In these hard economic times, everyone could benefit from some extra cash. A fun and easy way to make money from home is affiliate marketing. Well, at least it’s easy enough to get started. But if you’re thinking about creating a steady income, you need to form a plan. Follow the tips and tricks in this article to help you build a successful affiliate site.
Affiliate marketing can be a very profitable way to make money. Instead of actually owning the products, you refer people to buy them and make a commission off of it. One easy way to do this would be to post your website or product on a forum or blog in order to get the most people possible.
Success in affiliate marketing will never be achieved by putting a million banners up all on one site. Choose your banners carefully and keep your site clutter free. Too many banners can make your site feel overwhelming to a user, making them less likely to click on any banners or become repeat visitors.
Track and analyze the exact source of every visitor to your affiliate links. By doing this you can identify which marketing techniques are bringing in visitors and, more importantly, where visitors with the highest conversion rates originate. You can then concentrate your time and money on only the successful marketing techniques.
If you ever become involved with a self-hosted affiliate and begin to do well, turning out big commissions, you should never be afraid to ask for more money. Product providers want to keep their best-earning affiliates, and you can get a 10% bump by simply asking for it, so do not shy away from asking.
Do not try to trick your readers, by hiding your financial stake in your links. Your visitors are used to affiliate marketing and they know that you are running a blog or site in order to earn money. Let them know that you will be making money from the links that they click on. They will be more likely to go ahead and click, if you are upfront with them.
A successful affiliate marketing website has good content that entices visitors to spend time on the website and return to the site. The longer a visitor remains at your website, the more likely the visitor is to click on an affiliate link. Good content encourages visitors to stay and return.
A great affiliate marketing tip is to make sure you have enough money for your own web site. Your efforts in promoting affiliate products will be wasted if your web site suddenly shuts down because you couldn’t afford to keep it going. Make sure you have a proper budget for your site.
When you write content for your pages in order to push your affiliate products, you need to make sure that you’re writing for basic readers. This isn’t the Wall Street Journal audience. Leave the numbers and statistics out of it completely, and do not go crazy painting your pages with purple prose. The simpler the better when it comes to writing.
Building a list of email addresses for potential customers is an important part of any good affiliate marketing strategy. It is not easy, though; web surfers are very leery of turning over their address. One way to assuage fears is to offer something of value in exchange for email addresses. The reward need not be great, but it should be genuine.
Check the start up costs for the company that you are interested in prior to signing up. The cost to start an affiliate program should be very little if anything at all. Find out if you can have the start up costs taken out of the earnings that you will make to avoid any out of pocket expenses in the beginning.
Make sure that the vendor that you are considering working with is using a well known affiliate tracking system with a good reputation in the industry. If the company is using their own tracking script, do very thorough research to make sure that the vendor is honest and that the commissions are tracked accurately.
Try hover ads instead of pop-ups. Hover ads are less intrusive than pop-ups, taking up less screen space and allowing the reader to view the ad when they are ready. The ads are written in DHTML, a combo of java and html. Hover ads often out-perform standard pop-up ads and work great for promoting new products or services, testimonials or an opt-in subscription.
Protect your affiliate links from being hijacked. Many unethical people are using stealware to grab other peoples’ affiliate commissions. Anti-stealware software protects you by using cloaking and other methods to protect your links from internet thieves. Check your affiliate reports on a regular basis to monitor your commissions and get familiar with the type of activity you should expect.
Make sure the company you are using as an affiliate has a tracking program that is reliable. This way you are assured you will receive credit for every customer you refer to their site. Make sure their program tracks all sales through phone, fax and snail mail orders to get the maximum in commission.
Affiliate programs can become an alternative source of money, all from the comfort of your own home. However, in order to have any kind of success you need to put in time and effort. The more time and effort you put in, the better the results. If you follow these tips and stick to your program, you will see results. Thousands of other people do, so why can’t you?
