Affiliate marketing strategies: All beginners must read!
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Abdul Wadood
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic business to make money while you sleep. However, it takes quite a while to hit that level of income.
I started my online business career several years back as an affiliate marketer, and I gained a lot of experience throughout my journey.
Today, I want to share my affiliate marketing strategies to help you achieve success much quicker.
Are you interested?! Let’s get started!
What is affiliate marketing?
Before getting into the strategies of affiliate marketing, I’ll quickly explain the business model.
Affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing where you sell products for a commission. In other words, if people purchase products through your affiliate link, you will make a commission.
The more products you sell, the higher commission you make.
There are lots of affiliate marketing programs out there, from affiliate networks to individual affiliate programs. So, regardless of your niche, you can find a product to promote.
Some people think affiliate marketing to be a get-rich-quick scheme. But, in reality, it isn’t. You can start making money with affiliate marketing much quicker than other businesses, but it’s nowhere close to being a get-rich-quick business. In fact, no legit businesses are get-rich-quick schemes.
I hope you’re clear with the business basics. Now we’ll move on with the affiliate marketing strategies or affiliate marketing tips and tricks (however you call it).
Affiliate marketing strategies
If you’re a beginner or even an intermediate affiliate marketer, you’ll find the following strategies beneficial to succeed in your business.
1. Provide value to your audience
Will you read a promotional blog and take your card to purchase the product they promote? Of course, no, correct? I won’t do so because they aren’t providing any value to me.
Failing to provide value is the exact mistake that many beginner affiliate marketers commit. I have personally seen affiliate marketers promoting irrelevant products on forums without giving any value. They do nothing but damage their reputation.
When writing a blog or creating other forms of content, your first goal should be to fulfill what people expect from your content. Next, overdeliver. At last, when everything seems right promote your affiliate product.
The affiliate product should be relevant to the topic of the content, and the promotion should flow well with the content.
If you’re a beginner, it may seem challenging to get the basic principles of promoting right. But, trust me, if you follow this method of promoting the affiliate product, you can make sales much quicker.
Also, if people find out that you’re knowledgeable in your niche, they will come back to you when they experience any doubt related to that niche. So, you’re retaining your audience.
2. Build your email list
Some affiliate marketers, even experts (so-called), tend to overlook email marketing.
Email marketing plays a significant role in the marketing part of most traditional businesses, let alone online businesses like affiliate marketing.
The reason is that email marketing is cost-effective, and it’s remarkably profitable in the long term.
Building the email list takes time and effort, but it’s simply worth it! Also, most of the effort you put in is one-time. Wondering how?
If you want to build a huge mailing list, it’s essential to sign up for email marketing software like GetResponse. Once you sign up, you need to set up the software, draft emails, build funnels, create a landing page, and design an opt-in form.
As you can see, there are many steps involved, but you’re going to do them only once. If you finish them, the remaining process is automated, and your email marketing software will take care of it.
3. Create appealing content
Say you have come up with content that has top-notch value. But, you didn’t make your content attractive. What will happen?
People will get bored when consuming it!
Many affiliate marketers lose several audiences just because their content lacks appealing elements.
Beginners and even intermediate affiliate marketers find it complicated to make the content interactive and appealing.
Here are some of my tips to make the content interactive and appealing.
Note: You can apply the following tips for all types of content channels, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.
Tip #1: Convey your message in a conversational tone.
Tip #2: Ask questions to your audience. By doing so, your content will be more interactive.
Tip #3: If blogs are your primary promotional channel, using elements like images, statistics, infographics, etc., can make it more appealing. As for videos and similar promotional methods, make sure to speak with energy.
Tip #4: Ensure that your content doesn’t sound unnatural to consume.
4. Promote good products
As an affiliate marketer, you have to promote good products.
You shouldn’t promote a product over the other just because they offer high commission. No, it’s wrong!
I have an example from this blog that I would like to highlight.
Here, GetResponse is my affiliate link. If you purchase GetResponse through this link, I’ll receive a commission.
However, there are many other email marketing software that offers higher commission. I didn’t promote them because I know GetResponse is one of the best email marketing software. Also, I’ve personally used GetResponse.
Similarly, you should only promote the products that you trust. If you haven’t used the product yourself, then perform thorough research about the product. Compare the product with the competition. Also, analyze people’s comments about the product.
If the product ticks all the boxes, recommend it to your audience.
5. Be honest with your audience
Affiliate marketers should be honest with the message they convey to their audience.
In the online world, you’re not the only resource for people. If people find that you’re lying, fooling, or spamming, they can easily skip your content and consume your competitor’s content.
So, before preparing your content, research the topic and gather the correct knowledge. Also, as mentioned in the previous point, promote good products to your audience.
Now I want to highlight a mistake that many affiliate marketers commit, including experts.
