Here are some of the mistakes done by affiliate marketers starting out. I know as I’ve done them myself, but you learn from your mistakes and move on.
1. No Content – Many affiliates think they can have a website or blog, but then have no good content or a lack of any content on their site, then put up a bunch of affiliate links and banners which many readers try and avoid anyway. So without good content, your readers will not think you have anything good to offer them and leave your site, so this is the most important in any affiliate site, HAVE CONTENT!
2. I’m Unique 🙂 – Many affiliates will eventually come to a writers block or just can’t write good content, so many affiliates turn to free PLR articles, there are sites such as Article Base or Ezine Articles which offer free articles which you can use on your site, but this is one big mistake and using free articles is more harmful than you think, Google frowns upon duplicate content, just imagine, the free articles that the affiliate puts on his site, how many other people have the same articles as them? It’ll be in the hundreds or even more, Google loves Unique content, so what do you think that will happen to the sites using all the same articles, Google will not put them on the top of the search results, as in their eyes, they are not bringing anything new or unique to the person searching.
So very important, write your own content. If you can’t, there are many companies offering unique articles for sell, but this isn’t cheap, but is a good alternative and a great time saver.
3. Don’t Sell – This one is a biggie, too many affiliates seems to use a sales pitch approach, so this is what happens, a visitor comes to your site, they are intrigued in your article with a sales pitch, they click on the “click here” link and goes to the merchants site, only to be bombarded with another sales pitch to get you to buy. Do you really think that person will want to buy the item or even come back to your site? No, because no one wants to fill pressured into buying something, so just kiss your affiliate commission out the window! Your going to be very lucky to even come out with 1 sale with this approach.
4. Where am I? – Many affiliates make the mistake and forget one crucial thing in affiliate marketing, which is SEO Search Engine Optimization, because more visitors to your site equals more leads and more leads equals to more sale commissions. It’s very important to optimize your site so that the search engines can find you, therefore bringing more visitors to your site. If you can’t do this yourself, you can pay SEO experts to help you.
5. Oh My God, I got a Sale! – This is the most common mistake of all and I see it all the time, affiliates think they can make a site, put little effort into it, create some content and bombard the visitor with affiliate links and banners, they sit back and wait for the miracle to happen, if you want to be successful in affiliate marketing, your going to have to do alot of reading, Lot’s of forums and learn. There is alot of content out there about affiliate marketing, so do the research, take your time and the best thing to do is don’t expect anything, or at least have a small goal of what you would like to make, many affiliates straight away gets this idea in their heads that you’ll going to make $100k in the first year, get that out of your head, it ain’t happening, so when you make that sale and reach your goals, then keep raising it each time and eventually you’ll be a successful affiliate marketer.
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