There are a lot of affiliate marketing tips in the Internet today and there are some of them which are really good. If you are just starting out doing affiliate marketing, you would want to implement everything at the same time.
Now, here’s the difference of what you can do, and what you will do.
Allow me to ask you something. You are interested in affiliate marketing because:
You trying to build streams of residual income on the side
Either way, I get it. I was and still in the same shoes.
I have a day job and affiliate marketing allows me to earn extra income monthly, without much hard work and more importantly, more money to put food on the table.
You are confused with affiliate marketing.
With so much information about affiliate marketing tips in the market space, you are desperate to know what works and more importantly, what doesn’t — right?
I bet it not because I guess so, it is because I know so!
Now, what if I tell you that there is one simple affiliate marketing tip you can follow, that will increases your affiliate sales multiple folds?
The answer is this … (carry on reading).
ARTICLE LAYOUT.
No, I’m not talking about blog layout — I’m talking about the article layout. This means the way you make your article portray the information to the public.
Here’s an important tip: No one loves wall of text.
Typically, most blog layouts look like this.
If I could describe this in just one word, it would be B.O.R.I.N.G.
You see, most affiliate marketers opt for the layout above and there is no wrong to it. What makes your conversion is the CONTENT part.
We spend so much time trying to create the best ads and banners on the sidebar that we totally forget that the conversion power lies within the content.
And of course, this leads to another question.
How to use content and increase affiliate sales?
The answer is simple. Make it interactive.
According to the BusinessDictonary.com, the word “interactive” can be inteprated as “Live presentation in which the audience can participate.”
How do you make your blog post interactive without voice?
Hah! Now, you are talking.
The trick here is simple. Using visual editor and turn wall of text into something fun.
Here’s my meaning of fun:
1. Countdown timer
2. Progress Bar
3. Icons (retina display)
4. Content Reveal
Test: Revealing the best affiliate marketing tips
5. Social media icons within a blog post
6. Tables
Affiliate marketing tip #1
Affiliate marketing tip #2
Affiliate marketing tip #3
Affiliate marketing tip #4
Affiliate marketing tip #5
Affiliate marketing tip #6
Affiliate marketing tip #7
Affiliate marketing tip #8
Interactive? How to start?
Now that you know what I’m trying to say, the trick is to use visual builder to avoid touching any codes. Of course, if you know how to code, then you can work your way without any visual builder plugins.
If you are new to affiliate marketing or simply want to get started as soon as possible without wasting anytime, here are some resources I recommend you to read and bookmark now:
Anyone can start affiliate marketing but it takes more than just writing to make affiliate sales. The article layout need to be extremely interesting and interactive to drive those clicks to close the sale.
If you are a blogger or involved in work from home opportunities, affiliate marketing is something you have heard about. You might have read about affiliate marketing, and you are wondering what an affiliate program is.
Well, worry no more as in this post, I’m going to give you a quick run through of what is an affiliate program and why is it so important to bloggers.
What is an affiliate program?
An affiliate program is an automated marketing program where advertisers (merchants or sellers) recruit freelance website owners, bloggers, marketers, and influencers to promote the advertisers’ products and services.
Why are affiliate programs popular?
Affiliate programs (or affiliate marketing) is top-rated because it is a great way to make money from home. Through affiliate programs, you can easily earn $100 a day using the Internet, and that’s just the beginning.
Influencer such as Pat Flynn makes over $100,000 a month through affiliate marketing. For advanced affiliate marketers like me, I make a decent leaving of around $5,000 a month through affiliate marketing simply because I have a day job.
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Affiliate marketing is popular because it allows you to make money either on the side as a freelance, hobby or as a permanent job.
What makes affiliate programs highly sought-after? What makes affiliate marketing important for bloggers?
The answer is reasonably simple, to be honest.
It is easy to setup
It has extremely low start-up cost (under $10)
It has high profitable ratio
Anyone can join an affiliate program in just a few seconds and it doesn’t cost a dime. The rewards generated from affiliate marketing is just too huge NOT to be missed.
