The affiliate industry is perhaps the simplest business on the planet. Anyone can get started in this business, and we all start from the same place– zero! However, there is a persistent myth that there is some hidden “secret” to making money in affiliate marketing. I’m here to tell you– there isn’t! There is only one affiliate marketing secret (if you want to call it that) that you cannot do without: getting traffic. And that’s really no secret either! Here are three key questions to help you understand traffic, how to get it, and what it means when you have it.
1. What is the best price to pay for traffic?
You can pay for all the traffic you want, or you can get it for free. With an unlimited budget, you can have unlimited traffic.
(No, I am not being sarcastic! There is a point here that I will come back to below.)
Free traffic is my favorite kind!
But that’s just my opinion. You may disagree, and prefer to buy traffic. OK by me!
But…
2. Decide how long are you willing to wait for traffic.
The advantage of paid over free traffic: it can be had instantly. By instantly, I mean: traffic today.
You do that through PPC ads on the big search engines.
You can learn better and more productive ways of doing this in quite a few of the (so-called!) “affiliate marketing secret” books which are all over the net.
However, the fundamental strategy, in short, is…
Sign up with the search engines’ various PPC programs. Decide a budget. Do keyword research and write your ads. Link to your affiliate URL. Click. Save. Now you can have all the traffic you can pay for.
We are sold this strategy over and over again. It’s a good strategy, and it works.
The great disadvantage of PPC: you pay for your mistakes!
Don’t like the sound of that?
OK, in that case…
3. Look at your long term goals.
I love free traffic. Not like. Love.
The advantage of the type of free traffic I have in mind is that it gives exposure not just to a product, but to you.
That may be crucial to your longer term goals. If you are planning on being in business for a long time, then you want to establish your profile as an expert in your niche.
If you take away nothing else from this short article, I hope you see that the question of traffic is not just a question for today.
It’s a problem for tomorrow, and next year.
You’ve got to ask yourself: “Why am I in business? What do I hope to accomplish? How much money will it take for me to feel that I have ‘arrived’?”
In articles and in forums, we promote our products, sure but we also promote ourselves.
People get to feel you out, in a manner of speaking. They get to know you and decide whether they want to know more.
No PPC ad will ever do that. Unless, of course, the ad is for building a list— and that’s another day’s work!
But… articles and forums are not quick. It can take quite a bit of time and work to get established as a niche expert.
So, do you want to be a niche expert, or just make some sales and go do something else? Either is perfectly OK. But decide which you want.
Then…
…keep to your decision!
To summarize: Some people are in the affiliate game for life; others just want to dip their toe in the water. Success in the affiliate industry is about traffic: how to get it and how to keep it. There is no other “affiliate marketing secret”, if you want to call it that. You have to decide what kind of traffic you want, because different types of traffic will lead to different outcomes. No one can decide this for you. It’s entirely up to you.
Anyone can make money in the affiliate industry when they know how! Visit http://www.affiliatemarketerinfo.com and find affiliate marketing secret you need.