How Affiliate Marketers Can Give Google the Slap

Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 7:08 am

I’ve used a lot of different affiliate marketing methods and find one of them to be the most effective.

Article marketing is cool, except the article directory gets to keep all the ad revenue and they are getting more particular
about what articles they accept.

Review sites are OK, but does anyone really trust the reviews they read on those sites anymore? Most people know by now
that review sites are just disguised sales pitches and aren’t honest reviews.

Social media is fun, but it has its limits. It’s more about socializing, less about doing business. Sure, you can make connections
there but at the end of the day the lion’s share of your profits likely isn’t coming from social media.
Social media sites are not the most important place on the web.

So what is?

Your own blog. In my opinion, there’s nothing like having your own blog, especially if you use WordPress. WordPress makes
blogging much easier and more effective.

Your blog is your castle. YOU get to decide which content to put on it and don’t have to wait a week for someone else to approve it.
YOU get to keep your ad revenue. If you use Google Adsense, however, chances are it’s more like Google Adcents. And don’t get me started
on Google slaps.

That’s why it’s more effective to promote affiliate products on your blog rather than rely on Adsense. Affiliate
commissions have a much higher payout than ad clicks.

One option is to have a “blog sponsor” section in your sidebar. Place ads here (preferably with eye-catching graphics
rather than just text) that link to select affiliate products and also your own products if you have any.

Another option is to occasionally write a blog post that promotes an affiliate product. The posts should contain
solid content in addition to the sales pitch. Write the post as if you were talking to a friend so that it doesn’t come
across as too sales-y.

Don’t forget to have an opt-in form on your blog so that you can collect the email addresses of your blog readers.
You can occasionally promote affiliate products through email to your list. You should also send out emails that
contain helpful, engaging content. You can use your blog posts as content but you should also use original content
in your emails too. Mix it up.

There’s one type of text ad that I highly recommend and that’s WordPress Affiliate plugin that automatically
inserts professional-looking ads for Clickbank products on your blog: