Being a blogger, whether it’s a full time or part time job and/or hobby, ways to being a better affiliate may help improve your game. What’s our ultimate goal as a blogger? Is it to spread the word about a topic you love, or spread the word about a topic you love AND make money at the same time? I hope you chose the second option, if so this post may be helpful to you.
You may think affiliate marketing is as easy as generating a link and inserting it in to your post. Yes, you can do this, but without a lot of thought and research, you probably will not make an affiliate commission off of that link. I have listed a few tips on how to be a better affiliate below to help you out.
How to be a Better Affiliate
Know Your Niche
Before you go and sign up for every affiliate marketing program, know your niche. Meaning if you have a cell phone accessories web site, don’t put affiliate links for apparel clothing, unless of course it is specifically related to cell phone accessories.Once you have your niche down, you can start researching programs that would fit with what you do to help make you a better affiliate.
Know Your Audience
It helps to also know the demographic of the people reading your posts and visiting your website. Do you target 30-75 year olds, families, males or females? Knowing these little details will make it at little bit easier to pick out the products you would like to market as a better affiliate.
Try a few Affiliates/Products
Keyword, a “few”. I honestly think that’s where I went wrong when I first started affiliate marketing. I literally signed up for every affiliate marketing website, then applied for all these programs within each one of those. Then I started putting all these links in from each random program into my blog posts. I do not recommend doing this. Start with a few at a time, if they do not work, don’t use them, if they do, keep them. If you need a guide in finding an good affiliate program to work with, check out my Top Affiliate Marketing Programs post.
Know What Your Promoting
There are some affiliate companies that Pay per Sale, Pay per Click, or Pay per Lead. In each program/campaign you sign up for, there is always fine print you need to make sure to read. It will tell you how you will get paid, off of what, and all the terms. A major way to being a better affiliate is knowing what product or service you are sending your visitors to. Don’t make them upset. Affiliate companies like ShareASale and Rakuten Marketing (formally known as LinkShare) do a pretty good job making the terms pretty clear.
Strategical Place Affiliate Links on your Page or in your Post
No random linking, place it in your post strategically. So if it blends in and flows right to the point your reader wants to click it, great. More importantly, if you are putting it in as a call to action, make sure it’s in a spot, and presented to the reader strategically, not obnoxiously. You want them to click on it of course.
Track and Follow Your Progress
So very important to know especially when it comes to if a product you are promoting is working or not. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just means it is not appealing to your audience enough. Read the reports, they tell what type of link gets clicked, how much you make off of them if it produced a sell, etc.
Read Your Emails
I am talking about the emails you receive from the affiliate programs you sign up for. They are usually pretty good about emailing their affiliates to let them know of specials to promote, new products to promote, commission changes, and term changes. These emails help in giving you an extra boost to be a better affiliate by providing you the resources you need to successfully promote a product. Your affiliate programs want you to succeed so they will do their best in helping you do that.
Search Engine Marketing
This is a pretty advanced step and a great one if you are experienced. If you plan on using Google Adwords, know what you’re doing first or you may be wasting a lot of your money. This step takes lots of research, reach out to others who have used this method successfully in being a better affiliate.
Don’t Give Up
You are not going to start out making tons of money with affiliate marketing over night. IT TAKES TIME. So give it some time and don’t give up. If you believe in the product, promote it. Even if it is not making any money right away, give it some time. If it absolutely is not getting clicked and your not making any commissions off of it, then it could be time to try another product. Trial and error. With time, you will work out the quirks to the point that you will start to make regular commissions.
Stay Consistent
Keep your content fresh and up to date. If you have a successful affiliate link embedded in one of your pages of content, be sure to keep it updated if needed. Keep your audience interested and coming back by enticing them with additional posts for more affiliate linking opportunity.