Editors Note… this is Part 1 of a 2 Part Series.
Hello, internet marketing enthusiast! We’re glad you’re here. If you’re reading this, you probably either want to get started with affiliate marketing in 2018 or you’re simply looking to launch a new project and want some guidance to help you ensure that you make the right decisions.
Either way, we will do our very best to share some great tips with you so that your first or next campaign can get off to a great start! Ready to start your affiliate marketing business?
Let’s go!
Introduction
Sometimes, the connection between SEO and affiliate marketing can be tricky.
This is mostly caused by the bad reputation affiliate backlinks have, often without a real reason.
In fact, if a business or a site has a drop in rankings, they often rush to the conclusion that one of their affiliates is to blame.
In order to fight this, it’s important to know some good SEO practices for affiliate marketers!
In other words, knowing good SEO practices can save you from experiencing a whole lotta pain in your affiliate marketing journey.
In turn, your site generates more revenue, and you can know with certainty that there’s nothing wrong on your end.
First, it’s crucial that you understand how Google ranks websites.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is basically the act of promoting someone else’s products or services and earning a commission when someone clicks your link and performs the desired action.
This helps you build your site in such a way that it ranks highly for a good reason.
There are a ton of different affiliate networks you can join.
This is great!
Why?
Because it helps you market in a niche you’re passionate about.
If you happen to be a golf nut and you create a site in that specific niche, there’s a good chance that you’ll actually stick with it.
Moreover, it will also help to keep you interested for the long haul.
And guess what?
That eternal ability to stick with it is what will eventually lead to your success!
The Process
Here’s the process:
You get your affiliate links and place them on your websites, videos, or social networks so that people get to click those links and continue purchasing a product or service.
Some affiliate networks offer CPA, which means Cost Per Action.
You sign up for an affiliate network and decide on what you want to promote.
When your target audience performs the desired action, you get paid.
We mentioned the expression “desired action” because it doesn’t always have to be a sale.
An example of an action in which the traffic does not need to buy for you to get paid would be when the visitor (traffic) fills out a form and opts in.
It can be that simple!
SEO Affiliate Marketing in 2018: Success Tips for Affiliate Marketers
Let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty!
It’s time to talk about everything you need to know before firing up your affiliate campaign.
We will go over many different things which allow you to better understand how it all works and where everything fits in.
Let’s do this!
Niche Selection
This is a big one and for many reasons.
Indeed, choosing a niche is half the battle!
First things first:
Picking something you’re passionate about is a great way to start!
Another aspect you need to take into account when selecting a niche is whether or not there’s a hungry crowd of people searching for what you might want to offer them.
Make sure to check whether or not there is actual search volume for keywords that will work with your offers.
If you’re involved in the niche and have a good feel for what people are looking for, this should be easy.
If there are no searches, there’s no traffic!
Need some tools you can use that provide keyword search volume and cost per click?
Check SEMrush (30-day Free Account) or Ahrefs
It can really determine whether or not your website is successful.
Not sure what niche to choose… check out this Biz In A Box concept.
Domain Name
This is a huge factor.
The choice you have to make is simple:
Either you want to have a website with a huge authority that can be something you can actually brand, or you want to go for a short, straight-to-the-point, exact match or partial match domain.
Each method can become a site that earns money, which means you really need to take some time before you launch and decide what are the long-term goals you have for the website.
The beautiful thing about building a large, authority site?
You can always be on top of it and you’ll get to turn a real profit, whereas if you happen to choose an exact match domain to target one main keyword, it could all fizzle out over time as trends change.
For example, if you’re working in the golf niche, do you want to create an authority site that you can keep exploring long-term and use it as a continuous project or do you want to target a specific product or niche within the massive general niche of golf?
The exact match option might produce faster results while the other option could be something you continue to build upon as time goes by.
Is there a right or a wrong way?
Whether you’re thinking about SEO, PPC, or social media marketing as a way to generate traffic to the site, hosting plays a bigger role than you may realize.
Hosting
Yes, hosting matters.
No, not really.
You can make money either way, which is why it’s really important that you take some time to ponder these crucial matters at the early stages of your endeavor.
Think about it:
Do you like going to a slow-loading website and waiting for it to load?
Of course not!
It doesn’t matter what method of traffic generation you’re using:
Visitors will leave the site more often than not and it can affect your SEO efforts.
And then, what?
Before you can even understand what’s going on, there goes your chance of getting a sale!
A quality web hosting solution will be fast, secure, reliable, local, and won’t cost you much.
Who’s got the best hosting for affiliate marketers?
We all have our favorites.
Just make sure you pick a hosting solution that offers you everything that was previously mentioned!
Content
Content will largely depend on your earlier choices.
Did you opt for the route of a targeted niche site or did you choose the long-term, authority-style site?
If you’re taking the authority site path, the content will hopefully be handled in-house either by yourself or by someone you’ve partnered with on the project that has the knowledge and passion to keep adding content for many years to come.
It’s important to note that it’s worth the money and/or effort for you to go ahead and get some high-quality, professionally written content for your money pages.
If you chose the laser-targeted niche site (sometimes called sniper site) you won’t need a ton of content.
Content marketing can bring you loads of targeted traffic.
If you do it right, your blog/site will have followers and regular readers forever!
With an authority-style site, you’ll want the homepage to have a general theme/topic overview.
Your on-page for each post or page will then have its own on-page factors.
On-Page SEO
Whether you’re making a sniper site or a blog/authority site you’ll want to get your on-page SEO dialed in.
You’re targeting something very specific such as footjoy rain pants and your on-page SEO will reflect that.
Later on, you’ll be able to create posts, pages, and sub-pages to target certain keywords.
With the sniper site, it should be pretty straightforward.
Thats it for Part 1… look for Part 2 here.
