Five Things Affiliate Marketers Are Doing Wrong: Affiliate Beginner Mistakes–affiliatemarketingmc at YouTube.com
Today we’ll be going through five things you need to do that most affiliate marketers get wrong. This affects your income, and it can even sometimes have legal consequences. So, you want to pay close attention to this. I’m not a lawyer, but this is how I understand it, and this is what I do in my business. If you have questions about any of the legal aspects, definitely seek out legal advice.
- Poor Link Structure
Link structure is very important. A lot of people go out on Facebook or Instagram, or even on their blogs or in their emails, and they send what we call a raw affiliate link. This is the link that a company gives you directly to market products and services. This is a big ugly link, and it’s really confusing. If you’re using an affiliate network, then it’s even worse.
These links are not intended to send people to as type-in traffic—that means they’re not links you would expect someone to type in as a URL on their browser. You don’t want to tell people to use those links. You want to tell people to go to something very, very easy. Because if you get the link wrong, or someone types in the link wrong that you’re telling them to use, you’re not going to get paid.
So, get your link structure right. What I advise everyone to do is set up their own link structure website. This can be an easy website, and it allows you to track on your end as well. Link structure is one of the most important things to keep in mind with affiliate marketing. Make sure your links are very, very concise, and very easy to use. Make sure they are all hosted on your own domain name.
- Not Building a List
You’ll see a lot of people on YouTube, and people with websites, and people everywhere trying to do affiliate marketing. They’ll say, “Check out this video, and here’s a list of the things that I used in the video.” This will be lists of their cameras and microphones and stuff like that. But, their link structure will be off, and they’ll send out raw (or even cloaked) affiliate links.
Instead, you want to say, “Go to my site to get my gear guide.” Then, people will go to your site, put in their name and email, and then they will get your list of things. That way, you can write back to them and say, “Hey, did you get the gear? Check it out – I found something new.” And when you build your list, you’ll have the ability to market to people over and over and make lots of money.
- Quick Buck Mentality
The third thing I see affiliate marketers do wrong is that they have the “quick buck mentality”. They look for the quick buck at the expense of their bottom line. And because of this, they’re just setting things up, putting things out there, and they’re making a little bit of money but not doing the long-term game.
You’ll see people out there doing launch jacking and doing affiliate promos where they rank for a product. And it’ll work and they’ll get some sales, but they’re not building a mailing list or getting their old content picked up by the search engines. This is extremely important.
Even if you’re doing launch jacking, or even if you’re doing simple video promotions, put those on your site. Go for the keywords, and double up your content. This is what we call repurposing content. This is where you repurpose content and you’re able to use it for different purposes. In this case, ranking, which is really cool and really important. You’ll get lots of traffic and hopefully make lots of money.
- Not Building on Content
The fourth one is a lot like the third one. Affiliate marketers don’t build on their content. You can take old content and you can use it to promote affiliate products. You can use it for product launches. You can use it for sending out things to your mailing list.
You want to find out what people are interested in. You want to build on the content in a way that makes sense and helps the visitor. Focus on giving good value based on what people are searching for.
- No Affiliate Marketing Disclaimers
There are people that promote different affiliate offers, and they don’t disclose that they are an affiliate. Not having this disclaimer can get you in a lot of hot water. (Again, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t listen to me for legal advice, but this is how I understand it. If you have any questions, seek legal counsel before you set this up.)
If you’re being paid to send people to something, and you’re compensated for reviewing products, you can’t act like you are just a normal person out there reviewing things. You have to go out and say you are getting paid to promote these products. Whether it’s Facebook Instagram, etc., if you’re getting paid, you need to disclose that to your visitors.
Even on YouTube, if you’re selling stuff and you say, “Check out my gear guide,” you need to tell your viewers that you’ll be paid if they buy something from this gear guide because you’re an affiliate.
One of the ways I do this is to tell people I’m an affiliate, and then offer bonuses to help people out when they buy through my links. And in my case, I give videos on how to actually use the gear. You can keep something like that in mind when promoting products you use yourself.
For more information, visit www.AffiliateMarketingDude.com.