Over the past year, I've seen an extraordinary amount of web sites who have really mixed affiliate marketing with pure advertising. I'll see people putting up banners with affiliate links, obnoxious "click here" and "buy this" links all over the place, all in the hopes of making money with affiliate marketing.
Wake up and smell the coffee! Chances are you could make a bit of money, but this doesn't even hold a candle to the massive potential earnings you are pretty much throwing away by doing this. Just referring traffic is not what affiliate marketing is all about.
As an affiliate, you are supposed to be someone who is a credible source of information. Someone who can be trusted, and someone who can in turn recommend a product. Without that element of trust, your efforts will not be nearly as successful as they could be.
The first step to building credibility is to give your readers, whether they be subscribers to your mailing list, or visitors to your web site, quality information that they can use. This way, in their eyes, you become an expert in your field, and as a result, someone they can trust.
By recommending products right away, you will undoubtedly sound like a sales person. People want help, they don't want to be sold to. Without giving them any information, you aren't someone they will trust, and nobody wants to just hand over their money to a "stranger".
Once you have gained the reader's trust, then and only then should you start introducing product recommendations. The key here is to always be truthful and honest. Always outline the genuine benefits, and how a product will help them directly, and don't be afraid to outline some of the weaknesses or things you didn't like about product if needed. This will actually make you sound even more honest and trustworthy.
You really should only promote products that you have really tried and believe in. It only takes one bad recommendation to ruin your credibility. Even if a product has a few flaws, but you still like it, you can always take those flaws and propose solutions or give out missing information to your readers at a later date, which will actually allow you to make more subtle recommendations for the product. They will want to know what they are missing!
To conclude, you can actually take these concepts and build a super profitable product review mini site, where you can use your genuine recommendations as landing pages. Use a review format, and people who are already interested in the product, who may already be ready to buy, but want an extra "unbiased" opinion, can easily find you. With this kind of site, making sales is easier than ever!
Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com
Author Tim Johnson has been successfully affiliate marketing since 2006 in many different niches. To learn how to create review web sites that can make loads of sales each and every day, check out my Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate review and get started today.
