Affiliate marketing mistakes and how to avoid them
Believing that people will just click on your affiliate links
Your job as an affiliate marketer is to make honest recommendations and pre-sell the products. Pre-selling involves much more than simply putting affiliate links or banners on your site It involves encouraging people to click on your links by outlining the benefits, giving honest recommendations, and giving your readers a good reason to check out the product.
Believing that people will simply find your website
You only get search engine traffic when you set your site up in the way that search engines like. If your site isn’t listed on the first page of Google you won’t get much traffic from the search engines.
You need to optimize your site so that people can easily find it. You can do this by doing keyword research, using effective SEO strategies, and proven marketing techniques. If you want to make money online, you need to optimize your pages and your images, and get lots of links to your site. if you do this right, you will get lots of free search engine traffic and get your recommendations in front of a large chunk of your target market.
Believing that using one marketing strategy is enough
I hope you know that submitting one article to article directories won’t give you much traffic and that limiting yourself to one or two marketing strategies will limit the number of visitors you get to your site. You will have more success if you use multiple traffic generating strategies.
I use Article Marketer to get massive exposure for my articles.
You could use the Directory of Ezines to advertise your site to thousands of your target market economically
Not monitoring what is working
It isn’t enough just to check up on how much you have earned each day. You need to know what is working best and adjust. Review you strategies regularly, note what is working best, what needs improving and how you can improve it, then adjust your strategies.
- How many visitors are you getting to each of your pages?
- Where are your visitors coming from?
- What keywords are bringing them in?
- How many of your visitors are first time visitors?
- How many are returning visitors?
- How much time do they spend on your pages?
If you haven’t got a web analytics package, you need one! Your web statistics will give you valuable information that will help you to improve your marketing efforts.
Choosing the wrong affiliate programs
Some affiliate programs offer 100% commissions, but if the products are no good or the sales page is sub-standard, or customer service is bad, you won’t make much money and it will harm your reputation.
You need to find affiliate programs that offer good affiliate support and give you resources to help you succeed. My two favourites for that are Sitesell and Jimmy D Brown. I have no hesitation in recommending their products because I use them and know they are good. In addition, they offer excellent affiliate resources and support.
If you aren’t a Sitesell affiliate yet, visit this page to join their program and see how a good affiliate program is run
Become a Site Build It affiliate
You don’t have to promote their products if you don’t want to, but you can build a useful passive income stream if you do, and you will learn a lot of useful strategies in the process.
Not investing in effective training
Buy recommended eBooks, special reports and video training. Join mentor programs and invest in teleseminars… Learn from people who are already successful and model what they do.
Believing that affiliate marketing will make you rich overnight
Affiliate marketing is not a way to get rich quick. If you want to succeed online you will have to invest a lot of time, and be prepared to spend some money.
Action Steps For Affilite Marketing Success
- Join the Sitesell Affiliate Program and see how a top class affiliate program is run
- Learn from Jimmy D Brown. Buy some of his reports, join his affiliate program and get tips and ideas for promoting other affiliate programs
- Build a subscriber list so that you can keep in touch with your visitors and have an opportunity to make money from them over time. People rarely buy on their first visit.
- Download and read the free Affiliate Masters Course for a good grounding in building a successful affiliate marketing business
- Test different affiliate programs and see which ones gfive you the best return for your efforts
- Search for products that have a big demand. When you promote products that people are looking to buy, you stand a better chance of making more money
- Find monthly membership products and include them in your list of recommended programs. I love getting paid for months rather than just once
- Continue to invest in training to improve your marketing skills
- Don’t give up. If something isn’t working, find another way
Here is a link to great step by step affiliate training
http://www.makemoneywithaffiliatemarketing.com
Here are some free guides to help you.
Perry Marshall’s Adwords Guide
This guide isn’t free but it is good and comes highly recommended
Here’s to your affiliate marketing success and bigger and better affiliate commission payments.
Lynne
P.S. If you need any help with keywords, seo, your blog, your auto responders, or anything else in your business, I can probably help. Leave a comment and I’ll get in touch
