Making money with your website using affiliate programs
At this point in the game, you did all the hard work that is involved in starting up your own website. Now that you added some advertisements on your page, your hard work will pay off and you can just sit back and wait for the big pay day. I know that’s what I thought in the beginning. Like they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way in reality. Not only will you probably not make much in the beginning, but there’s a good chance you won’t even reach the minimum amount to even receive a check.
Don’t get too discouraged, though. It’s just going to take some time. This article will provide you with some pointers on how to make a little more money from your advertisements.
1. Cater your advertisements to your audience
As I learned in a television course in college, most advertisers would prefer to advertise to a smaller number of people from a very specific audience than a larger general audience. The same is true with website advertisements. You need to know your audience.
A program like Google AdSense makes it a lot easier for you because they will automatically target their ads towards the audience of your site. But when you sign up for most affiliate programs, it is up to you to choose the appropriate ads for your visitors.
Just make sure you take a step back and ask yourself, “Who is my audience?” Don’t skip over this step, because ignoring your audience and providing ads they are not interested will result is pretty weak income from your ads. Believe me, just a little thought can make a big difference.
2. You need traffic to make money
Much more important than the type of ads you display is getting a lot of traffic. How can you expect to make money if nobody visits your site? There is no way around the fact that if you don’t have traffic, you will not make money. It is going to take more than just a few people visiting your site.
You need people to click on your ads to generate any revenue, and let’s face it, most people don’t click on those ads anyway. That means you need to get a whole of people going to your site. That’s where site promotion comes into play. For steps you can take to promote your site, read the article, Other creative ways to promote your web site.
3. Create Quality Content
There is a reason why they say “content is king.” It is easy to fall into the trap of focusing on getting the most advertising you possibly can on your site. Some people just load their site with product ads and promote the heck out of them just so people will click away. Hey, maybe that works, and you get people to your site. But they won’t come back. And some of those people will just leave immediately. I know that’s what I do when I find a site like that.
The key is to get your visitors to return. And the only way they will return is if you offer them good content. Don’t forget that.
4. Think carefully about the products you recommend
Many of the advertisers you run into want you to recommend their products or services to your visitors to increase the chance that people will buy it. That is true and I can’t blame them for telling you that. But don’t recommend something you haven’t used. It’s just not right. Show some dignity and self respect and don’t tell people something if you don’t know whether or not it is true.
It reflects poorly on you when you are not honest, and I like to think that you will pay the price in the long run if you aren’t. Instead, try to find products that actually work and promote them. That is just my advice, for what it’s worth.
5. Should you use text links or banners?
I haven’t found any proof of whether text links or banner links perform better. I think this is just a matter of personal preference. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method, but I have always felt that text links are better.
Text links are effective because they look good and do not distract from your content. However, since they aren’t as flashy, they may not grab the attention of your visitors as easily as banner ads.
Banner ads are good because they catch your attention and might be better at describing the product or service. But some people get frustrated and borderline angry at those types of ads. It can be pretty annoying to have a bunch of ads flashing and popping up in new windows all over the place. You are just going to have to play around and figure which is more effective for your audience.
6. People prefer advertisements for free things
I never thought of it at first, but people are much more likely to click on an ad for something that is free. Lots of times people don’t trust any of the ads they see on web pages and would rather search for things on their own.
But with free things, people are a little less worried that someone is trying to trick them into buying something that isn’t good. Try to seek out the free advertisers from your affiliate and test it out yourself. It might work out for you.
7. Rotating your ads
As I mentioned before, Google AdSense will rotate your ads and provide targeted ads. But with the affiliates, that’s your job.
It’s not as hard as you might think. All of the affiliate programs let you see the statistics for all of your ads. Don’t ignore those stats, because they can tell you which advertisements are doing the best and how they have changed. When you see that a certain ad’s performance is not quite as good, you should consider rotating it.
Also, if an advertisement is not doing well, get rid of it. Rather than wait for it to come around, you can assume that there is some reason it is not performing. Even if you think it should be effective, don’t argue with the stats.