Moreover, who would say no to an extra $500 a month (on average) while still keeping your day job or studies, right?
How much time should I devote myself to promoting the affiliate program daily?
I would say 5 to 10 minutes a day should be sufficient. Start by using social media to share your blog posts or content covering the advertiser you are promoting.
On average, I see my students are making sales at least once a day for those who are devoted to making affiliate marketing for them. For beginners, they often make their sales under two weeks on average (with proper strategies).
Want to know more about affiliate programs and affiliate marketing?
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You may be brand new to this affiliate marketing stuffs and what is the first thing you discover? Bloggers make a lot of money through affiliate marketing. And that becomes the fuel to your quest in making money online.
This post will share some of the most common mistakes done by affiliate marketers and those are the reasons that contributed to our past failures.
1. Everything is about M-O-N-E-Y
Money drives a lot of people and it definitely drives us to become affiliate marketers.The truth is, no one will want to become an affiliate marketer if that wasn’t for the money.
Reality check.
Being an affiliate marketer myself, let me tell you that there is absolutely no problem for you trying to make money online.
But the trick is to have a strong understanding of what you can do and what you will do. Let me give you an example.
You make $100 when selling or promoting a product
You can either:
Promote it just for selling it, or
Promote it as if you are using the product yourself
And this makes all the difference.
Most of the time, I’m able to close a sale when I share my personal experience using the product. Do I make sales when I am promoting a product I’m not using? I sure do, but just not that many sales.
I know this sounds confusing but trust me, it is true. We are always better salesmen when we are promoting products we are currently using or trust.
2. Not having a real plan
You can’t just be successful in affiliate marketing by chance.
What does having a plan means?
It means that you need to know what you are doing, from the first step to last. And it will cover the whole 9-yard such as content marketing, getting on social and winning on search engines.
Starting affiliate marketing but have no plans? Don’t worry.
Here’s a quick checklist for you (for a kick start):
Using the right web design to boost affiliate sales
Choosing the right affiliate network or program to promote
Layout your search engine optimization strategy
Writing and crafting the best content
Planning your social media marketing
Using email marketing automation to double your sales
BONUS: Click here to sign up for my FREE, 7-days affiliate marketing course which I’ll cover all the topics above!
3. You are promoting EVERYTHING under the sun
Promoting everything isn’t going to increase your earnings. What you should be doing instead is to create an authority figure within the topic, before moving to the next topic.
It may well sound confusing but believe me, this is the best way to be successful as an affiliate marketer.
Have you seen an affiliate marketer who achieved his/her first success by selling everything? Unless you are working for Amway, the answer is “No.”
Most affiliate marketers achieve their first (ever) success by selling a specific product or within an industry. Pat Flynn made his money through teaching people how to start an online business.
Pat Flynn made his money through teaching people how to start an online business.
Matthew Woodward made his money teaching search engine optimization.
Spencer Haws made his money teaching about creating niche websites and finding niche keywords.
You have to be specific and this means that you need to find a topic to talk about. The best way to start as an affiliate marketer is to teach others on things you are mastered at!
You can start an affiliate blog in just minutes with today’s technology but can you really make money if you have an awful looking website?
Disclaimer: I’m not saying that you should buy all the expensive stuff, plugins and themes but at least, don’t be too stingy as you’ll lose out in the rat race (if you opt to go cheap).
When it comes to decision making, consider the opportunity cost. Opportunity cost means the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.
In this case, going cheap may be a good option to save money but it may well affect your chance of closing a sale. On the other hand, going for a much reliable product (that costs more) may be hard on your financials but may just well be the best investment you could do.
Failure as an affiliate marketer is an option
Anyone can be a successful affiliate marketer if they want to and vice versa.
“How to not fail as an affiliate marketer” depends heavily on you, on your motivation to success even when the odds are against you. You have to decide right now to understand why affiliate marketers fail and what you can do to avoid that at all cost.
When I published an article at Bivori on how I make around $400 per month just on affiliate marketing, many readers were asking if I could provide even more details on the said industry. I got to admit, affiliate marketing is a very lucrative industry … if you have not known about it yet.
