It’s easy to get lost in the ocean of the interwebs…
As affiliate marketers, we sometimes wander aimlessly amongst the trees of information in the interwebs. It’s easy to get lost in the tsunami of ata out there, and when you’re lost, it’s easy to make bad decisions.
Careful planning and some basic strategy would normally get us out of situations like this or prevent that situation from happening in the first place. The sad part is that when some new fad comes along, people easily jump into the bandwagon only to find disappointing results.
When at a loss for solutions, one of the most important things you can do is get back to your core goals and strategies and re-think your approach from there. If you’re one of the many Internet marketers who currently have things over their heads, this post is for you.
Here are some of the most important strategies we tend to forget. Sure, they may seem basic to some, but even some seasoned vets sometimes get them lost in the shuffle.
1. Choose which business you’ll be interested in for the long haul. People often quit something when they think that what they’re doing isn’t as fulfilling as it should be. This is why you need to choose a market that captivates you and will keep you passionate and competitive for many years.
When you love what you’re doing, you do your best to learn everything about it. You also find it hard to lose enthusiasm and creativity whenever you’re caught in a fix. In other words, choosing a niche that you like will stop you from quitting prematurely.
It’s equally important to find an affiliate network that offers the niche you want to immerse yourself in. You should also take a closer look at the kind of merchants in the network. If the merchants seem trustworthy, credible and fair, go right ahead and jump in.
After shaking hands with destiny and signing up with an affiliate network or program, you have to consider how to market your products. A website and blog are great places to start the selling process.
Also, it’s a norm for affiliate marketers to produce an email subscriber list with which to send out offers. This isn’t exactly rocket science, but it isn’t THAT simple either. I’ll be writing a free report on how to do this, but for now, let it suffice for me to say that having a credible site, good landing pages and the right autoresponder tools are the keys to victory.
2. Make your site SEO friendly. I’ve mentioned in the past that a beautiful site is useless if nobody can see it. That establishes the importance of SEO in the affiliate marketing business. If no one sees the website you use to market your products, you won’t be able to drive sales to the merchant and you won’t earn any commissions. It’s that simple.
Google sees text content as search engine food, which is why you should get a blog. Does that scare you? Take it easy; it shouldn’t be too hard for you to make a lot of content about a niche that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. If you love what you’re doing, you won’t have trouble writing about it. Even if you don’t have time to write, you can always hire a writer and work with him on building a steady stream of great posts.
An important facet of SEO is getting backlinks from other websites. Google and other search engines view backlinks as referrals or votes, and each one has an impact in how you rank in searches for your target keywords.
One way to get people who own sites and blogs to link to you is to have content that’s awesome and helpful at the same time. Keep in mind that your blog posts have to be both entertaining and informative.
Besides keeping your website and blog as rich in content as it should be, you should also add an RSS feed. An RSS feed allows people to subscribe to your posts, allowing you to reach out to them whenever you have new stuff published. An RSS feed is also a great way of extracting email addresses from your readers, which fattens up your mailing list used to pitch sales offers.
Use social media to drive traffic to your website. Try to connect to your customers by making a Facebook fan page, or by just adding them as friends. Drive more followers into your Twitter account by sharing your blog posts.
Make videos or podcasts in YouTube or iTunes and go viral. These are ways of gaining popularity in the interwebs. The more exposure you get, the higher the chances of other people linking to you.
3. Love your target audience. Treat your readers or subscribers the way you treat your friends. Make them feel special but at the same time show them that you’re a figure of authority and integrity.
Offer value without expecting any compensation. Try giving away things for free. Make a nifty free report that can really help them. You can also recommend some tools or services that are considered the best in their respective classes.
Nourish the trust they have for you by solving their problems from the get-go. This would eliminate the risk factor of losing a prospect’s interest and at the same time it gives them a good reason to believe in what you’re selling.
Eventually, you’re going to offer them something that requires them to pull out their wallets, and when that time comes, you don’t want to make them change their minds. Don’t be too aggressive when making a sale. When they purchase, thank them and continue to provide the best of what you do. The more your prospects believe in you and what you recommend, the bigger the chances of them purchasing again.
4. Keep learning. To have sustained success in online marketing, we need to adapt to two things:
A. The changes in the trends of the Internet
B. The changes in the customers’ demands.
To do this, we need to study our environment as relentlessly as we can. Think of it as a guerrilla war where the guys who can use the jungle to their advantage usually win.
Start by tracking every bit of analytics data, every click and sale you make so we have something to measure. The only way to improve is to keep measuring and surpassing previous performances. This may sound complicated but it can really be broken down into a process of asking yourself these three questions:
What worked?
What didn’t work?
How can we address the things that didn’t work?
Asking yourself these questions and keeping things honest by backing up everything with statistics gives you an excellent view of exactly where you and your business are in your campaign. It’s important to give equal emphasis to wins and setbacks. Taking note of wins allows you to replicate successes and taking note of setbacks allows you to re-think your methods and overcome weak points.
There are a lot of other strategies to think about but these are the most essential stuff that shouldn’t be forgotten. If things ever get too complicated, go back to these basic concepts and start finding the right path to success again.
All the best,
Andy Jenkins
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