Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative business for some, while others are happy to have it as a part-time venture to bring in a little extra cash. But whatever the goal, this business takes time to set up and gain momentum. It’s important to get it right. There are some common mistakes made by affiliate marketing beginners that, if avoided or corrected, will speed up the success process exponentially. Sure, a lot of this business is about providing value and helpful content, but let’s face facts. We’re in business, so the bottom line is to make some money for our efforts. So let’s take a quick look at some mistakes to avoid.
Your Niche Is Too Broad Or Too Narrow
To gain credibility and that all-important traffic to your site, the goal should be to become somewhat of an expert within your chosen niche. That’s hard to do if you choose a topic that is very broad and not defined. On the flipside you don’t want a niche that’s so defined that there either aren’t enough people searching for the subject matter, or you simply run out of material to write that’s relevant to your niche. It’s vital to get this balance right as much of your future business success hinges on this very choice. The last thing you want to do is work on your site for months or a year only to discover you’ve made a huge mistake in niche selection.
You Don’t Have Enough Passion For Your Niche
It’s always best to choose something you both know about and are passionate about; or at least have a keen interest in. It still has to be a defined niche (but not too defined) and one that enough people will be interested in to be profitable. But if you choose a niche you don’t really care that much about just because you think it will be popular, then eventually you will get bored with it and lose interest. Maybe not if it’s making bucket loads of cash, but chances are you will be tired of it before it can get anywhere near that point.
Promoting Inferior Products
In this case you will be forced to lie in your product reviews and recommendations if you are promoting products that you know just don’t live up to their own hype or the elaborate price tag the manufacturers place on them. You are much better off sourcing products that you can believe in. Then you will write with sincerity and confidence. This game is all about trust and credibility at the end of the day. Be honest, be genuine and you will reap the rewards of that eventually.
Duplicate Content And Unoriginal Writing
Copying and pasting someone else’s work onto your site and passing it off as your own is stealing, pure and simple. On top of that, search engines look down on duplicate content and you won’t rank and get traffic. Another common error made by beginners is writing stuff that’s too similar to what’s already out there. Sure, no piece of content is going to be completely unique in every way, but you want your piece to be better than the next guy who has written a post about it. Aim for giving value to your readers. Aim to be the best.
Think Like A Customer, Not Like A Salesman
Now this can vary depending on what subject you are writing about. If you are doing a product review, for example, then it’s going to sound more salesy than a post geared toward general advice or a tutorial type piece. But either way, you need to get in the mind of the customer when writing your posts. Pretend you are the customer visiting your site. What is it you want to know? What do you want to learn? What problem do you need solved? Once you understand what the visitor is looking for, then you will know how to help them. Once you know that and offer solutions to their problems, then you are in a position of credibility to possibly make a sale to them.
Too Many Affiliate Links And Advertising
It can be easy to get caught up in the initial excitement of making money soon when you first venture out into the world of affiliate marketing, and it can be tempting to overload your posts and site with ways for people to click through to products and make a purchase. Resist this. Your site is not a shop. It’s a website where people come to for help, for tips and advice, hoping you can solve a problem for them. If they want to visit an online shop they’ll go to Amazon or eBay. They are coming to your site first and foremost for the quality content you are providing them. People don’t want to be bombarded with flashing ads, constant pop ups and affiliate links littering the content in every sentence. Keep things simple. Have an obvious call to action, have a few subtle ads in the sidebar. Maybe, maybe have a pop up encouraging people to join your mailing list. Just remember though, people came to your site because there was something there they wanted to read. Make it easy for them to read that, otherwise they will just leave and never come back.
A Lack Of Persistence And Determination
If you are going to get into the affiliate marketing business and truly take it seriously, then be in it for the long haul. It takes time and work to get any business off the ground, and affiliate marketing is no exception. Quite possibly you will work for months before seeing any money come in, and many give up before they’ve had a chance to taste sweet success. The money will come, if you do it right. Which brings us to our final point in this post.
You Need To Be Taught How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer
Any affiliate marketer who ventures out there all alone with no training and guidance and support is almost doomed to fail. Everything you do will be hit and miss. You won’t know what works and what doesn’t or how to improve your business. You need to be trained the right way, learn how to go about setting up an enterprise like this properly from the very beginning. Then you will be on the right path to success if you continue to learn and diligently put the work in.
The sky’s the limit. Reach for it.
Darren Burton
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Nice post and one I highly agree with 100%.
Adding too many affiliate links is a killer for SEO that will only crush your potential to earn good rankings on Google, Yahoo or even bing.
Before selling comes helping which is why as you say think like a customer and not a salesman so you can earn trust before a sale is made as a conversion.
Duplicated content is the worst action to take when starting out in the online business world. This is especially true if you buy into them products that shake content up to release more content for half the time. Search engines catch onto this and will punish you dearly as the consequence.
When people lack passion for their niche they will only short run themselves because it really will feel like work then, rather than enjoying what they love to write about and help people with while earning an income.
The niche being too broad is an excellent point where many newbies try and become an authority website overnight without being more specific.
It’s like targeting skin care (too broad) rather then targeting something more specific like ance but, being more specific like inflammatory or cystic ance to cover these topics before scaling their work for extensions.
Good post, I enjoyed the read.
Sam.
Thanks for your detailed comment, Sam. I’m glad you enjoyed my post. Sounds like you know a fair bit about this business and what’s involved. Best of luck. Cheers.