It’s easy to learn the basics of affiliate marketing just by researching the Internet but there are some important points that seasoned affiliate marketers have learned through experience. Consider the following:
Market to People, NOT to Search Engines
If you’ve been interested in Internet marketing or affiliate marketing for very long then chances are you’re familiar with Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. Countless articles, blogs, and books have been written about SEO, which if used properly, is supposed to help rank your websites at the top of the search engine results. The problem is that all too often, affiliate marketers try so hard to market to the search engines that they completely forget about marketing to their customers. In the end, if customers don’t find your site compelling, it won’t matter how high in the search results your site is ranked; customers may click on it and enter it but if they don’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll quickly leave.
If Customers Like Your Website, so will the Search Engines
If, instead of concentrating on search engine marketing, you concentrate on offering a useful website to customers, you’ll discover that the search engines will follow suit. The truth is, search engines usually like what the customer likes. Now, this doesn’t mean that things like keywords and meta tags aren’t important, it just means that customers are more important. Customers are looking for fresh, relevant content that will help them solve their problems, whatever they are. Maybe they are just looking for information, maybe they are looking to buy something; either way, solve their problems and they won’t just click on your site, they’ll hang around awhile and maybe even buy something. It’s important to learn early in your affiliate marketing career how important customers are.
So Many Choices
No matter which niche you choose to market in or which products you choose, you are likely not the only one promoting those products, or at least similar ones. Competition is keen and savvy affiliate marketers go the extra mile to make their websites user friendly, attractive, and full of useful information. Anyone can slap up a website filled with links to a gazillion products but customers want more than that, much more.
Think about some of the sites you visit and why you visit them. Also, think about the websites you may visit but quickly leave. Your potential customers will leave for the same reasons you do. You may have to experiment with a few different variations before you hit the right combination but you won’t go wrong if you keep customers and not the search engines in mind when you are planning, designing, and updating your websites.
Affiliate marketing is a business just like any other and like every other business, organization is an important key to the success of the business. From the very beginning, you’ll want to practice good affiliate management strategies and techniques. Although it may not seem like it in the beginning, you will amass a huge amount of information regarding your affiliate marketing business and time spent looking for information later could cost you money.
Spreadsheets
Using spreadsheets is an effective way to keep track of your affiliate marketing business. Even if you don’t currently have a spreadsheet application on your computer, there are free ones available online so don’t think you have to run out and buy software for affiliate management.
If you already know how to use a spreadsheet, then you’ll be able to jump right in but if you have never used a spreadsheet before, don’t be intimidated. You won’t have to know complicated formulas or spreadsheet applications in order to keep your information organized.
Keep it Simple
A spreadsheet is essentially nothing more than a grouping of rows and columns. While most spreadsheet applications can do much more than indicated here, all you really need is simple organization for your affiliate marketing business. You need to keep track of which affiliate marketing programs you are using, your affiliate links, user names and passwords for each program, information about commission rates, and, of course, you’ll also want to keep track of sales.
Bookmark Websites
Take the time right from the beginning to bookmark all of the websites that are important to your affiliate marketing business. In fact, don’t just add them to your favorites, but create corresponding folders within your favorite’s folder so that you can easily find the sites you are looking for. If you don’t take this step, you’ll find yourself searching through hundreds of websites when you need to find the one you’re looking for.
Set up Your Email
It is crucial that you have a reliable email program that you can organize effectively for your affiliate marketing business. Sometimes, the companies that you represent will run special promotions for a very short time and they will send out email notices to all their affiliates. In order to make sure you receive these notices, you’ll want to set up filters, add the appropriate email addresses to your address book, and make sure that you are using an email provider that filters out the bulk of the Spam you’ll receive.
Affiliate marketing really is a fun business to get involved in and the potential to make a nice income from it is promising. Realize, though, how important affiliate management is from the very beginning and you’ll be on your way to affiliate marketing success!
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