11 Affiliate Marketing Tips to Make More Money Online

For business owners who are looking to boost their income, affiliate marketing is a great strategy. Whether you want to make some extra cash daily, or thousands more a year, affiliate marketing can help your business.

But affiliate marketing requires attention to good business principles. You need to follow the affiliate marketing tips of putting your audience first and protecting your brand, among others.

Master these tips and you can build a great revenue base for your business. It takes attention to detail, consistency, and some willingness to experiment.

If you employ these affiliate marketing tips, you’ll be seeing results in no time. Here are the best ways to boost your business:

1. Your Audience Comes First

The first principle of success in online marketing is catering to your audience. It should always come first.

The old adage in brick and mortar stores was “the customer is always right.” And while some of that has changed over time, with customers valuing the expertise of services and products, you still need to put them first.

In online businesses, your audience is your client base. Studying them and giving them what they want is the basis for all your business success.

When it comes to affiliate marketing the audience is just as important. What are they likely to be interested in? What links do they already follow on your site?

If you know what your audience likes and dislikes it will help you pick the right products and services for them. Viewed in this way, affiliate links aren’t there just for you to make money.

They are for your audience to learn more about something that will help them.

2. Protect Your Brand

Owning a business means building a brand. Your brand is the biggest asset your business has and it should be protected every step of the way.

Brand management is part art and part science. The success of your company rests on how well you build, develop, and protect your brand.

If a business or product doesn’t mesh with your core business values and practices it doesn’t make sense to promote them.

You will alienate your audience and diminish your brand.

Are you considering doing business with a competitor? What about a product or service that goes against what your business provides?

You should pause before moving forward. Any wrong moves could hurt the perception you have built for your brand.

Make sure everything you are working with is consistent with your core values and brand.

3. Content Is Still King

Your affiliate marketing business will only be as good as the foundations it is built upon. And when it comes to success in any aspect of your internet business content is still king.

You need to create consistent, interesting, valuable content for your audience to make the most of your affiliate links.

If the content isn’t there the audience won’t follow you. If the content is right though, audiences will believe in what you try and sell.

When you build great content first and focus on helping your audience, the affiliate marketing will follow as an integrated strategy.

Without content, you are just one big commercial. And just like on TV, people change channels when too many commercials are on.

4. Disclose Affiliate Links

When it comes to owning and operating a business in the United States you need to disclose affiliate links. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a list of guidelines which let business owners know exactly what they need to do to follow the law.

If you don’t disclose that you are providing a paid advertisement you could land in trouble for you and your business.

Businesses that are owned and operated in different countries may have different rules but in the U.S. it is important to follow the FTC guidelines.

These disclosure rules extend to regulations for Social Media sites. It is important that you are familiar with the laws before you begin.

Whatever the rules, I feel it’s best to be open and transparent with your readers. Also, some people may think, “Wow. If I go through with this, Peter gets paid something in return.” If you’re helping and giving enough value to your readers, they will probably be happy that you are getting paid.

5. Leverage Analytics to Boost Sales

Affiliate marketers often depend on data to create profitable campaigns. They may need to know which landing page works best or which web page gets the most conversions.

One of the ways we are seeing blogs and online content staying relevant is by refreshing keywords. You can revitalize old content and use your existing assets to build a larger audience. Then check your results with an analytics tool.

Adding in new keywords to content that is lagging might boost traffic. You can also use analytics tools to know where to best use these affiliate marketing tips.

Try this with the types of content your audience visits a lot. Or add affiliate links to existing content to make it fresh and pertinent again.

One of the biggest tools to website success in knowing what works and what doesn’t. Make use of analytics tools and you will know more about your audience and what works best.

6. Use a Multi-channel Approach

Multi-channel marketing is the process of interacting with your audience through different communication channels.

Your customers are no longer on just one channel. Give your visitors the chance of using the channel of their choice and you will find new customers on different channels.

Don’t just use one channel as the basis for your affiliate marketing. You spent all that time creating content and building an audience probably through just one or two channels. Why not increase your audience by using some of the different channels available?

Use multiple channels to make your strategy soar. This includes your website, newsletters, email, direct mail, ads, social media, and video content. We have to give our customers the information they want and where they want it.

Video content is set to make up 74% of internet traffic and is a great way to promote affiliate products or services. You can boost SEO and decrease bounce rate at the same time.

Make the most of every channel when it comes to affiliate marketing.

7. Choose Wisely

If you are putting time and effort into your online business you should know your audience intimately. Using analytics tools and experimenting with content, format, and approach gives you a great foundation to start with.

Whatever product or service you choose to use for affiliate marketing this should line up with your audience.

More than anything you are catering to the needs and desires of your audience. Ask yourself – is this product or service, something they will enjoy learning more about?

If not, there are plenty of other opportunities out there. Choose wisely when it comes to the products you are promoting and you won’t alienate your audience that you’ve worked so hard to build.

8. Experiment

Being picky about what types of affiliate links you work with doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment with different strategies. One of the ways business leaders achieve success is by experimenting and finding what works best.

Not only are there different businesses and affiliate programs out there, there are many ways to present them.

Experiment with the types of services and products you choose. And experiment with how you get them in front of your audience.

You don’t want to get stuck in a predictable rut. Also, if something works do more of it.

The best part of experimenting is finding a great new way to build income.

9. Believe in the Product

You owe it to yourself to be selective in the products and services you are creating affiliate links to. One of the biggest affiliate marketing tips is to stay true to yourself, your audience, and your brand.

Unless you are selective about what products and services you link to you will lose the trust of your audience. Without a core audience, your affiliate marketing strategy won’t be the only thing to suffer.

You will also see your SEO, traffic, and audience dwindle.

The best way to know about your product or service links is to research them thoroughly first. That way you will also have lots of things to write about and ways to link to them.

If you believe in the product or service you are promoting the whole process will be more enjoyable.

10. Stay Consistent

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is failing to stay consistent when it comes to any internet marketing strategy. If your readers, visitors, and clients can’t depend on you they will stop coming back.

This won’t just hurt your returning visitors. It will also impact your ability to be successful in following affiliate marketing tips.

Want to know how important consistency is? One company was able to boost online traffic by 3000% in a single year by catering to their visitors.

By creating content on average 4 times a week they saw visitor numbers soar. That dedication to your business, your content, and your audience will pay off.

That way, you can make the most of all the tips and generate more income.

11. SEO Your Posts

You’ve done your keyword research and written an awesome post. Take a few extra minutes to get your on-page SEO right. Also, it’s a good idea to go over some of your older posts to make sure they are properly optimized.

Nothing like the free search engine traffic unique content and a well-optimized post can bring.

Putting It All Together

Now you know how easy it can be to make money off your website with affiliate marketing, it’s time to get started. And you don’t need to go it alone when it comes to putting it all together.

Let’s Work Online has the resources and tips you need to generate income and make the most of your business.

Take our free course and learn the basic steps in setting up your own online business.

Whether you are new to making money online or are trying to get your business to the next level there is no better time to get started than now.

If you have any other affiliate marketing tips that will help people make money online or any questions or comments let us know below.