There is a popular saying that goes thus; "Anyone who fails to plan in business, will in no time becomes obsolete."
When most people hear others talk about affiliate marketing and how many sales they make, they only see the money signs. Some people think affiliate marketing is a get rich quick scheme. It’s not. But you can make money from it. In some cases, enough money to mean you can quit your day job. But to become a successful affiliate bringing in the big bucks as they say, takes hard work and dedication. Here are some simple tips on how you can make your affiliate website a success.

1. Know Your Target Audience
Once you have established what your niche is, finding out who your target audience is the next important step. Once you know who your target audience is you can give them what they want and need. A brief product description with links to buy won’t help you achieve the sales and commissions you’re aiming for. You need to give your target audience as much information as you can about the product they’re interested in.

By taking the time to learn about the products you’re promoting you can create quality information for your customers that builds your credibility. If your visitors do not have trust in you they’re more likely to purchase elsewhere.

One way of finding out who your target audience is by looking on forums, blogs, and reading reviews about the products you’re thinking of promoting. Learn who it is that is commenting on these forums and blogs and leaving reviews. For example, I typed ‘weight loss pills’ into Google and went onto the forum "Nairaland/family section." I learned that the women talking about weight loss pills on this type of forum had recently had children and wanted to lose weight fast. I now know what some of my visitors are after. I have found my target audience, I know what to write about and the best type of products to attract this particular target audience.

2. Create Unique, Quality Content
What makes your site better than others, and why should your visitor want to click your links? Most site visitors aren’t there to actually purchase a product. Which is why your affiliate website should give a good insight into the products you’re promoting, and provide plenty of testimonials and reviews. This is more likely to help you influence your visitors to buy what you’re promoting.

The first paragraph on your site is the most important on the page. It is the first thing visitors will read and will either grab their attention or not. Using keywords in this first paragraph and making sure that it is well written to keep your visitors engaged and help improve your page ranking.

A picture can speak a thousand words and images on your site will help grab your visitors attention. If you’re promoting weight loss products, before and after images can help build interest and keep your visitor on your site longer.

Update your content frequently. Sites that never post fresh content look like they have been abandoned and visitors won’t return. If you update your site with regular, unique, quality content, your visitors are more likely to return.

3. Use Testimonials
Testimonials and product reviews are very valuable pieces of content to have on your affiliate website. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that they’re both the same – they’re quite different types of content. Testimonials usually speak about the company/brand as a whole. Product reviews focus on the individual product.

Testimonials are vital in building customer trust. They show other customers complimenting what the product you promote has done for them, and can tell your visitors what a positive experience they had buying through your site.

You want the benefits of what you offer to be in every testimonial that your customers leave. Such as “Since I started taking Ozone21 a month ago I have already lost a stone and I am really happy with the results” Like I mentioned before, pictures can sometimes speak a thousand words, so ask your customers to upload pictures as their testimonials to show how they look before and after using the product you promote.

Always remember, if you say that a certain product can do something, you must always back it up with actual facts. How different does your customer look since they started taking Ozone21? How much did they weigh before? What do they weigh now?

4. Use Product Reviews
I personally read reviews on products that I am interested in buying whether it be from online or not. Don’t you? Product reviews are big sale drivers and are something which most customers will want to see before deciding to purchase. Product reviews are apparently more trusted than descriptions given by manufacturers, and customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site which has reviews left on them.

Product reviews can increase your conversions as by helping remove any doubts your potential customers may have about a product. They will also help improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google and Yahoo.

5. Choose The Right Domain
You might be wondering why a domain name is important. Or you may be one of those people who take ages coming up with a name which you think is going to be the most unique. My advice would be, “meet in the middle”. A well chosen domain name will help existing customers find you easily and will draw new customers in. However, don’t worry about spending all your time and effort on creating a name when this is just the beginning of the process. I’m afraid that there is no magic spell for picking the perfect domain name, but make sure the name is short, simple, easy to spell and hopefully something memorable. For example, www.fat2thin.com is much easier to remember than www.howtogetfromfattothin.com.

Generic Domains

A generic domain is a name that defines a general category, such as digital marketing rather than the company name. Some examples of generic names are toothpaste.com or table.com

You may get more traffic to your affiliate website using a generic domain. They can play a major role in where your site ranks in search engines and can also affect your customer’s perception of your brand. With generic domains you can offer a bigger variety of different products than branded domains. Which can lead to you promoting more products with in depth information, giving your site visitors more choice on which product to buy. If they don’t purchase one product, they may well purchase another instead. If you’re only promoting one product and the customer decides it’s not the product for them with no alternatives to offer them, you will have lost the sale.

Creating a more generic affiliate website with numerous products will requires much more work in the form of research and content creation. But, nothing in life is free and we have to work hard in order to gain.

Branded Domains

Brand orientated domains are constructed around the business name or some variation of it. For example a brand orientated domain for CrazyBulk would be something like CrazyBulk.co.nz or CrazyBulkisthebest.co.uk

Quite often brand names look more credible because they give the appearance of legitimacy. Believe it or not, there is less competition when using a branded domain to a generic domain. Probably because having a generic domain means you can offer a wider variety of different products then using a branded domain.

Be aware that not all merchants allow affiliates to use branded domains. So before going ahead and purchasing a brand domain, always check whether the merchant allows it or not. The last thing you want is to spend your time and money purchasing a domain and creating a website around it, only to be told that the domain you have used is not allowed.

There are many factors that can help to make a website a success, far more than what I have written about in this article. However, if you are new to affiliate marketing, I hope that some of the tips above can help you make your affiliate website a success.

To your success.

Funnydude your number pls