Affiliate marketing shouldn’t isn’t something that you need to wonder about. It isn’t that type of thing that will be hard to master. Affiliate marketing should always be easy to replicate within your own ideas and financial goals.
But, as is often the case, many wonder if there is more to affiliate marketing that they’re missing. They wonder whether they’ve got everything figured out, or if they need more information, or more knowledge.
In this article, we’ll be addressing just what is the key to affiliate marketing, and how, if you can get this one key ingredient down, your ability to make money with affiliate marketing with grow tenfold.
And just what is that key ingredient?
Consistency. Being consistent within your marketing ventures will help you convert traffic to sales much better, keep your audience more engaged, and having yourself look more authentic. Being consistent in all areas of your affiliate marketing endeavors will get you to the place you want to be in no time.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing isn’t anything complicated. It simply means that you promote a certain product or program. You become an affiliate of something, and market that certain thing.
How does this all work?
Well, let’s take the example of Amazon and their affiliate program. If you join their program, you can promote nearly anything on Amazon, and make a commission on it. Amazon will give you a unique URL to that specific page or product that you want to promote, and if you get someone to click through it and buy something, you earn a commission of what they pay.
For example, if I was interested in promoting dolls, I could link to a Ball-jointed China Doll, and if you choose to buy it, then I would make several dollars off of the sale.
Most people in affiliate marketing will promote with a blog or website, but you can use podcasts, email lists, or even videos to make money with affiliate marketing.
Why Is Consistency Key?
Consistency is the #1 key ingredient for most things – because if you don’t have the balance of everything within a certain project, or don’t have the right mix of the core ideas, you’ll lose much more potential than you could have.
I liken it to cake batter. If you don’t mix it up well, and don’t get that consistency to a rather smooth, runny, cake batter, then your cake will turn out rather badly.
And so it is with affiliate marketing.
You can do a lot of things right, get good traffic from different places, and make a website that looks desirable. But if you miss keeping certain things consistent, you’ll flop with your affiliate marketing ideas, and in the end just lose time and money.
There are three specific areas where I’ll be looking at consistency. And that is:
- Consistency with your niche
- Consistency with your audience
- Consistency with your writing
Consistency with your niche
A niche is just a fancy word for a topic. Your niche is usually what your whole website revolves around. So, for example, if I was into promoting china dolls, my niche would be china dolls.
Now, when deciding what you want your niche to be, you want to make sure that you choose a more narrow niche, rather than a broad niche.
For example, going back to china dolls, you’ll want to have a niche talking about china dolls only, and not other types of dolls, like barbie dolls, stuffed dolls, etc.
The reason you don’t want to do this, is because you want people to stay on your site, and read as much of your content as they can.
If people come to your website, chances are that they came because they’re interested in china dolls, and nothing more. So if they see an article about a barbie doll, they most likely won’t click on it and read it, because they’re only interested in china dolls.
How does this apply to consistency?
You need to make sure your consistent with what your writing about. So if you choose to write about china dolls, then make sure you stick with that and not something else.
Most people will come to affiliate marketing and say “I want my niche to be health”, or “I’m going to make a killing with my sports website”.
The problem is that those two niches are too large. You can write quickly enough to write enough to keep all of your audience engage.
If you write about soccer one day, and then basketball the next, very few will be interested in both subjects. But if you talked solely about soccer, and was consistent with that niche, you would have so much success.
That’s why it’s so important to choose a niche that isn’t too broad, and make sure to be consistent with it.
Consistency with your audience
Being consistent with how you interact with your audience is the #1 key ingredient to making more sales. And when I mean being consistent with your audience, I mean how your write for them, and how you answer any of their questions.
If you write short articles about the certain things that you are promoting, and don’t give a lot of information about the thing you want them to buy, except for a link to the product itself, the chances of you making money isn’t going to be likely.
The people that come to your site are there to learn and (in a sense) take in knowledge, and that is what you should make sure you are giving.
For example, if you were writing about china dolls, don’t just give a brief description on the doll and then post the affiliate link. Why not read some of the reviews, and write more about what other people thought about the doll. You can write about how it was made, or with what different dresses/Apparel is comes with.
You can even go one step further, and write about your personal experiences with the certain doll, assuming that you’ve had those experiences.
Whatever or however you write, you want to make sure that you don’t come across as one who is only in affiliate marketing for the money. If your heart isn’t in it to actually help people pick out the best product or program, then your audience will see this, and choose to go through someone else’s affiliate link.
