Affiliate marketing tips – Practical method
1. Cloak Affiliate links
First things first, avoid those ugly affiliate links by using a link cloaker. It’s the best way to make your affiliate link decent and short and at the same time increase your click through rate. Normally, which would you go for in
shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=242693&U=865863&M=28169&urllink=and viralwriter.com/recommends/pro-plus/
You’re definitely going to go for the shorter link. I was previously using pretty link but I switched to thirsty affiliate (self-preference). Now this is the difference, if you’re using pretty link your affiliate link is going to look like this: http://yourdomain.com/affproduct but if you’re using thirsty affiliate your affiliate link will look like this:http://yourdomain.com/recommends/affproduct orhttp://yourdomain/uses/affproducts and more depending on your choice. For those using SEOPressor v5, you can use its link cloaking feature and save yourself a plugin space but if you’re already using any of the above affiliate link cloaker then you can continue with it instead of facing a whole lot of stress.
2. Write Reviews
Writing reviews is another working strategy and in my opinion I think it’s the best affiliate marketing tip. Here you’re talking about a product on just one page and this will give your readers more insight on the product you’re reviewing. If you really want to get the best out of reviews then you must mentions the features of the products you’re promoting (pros and cons), another way is to also compare your products with competitors as it’ll convince your readers into buying the product you’re promoting.
Getting the best out of Reviews
Don’t let the chronological order of your blog drown your reviews in the oceans of your archive instead you can use these little tips to make your reviews visible to your visitors
- Creating a special category for reviews is the first thing you must consider. If you look up I’m sure you’re going to see my review category on the navigation bar, implementing this makes your review more visible and accessible for visitors and readers interested in it.
- Use a rating plugin to rate the product you’re reviewing, the number of stars determines the quality of the product. The plugin I’m using for this is Author hReviewand I configured it to display recent reviews on my sidebar, check it out.
- Use your one of your reviews as a static page making it more visible to your readers. It ran across my mind but I don’t think that’s a good idea, you might lose your readers. It depends on you though but I don’t really recommend it.
As a matter of fact, the more visible your reviews (and affiliate links in general) the higher the chance of making more sales.
3. Use Affiliate Links on your Post
I know it’s a no-brainer but I still have to include it for formality sake and to waste some white space too. Instead of using direct links on products you’re recommending, try as much as possible to register for their affiliate program and use affiliate links no matter how small the commission is. Selling a product of $10 is easier than selling a product of $100. The price of a product doesn’t actually matter, if you’ve used a product, you can recommend it to your readers regardless of how cheap or expensive it is, it all depends on the quality of the product you’re promoting. Try to cultivate the habit of blending affiliate links in your blog post and don’t depend on reviews only.
4. Email Marketing
The money is in the list, that’s a very common saying and I’m sure you know that. Are you building your list the right way? The best way to do this is to use optin forms around your blog and bait your visitors with an offer they can’t afford to bite. It can be an ecourse, ebook, premium theme or plugin (for free) and many more. One thing I noticed about email marketing is that if you promote affiliate product, you’ll make some sales followed by a high rate of unsubscribers (5% – 10% or more). Don’t use your list as money making machine by bombarding your subscribers with products but minimize the interval and build your subscriber’s trust first.
5. Create a Resources or Tools Page
This is a special page where you list all the tools you use on your blog (both free and premium) thereby making it easier for your readers to see all your affiliate products at a glance. You can give a little summary of the products or link to its review page (if you have one) for a better understanding. To make your resources page more compelling, you have to include banners to the products you’re promoting. I did something related to that, take a look at my resources page and see what it looks like.
6. Make Use of Banners
Another advantage is making use of banners on your blog, it could be your sidebar, footer, above your content or header. You can get the banners of affiliate products you’re promoting from affiliate companies and implement the code on your blog. Do you know that banners do get the highest click through rate than other tips mentioned above? This is due to its attractive pictures and descriptions, it works more if those pictures are animated.
7. Add a Bonus to your Product
I never knew of this until i recently read some reviews on other blogs. You can personally give discount to your readers after they’ve purchased your product. With this, you’ll lure them into buying the product from you alone. It works especially when there are lots of competitors promoting the same product. Imagine selling a product for $50, getting 50% commission which is $25 and giving your readers $10 out of your commission. This means your reader actually bought the product for $40, got the calculation? Guiding how to use a product after purchase is also another cool bonus. Promising a personal discount in a review works like magic.
