A discussion of earning with Affiliate Programs, SEO, Wordpress Blogging and General Motivational Ideas for Internet Publishers

Affiliate programs are a fantastic way to make a residual income utilizing the power of the internet, but I would be lying if I told you that finding success in the affiliate marketing industry could be accomplished with little or no effort.

Another common misconceptions is that affiliate marketing can be automated, not unlike a virtual money-making machine. The truth is, promotion and marketing are hard work but if you’re the type of person who loves a real challenge, maybe you might be cut out for this frustrating yet fast paced industry.

While most fledgling promoters go into the field thinking it’s all about driving traffic to your website, the real battle is finding legitimate, honest programs or services worth promoting to earn commissions. You’ll also want to be certain a vendor you are promoting has a satisfactory history of paying affiliates on time and as promised.

There are countless facets to achieving success through affiliate marketing but in this article I’m going to briefly touch on several fundamental concepts considered essential when choosing to promote or not to promote a particular affiliate program.

#1 - “Supply and Demand” drives the global marketplace

The first thing you need to ask yourself when choosing a program - “Is there a demand for this product and can the vendor keep supplying the demand?” To put it simply, do you think that a lot of people would want the service or product and would you personally buy it? Do you know what type of people would be interested in it and/or where to find them? Do you have insight on how you will reach those people and get them to respond to you efforts by purchasing the product which will earn you a commission? If you think that the internet is just some great big place that all you have to do is spam your ad to a few select sources to turn a profit, you’re sadly mistaken.

#2 - Conversion, Conversion, Conversion

Do you think the vendor’s sales page for the product itself will convert a sufficient amount of your leads into buyers? This is about numbers. If you are spending money or elbow grease to bring visitors to your pitch page, only to pass them to the final sales page, does it make the product and the offer look enticing enough that you would buy it? Other considerations are the ease with which potential customers can navigate the website and is the purchase process secure and professional. Is there a detailed FAQ and are all potential questions answered honestly on the vendor’s site. When you look at the sales page, do you trust your own consumer instinct with the vendor’s final pitch? If you feel as if you could be sold on this product and if you would feel secure doing business with the vendor, you’re probably ready to get started promoting.

#3 - Commission vs. Conversion?

Commission rates are irrelevant due the fact that sometimes a program that offers a higher return can have a poor conversion rate over the long run. Factors that influence affiliate sales are : the availability of marketing materials for promoters and most imporantly lack quality in the product or service. Most marketers initially lament “is the commission rate high enough?” but the overall commission rate is only a small factor defining the potential marketability. Digital products (such as e-books) usually offer huge commissions (50% and up) but they have high rates of returns (which you, as the affiliate, lose commission when a digital product is returned). Physical products (the ones that need to be shipped to the customer) usually pay 5-10% per commission but have a higher true conversion rate because returns on tangible goods occur at a much lower rate than digital products. Paying attention to the dollar amount that you’ll be earning per sale (ie: a 10% commission on a $200 product equals a 50% commission on a $40 product) is essential to evaluating the cost of your promotional efforts versus gross earnings to reach your net revenue. While they may seem to be identical on the surface, if the $200 product required 100,000 page impressions to convert and the $40 product required 4,000 impressions to convert, you can see the law of averages is in favour of the second product as being a more productive promotion.

#4 - Quality or Hype ? It’s YOUR reputation on the line.

Do you believe in the product? Would you be proud to promote it? No matter how “hot” and lucrative an offering may seem, if you have any reservations about the product or service’s quality, purpose or it’s industry, you will probably be better off not promoting it. Your online reputation depends on an inumerable amount of factors, but honesty is the #1 quality that will win you a loyal following. Engaging in any sort of business or doing something that does not feel honest is not only going to be a failure from the start, it could also involve you in unwanted personal and business liabilities that you might regret in the end.

