Recipe for Successful Affiliate Marketing Online

In a previous article we’ve laid out broadly what affiliate marketing is and how it works. In this one we will try to expand on that with a few affiliate marketing tips which will help you get the best return from your site.

Is there a recipe for affiliate marketing success? The short answer is yes. But it takes time and work. Like all recipes you have to collect the ingredients, weigh them in the right quantities, mix well and bake. If you have the right ingredients in the right quantities the cake will be a success. But if you’ve missed something out it will fail. Likewise for affiliate marketing success, everything has to be weighed out and added in the right proportions.

A few Affiliate Marketing Ideas if you’re still looking for that niche:

Are you still struggling, trying to find a niche that’s going to make you lots of money? Forget it. Clear your mind. Start again. This time think about what you have an interest in. Do you work at home looking after the rug rats, cooking, cleaning and maybe gardening? Already there are a large number of products you can market – household products, children’s products, cookware, recipes and gardening accessories.

Do you have a hobby such as running or the gym, or are you a computer nerd downloading the latest must have gadgets, gizmos and apps? Consider blogging about sportswear, your favourite trainers, or comparing the benefits or otherwise of digital gadgets and add-ons.

Affiliate marketing online is a learning curve. No matter that the return on products purchased by your visitors is small. Getting any return in the early days is what it’s all about. Once you have gained the experience, then you can start to look at more lucrative niches and begin to expand your empire.

If you were running your own blog prior to considering affiliate marketing you’re already at the head of the pack, especially if you were generating a few visitors each month. Even so, to achieve a decent level of affiliate marketing success you may have to change the type of copy you currently produce.

Inbound Content Marketing improves affiliate marketing success:

An affiliate marketer is not a salesperson. In fact ‘buy this,’ ‘buy now,’ or any other similar wording should never appear on your blog. Look at any of the successful affiliate marketing sites and you won’t find a sales pitch anywhere. It’s all about informing, discussing, tutorials and comparing products. It’s all about what’s called inbound content marketing, where people seek out your site to obtain the information they’re looking for. It’s about you building your reputation as a brand, as a person who has the knowledge and expertise to inform others about particular products or services. It’s about helping your clients realise there is a product out there they didn’t even realise they needed.

Target your chosen audience:

With your chosen niche you will also know who your target audience are. Social media is a wonderful tool for self and business promotion if used correctly. Don’t just include links to your latest blog on your social media homepage. Seek out other pages relevant to your niche. Apply to join closed pages, but be sure to read the rules and regulations first. The last thing you need is to get the reputation of a spammer.

Optimise your blog:

While social media platforms can help increase traffic to your blog, organic searches will play an even bigger part with a correctly optimised site. The big three still play the largest part in ensuring you are getting the organic search traffic to your site you deserve. High quality relevant content, national and local search engine optimisation, and smartphone optimisation will help ensure you fare well in the search engine results pages.

Tracking Apps can point out the failings:

There are a multitude of free apps out there to help monitor your blog. Google Analytics is one of the most popular for tracking and reporting on your website traffic. Your tracker will inform of visitor numbers, where they originated from, and how long they spend on site. All this information can help your marketing strategy. It can point to whether you need better, or more frequent copy (bounce rate). It can give you an insight as to whether to concentrate more time on social media marketing, or whether greater keyword research is needed.

And Finally:

These are just a few affiliate marketing tips. Affiliate marketing success is a bit like doing a jigsaw, being able to put all the pieces together is what produces the finished picture. Building a successful affiliate marketing business is like building any other business. It takes time. It takes determination. It takes a will to succeed. It takes the ability to learn from your mistakes and not give up. But most of all, it gives a feeling of euphoria and achievement like no other, when those first few pounds commission are deposited into your Pay Pal account.