Affiliate Marketing: My Story and 6 Tips to Get You Going Right Now

September 17, 2012 by Daniel Sharkov|

What I generally share on Reviewz ‘N’ Tips is advice to help you improve your blog and generate more social media traffic.

However in the end not how much traffic you receive, but how many people decide to take action is what you should be measuring.

In May this year, I jumped into what they call affiliate marketing and today I will share my experience with you!
Below are six tips that will hopefully help you make a flying start and get those commissions rolling in faster. Enjoy!

Firstly, Why Consider Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing… you probably know what it is about… You recommend a product and when someone buys it, you earn a commission. But is it really worth the time and money?

It isn’t rocket science –
Affiliate marketing is probably the easiest way to make money from your blog. You only need a product that you find useful and would like other people to try. You don’t really invest
– After all you generally don’t buy the products just to promote them. You buy them because they are useful, so promotion is kind of a bonus. Making money isn’t all that hard
– That’s probably the most important reason to give it a try. If you do things right (and you will if you read the post) earning money is closer than you think.

So, on to the tips…

1. Check out What Others are Promoting

The first and probably the most important step that you need to go through before even thinking about recommending a product is to check on your competition.

In the marketing field there are more than oneor twoblogs that publish their monthly incomes. Those posts can be quite useful to folks who are newbies and don’t really know what sells well and what isn’t worth the time.

If you have something specific in mind, start by searching for product reviews. If you can’t find any or there are just a couple, then there’s probably not enough buzz around your pick and you might not earn as much as you expect. If you do your part well, even with more competition, you will be able to find you way.

2. Write a Thorough Review Post

There is simply no better way to grab the attention and get your visitors to check out what you promote than to share your experience and go through the most important features in a blog post.

You’d say why bother… after all pretty much every affiliate program offers banners that you can just add to the sidebar and thus remove all the weight off of your shoulders. While I am not saying that those are a bad idea, if they sit there all alone, people won’t really be inclined to click. I will expand on that later in this article.

So back to the point. When it comes to writing the review, the general rules still apply (see “ 9 Tips for Posts that Grab the Attention“).
You need to put more emphasis on images here than on any other type of post though . Images are more descriptive than words. Don’t forget to add a screenshot for the most important features you recommend!

As for length, even if you generally write short posts (see “ Article Length Importance“), I’d recommend you to
deepen your review with as much detail as possible. That will certainly be a good way to show people that you have actually tried what you are promoting.

3. Don’t be Scared to Promote Your Post

If you want to be able to make the most out of your review in the future, take the time to create some kind of a schedule. Based on that schedule you are going to share the post on the social media networks you are using every now and then.

Remember that Twitter, Facebook and Google+ don’t work the same way:

On Google+ the engagement levels are rather low. Since people don’t post that much, your updates are visible longer. I’d recommend you to share the review once in an interval of at least 30-40 days. Although there’s a lot more activity going on on Facebook, the interval should be similar. As for Twitter you can ramp up and share as much as twice a week. People are following and followed by hundreds, so there’s a lot of competition and hence far less exposure.

Take a look at my review postfor further reference!

4. Affiliate Marketing without SEO won’t Work

Being able to rank your articles on the first page of the search results for the keywords you want is great. For product reviews however, it is crucial.

If your review is on the first page for “*Product name* review” (e.g. Tweet Adder Review), then you are in for some cash. Whoever searches for the product’s review is a person, who is probably in the decision-making process i.e. someone who is likely to buy.

So to improve your chances, you need to have “*Product name* review” in a number of areas in your review post:

Related Post

In the headline
– it is a must, aim for the beginning (e.g. “*Product name* review - *reason for people to try it*”). In the first paragraph
– that is the next thing crawlers will see. Adding the keyphrase there is almost as important as having it in your title. That is mainly how spiders know what to expect in the post. Every now and then
– as long as it is readable and not too intrusive, it is okay to include the keyword within the different paragraphs. It should feel right when reading. Remember, SEO is worth it only if the reader actually enjoys the post.5. Link to the Review as Often as Possible

Aside from adding the keyword within your review, you can boost search engine rankings with interlinking. Simply linking to my Tweet Adder review article, wherever I found relevant, helped me achieve first page in the SERPs.

If you’d like to know what the exact approach of my interlinking strategy is, check out:
4 Good Reasons to Start Interlinking Your Posts and 5 Simple Steps to Doing it Right

6. Be Careful with the Sidebar

Soo, back to the sidebar…

As I said there is no problem with promoting a product via a banner, placed there. However that alone wouldn’t really make someone buy what you recommend.

It doesn’t seem trustworthy
- People need to know why are you promoting it. It doesn’t give enough information
– Banners generally consist of just the logo and a very very short description It feels like you just want the sale
– While the main idea is without question to earn, you need to show that you care about your audience. A random product’s banner, slapped on the sidebar doesn’t contribute to that.

So what should you do?

Take a look at my banner. I first give people a reason to try the product after which I provide them with a link to the product’s review so that they can decide better whether it is something they’d be interested in. Choosing a different color for the sidebar widget to make it more obvious does help as well.

Final Words

So that’s basically what you need to consider when choosing and promoting your favorite product or service. Hope you found a thing or two that you hadn’t thought of!
Are you into affiliate marketing or any other form of monetization? Feel free to share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!

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