As a promoter, putting your reputation on the line each and every time you turn your audience onto a new program, product or service is a given. In this industry, respect is not only something you must earn, respect is a commodity that must be maintained. Promoters and marketers are in a constant morale struggle between making a quick buck “at the moment” which could damage your reputation down the line. On the flip side, taking the time to build a residual income based on an impeccable reputation will almost always yield favorable results. As an example, You’ll never find this blog promoting opaque “get rich quick” programs like Ty Coughlin’s “Reverse Funnel System”, Agloco, Yuwie or other shady, borderline pyramid schemes and potential scams. As an affiliate publisher, promoter and marketer for the better part of a decade, I’ve lost a lot of sleep, time, blood, sweat, tears and money on the learning process but the experience has taught a valuable lesson which is “slow and steady wins the race”. This is why you will often hear me extolling the virtues of established affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates and Commission Junction (particularly the eBay affiliate program) and examining the transparency of any questionable programs.

#5 - Tracking is Essential

When promoting affiliate programs, keeping track of all your work in terms of clicks, conversions and commissions is a priority. Not to mention, keeping track of any expenses you might have occurred for a particular campaign. In the long run, it’s best to work with well established programs that have CSV exportable reports that allow you import your performance data into a spreadsheet or tracking software to monitor your results. Many of the most popular programs such as Commission Junction, Google Adsense, PepperJam, Amazon Associates and even Bidvertiser provide a significant amount of tracking information available in a variety of formats. The reason tracking is so essential is because you will want to know “what” works “where” in order to maximize your earnings. If something works, you will want to focus more effort on that particular niche and if something isn’t working at all, you’ll want to pull it from your roster.

While I’ve glossed over some of the most basic yet essential topics here, each entrepreneur learns to eventually make experienced descisions for themselves based on their efforts which is the best policy for increasing earnings across the board.

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The Amazon Associates program can be one of the most profitble affiliate programs but many webmasters seem time have a hard time making a single sale while others make considerable profits. As with any online moneymaking scenario there are secrets to be learned, mostly by trial and error, however many people give up when they are not seeing the results they expected instead of refining their experimentation. While the Amazon Associates program may not be suitable for all webmasters, if you have the incentive to go out and learn the ropes, you can find yourself with a very profitable website in a relatively short period of time.

Monetization “Before” Content
Yes, you’re reading that correctly, monetization before content is the single most important trick when working with any product based affiliate program. I know most of us with any experience in SEO work scratch our heads and think of this as a backwards way to deal with the creation of a website but to have any real success with Amazon, you’ll have to re-think your objectives. The common method most webmasters use for creating a website is to buy a domain name, find a theme for the site then start adding content. After the content is somewhat established the next step it to find suitable methods to monetize the creation. In most cases this will simply not work with Amazon and you must set out from the beginning with a plan.

Plan for Products
The first step you will need to take when planning a website for monetization with the Amazon Associates program is to decide what type of products you would like to promote. Finding a niche that is suitale, that you have some knowledge of is rather easy and it is the starting point for your objective. Before you register a domain, before you even write the first line of html, you must have a clear visualization of exactly what product niche you are going to be creating a website for. After all, the purpose of an affiliate site is to lead visitors into your affiliate pages and close sales.

A Website is a Vehicle
Think of your website as a vehicle, not just any vehicle, a huge semi truck full of goods from your perspective niche that you need to find buyers for. In this case, the content you deliver on your site should be constructed to revolve around the sales of your targeted product niche and only that. Straying from your objective will result in loss of sales and thereby loss of commissions on your part.

Use Content Provided by Amazon
There’s no reason to waste time re-inventing the wheel. Amazon provides ample content for publishers to use in their webpages and more often than not the content provided is top notch marketing copy. Amazon allows associates to freely use this content when building pages and you should take full advantage of it.

Finding Impulse and Repeat Buyers
Any successful Amazon Associate will tell you the joy of logging into your account and seeing that somebody has went on a buying spree and purchased several items using your affiliate id. These are the type of visitors you want to lead to your website and then turn them loose on Amazon. It’s not hard to do if you keep your content oriented to your niche and give some incentive for visitors to return to your website. This is where using a mailing list and other marketing techniques really pay off. If done cleverly enough, so not as to look like spam or junk mail, and if you build a rapport with your visitors, you will find the commissions rolling in.

Know Your Niche
This is probably the single most important ascpect of building a successful affiliate site. If you know about your niche, possibly products that you have purchased in the past, you can sincerely guide your visitors to the best value for their money and if they are satisfied, they will return time and again to reap your knowledge. Again, building a rapport with your visitors is essential for a successful affiliate website.

