DS Articles

There are two simple keys to a successful affiliate business. One is a website which can attract visitors; ideally visitors with something in common. The other key is a product, or perhaps a service of some kind, which will motivate them to request further information or make a purchase.

As an online marketer of any kind, you will need to ask and answer, to the best of your ability, several questions about your visitors. What is their gender? Their age range? Their income? In what are they interested?

Most important of all, why do they come to your website? What do they hope to do there? Are they looking for advice, entertainment, the solution to a medical problem, or something else?

By finding out as much as you can about your visitors, you’ll be able to more quickly and accurately learn what kinds of products and services they will find most compelling. Generating lots of traffic to your site is, as we’ve said, very important. But, for your website to be more than a hobby, you must provide your visitors with appropriate services and/or products. Luckily, and this is great news, you don’t have to pick the right products/services the first, second, or even the third time. Just keep learning, keep thinking, and (most of all) keep trying until you’re right.

Be sure to consider lead generation programs as well as programs which pay you on a per sale basis. Depending on the content of your site and the demographics of your visitors, they may be more interested in receiving car insurance quotes, for instance, than in buying auto accessories. Some programs pay you very well just to help them identify prospects for whatever it is they sell.

Because all sorts of companies want to build their mailing lists, you can even earn a commission when someone signs up for a coupon, a free restaurant meal, a few trial issues of a magazine, or countless other freebies.

Remember, the commission you are offered may not be the whole story. If a program will compensate you both for the revenue you bring in directly and the revenue brought in by those you influence to join the program, your net earnings may ultimately be far higher.

Choose your affiliate program(s) with care. I suggest you confine yourself to those that:

1. give you ongoing, relevant online statistics. The more data you have, the more likely you will be to make decisions which can increase your traffic and your sales.

2. provide you with tested, successful advertising copy and/or banners.

3. offer you a quick and complete response when you have a question or a problem.

4. meet your website visitors’ needs with a high quality product or service at a fair and competitive price.

Be sure you offer your visitors a newletter, a small gift, or some other incentive to obtain their email addresses. That way, you can invite them back to your site when it changes or offer them opportunities to purchase products you believe may be of interest to them. But, do not send emails without permission, and do not send them excessively…the goal is to create trust and longterm customers.

I’ll conclude by passing along to you what might well be the best business-related advice I have ever heard; the most critical activity in which a businessperson can be engaged is tracking and analyzing the results…positive or negative…of every decision and activity.