Affiliate Marketing is Easy right?

When I first started in affiliate marketing I thought that making money online was going to be easy…Surely all you had to do was put up a website and review a product and bing bang..people will buy stuff using your links..well I found out  the hard way and made many mistakes, so here are some ways to avoid affiliate marketing mistakes that I made.

1: Affiliate marketing scams

Online Scam

You’ve seen them everywhere…”make $10,000 a month with our easy system” or “How I made $500 in a day with this secret only the pros use”. Honestly these systems are nothing new..they are just packaged slightly differently and you will find yourself paying out money on either systems that do not work, or systems that you can find out anywhere for free. Don’t get swept into the hype. It took me 3 months to realise I  had been duped by one scam I stupidly entered into.

2: Affiliate marketing takes timeclock-it takes time

Like everything in life Affiliate marketing takes time to build. You will not make money instantly. You have to write content over time and build up traffic while gaining trust from your readers. Just promoting a product to people who know nothing about you will not work. Gain a following, gain trust and then promote.

3:Create your own contentWoman writing content on typewriter

Make sure that everything you create on your blog or website is written by you and do not get involved with any content curator software. You want your content to be quality content and not copied content which is illegible to the reader.

 

 

 

 

4: Join a community of affiliate marketerscommunity

When i first started i didn’t know that there were actually places to learn affiliate marketing properly and speak to people who are actually making a real living through affiliate marketing. The first one I looked at was Affiliorama and then after a bit of research I discovered Wealthy Affiliate. for more info on Wealthy affiliate take a look at my review here.

5: Choose a niche you have an interest in

When starting in affiliate marketing you are going to need to pick a subject you have a passion for as you are going to have to be writing about it every day or week. So it makes sense to pick a subject you either know about or have an interest in. If you do not then you are likely to stop writing and give up.

6:There’s an affiliate product for everything (well nearly..)

The first affiliate marketing mistake I made was to think that you should choose a product first. What you actually want to do is choose a niche or subject and then search for a product afterwards. A quick tip is to just type in your niche and then add + affiliate program to the end of it and type into google Eg: “bikes + affiliate marketing”

neon product sign

7: Choose your products wisely

The last thing you want to do is promote a product that you know nothing about. Remember you are trying to build trust and gain a following. Always try to have actually purchased the product yourself or make sure you research it well before promoting.

8: Use video marketing

People love watching videos and their popularity within affiliate marketing is growing all the time. You can easily get videos made using Fiverr, or if you are interested in a really easy way to create professional looking videos yourself take a look at my “create a videos marketing business” here

9: Affiliate marketing gurus

You see them everywhere on Youtube..it normally starts with a guy standing by a sports car and a briefcase full of money. These people are just trying to entice you into using their system or product they are trying to promote. They are what is known as faking it before making it…they also probably live in a wooden shack on the edge of town and have no money but own a computer! Yes there are some real marketing gurus out there but beware..if someone wants to show you a system that sounds too good to be true..it probably is!

10: Don’t give up

Here is a reality check…You are not going to make $10,000 in your first month of affiliate marketing. You may not make that in your first or second year, but if you work and work on it and write content and create material people want to read you may just make some money from it..but be realistic and whatever you do Don’t give up..think of it like planting seeds..every piece of content you create will grow over time…and in months or years you may make you first $100..or lets be optimistic and say $10,000!

 

I hope you have found this article on Avoiding affiliate marketing mistakes useful in some way or another, and if you would like to share this post or have any comments you would like to make the please just drop me a comment.

 

Pete.