Wondering what the mistake is? It’s failing to disclose the affiliate links.
If you don’t disclose the affiliate links, you aren’t transparent with your audience.
Moreover, if you promote products of companies based in the US, the UK, or Canada, you must disclose the affiliate links according to the rules set by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Here’s an example of the correct way to disclose affiliate links.
If you disclose the affiliate links, your audience will build a feeling of trust with you and purchase products through your affiliate link.
6. Build a website
A website is essential for an affiliate marketing business. The website gives you an identity, and it represents your brand. Moreover, a website gives you complete control over your marketing strategy and audience.
The same isn’t the case if you depend on social media platforms or even open online publishing platforms like Medium and Google Sites.
Some might argue that affiliate marketers can make a lot of money by promoting referral links on YouTube. Yes, it’s true. But, it takes a lot of time to grow a YouTube channel. It takes even more time to build a healthy audience base. Also, unlike a website, you won’t have complete control over the marketing strategy.
If you’re a beginner, you can start making money much quicker by promoting affiliate links on the website.
Now, please don’t mistake me here. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t develop sales channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. In fact, to become a complete affiliate marketer, it’s essential to have sales coming from various channels. But, the website is primary, whereas the others are secondary.
As you all know, you can start affiliate marketing with a minimal investment. A laptop, smartphone, and internet are sufficient to start the business. Nowadays, everyone owns them, so you don’t have to spend money on them.
Besides these basic requirements, you have to spend around $65 (first year) on the website. Multiple hosting companies such as HostGator are affordable, and they offer a free domain name for a year if you opt for their yearly plans.
So, you’re going to invest just around $100 for the business, which is a lot lesser than other businesses. Thus, please don’t hesitate to create a website for your business.
7. Improve your website’s SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the website’s ranking on the search results and driving high-quality traffic.
SEO is a complicated process, and it can take quite some time to optimize your website for SEO. But, trust me, the effort you put in to develop your website’s SEO is worth it!
Optimizing your website’s SEO is like a one-time process, and the money you make will be passive.
Before getting into SEO optimization tips, I would like to share my story on how I learned SEO.
Several years back, when I started with affiliate marketing, I didn’t understand the value of SEO and ignored it. But, I understood its importance after many months.
I knew that blogs are the best channel to promote affiliate links, and I put a lot of effort into writing them. But, I didn’t see any results. When I started to figure out the problem, I understood that my blogs were not optimized for SEO.
I figured out the problem, but I didn’t know about SEO and how it works. So, I started to learn the concept. It took me around six months to get a clear idea of SEO.
I don’t want you to make the same mistake that I made. So, start to learn SEO when you begin your business itself.
If you’re a complete beginner eager to achieve success, you may expect to learn SEO within six months. If you lack dedication, learning SEO can take a lot longer.
Ok! I hope you understood the importance of SEO for affiliate marketing.
Tips to optimize SEO
The following are my expert tips on optimizing SEO for your website.
Tip #1: Speed up your website
The loading speed of your website significantly influences your website’s ranking.
The faster your website loads, the better. If your website takes too long to load, the bounce rate increases.
In simple terms, bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your website but leave immediately.
According to a study did by Pingdom, the average bounce rate for pages loading within 2 seconds is 9%. As the seconds increase, the bounce rate increases significantly. In 5 seconds, the average bounce rate skyrockets to a whopping 38%.
Here are some tips that can help reduce the loading speed of your website.
- Optimize the images before uploading
- Use a good hosting provider such as HostGator
- Cache the pages
- Minify HTML or CSS
- Delete unwanted plugins
- Use Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Tip #2: Internal and external links
Internal links refer to linking to other pages within your domain. They help Google to understand the structure of your website.
External links refer to linking to other domains. They can help you to build backlinks.
Tip #3: Keyword optimization
Keyword optimization is essential for SEO. But, what are keywords in SEO?
Keywords are the terms that people enter into the search engine. For example, say you want to rank your blog for the “how to become rich” keyword.
In this case, you’ve to optimize your blog for the “how to become rich” keyword.
You can use tools like Wordtracker and Ubersuggest to find good keywords. In general, the keywords you choose should have a good monthly search volume and ‘Low’ SEO competition.
You can shortlist your keywords in the spreadsheet. From the list of keywords, choose the best one as the focus keyword (primary keyword). If possible, you can include the other good keywords in the blog. But, make sure that the sentence sounds natural.
You can add the focus keyword in the heading, introduction paragraph, and in some general paragraphs. But, you shouldn’t add it too many times (keyword stuffing) such that the blog starts to sound unnatural.
Tip #4: Build backlinks
Backlinks are the links that you get from other websites. They play a significant role in determining the ranking of your website in the search engine.
Building backlinks is an essential part of SEO. However, building backlinks is a process and takes quite some time to get them.