I myself, with this site, We Get Scammed For You, make sure to do just that. If I was interested, I could find a lot of high-end commission programs, programs that you have to pay thousands to get into, and promote those.
I personally don’t do that because I don’t think they’re beneficial in the long run. I don’t promote them, because I think that my audience should get something better (rather than a copy and paste website that is found on dozens of other websites).
Additionally, if you interact with your audience, either with comments, social media, or even a contact form, make sure that you are consistent with helping them.
I regularly get people who come to my site, and ask me if a site is legit through my contact form. Each and every one I get, I make sure to take a look at, and give them my best reasons why I think it’s legit or a scam.
I don’t try to find an affiliate site, and send them to it, to make money. Neither do I try to get them to buy into something else (unless I’ve already recommended it in a certain article that I’ve written about).
In all I do, I make sure to connect with my audience, and remain consistent in helping them with their answers. If you are always trying to give them a link to a certain product, or if you are seen as being one who constantly pushes affiliate links towards them, then you’ll most likely rub them the wrong way, and they’ll leave your site.
How does consistency help with you making money?
If people see that your authentic, then they’ll more than likely go through those links that you recommend. Additionally, if your site was helpful, or your audience likes the interaction that you gave them, then they’ll share your website to others, thus giving your more traffic.
More traffic to your site brings more ways to monetize your site. Whether it’s through ads or building an email subscription list, traffic is vital to making money with your site.
That’s why being consistently helpful with your audience is a key ingredient to being successful to making money with affiliate money. You’ll get more likes, clicks, and sales. And on top of that, people will promote your site at no cost! How much better can it get?
Consistency with your writing
Being consistent with your writing, and how often you post an article, is key to becoming an authority in a certain niche, and coming across as not looking scammish.
Let’s be honest. I come across a lot of articles where they seem to be posted several years ago, and find a lot of blogs that their last article was from a year or so ago.
Those sites don’t come across as looking like an authority in their specific niche that they’ve chosen. Why, you ask, does this matter?
If you want to do well in affiliate marketing, you want to make sure that you write in such a way that people will see you as one who knows what they’re talking about – i.e. an authority.
For example, I am one who is slowly being known as an authority on getting scammed. I can look at a site, and give you key points on why or why not it’s a scam.
I say I’m slowly being known because it takes time to build your authority, and part of that depends on how much your write, and how well-known you are.
I personally haven’t written as much as I would like, nor am I out there (yet) as the authority on getting scammed. But I’m getting there.
And I’m getting there through writing regularly, and getting my writing out there so people find me, and see if I’m authentic or not.
Writing regularly will also help the search engines see if you are a scam or not. Many sites (scam sites) will make a website, but then not do anything with it. Additionally, with many turning to affiliate marketing, there is a lot more content out there. Because of this, search engines wants to make sure that you’re in this for the long run, and not short term.
Why does this all matter?
If you are seen as an authority by the search engines, you’ll rank better in the search results. What that means is that you’ll get more traffic to your site, and more traffic means more sales.
That’s why being consistent with your writing, and make sure to write regularly, is a key ingredient to making money with affiliate marketing. If you make sure to write regularly (no less than once a week), then you’ll do a lot much better than if you just write sporadically or when you feel like it.
Unlocking Your Success With The Key
Now that you have the key to affiliate marketing, all you need to do is use it to unlock your success. It’s not as easy as unlocking a regular lock, but you will be able to gain success if you follow the key of consistency.
It may take a year or two. It may take less than 6 months. It all depends on how much time you choose to spend on your affiliate marketing website, and how determined you are to see it through.
But if you remain consistent with your writing, your audience, and with your niche, you’ll be that much closer to success than the majority of affiliate marketers.
I personally learned all this through a program called Wealthy Affiliate. Feel free to check out my review of them here. In short, they are a site dedicated to helping people become successful with affiliate marketing.
I have since chosen to go with their premium membership, but they do have a free membership which offers you two free domains to start practicing on, one of their core training courses, and a community of fellow marketers (including myself) who are always ready to answer any questions you might have.
Whether you look into them or not, if you follow this key ingredient of consistency, you’ll find yourself making more money a lot sooner than if you didn’t. Write well, stick with your specific niche, and be as helpful for your audience as possible. That is in essence the key to affiliate marketing.