AFFILIATE

MARKETING TIPSHOW TO MAKE THE BEST OUT OF PERFORMANCE MARKETING Nicholas Stewart M.

Focus of Relationships

Affiliate marketing is all about trust. When a friend recommends a product to you, you listen. Not so much when just any old Joe does. In fact, if you’re like me, it makes you skeptical.

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Focus on building traffic next

More traffic means more eyeballs and therefore more people who will potentially buy the product(s) you promote. Make your traffic count by building trust first.

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Choose products that help your reader solve a problem or address a fear

These are excellent products to promote as readers are more likely to spend money on them.

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Promote wisely

Promote products you can genuinely recommend, preferably because you’ve used it yourself, or because you can confidently promote it based on solid evidence that it’s a good product.

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Promote products you are already using

Injecting personality and taking your audience through an intimate experience gives you an edge over mechanical blog posts.Food blogger? What’s your favorite cookware? Write a post about it. Craft blogger? What’s your favorite crafting tool? Write a post about it.

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Review your old posts and look for affiliate opportunities

Have you ever mentioned a product, perhaps in passing, that you use? Maybe you didn’t even think about it at the time, but is there an affiliate program for it? Find out (just google “affiliate program [product/company]”) and update those posts with your affiliate links.

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Think of what your readers will realistically buy

You have to know your audience. If your blog is mainly about living frugally, they’re probably not going to buy luxury products.

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Don’t just promote products that don’t cost a lot

If there is a truly useful product that’s on the pricier side, it can still be worth the promotion even if only a few people buy it. If it’s a product of exceptional quality and a good), or if it’s a product that’s unique, specialized or one-of-a-kind (and you’ve used it yourself), go for it.

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Think of when your readers will realistically buy

Maybe you should avoid holidays (when people are away from their computers,) or maybe you should target holidays (like the day after Christmas), but know the difference.

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Promote products within a post, not just in your sidebar

Include your personal experience with the product. Your own photos of yourself using the product are excellent.

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Talk about what you like a don’t like. Be fair and build trust. It will serve you well later. Think before posting a negative review

There have been many discussion among bloggers about whether you should post a negative review or not. I’m all for honesty, but I would first contact the company and let them know your post won’t be totally favorable. Maybe they can fix it or maybe you can just skip the review altogether. No use burning bridges.

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Use effective calls to action in your posts

Do you know how to write effective calls to action? Do you end your posts well?

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Hone your sales or copywriting skills

Make sure you create catchy titles to draw people in. My main tip here is to make it personal, not sales-y. What would you be more likely to read? “These shoes make me look hip” or “Review: Oxford Shoes in Jumia“

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Promote products elsewhere

Promote products in your email newsletter or in your feed. Promote products or affiliate posts on Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook.That organic reach will increase in folds if your content is optimized for cross platform viewing

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Diversify

Don’t put all your eggs in one affiliate product basket. Promote multiple affiliate products. Better yet, diversify across all income streams. In other words, utilize affiliate marketing, but also utilize other forms of income generating potential like selling your own product, offering a service, or selling ad space on your blog.

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Strike a balance

Don’t pursue any and every income generating opportunity. Pick a handful and develop those well.

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Make sure your non-affiliate content is consistent and high quality

I asked this question in a forum once “I lose interest in a blog when _____” and one of the most common answers was when a blog had more sponsored or affiliate posts and less meaty content posts. Sprinkle your affiliate marketing posts among your pillar content, not the other way around

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Make sure you attach your affiliate link to images

I see this all the time: an affiliate marketer is promoting a product in a post, but when I click on the images in that post, I’m taken to the upload pages of those images (read: a dead end). In the age of sites like Pinterest, users are accustomed to clicking images so make sure yours send them to the sales page and not a dead end! Attach your affiliate links to images.

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Always make affiliate links nofollow Google doesn’t want paid-for and similar webpages to influence search results. That’s why they ask

that those pages are tagged nofollow.To do this, go into the HTML of the link (hit the Text tab in the Edit Post window) and add the rel=”nofollow’ tag to the link. If you want a more in-depth tutorial on this subject (with whys and hows), read my post How to Add the NoFollow Tag to A Link, but here’s the gist:

For example, here’s what an affiliate link would look like without the nofollow tag:

<a href=”http://AffLink.com”>Affiliate Link Text</a>

The HTML of that link with the nofollow tag would look like this:

<a href=”http://AffLink.com” rel=”nofollow”>Affiliate Link Text</a>

You might also have the target tag in there which forces the link to open in a new window. That looks like this:

<a href=”http://AffLink.com” target=”_blank”>Affiliate Link Text</a>

That’s no problem either. Adding the nofollow tag to that situation would look like this:

<a href=”http://AffLink.com” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>Affiliate Link Text</a>

Don’t forget to do it on images that are affiliate linked too! If you haven’t been doing this, I wouldn’t necessarily go back through old posts and change them all unless it’s relatively simple to do. But from this point forward, I would adopt the practice.(P.S. There are plugins that do this, but given my general aversion to plugins, I prefer to do it manually.)

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Don’t forget affiliate programs for services

While products are typically what affiliate marketers promote, there are many services with affiliate programs as well. There are many freelancers who offer some sort of commission (future discounts or even cash).

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Create a “Tools I Use” or “Things I Love” page

Many readers enjoy seeing a handy list of your favorites, plus it’s an easy and excellent way to highlight some affiliate links.

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