an affiliate marketer is, DO NOT be apologetic about it. Especially those who have been blogging for sometime and has built up a community or a legion of fans.
I see many writing post apologizing to their readers that they will be selling affiliate products from here on. They warn their readers about all the affiliate links appearing in their sites and they will be making money if their readers happen to buy through their links.
I mean, WHAT THE HELL? Where is the logic behind this behaviour? Don’t you want to sell? Are you selling some crap so you want to tell your loyal readers that you do not want to cheat them? If you are indeed selling crap, then is it okay if those who are not your loyal followers buys it? Does that make you more ethical?
If you are going to be so sorry about your readers buying, then JUST DON”T SELL! Just stick to blogging about whatever. Why apologize?
Get Real.
Rule Number Two – Know The Products You Are Marketing
You can never sell anything if you do not know what that thing is all about. The most ideal situation will of course be you buying and using the product first before you join that affiliate program. Of course, that is quite impossible if you are trying to promote every product under the sun, so stick to the few that you have tried and used.
I only stick to marketing Premium WordPress Themes in my blog.
The best selling ones (For example: Genesis Framework) are the ones that I am using because I am able to write very comprehensive and thorough reviews about them.
Of course I do promote many other Themes. Sometimes just to help add a slight nudge to those new WordPress Theme developers who are just starting out and sometimes out of goodwill because they emailed me asking me to review their Themes.
I usually do those for free and my only compensation are from the affiliate commissions, if I can get them.
These comes in negligible trickles because I can only recommend them through what I have read and I cannot provide any further details.
Rule Number Three – Rank For The Right Keywords
Now that you have gotten rid of that silly mindset about being apologetic and you have in-depth knowledge of the products you intend to promote as an affiliate, the next step will be working to get your keywords ranked.
This is especially important if you are not into email marketing and do not or have not built up an email list. If you are practising Affiliate Marketing within your blog alone, getting search traffic is your only hope. Your existing followers might give you a kickstart and give you your first commissions, but after that initial phase, sales will dry up if you do not get organic traffic flowing in daily.
Be reminded that conversion rates in Affiliate Marketing is very low. You might get a high click-through if you have written an awesome review about the product, but out of 500 clicks, only one or two will convert into sales. So it is a numbers game. The higher the numbers, the better are your chances.
To get that high number coming in daily, get your keywords right. Not what you think is right, but what those who are searching thinks is right.
What Are The Right Keywords
Contrary to what many might think, the right keywords to sell a product is not always the product’s name. Especially if it is a new product that no one has heard of. Just like working your butt off to rank for your personal name, ranking for the name of an unheard product will not get you any hits.
Let say you have just bought a script that can automate link building and the name of the script is “Super Duper Link Builder“. You liked the script very much and it is an awesome tool so you decide to promote it as an affiliate. What Keyword term would you want to rank for in the Search Results in order to get the first sale?
Many would go for the term Super Duper Link Builder because it is the product’s name and those many will not be getting any traffic or sales for at least 6 months to a year ranking for that keyword term. Why? Simply because NO ONE knows or has heard about “Super Duper Link Builder” so who the hell is going to search for it?
Getting The Keywords Terms By Piggy Backing On Popular Products
Lets say again that there is another script of the same nature that is hugely popular and everyone in the whole wide world knows about it. Everyone who wants to buy a link building software will search for that name. The name of the script is called “Link Builder King“.
Compared to this “Link Builder King“, “Super Duper Link Builder” is virtually nothing. However, you can make things happen for this new and rising star. You can do so by piggy backing on the popularity of Link Builder King.
You go and work your behinds off to rank for the terms like “Links Building Program That Works Better Then Link Builder King” or “More Awesome Link Builder Than Link Builder King” or “Build Backlinks Faster Than Link Builder King” or whatever you can think of, but make sure Link Builder King is included in the Phrase. Never include Super Duper Link Builder.
Long Tails like these are easy to rank and then, if your landing page or your post is convincing enough, you will get some sales.
Maintain your rankings for the term Super Duper Link Builder though. It will be worth something when one day that product really overtakes Link Builder King as the most popular link building software. It might be one or two years, but when it happens, you will be in for a big payday.
That is what affiliate marketing is all about anyway. Time. And of course lots of effort.
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