Choosing the right affiliate products is one of the most critical stages in affiliate marketing. In fact, more than 75 % of – mostly new – affiliate marketers fail to earn money simply because they are not able to choose the right product to promote.
Choose the wrong product – after you have already invested a lot of time and effort learning affiliate marketing and building an awesome affiliate website – and you are going to waste your time to market something which people just are not interested in buying. Additionally, a “bad” product can seriously harm your reputation and credibility! Very, very quickly. Which brings us to the most important golden rule:
Always promote the product that your visitors will get the most value from, not the one which will make you the most money!
Believe me, it’s extremely important! Affiliate marketing is about trust, so if you really want to crack the “how to affiliate program” dilemma, be sure to try a product before recommending or promoting it. Are you promoting a book? Read it! Are you promoting a software or a service? Test it! Giving an honest review or recommendation on a product or service you have actually tried, will establish – and over time will increase – your reliability and credibility.
OK. Now, I am going to share with you 4 simple, yet efficient ways to choose some really good top affiliate products to promote.
1. Affiliate directories
I admit, it can be quite time consuming to trawl through hundreds or thousands of listings … This is why very few affiliates bother to use this method, but it’s well worth it when you come up with a promising product that gets thousands of searches and is virtually untapped. More than that, many of these valuable, untapped products are offered by independent affiliate programs that can’t be found on any other affiliate networks!
Here are 7 awesome affiliate directories to get you started:
1.1 Affiliates Directory
One of the oldest “original” affiliate directory websites, that has been launched in 1998.
http://affiliatesdirectory.com/
1.2 Affiliate Guide
Is part of the Mainz Pty Ltd group and was founded in 1998. Today is one of the biggest and most popular web affiliate directories on the internet.
1.3 Affiliate Programs
It’s a professional listing service established in 1997 and they are unique because they are generating expert-backed educational content that keeps the affiliate audience consistently active.
https://www.affiliateprograms.com/
1.4 Affiliate Ranker
It’s a simple, but very popular free service launched in 2003. Customized search engine, completely dynamic and extensive directory structure, etc.
http://www.affiliateranker.com/
1.5 Affiliate Seeking
Another free service launched in 2004. They have a very useful webmaster forum and groups, articles, blogs, etc.
http://www.affiliateseeking.com/
1.6 Associate Programs
One of the biggest and most popular affiliate directories. The site has been launched in 1998 by Allan Gardyne, one of the most famous affiliate marketers in the world. Since 2014 is owned and managed by Jay Stockwell, another well-known and well-respected personality of the online marketing world. Also, there is a huge collection of extremely useful articles, and of course, everything is … free.
https://www.associateprograms.com/directory
1.7 Top Affiliate
A popular and well-respected free service established in 2004. A great, active affiliate marketing community and a socially integrated affiliate program directory with unique features, such as groups, member articles and member blogs. Don’t miss it!