Affiliate Marketing: Learning The Basics Before You Get Started
Affiliate marketing is the promotion of products and services that belong to someone else. You advertise a product on the internet, with a link to the parent website, using a unique affiliate link supplied by the company. When a visitor places an order, you are paid a commission; this is usually a percentage of the purchase price.
This is a simple and inexpensive way to get started in internet marketing; not only do you not need to create a product, but you don’t have any shipping, returns or complaints to deal with either. All you need to do is promote the product and wait for the commission checks to arrive.
There is considerable difference in the percentage of commissions paid by various companies and on different products. To make the best incomes, you need to choose products that pay well but do not have too many other affiliates competing for sales of the same product. Finding these will take some research, but the potential results are well worth the original effort.
Many companies that are looking for affiliates to market their products stress that you don’t need your own website. As an affiliate, you are supplied with a website, which is little more than a single page ad (called a landing page) for the product. The visitor lands on this page from your affiliate link, likes what they see and follows the link to the order page. This is an easy and simple way to start out in affiliate marketing, but remember that there is potentially thousands of that same “website” being used by thousands of other affiliate marketers to attract potential buyers.
Having your own personal website allows you the opportunity to promote popular products in more unique ways, which could increase your conversions of visitor to buyer. You can also promote several different products from your website, which increases the cost efficiency of your advertising.
It doesn’t have to be expensive to set up your own website; there are many website building programs and templates available that are inexpensive or even free. They may not be fancy, but they are certainly a great way to get started. Choosing a domain name is the next step and then finding a web host; hosting is needed to enable visitors to find your site. Start off with a basic hosting package; you can always upgrade as you become more experienced.
When deciding on the products to promote, choose a small section of a popular area, called a niche. There is likely to be less competition in a small niche than in a large, general one. For example, ‘dog training’ might be a popular topic for pet owners who are wanting some fresh information about how to control their dog. There may be many websites and affiliate marketers, and therefore, lots of competition, in that niche. But if you focused on a small part of that niche, it is a narrower field and possibly less competition; for example, ‘training your small dog.’
You are now set up to start affiliate marketing. You have your niche, products, website and the only thing left is to advertise and attract ‘traffic’ or visitors to your website. There are many traffic methods, from free to expensive. Make sure you track the results of every product and traffic method to get the most out of affiliate marketing.