What are the secrets that all the pro affiliate marketers know and don’t share with everyone?
It’s a question that went through my mind at one point.
Sure, we all heard that we have to build a website, write posts targeting a product, and add our affiliate links.
Rinse and repeat.
But if you have been doing that for a while and seeing no results, it’s natural to wonder if you’ve been taught everything there is to know.
That’s exactly what I want to cover in this post. I’m going to spill the beans on the secrets that you might not have known. In the process of doing that, I might disappoint some of you about the affiliate marketing world.
Before I Get Started With The Secrets, I Want to Get a Few Things Straight
Can You Make Money as an Affiliate Marketer?
Are you one of the 10%?
What do I mean by that?
Well, out of 100 people who start an affiliate marketing website, only around 10 will make an income that will pay the bills. And from that 10 people, only 5 will make a truck full of cash in the millions per year.
Now, there are reasons for this. The number one reason is the low entry barrier for affiliate marketing. Absolutely everyone can try it. Your next-door-neighbor, the 10-year-old kid, the person that hates the internet (probably a long shot lol). You get the picture.
Whereas someone who might start a course for becoming a nurse is there because that’s exactly what they want to do and they are willing to invest the time and work necessary to get there.
On the other hand, most advertisers don’t care what kind of people promote their products. Most don’t do any pre-qualifications before accepting someone to their affiliate program.
For them, it’s just a numbers game.
The way it works for them is, out of 100 people that promoted their products, 10 will bring the actual traffic to purchase their products.
It doesn’t cost them anything to give out permission for everyone to promote their products to find the 10 that generate them the traffic.
Do you have what it takes to be in the 10%?
Spamming Your Affiliate Link is Fruitless
The number of times I’ve seen people spamming their affiliate links in youtube comments, forums, website comments, thinking that’s the way to do affiliate marketing drives me crazy.
It simply doesn’t work like that. You will be lucky to get a sale from doing that.
It’s the same thing if you think you can write quick/copied and spun blog posts to add your affiliate links. It’s just a waste of time.
Ads on a New Site Don’t Bring in The Big Dollars
I remember when I thought that I could run Adsense or other ads/banners on my site and I will earn some money as a beginner affiliate marketer.
Nope. advertisements only bring in big money if you have a large amount of traffic on your site. I wouldn’t even consider putting up ads on a site that has less than 10,000 visitors per month.
Needless to say, Content is King
This one you know already, but I have to remind you just in case…
Forget a beautiful theme, forget backlinks, forget building cool landing pages. What you are missing is good old helpful posts that provide value.
If you are trying to make money from affiliate marketing after writing 20 posts, forget it.
It’s not gonna happen. At least not in 2020 and beyond.
The times where you could build websites in micro niches that had few short posts and they brought in $100’s of dollars. Not anymore.
It can only happen if it’s a super unique niche and if you get lucky.
Google gives much better rankings to authority sites with longer posts. The average word count of high ranking posts on Google has 2000 words and higher.
Focus on writing quality content. Once you have 100+ posts on your site, you will see the traffic numbers rise and your sales with it.
The Affiliate Marketing Secrets That No One Told You About
If I told you there aren’t any special secrets, you would think I’m hiding them too.
The truth is there aren’t any “WTF, wow, unbelievable” secrets in this post or any other post on the internet. But What I’m about to tell you are exact so-called secrets why you aren’t making any money, yet.
Secret #1: Don’t Sell Products
Don’t sell products as an affiliate.
Are you confused? Aren’t we all supposed to sell products as an affiliate marketer?
Yes, we get paid if our readers buy the products that we promote. But, the problem is we are too praiseful of products we promote. We are trying so hard in our product reviews to convince the reader to buy, buy, buy!
I think this is the reason why people get put off from buying even a good product.
When I was around 20 years old, I worked in direct sales. It was my first job. Honestly, I had no idea what kind of job it was when I applied but when I got the job I was so happy.
Working as a direct salesman, I was taught 100 different ways to persuade the customer and not give up on a sale. So I tried to convince the customer to buy in every way I was taught.