Affiliate marketing tips – Result
8. Be Patient
Actually the reason why most bloggers give up is not because of traffic but because they didn’t make a dime in their first few months of blogging. I was so inspired when a friend made his first affiliate sale on a year old blog. Seriously, are you going to keep up if you don’t make money blogging for a whole 365 days? Getting the best out of affiliate marketing is not an easy task especially for new bloggers. I almost gave up when I didn’t make a dime in my first and second month. Hey guys, blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. I’ve seen a situation where you’ll get 500+ clicks to a product with no sales and I’ve also seen that of 10 clicks with 5 sales. Patience is a virtue remember?
9. Spend to make
It takes money to make money and if you really want to excel in affiliate marketing then you need to spend some money, buy products, use it and know its quality and then recommend it to your readers. Most products out there requires you to become a customer before you can have access to their affiliate program so I don’t think it’s possible to make money through affiliate marketing if you don’t buy those products. This is one of the reason why you must only recommend products you use or products with doubtless quality.
10. Monetize Early
The little monetization mistake bloggers make is that they wait for a specific period before they start monetizing their blog. There’s no specific time to start affiliate marketing, you can promote products and services from your first day of blogging. Of course passion comes first but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on making money online right? If you have no product then there’s no big deal in signing up as an affiliate with your hosting company, domain company or your blog (premium)theme, make sense? Well these are the affiliate marketing tips most of us don’t know in our early days of blogging, though it’s not late, you can still go and correct those mistakes you’ve made.
11. Your Readers First
Your readers are the one to buy your affiliate products and even share your quality content thereby attracting more readers which means more buyers. If you really want to get the best out of affiliate marketing then you have to choose the right product to promote. The first thing to do is to put yourself in your readers shoe and think of what they would buy, get the affiliate product and promote it or you can even create your products and offer it to your readers. One thing you must know; the cost of your product mustn’t drive your readers away but must be stated according to its quality. The cheaper your product, the more the sales and vice versa.
12. Be Honest
All products has pros and cons and i don’t see anything bad in stating them out. Make sure you state out what you hate about the product and what you like about it. If you’re promoting a product then you must let your readers know everything about it before they make up their mind in going for it else you’ll draw disappointment on their face. Trust me, if this happens they’ll never come back to your blog to buy a product or whatsoever from you because they’ve lost their trust in you.
Bonus
Affiliate marketing is not just the only way to make money blogging but do you know that you can create products and services while others promote you? Instead of being the marketer, others are going to be your marketer, they promote your product and of course a commission will be involved. Have you ever thought of that? I’ll definitely hop into that soon and you can too. Your product can be a plugin, theme, ebook, membership site or more. Well, It doesn’t occur in a day and becoming a successful blogger doesn’t occur over night but remember this, the journey to a thousand miles begins with one step.
Yet Another Related Bonus
Affiliate marketing is all about split testing, if A doesn’t work then try B and if it doesn’t work out, why not give C a try, one is definitely going to work out. Don’t just depend on a product but try to be an affiliate on varieties of products.
If you don’t know the products to go for, you can peep into the resources page of bloggers in your niche and see what they’re promoting, invest in the product and promote it, of course you’re going to make more profit than the cost of buying it, It rocks.
Do you know affiliate marketing can lead to traffic? well this is how it works, you can host a contest after writing a review and the winner gets the product. It’s a win-win situation, you get more traffic and buyers and the winner (of course just one person) gets the product for free.
The affiliate marketing tips mentioned are not going to work if you don’t have traffic. There’s no way you can make money blogging if you don’t have traffic and in order to get the best results you need to promote your blog. To get more insight on affiliate marketing don’t forget to read Amal’s post on Affiliate marketing
Finally…
There are tons of affiliate marketing tips out there and most bloggers have their different tricks on getting the best out of it. If there’s any method i didn’t mention that’s working for you, feel free to shoot them in the comments below. It won’t be bad if you play with those social media icons on the left.
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