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Page 2 of 4 So your best bet is to spread your business among as many programs as possible that fit with your Site Concept. But there are some important qualifiers to this policy... - If you represent 10 programs, don’t put them all on the same Keyword-Focused Content Page. Work in only the few that are tightly relevant to the content of each page.
- Pick the best-of-breed from each category of merchant. For example, if you plan on representing a Net marketing company, SiteSell would be the obvious choice.
If you plan unusually heavy support for a given category of product, you might want to represent the best two merchants. For example, suppose you foresee hundreds of book links on your site. It might be a good idea to choose the best 2 online bookstores -- if Bookstore A and Bookstore B fit with your concept and both seem to be stable companies, then use these two. No more, though... 3) Don’t choose too many programs. Tracking each program takes time, so 10 programs is probably a good balance. If any one of them dies, you don’t lose too much. Your best results will come from focusing on a smaller group of quality programs (from within the 10). Their products must... - be excellent
- be complementary with, even enhance, each other
- fit your concept
- be from a rock-solid company. Since you will give these companies more attention than the others, you must feel very comfortable with their business prospects.
The bottom line is don’t give too much emphasis to any single program, unless you have some special reason to feel unusually comfortable with it. Things happen. So protect yourself by choosing a variety of affiliate partners. Of course, you can also reduce your risk by weeding out the dogs through some basic research. Find the good programs and eliminate the dogs by considering the following plus signs, minus signs, and red flags. Let’s start with the plus signs, signified by + (which means “good things to look for”). Here they are, in the approximate order of importance...
+ High quality product or service -- Remember, it’s your reputation that is on the line (and online!). Don’t recommend products that UNDERdeliver.
+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.
+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your Conversion Rate plummets.)
+ Type of payment model... Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is true “performance marketing.” If your referred visitor delivers the desired response, you get paid. What about “pay-per-click?” See red flags below.
+ Affiliate Support...
- Accurate, reliable, real-time, online accounting, preferably with some kind of ability to “audit” by spot-checking
- Detailed traffic and linking stats
- Notification by e-mail when a sale is made
- Useful marketing assistance -- provides traffic-building and sales-getting tools
- High-quality newsletter that educates, trains, and accounts for amounts earned
- Professional marketing materials available
- Affiliates receive discount on products
- Great affiliate support is important for a “between the lines” reason, too. It indicates a high degree of commitment to the program and its affiliates.
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Monetize Your Site
