Tips for Affiliate Marketing Newbies: Is Pay-Per-Click a Viable Option?

[ad name=”Adsense3″]People resolve to do affiliate marketing to convert their website traffic into money. Why shouldn’t they? It takes a lot of hard work to generate traffic to a website. If you don’t have a website but want to earn through affiliate marketing, this is the perfect time to learn the basic know-how. Once you have gained knowledge about this business, you can make a website solely for this purpose and perhaps make a lot of money. While advertising networks pay some reasonable affiliate commissions, manufacturers hosting affiliate marketing networks often pay more. Learn how it all works:

What is affiliate marketing?

Explained in simple words, affiliate marketing is a process in which the marketer directs potential customers to a manufacturer and earns a commission for every sale. There are two types of affiliate marketing strategies: direct and indirect. You must have visited Ebay several times to buy a product. Ebay does not manufacture all those products, but gets a commission on every purchase made through it. This is an example of direct affiliate marketing; you make a dedicated marketing website to promote products and earn commissions. Indirect affiliate marketing is more like making a recommendation. You embed text links in your website’s content that take readers to a product site, and if they buy the product, you get a commission. Also, it is not necessary to have a website to become an affiliate; you can market products through forums, blogs and other ways too.

Given below are the most valuable tips for affiliate marketing newbies.

1. Match a product

This is the first task before you can start promoting a product. You have to carefully choose a product that you are capable of promoting or highlighting through your website. The mistake that most novice marketers make is that they try to sell a popular product through their low-traffic websites. It’s better to choose a unique product with less competition. If you already have a website, it’s important that the product matches your website content. This way you can add content, comments, recommendations, photos, videos to successfully promote the product. This will also prove your website to be a credible source of valuable information, a recent requirement of the search engines.

2. Prepare your content through plug-ins and Keywords

One of the most valuable tips for affiliate marketing is enhancing the one thing your web business relies on the most: Content. Add valuable plug-ins, include the most relevant keywords, and also build an email-opt in list on your site for long-term success.

3. Link products around the same subject

For instance, if you’re promoting a Dell laptop, don’t make the mistake of recommending laptops from other manufacturers to; this would be unethical. Rather offer DVD’s, a trusted Internet service provider or other complimentary products to make your customers rely on your information and not consider it as irrelevant advertisements. However, if your website is just for marketing products of a particular niche i.e. direct affiliate marketing. You are free to include multiple brands manufacturing a particular product; ideally you will provide valuable reviews, and then let the people decide which product they want.

4. Do not push for sales

Remember, you’re target is not to sell the stuff but promote it in the right manner. Your readers should treat your affiliate marketing as trusted recommendations. This way you will encourage sales acting as a third person on whom people can rely on.

5. Pay per Click advertising

Pay per click advertising is no doubt a viable option. This is the quickest you can start earning through a website. Try and include advertisements that match your website’s subject and maintain the credibility of your web content.

Affiliate marketing is easy to begin with but requires constant efforts to generate a decent profit. Search for trusted affiliate marketing programs, there are a lot of them available. Update your content regularly to be more effective as an affiliate marketer. The golden rule for affiliate marketing success is perhaps making people trust your recommendations and not to just write them off as mere advertisements.

About the author:  Alia Haley is a blogger who is a tech freak.  She has a weak side for gadgets and bikes. Beside this she is trying her hands on two totally different topics i.e. In vitro fertilization and Gi Joe Action Figures.