If you must get success in affiliate marketing, it’s important to follow the inevitable rules of affiliate marketing patiently and passionately.
Affiliate marketing for some years now has been a big source of revenue for online entrepreneurs, especially bloggers. Unlike AdSense where you get paid for per impressions, (eCPM) or per clicks (CPC), affiliate marketing allows you to earn either on commission or a fixed amount if the product or service you promoted is sold.
The key to maximizing your affiliate marketing earnings is by engaging your blog readers or site visitors well enough and explain the real benefits of owning promoted products/services.
Rules Of Affiliate Marketing Business
1) Try to Know Your Audience Need
The most effective way to use the affiliate marketing program is to promote those affiliate products and services that suit the needs of your audience. You will have to consider why they are coming to your site or why they decided to be a part of your email marketing list.
What is it that you providing which they are looking for? These questions you must answer before you decide on the type of affiliate marketing to engage in. Also, make sure that the affiliate products you are promoting provide a kind solution to your audience’s problems.
2) Promote Only Niche Related Affiliates
If you are a fashion blogger, don’t put up an affiliate for gadget just maybe because you feel gadgets will sell much faster or will bring bigger commission, definitely it will but not on your blog. Always make sure your affiliate product is related to your blog niche. A fashion blogger is expected to put up only fashion-related affiliate products like; clothes, shoes, bags and so on.
The reason is that people who come to your site are there to get fashion information, seeing ads on the gadget will certainly bore them. But if your affiliate is related to your niche there is a high tendency of your blog readers to see what product they need at that particular time and may end up buying it.
3) Be Trustworthy
Most blog readers are perceptive, over 72% of them knows an affiliate link once they see one. Therefore if you break their trust for you by promoting a product you are not sure or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they may never visit your site again and look for an alternative.
If your visitors observe that you are only promoting products and services for a profit motive, they will pay no attention to the products you are promoting.
4) Try to Be Helpful
Do not just put up a list of your favourite books and think people will click on the affiliate link and purchase the books just because you listed them.
Make sure you take your time to write a detailed review and use affiliate ads to direct your readers to the right place if they decide to act on your information.
5) Be Transparent About Affiliate Relationships
Try to disclose your affiliations – by so doing your readers will appreciate your honesty and will want to contribute to your earnings. But if they sense that you are not being honest enough about your affiliations, they will bypass your link and go directly to your affiliate partner just to avoid giving you a referral commission.
Honesty and disclosure of information are very necessary for building a loyal reader base. Your readers know that they are supporting you by using your referral links. So, therefore, make them happy and eager to continue doing so.
6) Select Your Affiliate Products Carefully
Always take your time to go through the different options for products or services available through different affiliate marketing programs you opt-in for, and consider the products or services your readers will like. You can change the ads more often and try other ones it will make it more appealing. You can also make use of graphics and text to see which is more effective.
Although it may take a while before you may figure out the best formula for your affiliate program, one thing you should strongly consider is the best tactics for promoting your digital information products.
7) Try Different Programs When Necessary
If one particular affiliate program doesn’t seem to be working well for you, then you just have tried another one, all affiliate programs are not the same. They all offer different types of products, services, commissions and payment methods.
Also try out affiliate programs that offer lots of coupons and promos, for example; offering coupon codes from Gearbest for a wonderful product you just reviewed will be a win-win for your readers, they will have a chance to grab the product
8) Write Timeless Contents Always
All your old content post are still valuable even though it doesn’t appear on your front page. Make sure you provide timeless content.
If visitors come across your old post first and discover that it’s outdated, they may leave right away and search for recent information somewhere else. Make your content timeless by making use of links to update your old articles.
9) Be Patient, It Pays
Affiliate programs build only with time. Be patient “Rome was not built in a day”. You must give adequate time before you can start making much from your affiliate business, else you have much traffic on your site.
Affiliate programs are not designed to give you quick income, but rather – it provides an opportunity for you to make passive income for your blog.
10) Stay Relevant All the Time
Be current and up to date especially on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and other affiliate tools are being added to improve usability. Little changes may go a long way in motivating the action of your readers.
Do not be lazy while monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities. Always be on a lookout for new useful products that are relevant to your blog readers.
11) Content Should Always Come First
Quality and useful contents are the foundation and the lifeblood on which every blog exists. It’s the only thing that keeps readers coming to your site. Therefore you must focus on providing excellent content at the same time monetizing strategies.
If you start compromising contents to benefit from affiliate programs it will scare your vital readers away.
