I'll bet you have read a lot of headlines that sound like the one above, or make claims like this one. You probably have spent quite a bit of time reading blog posts with title like this one. When you were done reading, you might have thought "There's 15 minutes I'll never get back"... that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard... or whatever that! IT WILL RUIN MY REPUTATION!
If you to it right, it can enhance your brand. I'm going to give you some tips that will give you an opportunity to monetize your website or blog, while preserving your brand. One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your online properties is to join some affiliate programs and advertise them on your site.
Affiliate programs are the answer
Why affiliate programs? Simple. By joining an affiliate marketing program, you get access to products and services that are well supported by professional marketing materials. All the work of writing an eBook, or recording an audio track, or programming a software product is taken care of by someone else. But that's not all the advantages. You also don't have to create graphics and other marketing materials - those are all created for you by the affiliate program owner.
Another big benefit is that you really don't have to keep track of finances or money. The best affiliate programs will probably provide you with affiliate management tools that are based on one of the top affiliate management programs. Software programs like these provide a level of transparency that gives you confidence that your are being dealt with fairly.
Five tips for choosing affiliate offers to promote
- Look good earnings potential - You want to make sure that if one of the people you refer to an affiliate offer buys, that you will make some decent money. One school of thought is that you should find affiliate programs that offer high percentage payouts. My preference is to look for websites that offer high ticket items and pay large commissions. This affiliate program for promoting SEO services gives you the opportunity to earn monthly recurring income up to $350.
- Choose programs your readers will like - It is critical that you choose affiliate programs and offers that your audience will appreciate and be interested in. It wouldn't be very bright to choose to promote affiliate programs and products for knitting and crochet products on a site that is dedicated to professional football. However, if you have a website that helps people find careers is sales, it would be great to promote something like How to Get Into Medical Sales.
- Look for affiliate programs powered by software - When you sign up for an affiliate program it will quickly become obvious if the owner of the program is serious about helping affiliate members be successful. After signing up, if you are automatically redirected to a page powered by a fully-featured affiliate marketing software program, they are probably serious about their affiliate program. If you get an email that says 'here is you affiliate link' and 'we'll let you know if you earn anything' you should think carefully about investing any time. Their are several top name brands like iDev Affiliate, LinkShare, and JROX JAM. My favorite is JROX JAM, which you can get for free here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/recommends/free-affiliate-management-software.htm
- Make sure the website is NOT anonymous - What I mean is, make sure that there are real people standing behind the website, people with good reputations, who take customer service seriously. Affiliate program owners who tell you who they are, give you contact information aren't very likely to be fly-by-night. They aren't likely to try to 'run and hide' from you if there is a dispute. If you can find a picture, bio, and phone number of the website owner, chances are they are trustworthy. You will also be able to 'Google' them to find any issues about their program. Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, is one of the country's leading sales recruiters - she proudly announces her site ownership on the about pages like this one: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/about/
- Choose affiliate programs that have support programs - If you are choosing a piece of software to buy, you probably wouldn't purchase it if there was not support mechanism in place. It would be wise to use similar criteria when evaluating affiliate offerings. Affiliate website program owners that don't put support systems in place - something like a ticket system or help desk software - probably won't care about any their products or customers, and eventually they won't are about you. When they do, you can be fairly confident that they are trying to delight their customers. If they AREN'T working to keep customers happy, their poor service will reflect poorly on you, and tarnish your brand.
Here are a couple of affiliate programs that meet all these criteria, that I recommend if your site's visitors would be interested in these subjects. One is an affiliate program for a sales interview tool that targets sales professionals - you can check it out here: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/affiliate-program-details/. The other is a program that has a broader appeal - it targets people who own businesses that either have no web presence or under performing websites; you can get all the information for it here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/blog/home/affiliate-program/
