Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money and quite easy if you are focused and willing to work to build a profitable business. That said, there are some affiliate marketing pitfalls that can slow down your success or even ruin your reputation. Today we’re going to discuss 5 of those pitfalls, and if you’re like me, you’ve probably been guilty of at least one of them on occasion!
Because almost all markets are competitive online today, it is no longer possible to become a publisher and believe that you can sit back while the money comes in. It just doesn’t work that way. If you really want to make money from affiliate marketing, you must be willing to “learn to drive” and to act on what you learn. If you are a “newbie” to the affiliate marketing game, this post also applies to you, because you want to avoid these pitfalls. Well, here we go!
Top 5 Affiliate Marketing Traps and Fixes
# 1 – Sign up for all programs related to your niche
Many affiliates sign up for all the programs related to their niche. While it is a good idea to promote two or three products / services that you think would be useful / valuable to your readers, it is not a good idea to promote 8, 10 or even more products. When you go overboard, your visitors will notice that your site appears to be overly promotional, and the search engines will, too.
Focus on valuable content and promote some quality products delicately. Try to choose the offers that best suit the needs of your readers. And remember, you are not “stuck” with the products you choose; you should test to see which products have higher conversion rates.
# 2 – Promoting Products That Are Not Relevant To Your Website
Search engines pay attention to the relevance between your niche, content, and the products / services you offer, and so do your visitors. You don’t want to send a mixed message or confuse your visitors. If your niche is dog training, you absolutely do not want content on your site (or banners, advertisements, etc.) promoting breast enhancement pills! Your readers may be offended and that will absolutely take away your credibility.
Stick to the content that your readers want, that is on the subject. Choose credible affiliate programs that are relevant to your niche.
# 3 – throw advertising rules out the window
We’ve all seen mailers, emails, and other types of advertisements that make huge (and unbelievable) promises. A buyer customer does not usually realize that you are an affiliate; They see you as a merchant and trust you to offer reputable products. As an affiliate, think about the banners and other forms of advertising that the merchant offers before you start using them. If it sounds like a lot of “hype” that you may not be able to fulfill, think twice before using that advertising medium. Never make unsubstantiated claims, as it can come back to “biting you” in the form of dissatisfied customers and potential legal trouble.
To avoid this trap, simply make sure the language used in product advertising is ethical and avoid overselling. When writing product reviews, as many affiliates do, be honest and transparent, and never steal content from the vendor’s original product site to use in your review. It may be against policy and Google may view it as duplicate content as well.
# 4 – Not spending enough time or resources on affiliate campaigns
No matter how much you want it to be true, you cannot launch an affiliate site, put any content on it, product links, banners, etc. and hopes to earn money. Successful affiliate marketing requires enough time, money, or both. The more affiliate campaigns you run, the more resources will be needed. To achieve a certain level of success, you need to promote and market your product, which can be done through article syndication, list building, social media, forums, blogs, pay-per-click ads, and more.
How can you avoid this pitfall? Know how much you can do depending on your lifestyle, work, children, etc. If you need an hour each day for each affiliate campaign, dedicate “x” number of hours per day according to the number of campaigns you are running. If you don’t have time to manage promotions and marketing yourself, outsource the work.
# 5 – Unrealistic expectations – or jump ship too quickly
You can’t become an overnight affiliate marketing hit, although we’d all love it if it were possible! Many marketers create a website and start affiliate marketing, only to abandon shipping when they don’t see results in a week or two. This is not how it works, especially considering the sheer volume of competition in most markets today. Creating successful affiliate marketing campaigns takes time and patience.
Quick fix? Set realistic goals and make them small. Let’s say you want to earn $ 20 per week and grow to where you earn $ 50 per week in 6 weeks. This is doable! And once you reach your goal, you will enjoy the satisfaction, which will inspire you and motivate you to work harder. Don’t go into affiliate marketing with the expectation that you are going to make $ 1,000 per week right from the start. It is simply not realistic and will lead to disappointment.
If you don’t have the patience or don’t feel like you can put your time and energy into affiliate marketing, it might not be for you. If you are patient and ready for a different lifestyle, one where you don’t have to reply to a boss 5 days a week, affiliate marketing is definitely a way to achieve your dream of becoming self-reliant, but it won’t happen anyway. overnight. For me, knowing that it IS possible to reach 5 figures a month is enough of an incentive to keep doing my best!
