Do’s
- Be Consistent
Stick to your niche and if you decide to explore other niches don’t mix things up. Like the rays of the sun focused through a lens, you will be more effective when your energies are directed at one thing. You will gain more knowledge in that niche and you’ll be able to provide people with content that’s useful to them. That will convert to loyalty, credibility, and sales.
- Write Compelling, Interesting, Useful, and Invariably Authentic Content
It’s a no-brainer that you need to provide original and useful content to your audience. Take your time to do some research if you are not well informed in your niche and come up with authentic and beneficial content. When you are unique and credible, it builds trust and loyalty. With a reputation like that, it will be easy to acquire good traffic and sell easily.
- Be Patient
One of the qualities you can’t survive without online is patience. As long as you have a solid strategy and you haven’t ripped anyone off, you will see results. Nevertheless, like a seed planted in soil, your strategy won’t work if you keep disturbing it or staring at it all day. Go grab a snack, spend an hour or two or even a day with friends and family. Do something else then go check how things are doing later. I know there are times you’ll spend days in front of the screen setting things up, but when it’s time to give things a chance to happen, please do so.
- Invest in Relevant Products and Services
Research is important with affiliate marketing because it is what will make your efforts worthwhile. If you invest in products or services that no one needs, even if you have the best strategy in the universe and the best content, no one will be interested. You’ll have wasted your time. Go for something that you are good at or that you are willing to put in the effort to be good at and that has a good market. Your audience’s needs come first, always.
Don’ts
- Avoid Spam, Scams, and Schemes
No one likes to be scammed, ripped off, or taken advantage of. Your success as an affiliate marketer is based on a good reputation. On the internet, the most you want as far as bad reviews are concerned is only one bad review for every 50 positive reviews or two bad reviews for every 100 bad reviews.
The point is that a single bad review can really mess you up, especially if the points highlighted in the bad review are legitimate. Online, people will look for bad reviews and give them priority over the positive ones.
There are things you can control and those that you can’t. You can control the legitimacy, authenticity, and credibility of the products and services you represent or present to your audience. However, you can’t control whether everyone who will come across what you are offering will like it.
Ensure you have control over what you can control because if you mess that up, coupled with the people who are just out there to mess you up, you won’t survive.
- Avoid Sales-off location
Don’t bombard your audience with buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, click here, click here, click here, click here, click here, click here, buy, click here. Yes, you need to sell something to make your money but don’t exhaust or suffocate your audience with your intentions. Good products sell themselves. If your content is good and convincing, you won’t need to place too much emphasis on people clicking somewhere. Your call to action should be obvious but not everywhere. When your stuff is great, people will automatically ask themselves, “Where do I buy?” Aim for that.
- No man or woman is an island
Affiliate marketing is a process that takes time and resources. One of the resources you’ll need is other people, other professionals. Especially if you are a beginner, you’ll find yourself in need of a website or blog, SEO skills, affiliate marketing know-how, and you’ll need various other things to get things going, including some cash.
Chances are that 99% of affiliate marketing beginners don’t have these skills. That means you’ll need help from other people. You may need a web designer and developer, you may need an SEO specialist, and you may need a successful affiliate marketer to learn from. I’ve used the word “may” because you don’t necessarily need all these people but they could come in handy if you have access to them.
You can acquire most of the skills you need with time but it will be a long of time, I’m talking two years and above for you to be good. In a nutshell, don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Case in point, it is quicker and perhaps cheaper to pay someone to design and render a website for you than learning to create one and then do it yourself. The former will take a week to a month. The later will take you at least six months to create even a decent looking website or blog.
