Two Do’s and Two Don’ts That Every Affiliate Marketer Needs To Know To Succeed

I hope you are all set for a new year full of promises for your online business.  I know that in the maze of internet marketing it’s very easy to get lost.  This is why I wanted to make this first post of the year on this blog about my own case study and try to show you the “right way” and the “wrong way” according to my own personal findings.

In this post I am going to tell you about a path that you could take to build your online business and which you can start applying as soon as possible, so you can start reaping the results of your hard work sooner rather than later, or worse even, never.

Is There a Really Quick and Easy Way to Be Successful as an Affiliate Marketer?

I know some of you have been struggling to fully understand how affiliate marketing works and how you can generate money the quickest and easiest way possible.  The truth is that if there is NO such thing as a really quick and easy way that doesn’t require work.  If there is one, then, I don’t know about it and I don’t know of anyone online among all the bloggers, and marketers that I know who know that secret either.

The truth is that if you want to make money online, it’s going to take some actions on your part.  Such actions will take some of your time and energy.  There is no doubt about it.  However, for this New Year blog post, I wanted to tell you about a specific road you might want to take to settle yourself on solid ground.  I also thought that you could learn from my own mistakes so, you would actually save some precious time.

Two Mistake you Should Absolutely Avoid From the Get Go

To start off I wanted to tell you want NOT  to do.  I know that this might have worked for some, but it didn’t really work for me and by judging from all the emails that I am receiving it seems that it doesn’t work for a lot of people either.

1- Don’t believe everything you hear

This is THE number one rule – don’t believe everything you hear.  You might have been told many times over that you should do your little keyword search, make sure they are good and write your blog posts and articles based on that and everything will be fine – right?

Wrong! If you were to base your success online on this fact only, you’d be failing big time.

When I started this blog that’s what I was doing and it was a big flop.  Since I didn’t have enough time, I even allowed other people to post on my blog as long as they had good keywords and stayed within the niche.  It absolutely didn’t work!

2000+ blog posts later and my blog wasn’t doing well at all!

I had to get rid of all those trash blog posts recently, because they were bringing the blog down and I wanted to start this year with fresh, new and most of all valuable content.

What was wrong with those posts, since they were keyword and niche focused?  They gave no value to the readers.  They ended up being detrimental to my blog rather than beneficial.  I realized that the most beneficial thing I could do was to get rid of them all together.  Yes, that’s how I got rid of over 2000 posts, and this blog is now down to 73 posts and counting!

2-      Don’t try to promote more than one niche

First off, give yourself a favor and refrain from making the mistake of selling several products from different niches.  If you are just starting and fell in this trap, the odds will be against you and you most likely won’t be successful.  Here is the main reason why…

Each time you want to sell a product from a different niche you need to open a new site.  Now, you need to be aware that the sites that Google loves are blogs.  And I am sure you know that if you want to rank on Google, you’d better have what they love.  This means that you have to have a blog for each niche.

What’s wrong with a blog?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a blog right? As a matter of fact, I will advise you to have a blog to support what you are selling in every case.  But, here is the problem… a blog will create work for you.

So, if you have one blog or maybe two if you are going crazy, you may be fine, but now imagine that you decide to sell 5 or 6 products from 5 or 6 different niches!  This means that you would need to have that many blogs to write on, maintain and promote.  You would find out very soon that this would be a big mistake.

Now, how in the world I would know this?

I should know, because that’s the very mistake that I made myself.  And what a mistake that was.  I had 7 main blogs and I wasn’t able to keep up with all of them.  This meant that they didn’t rank well, were not up to date with valuable content, and not promoted as they should have been.

If you find yourself in this type of situation, unless you have someone to write for your blogs, you are not going to be able to maintain that many blogs.  That’s just impossible!

You Have Two Solutions

a)      You create only one or two blogs (one or two niches) that you can manage yourself without any problem.

b)      You create many blogs and you will need to outsource your writing and maybe even your blog promotion.

 Two Positive Actions You Need to Take

 1- Build relationships

The old good article marketing campaign alone, doesn’t really work anymore.  I am not saying that you can’t make money using article marketing alone, but in the end it will not be sufficient to bring you a steady income, because article marketing is also what I call “cold marketing” where people might buy from you once and never see you again.  On top of this, the odds that they will buy the first time they read an article from you are pretty huge.  Just not something you can count on a regular basis, anyhow.

That’s where your blog comes in.

Another hugely important reason why you want to have only one or two blogs is that you can’t use your blog to sale your products.  At least, not like you would on a sales page.  You want to use your blog to build relationships with your readers.  This is a MUST, and it takes time.  If you don’t, you will be losing out and may never become truly successful in the internet/affiliate marketing business.

Why is it so important to build relationships with your potential customers?

a)      The chances of someone who knows you already buying a product that you suggest to them are multiplied by 3 to 5 times.

b)      Someone who knows you is most likely to buy from you multiple times.

c)       Someone who knows you and buys from you once is more likely to refer you to someone they know and even their whole social media network.

This is why you might have read time and time again that “the money is in the list”.  You’ll read that all over the place because it’s true.  No list, no expectation of getting a regular income from your online biz.

2- Create a list

Now, how do you create a list?  The only good way to create a list is to first create a blog with valuable content.  The first thing you need to understand in this business is that you  are not going to create a list because you want to, but because you are going to offer value to your readers, and people are going to be attracted to you that way.

Second, make sure that your blog invite your reader to sign up for a free incentive such as I have on my blog right here!

Now, do not use your list of subscribers to relentlessly sale a product every week to them.  If you do, your list will shrink faster than it will grow.  Do with your list of subscribers the same thing you are doing with your blog – give them value – and they will love you for it.  It took me over a week to create the e-course tutorial that I am offering on this blog; because I wanted to make sure it was something of value to my readers.

If you follow these two do’s and two don’t that every affiliate marketer should know, there is no way you can fail.

Treat your readers and your list just like you would want to be treated and they will give you back a hundredfold.  This is the real and the ONLY way to become successful online.

Do you Want more article marketing success? Just fill out the form below and get my FREE article marketing eCouse!

If this article was helpful to you, or if you have any thoughts about it, don’t forget to leave a comment and link you own blog or post to it!