Affiliate Marketing Tips

Question: Just starting out in affiliate marketing, can anyone give some beginners advice (not just links?

(Posted by: Kell on 2008-10-27 14:22:48)

I have opened an account with ClickBank and I have downloaded the Affiliate Masters Course e- book as well as the SiteSell e- book. I am just looking for some helpful advice on how to get started and some tips on how to be successful with it. I am not looking for any links on affiliate marketing- - I've seen just about all of them. But if you have your own website or blog as an affiliate marketer, I would love to take a look at it to see first hand what it looks like. I know that to be successful with this you have to put in a lot of time- - this I have, I do not work or go to school, and I really want to be successful with this. If anyone considers themself a mentor in this field, I would really appreciate your help!!!! Thanks.

Posted by: Draper on 2008-10-27, 15:40:25

Hi Kell - welcome to the world of affiliate marketing! I spent many years doing affiliate marketing poorly so I'll share some of my experiences. (1.) Be sure you have a PROFESSIONAL looking website. I have a website sitting at xspirulina.com that I paid someone in Serbia $50 to do. The purpose of the site was to see if the product would sell and at what price. Well, about 50% of the people who got to the first page left. Why? I don't know for sure but my guess is because it looks like I paid $50 for it. (2.) Do some research on SEO or pay someone to do it. This is worth GOLD. If no one can find your site then you're not going to sell any items. (3.) Have a good understanding of Adwords before diving in. I spent a fortune on Adwords when I first started without much to show for it. Why? Because I had a rosey outlook for things like conversion rates. (4.) Know that very few people make a fortune at this. If you work hard and long -- 5 or 6 hours a week for a full year -- you'll start to see returns. I'm an affiliate with Overstock.com and my website eHalfOff.com (or the redesign I'm working on at eHalfOff.com/ online-shopping) makes about $0.04 per visitor I bring to my site. I hope to double or triple that with my redesign. (5.) Know how people are finding you. It took me the better part of a year to achieve a high ranking for the phrase: discount shopping for eHalfOff.com. Most of my customers find me using this phrase. However, in the past 90 days, customers have found my site using over 500 different keywords and phrases. I use this data to help me determine which words and phrases to target next. You never know when you'll stumble across a word or phrase that works well. Good luck to you!