In a way a good affiliate marketing program is no different from a standard website. The same rules apply: it needs to be well designed, easy-to-navigate, information-rich and unique. The last one may be the most important.
“You should be looking for three major things: the amount of the payout and popularity, as well as reputation.
It needs to be well designed, easy-to-navigate, information-rich and unique. The last one may be the most important.”
Truth be told, affiliate sites are becoming as common as websites themselves.
In fact, most every website uses affiliate marketing in some form. Many people view affiliate marketing as a small-business enterprise, but this is not the case. The most popular websites use affiliate marketing as well, as it’s a viable profit opportunity.
However, because the web has become so saturated with affiliate sites, it can sometimes be difficult to stick out from the crowd. You can spot a bad affiliate site. Perhaps someone set up a blog with minimal content with a smattering of affiliate marketing links — mostly Google AdWords links, in which the site owner gets a few pennies per outclick.
The trick to running a good affiliate website is making it professionally designed. The site needs to be a repeat destination for visitors. Repeat traffic is core to a successful affiliate site. You can only get repeat traffic if the website is well designed and useful.
You can’t just put up a bunch of links and hope for the best.
You need to provide informative, updated content to ensure the site is of continuing interest. If the content or affiliate links are not working, it’s time to work on a new strategy.
Quality Affiliate Marketing Programs
Even a well-designed site will not pay out if you do not sign up for quality affiliate marketing programs. So, what makes a good affiliate marketing program? You should be looking for three major things: the amount of the payout and popularity, as well as reputation.
Reputation is important because some affiliate marketing programs have a bad reputation with marketers — not for money generated, but that the program doesn’t pay out in a timely fashion. It’s a good idea to check affiliate-marketing forums and appropriate government agencies to see if there haven’t been complaints about payment in the past.
Let’s look at the first two qualities of a successful affiliate marketing program:
You might think that it’s a good idea to first go with the most popular affiliate marketing plan on the market, one that has a solid reputation so more people will click the affiliate link. However, there is a downside to popularity.
If something is oversaturated, it can be a problem because a web surfer might just choose to click a link on another marketer’s site.
In some cases, a niche affiliate marketing program with a narrower customer-base can actually have a higher payout because you can’t find the links everywhere online. A good method is to mix both niche affiliate marketing programs and more popular affiliate links.
High payout is, of course, a major concern for most everybody.
Though the Amazon affiliates program is highly popular, it doesn’t have the best payout scheme. You have to sell a large number of items before you start seeing a profit.
It’s a good idea to find an affiliate marketing program that has a quick payout for sales that you drive to the site. Sign-up-based affiliate marketing plans are quite lucrative, such as a sign up for a credit card, so you should consider these in addition to product-based affiliate marketing programs.
