Affiliate Marketing Isn't Working...
I Quit!
A truly sad state of affairs.
And avoidable.
This post is for Wealthy Affiliate members who are TAKING ACTION but not getting the RESULTS they desire.
Wealthy Affiliate provides a 'PROVEN PLAN' for helping people to make money online by building a website around a niche (tightly defined sub-market) and attracting visitors from search engines through the helpful content provided on the site...
If your content is helpful and compelling and a good fit for your site visitors the RESULT has to be CLICKs on your affiliate links.
The WA plan has been refined over 10 years and has helped thousands of people earn their first money online...
To see proof that this works for all manner of people visit my success category page here...
What WA teaches is a set of skills that used correctly will work most of the time (nothings 100% in this business)
To learn any new skill it's important that we practice it (take action), monitor RESULTS, refine our actions if neccessary, repeating this process until we reach our desired OUTCOME or goal.
The good news is that as this plan has been successfully followed before we can simple copy the system, spot mistakes early, correct them and move on...
Stacking small positive proven actions towards our desired results.
Though not every action will be a success, it will be a learning experience, that when taken notice of and improved will lead utlimately to a goal.
So what specific skills does Wealthy Affiliate teach us?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The science of being able to find KEYWORDS that we can create CONTENT about and rank in search engines (Google). When ranked in search engines our content will earn us free VISITORS to our website and the chance to MONETIZE that 'traffic'.
This breaks down into:-
Keyword Research - Identifying the rankable phrases people type into search engines when looking for information.
Keyword research is a science not an art form, it can be learned through repitition.
Search Engine Optimization - Creating content to rank in search engines.
This again is easy to learn and follows a set formula. However ranking in search engines is only half the objective...
It's also vital that the content COMPELS visitors to take the action you want them to take (CONVERSION). Learning how to create compelling content is more of an art form... but using proven templates and practicing will yield results.
It's worth repeating that WA has taught literally thousands of people how to do this over the 10 plus years since WA was founded...
This skill set can be learned.
So please don't give up.
If they can do it so can you.
How To Spot The Problems In Your Marketing
When learning something new you should expect challenges to materialise...
Know they're coming and be prepared.
If you're following the WA training you've...
- Chosen a niche or market
- Built a website
- Added content to your website that attracts visitors
- Have added some system for monetizing traffic to your site
Niche selection: Some niches attract a lot of traffic, but can still be quite hard to monetize. For example recipe sites are very popular, but we're all used to getting recipes for free, which makes them a little harder (but not impossible to monetise).
Similarly entertainment based sites often get hoardes of traffic but require a little more thought to monetize.
If you're concerned about your niche selection watch Kyles training here...
Next up comes building a website. With modern tech this really is the easy part. Want proof? watch this...
So niche chosen... check.
Website built... check.
Now everything boils down to TRAFFIC (visitors) and CONVERSION (visitors clicking on our ads, buying our stuff, or the affiliate products we're promoting).
So if we're not getting the results we want we ONLY have 3 possible problem areas which we can solve by logically working through them...
- Are we getting targeted visitors
- Are they clicking our affiliate links?
- Are we earning affiliate commissions?
-
1. Visitors
To identify problems we need to consult Google Analytics to see what our visitors are doing (if we have visitors).
This training isn't about Google Analytics it's about spotting problems in our marketing.
So very quickly we want to make sure we're getting real people visiting and not just bots scanning our site.
We also want to make sure they're targeted visitors. Meaning appropriate for the niche we've chosen and the desired action we'd like people to take.
Need to understand why all traffic isn't good... watch Kyle's traffic breakdown training here...
Google Analytics is the free software we can use to monitor our site performance. Want to know more about Analytics click the banner below...
If your site isn't attracting real people you have a traffic problem.
To solve your traffic problem you need to retake the training on whichever traffic method you've chosen.
Don't move on until you've solved your traffic problem.
2. Clicks on Ads or Links
So if we've got traffic we should be seeing clicks on links.
So how do we see which links are getting clicked and which ones aren't?
Tracking.
