"Put up our banners on your website or use our pre-written ads ... we'll do the rest!" Ugh. It's unfortunate that some affiliate programs tell you that making money with them is as simple as that. New affiliates are often under the impression that it doesn't take much to earn money with affiliate programs - when nothing could be further from the truth. Unless you have a high-traffic, highly-targeted website you're going to have to put in a great deal of effort if you want to do well - not just selling the products, but learning HOW TO market them on the Internet. What's the difference between a top-performing affiliate and one that doesn't even make enough for a cup of coffee? 1. Top affiliates buy the product they're selling. It's important to know what you're selling. First of all, you want to be sure you're selling a quality product that offers great value. Your reputation is at stake, after all! You have to really KNOW the product in order to describe it honestly to others. Buying the product you're selling is a MUST. Why should someone else buy a product that you're not willing to purchase yourself? 2. Top affiliates take the time to learn. Learn what? It always amazes me when I receive email from someone who joins an affiliate program, but then asks me exactly what it is they're selling and what they're supposed to do. Know your product. Know the website. Spend some time surfing through the site to familiarize yourself with what you're getting into. 3. Top affiliates are fresh and original. Many affiliate programs provide their affiliates with pre-written emails, advertising copy, or articles. They also usually provide a number of banners that you can choose from. After you've seen the same tired old ad time and time again, it simply becomes ineffective. People will ignore it since it's been used too many times. It's much more effective for you to come up with a new way of telling people about the product -- something fresh and original. 4. Top affiliates provide content. If you are advertising a product on your website, try adding some solid content to your offer. Then tie the content into your offer, and show your visitors how the product will benefit them. 5. Top affiliates don't use hype. What I mean by this is: don't make false claims about your product. If you use hype you'll end up with a dissatisfied customer who may return the product and spread the word about you. Keep your customers happy and they'll come back. Be truthful. If you do not honestly like the product, then don't promote it. 6. Top affiliates answer their emails promptly. Sometimes you may get a visitor that's still a little unsure about purchasing a product. That's when they may email you with additional questions. Answer these emails courteously and in a timely manner. If you don't know the answer, either find out or forward their email to someone who can help them. 7. Top affiliates endorse the product. Once again, this goes back to the all-important step of buying the product you're selling. If you truly do like the product you'll be able to write a sincere endorsement. Sincerity shines through! 8. Top affiliates experiment. Some promotion methods will just naturally work better than others. Experiment, learn from both your successes and your failures, and try to improve. 9. Top affiliates concentrate on only a few programs. Select a few excellent programs and focus your efforts on them. If you try to promote too many, you'll end up spreading yourself too thin - you'll be less effective, and may end up only making a few pennies here and there. Concentrate your efforts on making a decent income with just a few good programs. There really is no "trick" to making money with affiliate programs. It took me a couple of months before I started seeing any money ... but once it started, it just got easier and easier. Affiliate programs are a fabulous way of making a decent online income - if you take the time to learn! ----------------------------------------------------------- This article may be reprinted providing it is published in it's entirety, including the author's bio and link to the URL below. -----------------------------------------------------------
Many affiliate programs usually provide special web pages for their affiliates. This is one of the reasons why it may appear very strange, at first, that most top affiliates and the high earners from affiliate programs will most certainly always have their own websites, complete with their own domains specifically for promoting a certain affiliate program that they are involved in.
Why should these affiliates spend the extra money for a website, and even a domain name that both come with their own heavy demands when they already have so much visibility already through an affiliate program website? Actually there are a number of reasons.
Having your own website and domain will tend to attract more traffic than an affiliate site
A domain is bound to attract much more traffic than a long affiliate address. When surfers see what looks like a registered domain name, they will tend to take the site much more seriously than if they were to see the rather long affiliate website address. The affiliate can even ensure that they select a name that will be quickly picked up by search engines to give the site a high ranking.
It is possible to carefully monitor where the traffic is coming from
One of the major weaknesses of the vast majority of ordinary affiliate websites lies in the fact that it is not possible to analyze traffic and establish exactly where it is coming from. You would need to install some code and most affiliate sites do not give access to codes of the pages that they supply to their affiliates. The result is that folks are forced to operate blindly. Even as they instigate various advertising methods to get traffic to their sites, there is really no way they can track their visitors.
One of the most effective Internet marketing methods calls for the constant analysis of your traffic to establish where they have come from. The idea here is to find further ways and means of reaching that particular market niches. In this way you will find that your site traffic is constantly on the increase.
It becomes possible to harvest email addresses
With your very own affiliate website, it becomes a lot easier to collect names and email addresses from visitors to the affiliates independent website. It is usually not possible to do this from an affiliate website. When you do not do this, you fail to make efficient and maximum use of the leads you generate through your website and from all the marketing efforts you make to attract traffic. A person harvesting email addresses and building an opt-in email list is bound to make much more sales from lower traffic than a person with a much larger volume of traffic who does not build an opt-in email list.
It has been established that buyers usually need to be exposed to any product or service that you are advertising, several times before they can make a decision to buy. Emails are a great way to do this, and the only legal way to send out mass email is through permission marketing of using safe lists or your very own opt-in email list. This is a list of persons who have opted in to receive the latest updates and developments. This is naturally the more effective option.
There are various ways of harvesting email addresses from regular visitors to your affiliate website. You can offer an amazing free e-course or offer to send them some free fascinating software in return for their email address that you can then use to market to them again and again. It really is not surprising that top affiliates and top earners from affiliate programs insist on having their own websites and domains.
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John Farina has sinced written about articles on various topics from Video Games, Affiliate Programs and Computers and The Internet. John J Farina is a successful affiliate marketer. He provides expert reviews on which affiliate programs to join and ones to avoid like the plague. If you would like to take a look at the Affiliate programs he is involved with, visit. John Farina's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.