Contents
Are you thinking about embracing affiliate marketing? If you are then you need to know a few things first. Consider this article as your guide into the world of affiliate marketing and if you are ready, let us begin.
Affiliate marketing has allowed a lot of people to sell different kinds of products online with the help of their blogs and websites. If you have plans of doing the same so you can make money then this is pretty possible with affiliate marketing.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work
In simple terms, affiliate marketing is the process of promoting other people’s products or services (some may even be companies) while earning a commission. Affiliate marketing works buy sourcing products within your niche that you are able to promote in exchange for a share of the revenues – this is your commission. Once you are enrolled as an affiliate for the product or company, they will supply you with a special link which includes your affiliate ID.
Using this special links, you direct your site’s visitors to the item via your link which tracks them should they make a purchase. If they purchase, you get credited with the commission. Readers then click on the hoplinks and if they purchase such item, you get a commission. Sounds simple, right? But there are also other important things that you need to know other than just simply adding your links. So before you get started, here’s what you need to know about affiliate marketing.
What do you need to do to get started?
In order to be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to remember these to jump start your career in this field:
- Choose the affiliate network you want to work with – I am telling you now to choose the network you want. This way you don’t blame yourself in the future in case it doesn’t work out. So again, choose the affiliate network you want to work with. The network you choose will play a big role with the type of products you will be selling. Keep in mind that there different affiliate networks will also work on different items. Some may focus on selling website subscriptions and services while others will most likely work on digital products like software packages and ebooks. Find an affiliate network that will fit your niche well and make sure that you do your research thoroughly before agreeing to anything.
- Choose the products you want to market – if you are going to promote something, you need to study it first. Researching about the products you want to promote is always a smart move. Keep in mind that you can expand your product base and offer others when you are promoting it to your readers. This is a bit different from your niche where you only focus on a small market. However don’t go wild and pick everything. Instead, choose a couple of items that are relevant to your niche so you don’t stray.
- Purchase the product – why buy the product? To use it of course! This way you can give real information about it and make it more believable. Just think of this, how can you promote a product if you haven’t used it yourself? How are you going to explain it to your customers/readers then? So buy one and create a good description about it. Try not to sound too unbelievable. Exaggerating your promotion may not sound believable to your readers.
- Be straight up honest with your readers – have you ever heard of the saying “Honesty is the best policy”? This is exactly the policy when you are an affiliate marketer. Being honest about the product you are promoting is always a good thing. This means you have to tell all, the good and the bad sides of it so your reader can see what it is all about. This will not only help your readers but will also set you apart from other marketers who sell products based on what is already given in the features section. Make sure to explain the products like you are an expert on it. This will make your readers feel that you are someone they can trust and therefore establish a reputation online. The more customers trust you, the more people will visit your website whenever they need to read about a new product.
- Cloak/Mask it – There’s many reasons why you would want to mask your affiliate links but the primary reasons are to hide your affiliate ID and also to make the links more pretty and SEO friendly. Using a redirection tool like ThirstyAffiliates you can mask the URL of your links so they are shorter and more professional looking
- Create viral posts or videos – if you want to direct traffic to your site, creating a viral video is a good plan. You don’t need to use expensive things but you need good content in order for your videos to go viral. You can review products in your videos; you can talk about the pros and cons, why you like it and what you don’t like about the product. In short, everything you post must be informative so your readers are informed. Besides, marketing your videos is the best way to generate traffic these days.
Besides from the mentioned above, you must also have the basic SEO skills and in our post The 6 SEO Basics You Need To Master for Your Affiliate Marketing, you will learn all about search engine optimization and how it can help you in your business as an affiliate marketer.
Three Key Factors Affecting Affiliate Marketing
There are three main things that affect affiliate marketing work. And you need three all of them in order to be successful in this field.
- The traffic or visitors – the first one is the number of traffic you are getting in your website. In order to make money, you need to convert your visitors to paying customers for your merchants. The more visitors you have, the more likely it is for you to make referrals. Just remember this, if your website is not getting much traffic then there isn’t much opportunity for you in affiliate marketing. So make sure you focus on creating the best content, use organic SEO etc. in order to attract the traffic you need.
- The click rates – this where the marketing works. In order to get the clicks you need, you must be responsible for placing those links where your customers need it the most. Don’t just place them in a sidebar and wait for your visitors to see or click on them. Instead, find ways to increase the likelihood of your visitors to click the links.
- The conversion rates – this refers to the percentage of referrals sent every time someone completes the purchase. Although you can offer a lot of things to the buyer, it will always be up to them to finish or complete the transaction. While you cannot force them to buy anything, you can always do a good job at marketing the products. You have to make sure that you have covered everything because if you don’t and the visitor sees your site and find it uninteresting then it’s most likely that they will abandon their carts. So make sure that you offer quality products. Once they realize that you are selling a good deal then they will surely complete the purchase the moment they have clicked on it.
The Basic Tools for Affiliate Marketing
Now the question on everyone’s mind is how can they start with SEO and if there are tools needed to begin with?
Surely you need to have a few tools when it comes to affiliate marketing in order for it to work. You can start with the basics first. In our post The Basic Tools to Have in Affiliate Marketing, you will learn more about the tools that you need to prepare in order to get started with affiliate marketing. We also left you tips on how you can grow better as an affiliate marketer.
Can You Make Money with This?
This is probably the first question that comes into the minds of many people who are curious about affiliate marketing. If you look at it, it seems easy but truth is there are a lot of hurdles to go through before you can say that it actually works. Of course affiliate marketing works, otherwise people will not invest their time and money on it. However, in order to be successful, you need to take baby steps as well.
Yes you can make money with affiliate marketing but understand also that it will not happen overnight. There are plenty of things to do first before one can say that they have earned something from it. For one, you need to learn the basics of affiliate marketing, you also need to have the right tools and of course, you need to carefully plan ahead. This way you can avoid making mistakes and failures in affiliate marketing in the end.
Speaking of making money, you must know that there are a lot of people who made it big in the industry. Check out 5 People Who Beat The Odds Using Blogging post that we have. These are the people who made a name in affiliate marketing. If they can do it then so can you, all you need is a little push, patience and of course, inspiration. And if you need one, go check out our post on that.
Promote Your Work
Let’s say that you have everything you need. Say you have a good website, your content is great and you have a bit of traffic going on too. What’s next? Just because your work is moving that doesn’t mean you need to stop there. If you do then you will not be as successful as you want to be. Keep in mind that if you do embrace affiliate marketing, you need to keep the work going. And just because you have little traffic this means that you have already succeeded in this field.
Truth is you need to keep the work going. You need to make sure that all areas are checked, reviewed and reevaluated. You need to make sure that you promote your work. You must also have the affiliate marketing techniques so your work doesn’t fail in the long run. Keep in mind that the trends in affiliate marketing are ever changing and so you must also keep up with the changes.
Unveiling Affiliate Marketing
I can understand if you still have questions about affiliate marketing. I mean, who wouldn’t be, right? Perhaps it is also because you have heard a lot of stories about this and you are in doubt if they are indeed true or not. So in order to ease your mind about it, here’s 8 Myths Of Affiliate Marketing that you need to know. In this post we have debunked some of the most popular myths you have heard about this industry and shed some light as to whether or not these are real or merely a pigment of imagination.
Yes affiliate marketing works but in order to be successful at it you must have knowledge and patience. Keep in mind that affiliate marketing is always changing so you better keep an eye on the latest trends and apply everything that you learned. Always remember the three factors too; executing them all properly will result to better revenues in the long run.
Content was what I needed to know