A few tips I wish I knew when I started out.

byAffiliGuyUK

140 followers

8 years ago

Why post this?

I've read hundreds of articles in the last four years of affiliate marketing and still consider myself a novice compared to some WA members. But I thought I'd list some key things I wish I knew about when I was starting out. Hopefully these tips will prevent you wasting valuable time and money as I did early one.

Hope these help...

1. Patience and Planning...

Everyone wants their first sale quickly I was definitely no exception. I literally bought a domain and had it live within a week. This was a huge mistake. My logic was as simple as "buy a clothing domain, stick a load of affiliate links to products on it, sit on a beach with a beer while the dollars role in". This was not the case at all. If I had done the research I'd have seen that the competition in the UK for online clothing stores is huge. I was not offereing anything that 1000's of other well established stored were doing - and doing well. So you have to think why would people buy a product from me and not go elsewhere? Take time to figure this out and create a solid plan and you will save hours in redesigning your site over and over again.

2. I was not a programmer - stop trying to be...

When I had my first Wordpress store I got so invloved with changing the code and resign of the site I ended up breaking it and paying an expert to design it how I wanted. This was a huge waste of my time initally but then extra cost too to undo my bad work, it had also taken my focus off the real goal, building good quality content. Wordpress has envolved immensely in the last few years and the latest themes are amazing and fulling responsive - they are more then capable of hosting a fully functional affiliate site straight out of the box. If you think you "need" something extra question yourself, ask "Why?" And also "Will it add any true value to the user experience?" A good quality theme should cover all your needs straight out of the box - just take the time to find the right theme.

3. Join a community...

Obviously you have already done this by joining WA, but I didn't and trying to figure things out alone is hard work. Just when you think you have mastered something e.g. SEO google releases a new set of algorithms which put you back to square one. By being an active member of a community you will be fully updated with what's going on and what to look out for to avoid potential pitfalls.

4. Don't get complacent...

When you start to get regular sales don't think you have "made it" things change at a rapid pace in the online world and I've literally seen it where I've made daily sales consistently for three months then nothing at all for a month. This is because I didn't get my method right, didn't keep up with market changes and was not meeting my users needs. Study your competition and see what they are doing asking "why, what's changing?"

5. Persist...

I have to admit I am naturally a persistent person, if someone tells me I can't do something (which I find alot when I tell people about affiliate marketing) I will spend as much time as I need to to prove them wrong. Hence why 4years later I'm still pushing harder then ever. But there have been times when I thought "this isn't working - should I quit?" - luckily I've always pushed on and the reason I am so persistent with Affiliate marketing as I know it works. I know people who do this full time and spend most of there time travelling the world as they are not tied to a 9 - 5 job. It is achievable it just takes time.

I hope these points help, even slightly on your affiliate marketing journey and I'll keep blogging about my progress and success on WA :)

Thanks for reading!

Chris