You have been warned. This tutorial is lengthy and thus, I would highly recommend you to bookmark this for future reference.
Affiliate marketing for beginners consist of:
Introduction to affiliate marketing
What should you know about affiliate marketing?
How do you get paid?
Top affiliate networks you should participate
Recommended affiliate marketing etiquette
Affiliate marketing for beginners – The what question
Affiliate marketing is a process where you get a small token of appreciation (usually in terms of cash) when you recommend others to purchase the product. Affiliate marketing is very popular among bloggers as the commission could varies from a mere 5% to as much as 70% (or more) per sale while some companies are offering fixed commissions. Either way, it is a very lucrative industry when it comes to the term make money online.
Personally, I consider affiliate marketers as virtual salesmen for the company and it is always a win-win situation for both sides. The supplier would be able to increase their sales with minimum (or zero) cost while the sellers are able to earn commission based on the number of sales.
Pretty good deal if you ask me.
Even before making your first dollar from affiliate marketing
The most crucial part about affiliate marketing is all about:
Selling the right products
Selling to the right audience
You may have the best product but if you have the wrong audience, no one is going to buy it from you.
1. So, how do you choose the right products to promote?
It all starts by deciding what niche you want to invest in. Choosing the right product will determine your success (or failure) in affiliate marketing.
For example, there is absolutely no reason why you should be promoting products related to child care on a technology niche blog.
While choosing the right niche is important, choosing the right products is also important too. There could possibly be hundreds of related products you can promote on a single niche topic. Therefore, you need to decide which would be the best product you should be promoting.
When it comes to affiliate sales, lesser choices are always better and this means that instead of promoting two products on one write up, try promote only one.
The reason is simple; The more choices you provide to your visitors, you are increasing the difficulties for them to decide. Your ultimate goal is to make sure that you make it simple for your visitors to decide and not making things harder and more complicated!
2. Getting it to the right audience
Finding the right audience group is important. Why? Imagine promoting an apple to a person who is looking for pears. You get the point.
I personally use three tools to help me decide what my audience is looking for on my blog.
Google Webmaster Tool > Search queries
Alexa > Top keywords from search engines
Google Analytics > Queries
With the data extracted from the above tools, you would be able to determine which keywords that are attracting readers to your site and once that is done, head over to your favorite affiliate networks and search for the right product to promote.
How to get paid after an affiliate sales?
This is probably the most important thing for a blogger; getting paid. It is mandatory to have both of these if you want to grow in affiliate marketing:
PayPal
Payoneer
1. PayPal
The leading merchant when it comes to sending or accepting money. It works for all countries and it is possibly one of the best in its class. Click here to sign up for PayPal.
2. Payoneer
An alternative method to get paid when PayPal isn’t an option. It provides free account to all and you will automatically get a debit card as well. This is highly recommended by affiliate networks like ShareASale.
Help! Which affiliate networks should I join or participate?
Puzzled over which affiliate network to join?
Affiliate networks are basically ‘warehouses’ containing hundreds if not thousands of products you can promote. Choosing the right program to join is important as it will determine your affiliate success.
A few rules which varies among these networks would be:
Duration needed for you to receive a payout
Cashout methods
To answer the above question, here are my top contributors when it comes to affiliate sales:
ShareASale
Commission Junction
DigiResults
ClickBank
Amazon
The below are the complete explanation for the various affiliate networks you can join and as well as the recommended affiliate programs to join.
1. ShareASale affiliate network
Fees: Free
Minimum cash out: $50
Payment method: Cheque, direct deposit and Payoneer
This company started up since 2000 and had ever been expanding until now. With more than 13 years experience in handling various affiliate programs, this is definitely one of the best affiliate network in the market right now. It is also home to some of the biggest names in business such as StudioPress, Thesis and WP Engine.
Sign up for a free ShareASale membership here – Join today!
Signing up for ShareASale is free and they would do a quality check on your site before approving your membership. Once that is done, you are free to apply for any of the 3,900+ affiliate programs they have. Lastly, grab the links and you are ready to grab some sales.
