Put Your Glasses On

….You need great vision to be successful at affiliate marketing.
As I explained in one of my previous posts ‘My First Affiliate Campaign’ you won’t get very far making a website thats just stacked high with fancy banners.

You need a bit extra if your going to actually suceed in creating a respectable income for yourself.
So what do you need to do?
Well thats a very big question and if I knew exactly what the magic formula was then I would have made my first million by now.
Unfortunately I have neither, but I do have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t work and thats what makes me a modest profit from affiliate marketing every month.

First off you need to create a plan and decide what direction you want to go.
This largely depends on your skills, interests and budget.

I’ll start off with websites…

If you are lucky enough to have a website of your own then you are already half way there and its not going to cost you anything to get started. You can simply integrate a campaign straight into it.
The quickest way to join affiliate programs and avoid having to fill out forms for every merchant, is to join an affiliate network like affiliate window or affiliate future
Both of the networks are very easy to use and offer 100’s of affiliate programs including some very big brand names. I also recommend these two networks as they both offer a range of affiliate tools and creatives to add to your site/s and the support they give is excellent.

Now before you run off and start adding affiliate links and creatives to your website, let me offer you a few tips:
1. Take your time and create a plan before you get started
2. Choose affiliate partners that compliment your site or the services you already offer
3. Try to be as supple as you can in your approach when integrating your links ( remember not many people like advertising ’slapped’ in their faces) So avoid using any flash banners etc.
4. Use your mailing list if you have one
5. The best affiliate marketers use the actual ‘process’ of their website to great effects.
What I mean by this is the interaction the user has with the site. ( Think of it as a journey )
You can get quite clever with this if you put a bit of your own thought into it.
It proves very lucrative as the results can be almost seemless.

Assuming your website has modest amounts of traffic you should soon start acheiving some results.
The affiliate networks will provide you with stats on your performance. Use these as the feedback for your campaign. Push forward with the programs that work for you.
 
Don’t be afraid to try new things out
What works for one website won’t neccessarily work for another.

Of course not everyone has a website already set-up so in my next post I’ll be giving a few tips on the some of the best ways to create an affiliate website from scratch.

Thanks for reading
Mike