It’s a law of percentages when it comes to any marketing campaign, and affiliate programs are no different. If you’re a small-time blogger, then you might get less than 50 people reading your site per day (or less, if you haven’t worked on your SEO and marketing). Assume that about 0.5% of your visitors are going to bother clicking on a banner, or possibly even less if it’s a non-graphics link. And not everyone that visits the affiliates is going to purchase anything – say, 1% or 2%.

See what I mean?

If you’re going to use affiliates as a money-making venture, then you’re going to not only have to increase the traffic to your site, but you’re going to have to make the affiliate something that a visitor is going to want to click on, and then make a purchase from. If you can do those two things, then you can make the affiliates work well for you. Allan Gardyne, who I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, is a great example of someone who has been able to figure out how this works, and reported that by January of 2006, he was making five-figure commission checks from one affiliate program alone. So it’s possible. Now let’s figure out some ways to make that work for you.

Firstly, you are going to have to make the time investment to make the blog work for you. Do your research on all of the affiliate sites and networks out there. Read the fine print. There is a LOT out there for you to choose from. Don’t forget to make sure that the products that you endorse and promote are products and services that you really believe in. If people are blog-savvy, then they are usually on your site to read what YOU’ve got to say, and their minds are going to subconsciously “tune out” the outside noise; that is, the pretty affiliate ads on the sides of the blog, and the links at the bottom of the site page. There is a direct correlation between clicks made to affiliate sites and whether or not it was mentioned in the body of your blog. Before you start adding a million affiliate sites, hand-pick several that you really are interested in yourself, and are willing to endorse. Mention it in your blog and you’ll see that the income generated that way can be higher than just having an affiliate ad next to the blog itself. Of course, make sure that you’ve established the affiliate program; otherwise you’re sending traffic elsewhere without getting any financial reward for doing so.

Secondly, make sure that your blog is something that is INTERESTING. Things that happen to you from day to day may seem interesting to YOU, but is probably not going to be the most interesting thing in the world to, well, the rest of the world. You know how your boyfriend/husband rolls his eyes and allows them to glaze over when you talk about a new dress or a new TV show or a new makeup shade that you purchased? You know how you’re not really all that interested in hearing what is going on in your friend’s daughter’s life in school, day in and day out? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Remind yourself that the most important and interesting person in the world is YOUR CONSUMER. Not you. (Sorry to burst that bubble by the way). Even if you’ve got Warren Buffett’s wisdom and banter, it is just not going to be interesting to everyone. What Mr Buffett had to offer was worth $2M to the person who paid that price, but to an elementary school girl who has no interest in investments, that’s a ridiculous amount of money to pay to “listen to an old guy talk”, LOL.

Thirdly, you really should seriously consider creating your own affiliate program. I posted about how earlier – please go through that for some ideas. Once that’s done, list your affiliate program in affiliate directories so that people can start linking to you. Associate Program’s Affiliate Program Directory lists affiliate programs that work. Having your program listed in something like this makes it accessible to people who are looking for affiliate sites to promote. Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page, where there are also links to free tutorials on how to create your own affiliate program, as well as case studies of people who applied the tutorial and were able to create a decent amount of income.

By having affiliates on your site, as well as offering your site as an affiliate to others, you’re making money coming AND going.

Tomorrow I’m going to wrap up “Affiliate Marketing Week” with a list of the most common mistakes that affiliate marketers make, and how to fix them. I’ll return to posts about affiliate marketing from time to time, but this week was also about ME learning how to do affiliate marketing…and I’ve got to implement what I’ve learned so I can report any more on how to make it work, so that you can see that I’m practicing what I’m preaching

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