12 Things You'll Have To Deal With As An Affiliate

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I usually highlight the positive aspects about affiliate marketing and want to talk about the not so positive things. If you've been doing this long enough you'll have run into a few of these problems and I just want you to know you're not alone.

1) It can take a while for your content to get indexed: This is especially true when you're just starting out but is true even after you're site has been around a while. My site is nearly a year old and it can still take a few weeks for my content to show up. Stay patient and realize it'll show up sooner or later. There's no reason to stress out.

2) Sometimes you get indexed on page 6: If you spent a lot of time on a piece of content and think it beats most of what's on page 1, it can be frustrating to see it get indexed on page 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7. The good news is if it really deserves to be on page 1 it'll get there eventually. Again, my site is around 1 year old and gets around 40,000 clicks a month. Almost all my content is on page 1. But it doesn't always start out there. I get indexed off page one all the time and in a month I usually get up to page 1. It just takes a little time for Google to place you properly. Remember you're dealing with an algorithm and not a person.

3) Sometimes you get to page 1 and then go back to page 7: Again this happens to new and older sites. For whatever reason my last 5 posts shot back from page 1 to page 7 a few days ago. This has happened before and I'm not entirely sure why it happen. But the content always finds its way back to page 1 within a few weeks. You shouldn't worry if this happens unless all your content moves back. If a few pieces move back just stay patient.

4) New Sites Have To Wait Their Turn: Unless you're an expert promoter, you're not going to see good results for probably 6 months. You'll see an increase in traffic at the three month mark and get sales here and there but the 6 month is where the magic happens. With my site now, I literally went out to bowl with my friends and came back to see all the content on my site jumped to page 1. Just like that I quadrupled traffic overnight. That's just how it works and you'll have to stay patient. If you're at the 8 month mark and not getting results it's most likely your keyword choices then.

5) Return items: Once you start selling a lot of products you're going to get some refunds and lose commissions. In fact in the last few months there's been days I ended up losing money for the day. One time I lost $32. It's all part of the game and a good thing when you think of it. You're selling so much that you're getting a lot of returns! You can only lose $30 buck in returns if you're selling enough to make thousands.

6) Amazon can take a little while to ship: Not all Amazon products ship in 2 days. You can have a good day and not see the commissions for up to a week. It can be frustrating selling 30 products and not seeing the commissions for a while but they always come.

7) Large sites are intimidating to go against: When I started my first site I didn't think there was a chance I could compete against these sites getting millions a visitors a month. At first I just hoped to get on page 1 and thought I'd never write anything more than 2,000 words. Then one day I went for 5,000 words and realized it wasn't that hard if you plan ahead. At this point I started to think I could compete against these sites. Then after a few month you start thinking you can beat these sites! I have keywords that beat sites that get 40 million views a month! Just keep studying popular websites and keep pushing yourself to get better.

8) It can be hard if you have a job: For the first year and half of affiliate marketing I had a job. I would work, come home and then write. Ir can be so tiring but you have to do it. The feeling of having a successful websites and going full time is more than worth a little suffering in the beginning.

9) Products sell out on Amazon: Every once in a while you should go back and check your product links to make sure the products aren't sold out. This is especially true for your content getting a lot traffic. The worst thing is having a piece of content get you 100 clicks a day and not having the products in stock!

10) The doubters: There's people that may not understand this - maybe they're your friend, spouse, parents or you maybe even you're doubting yourself. Just keep going and don't worry about what they say. This can be done and it's more than worth it to pursue. Also, remember people have overcome way bigger odds than creating a successful website. If they can do it you can do it.

11) Slow loading times: Every once in a while you'll wake and your site is so slow. I had this problem and switched hosting. The hosting is better now but everyonce in a while it can take a minute to load a page. You get ZERO sales when this happens. You have to quickly get support (be it at WA or anywhere else) and make them fix it. I had a three day stretch recently where my site just was so slow but I stayed on top of it and got it fixed. Now my site loads in 2 seconds!

12) Finding good pictures: This is a big one. Some people get scared about using SiteStripe for Amazon because the pictures come with a link in them. You can take the link out, though. Also, I have content with 20 links to the product and 20 Sitestripe pictures and rank fine. But sometimes Amazon's pictures are horrible. Sometimes I'll screen shot clearer picturess of the product I'm talking about. These are always stock photos and I never take anyone's personal pictures, though.

There's probably a million things I can list but those are what I can think of now. If you're going through these problems just realize you're not alone. Honestly, the solution is usually just to not worry and be patient (this is especially true when it comes to Google ranking and indexing). Things like slow site speed should be handled right away.

If you're looking for a winning keyword strategy (the one I use), check out my training below:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...

Hope this helps!

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Recent Comments

94

Thanks for the lesson and taking the time to share. Gaining an understanding of the time frame involved is important. And of course long tailed key words.
We can all get over the hurdles one by one. Personally I have had a more difficult time with the doubters but I have progressed to website management while they are still potholes on the information highway. We should all keep our chins-up and we will be laughing around the bar in LasVegas before we know it.
Thank you for those 12 points.

You're welcome!

All your posts are very educational and inspiring! I look forward to your insight.

I will look out for these things down the road.

Thank you,
Christina

No problem!

Thanks, this is a great reminder.

No problem

Great writing Dylan. Saving as an advisory!

Thanks!

Thanks for the tips Dylan. I agree with everything you just said.

No problem

Thank you.

No problem!

This helped so much and is inspiring, thank you!

You're welcome!

Great Post. Thanks for sharing.

I have some questions though; pls how can I take the links out from pictures I take from sitestrap? And is it legal to do so ? Won't Amazon penalize me for doing that ?

I have no clue about legality but click the picture, and then hit edit. Once in edit go to the link to a page section and delete the link

Thanks. I am grateteful Dylan

Great information ! Thank you!

You're welcome

Always nice to read your stories

Thanks for sharing and motivating us

No problem

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