Don’t get me wrong. The product wasn’t a piece of junk. In fact, it did its job as described. And I even went onto become a team leader for the company. But, I think I could’ve got more sales if I didn’t try so hard to sell.
What you need to do instead is sell solutions. Not products. Sell the solution that will make their life easy by having that product in their lives and not having it.
In other words, people buy products because of the benefits it brings to their lives.
Secret #2: Do You Know Your Audience?
When you are writing a blog post, you have to talk to the soul of the person reading it. He/she has to feel inside them that this person (you) knows why they are there.
Pro affiliate marketers would do anything to find this information. This is why you need to know who you are writing to.
Knowing just the age group and gender isn’t enough. To find more about your reader, go into forums in that niche to see what they are looking for. Read comments on product sales pages, especially negative comments to find out the shortcomings of a product.
You can also create a buyer’s profile based on your assumptions and the data you have gathered from your research. A buyer’s profile includes someone in the age group you are targeting.
It should have sections that explain:
What is the problem the person is facing
His current emotions because of the problem
The current challenges
His or her hopes
Here’s an example:
Once you know your readers’ problems, what made them land on your site, what kind of solution they expect, then you can write articles that directly address their problem.
This is why one marketer is successful and another isn’t.
Secret #3: Build Multiple Traffic & Income Sources
If you are relying solely on Google to rank you higher then you are putting all eggs in one basket.
Google is a large traffic source for many affiliate marketers. But, they don’t rely solely on Google for 100% of the traffic.
What you have to do is diversify your traffic sources. Start laying the foundations to Social media, video traffic (YouTube), guest blogging, email marketing, etc.
Many people ignore the power of video traffic and email marketing.
Video traffic is growing at an exponential rate. If you can start a YouTube channel around your niche you, generate more traffic to your site as well as generating a separate income from your videos.
The other one is Email Marketing. Even I’m guilty of this.
If your website doesn’t collect emails to build a list, you are losing out on a lot of money.
Many people earn $10,000+ from just a single email campaign. So if you haven’t started to collect emails from your visitors, you’re leaving money on the table.
===> Learn Affiliate Marketing From Where I learned it <===
Secret #4: Build A Following For Your Brand
The best affiliates build a following to their brand. Their readers come again and again and buy from them.
Most of these loyal followers would buy ANYTHING they recommend.
In fact, people are desperate for recommendations/opinions of products.
Why is that? It’s because the author has built trust with their readers. Once your audience trust your brand they are willing to take your word for it.
But that doesn’t come overnight. You have to earn it.
So how do you build this level of trust in a reader who doesn’t know anything about you?
I boil it down to how you write your content, always write your posts as if you are writing to a friend. And like I mentioned before, don’t overly praise a product you promote. Every product has its cons. Make sure to write about these in your product reviews.
You should also write comparisons or vs’ posts with similar products. That way people can see all the other offers in the same range.
And don’t do product review after product review. Your entire site will be a one big sales advertisement.
Write about other problems within the same niche. Don’t write every post to put affiliate links. Write helpful content. Show that you care about everything else in that niche.
Secret #5: See What You’re Competition is Doing
Competition is natural, don’t be afraid of it. Competition shows that there is a market for what you are selling.
Instead, learn to take some tips from your competition. Take some notes on what keywords they are ranking for by doing a search on Google.
See how they title their posts, how they wrote their post, and what kind of products they promote. See how you can improve your content and what areas you are lacking.
By analyzing your competitors, you should also look for areas they are lacking, and write a unique post targeting them.
Are You an Action Taker?
I asked this question because people who succeed in this field are the people who take action. You can read all you want about the secrets or hidden strategies but If you don’t take action, it all counts for nothing.
The REAL SECRET to making a dime on the internet is hard-work. There is no alternate.
Being an affiliate means running a BUSINESS. A lot of people think they can take short-cuts and earn easy money. Affiliate marketing is far from that.
If you are still thinking there is some extra special, hidden gem of a strategy in affiliate marketing. And you are looking for this turn-key method, you will look for it forever.
Don’t be that person.
Did You Take Action? Write in the comments!