A blogger who has built up a large number of loyal readers for their blog and has been trying to make money from those readers by doing affiliate marketing on their blog shared their experience.
The problem is that nobody buys anything they try to sell.
Here are the questions and the answers…
1. Why do people come to your website?
Getting in touch with your readers’ “intent” is important if you want to make money in any way. Are they there for the community, information, advice, to buy something, research, fun, or something else?
If you know why people come to your site, you’ll have a better idea of what kinds of promotions they might be interested in.
For example, if they’re there to learn something, you might want to promote a “how to type” eBook. If they’re there to look into something they want to buy, you might want to promote the things they’re looking into.
Affiliate marketing doesn’t work well for all reader intentions, unfortunately. For example, if they are there to feel like they belong, you might want to think of a different way to make money unless you can get them to join a conference or group.
2. Do the products you’re promoting make sense for the people who read your blog?
This may seem like a no-brainer, but I can’t believe how often I see bloggers promoting products that have nothing to do with the topic of their blog.
As an affiliate, you need to make sure that the products you sell are:
high quality (anything low-quality will hurt your readers’ trust, but if you promote a great product, they’ll thank you for it), relevant to the topic of your blog, relevant to your readers’ needs and goals (see point #1), and at a relevant price point. For example, don’t promote expensive products if your readers don’t usually have big budgets.
3. Are you advertising in a way that feels personal?
When promoting affiliate products, another common mistake I see bloggers make is that they just put a banner or link in their sidebar and think that will bring in a lot of sales.
The problem is that this isn’t much more than a “ad,” and most of your readers won’t see it.
By far, the best way to promote affiliate products is to write about them from your own experience. This means that you should probably choose something to promote that you have used yourself and can talk about or review honestly.
People read your blog because they want to hear what you have to say, so tell them what you’re promoting and why.
Do this mainly in a blog post, but also think about emailing your newsletter list for important promotions and, of course, updating your social media statuses.
Don’t be afraid to try affiliate marketing with banner ads. However, you’ll find that your conversions are much higher if you add a little bit of YOU to the way you promote products.
source: ghnewsfilie.com
