There are lots of good sources that can tell you a great deal about how to establish an affiliate marketing business. Unfortunately, it is much harder to find someone to do the actual difficult work for you. Well, I haven’t quite solved that problem for you, but I have discovered what I think is the next best thing.
I sell my own digital and physical products, but a sizeable chunk of my income still comes from affiliate marketing, where I began. I use websites and blogs for all of my online business activities. I rely quite heavily on search engine optimization (SEO) to secure traffic, but that is a long term strategy. In some cases, I have used PPC for affiliate products with success, but more often I am lucky to break even.
Consequently, like many in affiliate marketing, increasing traffic at a reasonable cost is one of my most vexing challenges. It is particularly difficult for those times when I discover a new affiliate product but for which none of my sites are well optimized. How do I get the visitors to the vendor’s site with my embedded affiliate link?
My approach to directing traffic to the vendor’s site is just like many other affiliate marketers, I take them first to my own site, where I ply my skills of subtle persuasion. Then I just hope that I have been sufficiently convincing to get them to click the link that directs them to the vendor’s site so that I have some small chance of earning my commission. I have always wished that I could cut out part of the middle of that process.
I use content syndication for all of my sites. I employ that strategy primarily for its SEO value but also for the direct visitors that are sent my way. There are two major problems with the traditional approach to article marketing, especially for the affiliate marketer. The first of those problems is that the top tier directories that publish and distribute articles do not allow links within the body of the article, contextual linking. Typically, the links are isolated below the article itself in a sort of no man’s land called the author’s box or the resource box. Second, the major article directories do not allow affiliate links or even links to redirected pages or domains.
Finally, there is an article distribution service that solves those two problems and allows direct linking using our affiliate links which can be placed contextually within the article. It’s called My Article Network–and, yes, once you are a member, you can join its affiliate program.
My Article Network is like a consortium for article marketers and content publishers. (That link will let you know what I have to say about it on one of my sites.) It’s another of those Callen projects that most of us who hang around online business for any period of time have come to know so well.
It would be wise for me to let the sales page of My Article Network persuade you on its own. I’ve been using it for less than two months, and I am a complete convert to the system. In fact, I even set up four new niche blogs to make use of the free content that my colleagues provide. {(Go ahead. Click the link, you know you want to.)(Do it! You know you want to click the link. Come on…don’t you think I deserve it?}
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This post was written by Robjohn on July 21, 2009