Guest blogging and broken link building are some of the common strategies to build backlinks. Moreover, if you write in-depth blogs, you’ll automatically get backlinks in the long run.
8. Run advertisements
If you want to achieve success quicker in affiliate marketing, you’ve to run advertisements.
There are several types of online advertisements. Some of them include:
- Social media ads – Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Search engine marketing – Google Search Ads, etc.
- Display ads – Google Display Network, etc.
- Native advertising – Taboola, etc.
Ok!
The following are some of the best methods of promoting affiliate links.
- Promoting blogs that contain affiliate links
- Promoting affiliate links through email marketing
- Promoting e-books, courses, webinars, etc.
- Promoting social media posts with affiliate links
Note: Don’t promote your affiliate links directly through ads without providing value. By doing so, you’re throwing your money out of the window!
As you all know, advertising costs money! So, if you don’t have prior experience in advertising, I suggest you start learning the process by spending a minimal amount.
9. Include the correct number of affiliate links
Regardless of your marketing channel, affiliate marketers need to include the correct number of affiliate links.
If you include too many affiliate links, people will get irritated and conclude that your primary objective is to sell a product. However, if you don’t add enough affiliate links, there’s a high chance for them to forget and skip the affiliate link, especially on blogs.
So, how many affiliate links should we include?
Well, it depends!
Blog posts
There are various types of blog posts. Some of the popular ones include:
- Pillar posts (guides)
- How-to posts
- Infographics
- Research posts
- Traditional blog posts
- List posts
I suggest you include two affiliate links per 1000 words, except for the list posts.
In list posts, you can include a higher number of affiliate links. For example, if you’re writing a blog on ‘Top 10 football shoes’, you can promote up to ten affiliate links.
If you include too few affiliate links (i.e., below two links per 1000 words), there’s a high chance for the readers to forget that the link exists.
YouTube videos
Similar to the blog posts, again, Google hasn’t suggested the limit on the usage of affiliate links.
So, as affiliates, we have to figure it out on our own!
In general, the higher the length and the value of the video, the more affiliate links you can promote.
For example, if your video is around 10-15 minutes, it’s better if you promote at most two affiliate links. If it’s close to an hour, you may promote up to three to four affiliate links.
The rule of thumb is that the value proposition should be a lot higher than promotions.
Social media posts
As for the social media posts, I suggest publishing most of your posts without affiliate links. You can rarely promote an affiliate link in your post, but it shouldn’t be frequent.
Here’s the reason why.
People visit social media platforms to see the posts of their families, friends, and other famous personalities. So, instead of pushing people to purchase your product, you can use this opportunity to build your social media presence.
10. Build a strong following on social media platforms
Here are some recent statistics on social media.
- An average user spends about 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media.
- 91% of the users access social media through their mobile phones.
- An average user spends 38 minutes per day on Facebook, making Facebook the most used social media platform.
As you can see, the statistics figures are mind-boggling!
Affiliate marketers should make the correct use of this fantastic opportunity.
Social media platforms shouldn’t be your primary channel to promote affiliate links and make sales. Instead, use them to build an audience base and drive the traffic to your other marketing channels like website, YouTube videos, etc.
If people like your blog or video content, they will be your regular viewers. So, they can help you make affiliate sales both in the short and long run. Also, they may recommend your content to their friends and families, which can help you generate even more sales.
11. Work hard, be dedicated, be patient
Last but not least, hard work, dedication, and patience are essential to achieve success in affiliate marketing. If you lack either of them, it’s pretty hard to succeed in the business.
Ok!
Some people may be interested in starting affiliate marketing, but they may work in a 9-5. Here’s my suggestion for you.
If you have the money that covers all your expenses for a whole year, quit your job. If not, continue working till you save that money.
Now when working, it’s not possible to dedicate your 100% to affiliate marketing. But, you’ve to try putting your level best into the business. If you do so, you’ll achieve success and live a passive income lifestyle.
On the other hand, some people get into the business thinking it’s a get-rich-quick scheme. If you do so, you won’t have the dedication and patience to see the results, and you will eventually give up.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is one of the best businesses to start right now. It offers time, location, and financial freedom, and you can start the business with a low investment.
You can make a lot of money through affiliate marketing. But, as mentioned previously, it requires hard work, dedication, and patience.
The competition in the affiliate marketing business has risen over the years. If you follow the conventional method of affiliate marketing, it can take a long time to achieve success.
If you want to achieve success much quicker, you should implement the advanced affiliate marketing strategies I explained in this blog. I have several years of experience in affiliate marketing, and I found these strategies to perform the best for the affiliate marketing business.
I hope you found this blog beneficial.
Before concluding this blog, I have a few questions for you.
- Did you find the affiliate marketing strategies helpful?
- Have you already implemented any of the above affiliate marketing strategies for your business?
- Do you have any doubts to clarify?
Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below.
