Affiliate marketing can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your affiliate earnings is to provide additional value and to engage your readers. Unlike traditional ads where you are paid for impressions or clicks, affiliates are only paid if or when a specific action is performed. The action might be something as simple as signing up for a newsletter to submitting their zip code information up to having a sale completed. Regardless, you are not paid until you've compelled your readers to take some type of action.
With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success to make sure your readers get value and take the actions you want them to take so you can maximize your success with affiliate marketing.
1. Know Your Audience
The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to only promote products, services, and offers that match the needs and wants of your audience. Consider why they are coming to your site, joining your email marketing list, or following you on social media.
What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience's problems.
If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.
The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them. An interesting way of looking at affiliate marketing is this: educating your audience about relevant products and services they may be interested in can be considered a value-added form of content.
Not only can knowing your audience give you better success with the products you are promoting, but it can help guide you on the best places to market, advertise, and promote your website to attract visitors in the first place.
The more you know your audience the better you can use demographics, psychographics, and other information the better target your audience when advertising on platforms such as Facebook.
If you haven't yet started and are still trying to decide what market you want to serve then see this article on how to pick a profitable niche for your online business.
The bottom line here is to promote products that are directly relevant to the audience you are serving. The more relevant the offers; the more sales you'll generate.
With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success to make sure your readers get value and take the actions you want them to take so you can maximize your success with affiliate marketing.
1. Know Your Audience
The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to only promote products, services, and offers that match the needs and wants of your audience. Consider why they are coming to your site, joining your email marketing list, or following you on social media.
What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience's problems.
If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.
The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them. An interesting way of looking at affiliate marketing is this: educating your audience about relevant products and services they may be interested in can be considered a value-added form of content.
Not only can knowing your audience give you better success with the products you are promoting, but it can help guide you on the best places to market, advertise, and promote your website to attract visitors in the first place.
The more you know your audience the better you can use demographics, psychographics, and other information the better target your audience when advertising on platforms such as Facebook.
If you haven't yet started and are still trying to decide what market you want to serve then see this article on how to pick a profitable niche for your online business.
The bottom line here is to promote products that are directly relevant to the audience you are serving. The more relevant the offers; the more sales you'll generate.
2. Be Trustworthy
Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don't believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.
It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.
If your visitors don't think you're being honest or think that you are only recommended products and services due to a profit motive, they won't read anything else you have to say.
If you promote products and services that aren't high value, they'll lose trust in your recommendations and stop acting on them; costing you sales and profits.
With this in mind, you'll want to make sure that your #1 priority is adding value to your website visitors and email list. Only share products that you know are relevant, useful, and can truly help them.
Also, you'll want to disclose any affiliate relationships you have with the vendors you are promoting. Most people are perfectly fine with this and the increased level of transparency you are providing can help you build more trust with your audience (more on this below).
If you do that, you'll make much more money in the long run with repeat sales.
3. Be Helpful
Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.
Don't put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale.
Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information.
Even better, if you have a personal testimonial or case study to share; write a detailed post about it then include your recommendation with your affiliate link in your review.
That's what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get affiliate sales credit for that.
But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors who don't take any action at all.
Remember the main idea: always provide valuable content that adds value to the visitor experience. The sales will follow.
Read Full Article Here: Top 10 Commandments of Affiliate Marketing
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