In the previous article of this series, I've covered some of the basics on how you can make money online with affiliate marketing. In this post, we will see how you can earn loads of cash by employing affiliate marketing strategy.
Lately I’ve read a post where the blogger thinks that affiliate marketing is soon to be dead because of Google's recent updates and to his experience with affiliate marketing which led him to conclude that it's getting harder and harder to make money with affiliate marketing.
A few year back, affiliate marketing was compared to the rush for gold, many jumped on the opportunity and have found that gold while Google's recent updates simply wont allow any more to dig the way they did. I still think there's a lot of gold to be digged, the only difference is that today you should acquire marketing knowledge and use different approach and tools to dig for that gold which is still out there in huge quantities.
I found my self reading that posts comments, many of them opine that the days of affiliate marketing have come to an end thanks to Google. However, this is far from truth, and top affiliate marketers are raking in chunky commissions even today. Many of them will even tell you it's easier if you know how and what you are doing.
As long as there are people who are searching for information and products online, affiliate marketing will never die. I can agree with the argument that Google's recent updates has changed the affiliate marketing game and forced us to change the way we do business online, but I think that these changes are better for global internet users and if we, affiliate marketers, will adapt ourselves to the new methods affiliate marketing is forcing us to use, it might be easier to make money online simply because a big part of the new generation of affiliates aren't real marketers who are prepared to put the extra effort into their campaigns so, a big number of them are leaving the affiliate marketing arena and leaving us, marketers, a lot more of space.
I've seen many of them heading to FaceBook as they can reach a big slice of FaceBook members without really changing their affiliate game and some are making money but still, I think that real targeted buyers are easier to find on Google and although FaceBook has a bigger slice of the global internet traffic today, it's a social network and a big number of it's members are there for different reasons except for buying. Google can not be neglected, Google today is by far a lot more targeted and if you are planing to build an online business, you should adapt to it's rules.
Today, we will talk about affiliate marketing strategy that will have your subscribers jump in and buy what you are selling. So, instead of randomly picking up any product to promote, follow the steps mentioned below, and you will see that your sales will pick up and you will be earning commissions round the clock.
Affiliate Marketing Strategy
Choosing a niche: Ok, you are not creating your product, but you still need to select a niche where people are willing to throw open their wallets for you. But the trick is to find a niche where you don’t face severe competition. For example, there’s a huge demand for weight loss programs, but then, there is even severe competition in this niche. So, within weight loss program, you need to identify areas where the competition is less. For example, you can narrow down competition by selecting vegetarian diet food and even narrow down that sub niche to find a smaller one which still have the demand – searches with less competition.
Google's update – Adding Value to your webpage and Giving Value to your customers
Now, most affiliate marketers fail because they simply use a non search engine optimized landing page or they are using the same landing page as the product creator uses, they provide a link with a subscription box and except their customers to pay. Well, that was in the past. Google is not indexing these pages any more and banned users accounts who uses that strategy.
Today, you need to give value to your customers. Taking the vegetarian diet food example further, you should add value to your landing pages by having an SEO unique content of approximately 500+ words on it that is relevant to the page search terms while putting attention to the page meta tags, H's and all SEO components that a web page should have. If you are using WordPress there are many useful plugin's that can help you with these SEO tasks, and never place the subscription box at the beginning of the page, you can place it on the right side or closer to the end of the page.
You should change the way you used to think about landing pages. These are web pages that needs to be indexed and climb their way on the search engine results page – SERP. Use RSS submissions, article marketing, bookmarking, blog comments, social marketing strategies and content syndication plugin's etc. to build links to that web page, that's the way to build passive income from affiliate marketing.
You can prepare a report on say weight loss advantages of the vegetarian diet or whatever your narrowed niche is. You can also include tips on healthy cooking and some quick recipes in your report and if you are using email marketing, send them to your subscribers for free. Just ask them for their name and email address when they download your free report, without making any sales pitch at the moment.
You can also upload that report to free downloads sites so it can go viral and if you have followed Google's rules you could re-use their PPC platform to drive targeted traffic to your web page.
Your subscribers will definitely be impressed when they see a content rich report. After another week, you can create another report on say harmful effects of junk food. Try to include some research and statistics in your report to make it valuable. You can also engage in a conversation with your subscribers by asking them to post their comments and views on your landing page. Do make a sincere effort to reply to their queries.
And then, a week or so after that, you can pick up an affiliate program to promote vegetarian weight loss diet, and ask your subscribers to click on the link to buy the product.
Since you have created trust amongst your subscribers, you will see that they will not ignore your mail, and you will receive a better response.
The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you can promote another product after a few weeks in the same niche, or you can choose another niche of your liking. Whatever you choose, the above strategy will drastically improve your sales and of course your commission, and your list will grow bigger and bigger, with every successful offer.
I'll appreciate reading your thoughts, so .. Affiliate Marketing - Is The Rush For Gold Ended?