StudioPress (earn at least 30% commission per sale)
The minimum cashout for ShareASale is $50 and it is done automatically. You can choose to be paid either by cheque or bank transfer via Payoneer.
Also, ShareASale has several pay-per-click affiliate programs which is good for several blogging niche.
Commission Junction affiliate network
Fees: Free
Minimum cash out: $50
Payment method: Cheque, direct deposit and Payoneer
Commission Junction is owned by ValueClick and is also one of those top affiliate networks for bloggers. You can literally find many blogger tools in Commission Junction or CJ in short such as HootSuite and MaxCDN.
DigiResults is another popular affiliate network and most of the items are related to Internet Marketing. Choices of items to promote are rather lesser at DigiResults when compared to ShareASale or Commission Junction due to its specific niche.
Cashing out at DigiResults is done automatically and you will get your affiliate payment between 30 or 60 days as stated by the merchant. Payment are done directly to your PayPal account from the merchant instead of DigiResults. Try DigiResults today!
Note: I only use the above 3 affiliate programs as I had personal experience in them and 50% commission is huge.
ClickBank Affiliate Program
Fees: Free
Minimum cash out: Nil
Payment method: PayPal
This brand is already a household name when it comes to affiliate marketing. ClickBank is used by thousands of affiliate marketers daily and it is highly reputed. At the moment, they are over 10,000 digital vendors and 100,000 affiliates using ClickBank.
ClickBank doesn’t only offer products you can promote but as well as tutorials and guides to make you a better affiliate marketer. Join ClickBank today!
Amazon Affiliate Program
Fees: Free
Minimum cash out: $10
Payment method: Varies
Among all the affiliate networks, Amazon is probably one of those who serve the shortest cookie period of 24 hours. Commissions are paid according to percentage and the number of items you sell. This means that the more you sell, the higher your commission which starts at 6%.
While these may seem bad, do not underestimate the power of Amazon. The brand itself is already well known to many and there is absolutely no reason why you should not use it.
There is no recommended products for Amazon as it has a huge inventory and all you need is to choose. Try Amazon Affiliate Program now!
4 Online marketing strategies that always work for me
Just like in military, you need proper planning before you can succeed in affiliate marketing
There are many online marketing strategies which you can follow but for me, I only stick to one; sales funnel. My sales funnel is a 4 steps where I build a base for my readers to keep on reading. The chance of then exiting is really high and thus, each sentence should be phrased correctly.
Here are the 4 basic steps you need to create a sales funnel:
Step 1 [zero sales pitch] – What is the problem faced by your readers?
Step 2 [slight sales pitch] – Provide at least 3 solutions to the above problem with one solution is buying a product
Step 3 [moderate sales pitch] – Share a blog post on using the product to solve the problem (step to step guide or tutorial)
Step 4 [high sales pitch] – Review of the product you are promoting
I am not going to lie to you as the above is some seriously tedious jobs. However, it is extremely rewarding.
As you can see above, each step would have a different tone when it comes to sale pitch. Starting off with a high sales pitch could easily deter your readers. Therefore, the best way is to create the ambiance gradually. Furthermore, I don’t think there’s any one who is wiling to fork out money in less than 10 seconds.
Recommended affiliate marketing etiquette – What you should know?
While seeing your money grow just by selling affiliate products could be very tempting, it is always best to practice with etiquette. For example, you would need to decide:
Source of promoting affiliate products such as via email or blog post
Accepting paid reviews
Promoting products which personal experience or otherwise
There isn’t any cold and hard guidelines when it comes to affiliate marketing but you have to remember that it relates back to your brand and trust. Etiquette is really a thin line and it can be easily broken.
Lastly, the most important practice an affiliate marketer should have is the share the real and proper information of the said product. Just don’t promote just because of the commission. Instead, promote because you know that it will help your readers … one way or another.
Over to you
So, I hope you enjoy this blog post as much as I do when writing and tell me what you think using the comment form below.