These tips and techniques here are just a basic rundown of the concepts most successful Amazon Associates will not share with you because they are afraid it might cut into their commissions and generate unwanted competition. While this article has not went into depth regarding using PPC marketing to drive perspective customers to your website, if you subscribe to this blog’s email RSS feed you will be kept in the loop for the next installment of this article series where I’ll show you a site I’ve built using these techniques. I’ll only be releasing the next portion of this article to my email RSS subscribers, so don’t miss out and signup today.

Happy Publishing
Dave

         

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Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or if you’re in the process of learning the ropes and making your first returns, there’s one thing that everyone will learn sooner or later. That one thing is that there is no “Get Rich Quick” solution or an easy path to success and prosperity in affiliate marketing. Undoubtedly you’ve seen heavily marketed program or systems with catch phrases such as “the easiest money you will ever make” or “make money on autopilot”, suggesting that you can work mere minutes per day while taking in hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The real truth is very few people ever succeed using the techniques offered in these exaggerated programs or systems.

Very few affiliate marketers actually earn the kind of money they claim to be making in their ads or on their blogs. Their claims of huge earnings are not necessarily false but their suggestions that you can easily achieve the same results by following their techniques are far fetched. No two affiliate marketers are exactly the same and much as there is no sure-fire way to make money on the Stock Market or by trading forex, there is no sure-fire method to achieving success in affiliate marketing. All opportunities take a great deal of trial and error which generates learning experience but the process takes not only time, it takes blood, sweat and tears.

Four Tips for Success

Tip #1 - Build a Mailing List. - I know this tip seems so simple but if you intend to make a living in affiliate marketing, it is absolutely essential that you start building lists as soon as possible. All experienced marketers have mailing lists with tens or even hundreds of thousands of customers on them. Notice, I said “All” in the last sentence. When a new product or service becomes available, the experienced marketer can type up a single e-mail sales pitch and have it delivered to 50,000 people or more within an hour. Everyone else has to try to sell the product by writing articles or by trying to attract paying customers to their website.

Tip #2 - Network, Network, Network. - I can’t tell you how important networking is for success in any business and how especially essential it is for affiliate marketing. Networking is the fundamental of all marketing and no matter how much some people will deny it, there is no escaping the inevitable so the sooner you lose your inhibitions and learn to put yourself out in front of your pitch, the sooner you’ll be seeing success. The internet offers an incredible array of networking opportunities where you never have to even meet people face to face, but if you do find yourself in situations with real, live people, always carry your business cards and hand them out. You never know when you will find a stream of revenue from simply handing out a business card.

Tip #3 - Never Give Up. - I’m sure everyone is aware of the old adage “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” but how many of us actually live by that adage? If you’ve answered that question honestly, and your answer was that you live by that adage, then you are probably in the successful group. Nothing is accomplished by making a quick start and a quick exit. Those who end up making a living while living their dreams have had to fail many times before they see their first real success. Granted there are those who succeed immediately but they are highly unlikely to maintain success over a long period of time and often find trouble trying to duplicate or replicate success. Which brings up tip number four.

Tip #4 - Duplicate and Replicate. - This tip is the most important for continuing success over a long period of time. Once you’ve already found something that works, duplicate and replicate it. If it works one time, chances are that it will work to some degree every time you deploy it. In standard business where you might have to maintain inventory, do shipping and billing this tip would not be necessarily applicable, but in the world of affilate marketing, this is the most essential practice and will allow you to cover all bases and open up revenue streams beyond your wildest dreams.

Anybody who is interested in affiliate marketing shouldn’t be discouraged by the notion of hard work and should welcome the lessons to be learned through exploring the ethic. In time, one can create a large network of profitable Websites and a large mailing list of consumers who are ready to buy upon your recommendation. All of these things are achievable, but they take time and effort. In spite of all the advertisements that litter the Web making claims such as “printing money”, “autopilot profits” or being buried under an “avalanche of cash”, most people who make money through affiliate marketing do it the old fashioned way - they work for it.

Cheers,
Dave

         

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