What Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and cost effective ways to start an ecommerce business. The basic concept revolves around putting yourself between the consumer and the merchant.
So what does this entail?
Well basically you send traffic (i.e., potential customers) to a merchant's web site that you represent. If the visitor then goes on and buys the product or service via your link, you are entitled to a commission which is paid to you by the merchant as a way of a 'thank you' for driving traffic to their website.
The Affiliate/Middle Man
In effect as an affiliate marketer this is your role, you are acting as the middle man throughout this process. To be effective as an affiliate marketer your aim is to earn commission by putting yourself in the path of the potential customer and the merchant.
Promoting a product/service
There are various ways to promote the product/service that you have chosen, these methods range from a simple text link to an elaborate banner advertisement which can be put into an email, a blog or website or included in an article posted onto a forum site.
The Best Part of Affiliate Marketing
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you get to work with first class merchants who provide everything, from excellent products, ordering, and credit card processing right down to the delivery of the product/service. In essence the merchant provides all the logistics.
You're Aim
As an affiliate marketer your aim is to choose- An affiliate program The right product for you to promote A way to promote the product How to drive traffic to your merchants product websiteThis in turn will allow you to earn a commission by putting yourself in the path of the potential customer and the merchant.
The Customer-Affiliate-Merchant Path
What are people searching for on the Internet? A Solution through Information (Content)As an affiliate marketer you have to put yourself between the path of the customer and the merchant. This is how you receive a commission. You know that people are searching for a solution when they browse the internet. Your aim is to give them a solution, but first you must give them valuable information.
Create a Website or Blog
This is where you will house your information/content. When building a website or blog it needs to be a tightly-niched theme based content site, ideally you should develop the best possible site that you can based on the affiliate program you have chosen. The content of the site should be customer focused. If the person visiting your site has absolutely no interest in the content of your site they will leave.
The aim of the website
Is to provide a solution, so your content should reflect this and meet the visitor's needs or wishes, you should also bring in Targeted traffic (visitors) by building SEO (Search-Engine-Optimised) pages, and these will rank higher on search result pages. The higher the ranking, the easier it is for interested and targeted traffic to find you. More traffic means more potential sales, which means more potential commissions for you.
Pre-Selling
This is the most important aspect of your website as an affiliate marketer. The information/content that the visitor reads is basically there to warm up the customer to be more receptive to the solution, which in this case will be your affiliate product. This is also known as pre-selling. Pre-selling through valuable content creates credibility, and what you recommend in the way of a solution (your affiliate product) will seem more valuable to the visitor. The difference in Conversion Rates between visitors who arrive Pre-sold to your merchant's site via an in-context text link vs. a banner is far higher.
In A Nutshell
The process of affiliate marketing really comes down to this... Create a website or blog that has searched for valuable information/content, this in turn draws in targeted traffic, the content on your sites aim is to Pre-Sell to your visitors, this makes them more receptive to your recommendations and they will click your link to the merchants' website with an open to buy attitude. When they then buy the product/service you receive your commission.
Is Affiliate Marketing Difficult?
No not at all, as long as you follow the right steps. While there's no guarantee of success for beginners, affiliate marketing will basically cost you nothing and it's easy to get started. The most important work you'll need to do will be to keep your site active and updated with fresh content on a regular basis; that's the best way to attract lots of visitors.For many people this can be one of the hardest aspects of the affiliate marketing process creating valuable searched for information or content for their website, but this can be easily overcome these days by using great software that is specifically designed to create unique content tailored especially for your website. So now there can be no excuse for you not to give affiliate marketing a try.
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