Creating a website with your affiliate review page on it is all well and good, but how will people find your site? There are several different ways to drive traffic to your site. One common method is by using Google adwords.
Now, the proper use of Google Adwords would fill another eBook entirely, so we are just going to touch on it briefly here.Its not extremely difficult to learn, but it does take some practice and trial and error before you get it right.
The snapshot below shows a list of sponsored links that come up when you type in the words “dog training book” on the google search engine:
You would find these links to the right of the actual search results. These are all paid advertisements.
By the way, the fact that there is a list of links is a good sign. It means that people are making money promoting dog training books.If you type in a phrase and there are no sponsored links associated with it...thats not a good sign. It is a pretty sure that theres no money to be made in that area. Its rarely – VERY rarely, an undiscovered niche.
Now, look at some of the titles on the list;
“TopDogTrainingReviews.Net”; “Top 4 Dog Training Books”...you can bet that those are sites that were created by affiliate marketers.
The best way to learn about Google Adwords is from the source; go to www.google.com/adwords and visit their learning center. It is worth spending a day or two going through their many adwords lessons, to learn how to set your campaign up correctly.
Here is one tip that will be useful to you as an affiliate: when you create a review page, do not just make it a one page website. Google will charge you more for each keyword phrase that you bid on if they perceive that your website is low quality. And they perceive one page websites as low quality.
So what you want to do is create maybe five or six other pages and link to them. Just put the links in an unobtrusive place where they will not distract your visitors from your sales page message.
The links can lead to a page with your privacy policy, a “contact me” form, and a couple of pages with information about your products - say, weight loss or dog training or downloading itunes or whatever your site is about.
In addition to Google Adwords, or instead of Google Adwords, some people use article marketing to promote affiliate products.Here is briefly how this works: you write an article for an article directory site. The article does not have to be long; between 300-600 words will do it. You are writing a helpful, informative article about the same general topic as your affiliate product.
For instance, if you are promoting a dog training eBook, you could write about how to stop a dog from digging up the back yard, or how to stop a dog from chewing.
You cannot be overly promotional in your article or the article directory will not accept the article. They want articles that provide useful advice, not advertisements.
So how does this help you, writing a purely informational article?First of all, you get to include what is called a “resource box” or “bio box”, depending on the directory. In that box, you can link to your sales page. You would say something like: “Fed up with chewed up shoes and furniture? For more tips on dog training, visit....” and put in the link to your site.
And secondly, some sites allow you to include an affiliate link directly to the merchant page. Some article directories expressly prohibit that, however, and ONLY let you link to your own site. So make sure that you check the individual article directorys terms of service before you try to include an affiliate link.
Some of the better article directory sites are: Ezinearticles.com
Goarticles.com
Buzzle.com
isnare.com
Articlecity.com
Associatedcontent.com
Articledashboard.com
Selfgrowth.com
Articlealley.com
Easyarticles.com
Articlerich.com
Article99.com
Bestsyndication.com
Articlesbin.com
Americanchronicle.com
Articlecafe.net
Writing one or two articles wont make you rich. Article marketing takes some time and effort. You will want to write at least 3-5 articles a day yes, a day! - to promote your affiliate product, and do that for about a month before you can relax and rest on your laurels.
If you hate writing, you can go to sites like elance.com or guru.com and hire someone to write articles for you relatively cheaply.Another way to promote your affiliate products is to go on to relevant forums and post helpful comments - again, not overly promotional - and include a link in your signature that leads to your web site.
Forums do not generally allow you to link directly to a merchant page. Your “signature” is created when you are creating your profile. You do not to have a signature. However, if you want to, you can create a link and put it in your signature, which is the line which will appear under every post of yours.
We cant emphasize enough that on a forum, if you appear at all selfpromotional or „spammy you will be at best ignored and at worst banned. You need to do the same thing that you do with articles - say something helpful and informative.
One word of advice - dont ask questions that contradict what your signature file says.For instance, on internet marketing sites, dont ask for the best ways to make money online if your signature file links to a “make money online” site.
And if you are on a dog training site, dont ask questions about how to train a dog if you are promoting a dog training eBook.This sounds like obvious advice, but people on forums do it frequently and it causes them to lose all credibility. If you are presenting yourself as an authority, you need to sound as if you know what you are talking about.
And finally, viral marketing is an excellent way to promote your site.
To do this, you would write a short report that is relevant to the product that you are promoting. For instance, if you are promoting a diet eBook, you could write a five page report with a title like “Top 10 diet tips” and give it away on diet web sites and on diet forums.
In the book would be the affiliate link to the product that you are promoting.You could do the same with any type of product. For a dog training eBook, you could write a report with a title like “Five ways to deal with an aggressive dog”, or “Five Biggest Dog Training Mistakes.”
For a fitness eBook you could write a report such as “Five Ab Flattening Exercises” or something similar. You get the idea.