Tracking is the name given to collecting statistics about our links performance and can become as complex a subject as you want to make it (it is very important after all).
There are actually a few separate sources of this data , let's go through them...
- If you're promoting an affiliate product. The product vendor will have a tracking system which in most cases affiliates will be able to access and check our click through rates (more on this later).
- If as WA recommend you are using the free pretty link lite plugin this also records click through data.
- Google Analytics can be set up so we can analyse our site 'goals'. There is set up work required here but the information is first class.
- It is also possible to invest in paid tracking solutions, but that's beyound the scope of this post and isn't needed to get started.
- If you use Paid Advertising services you will also have access to their tracking services. If your paying for traffic accurate stats are vital for managing profitability.
90% of my tracking needs are covered by using the tracking provided by affiliate vendors and the Pretty Link plugin.
For my most important links, I sometimes add Google Analytics Goals.
The objective of this post is to show a fast logical process for turning poor performing sites or individual posts / pages into winners.
We don't need uber tracking at this stage of our careers.
To get our businesses off the ground we only need to know how to generate targeted traffic, convert those visitors into 'click-throughs' to RELEVANT high-quality affiliate offers.
Affiliate commission is the by-product of the above process.
Our tracking just has to help us stay on target.
So to demonstrate...
Most vendors will offer you both a basic affiliate link AND the option to add your own tracking identifiers to that link as an OPTION.
Example (I promote Wealthy Affiliate - surprise :)
WA give me the following affiliate link...
To make that link more useful to me the affiliate I want to add information to that link that tells me...
- Which site the visitor came from
- Which page, post, banner etc the visitor came from
- Maybe even which specific link on the post or page
This is how you can identify what's working and what's not.
Wealthy Affiliate allows me to add that info to my affiliate link.
So my affiliate link can now look like...
http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com?a_aid=9d960137/data1/siteidpostidbutton
Note the bolded text at the end of the link. This is where I can add the identiefiers that help me spot my winners.
And this link can be used in
ALWAYS CLICK YOUR OWN AFFILIATE LINKS TO MAKE SURE THEY WORK!
I like to also add the long link above to the Pretty links plugin which both shortens the link and counts the clicks it gets.
So my affiliate tracking process is:-
- Get the standard affiliate link from the vendor
- Add MY tracking identifiers according to the vendor instructions
- Shorten the link using the pretty link plugin
- Post the link in my content
Want more training on this?
Here's Kyles training on creating and managing affiliate links...
Setting up goals in Google Analytics Webinar - Click Here...
So we can now tell if our targeted visitors are clicking our affiliate links.
But what if they're not clicking our links?
- Double check that the affiliate links are working correctly
- Ensure your content is helpful and informative and compels readers to click your affiliate link
- Make sure the links are obvious, nay bold and compelling
- Test text links against buttons and image based links
To help with click-throughs always try and use a compelling call to action for your links...
So rather than just 'click here' add the benefit your visitor will get from clicking the link...
Click here to find out how to double your click through rates...
3. Making Affiliate Sales?
By now we've got targeted visitors clicking our affiliate links so we must be making sales... right?
Unfortunately, this isn't always the case.
If you're getting the clicks but not the sales here's what to do.
Targeted visitors clicking through an AFFILIATE link to a RELEVANT offer statistically should produce sales in the region of 1 - 3%, better is possible but this is a realistic percentage to start with.
If your conversion is worse than this there is a problem.
It's vital that your whole process is congruent.
Meaning if your site post is about dog training for mature dogs ideally the affiliate sales page is specifically for mature dogs rather than puppies for instance (the more specific and targeted the better your conversions will be).
If you've got a congruent process and sales still arn't forthcoming you need to look at the vendors sales page.
Does the sales page inspire you?
Are other affiliates promoting this offer?
Click here to watch Kyle's training on finding affiliate offers that convert...
By logically working through a process of ensuring your site is attracting targeted traffic, that click on your affiliate links through to a congruent offer will yield results.
This is the backbone of solid affiliate marketing and we can all do this.
Got questions?
Please ask away in the comments below...
