We all made mistakes when starting off in affiliate marketing, but here are some common ones made by newbies who are trying to tackle affiliate marketing for the first time. Many of these mistakes I made myself so I know first hand what it’s like. Learn from these mistakes to make sure you DON’T fall into the same traps. It’s a lot more fun to learn from other people’s mistakes than to make them yourself. Wouldn’t you agree?
11 Mistakes Newbie Affiliate Marketers Make:
1. They think it will be easy.
The earning potential for affiliate marketing is so much greater than most people think and it really is only limited by your imagination and will power, BUT it is NOT easy. It will take a lot of hard work building your business online. You will spend a lot of late nights and weary moments before you ever see great success. But don’t let that discourage you. Just know this, the harder you work, the greater will be your reward.
2. They constantly shop for the magic program.
Yeah, I did this one too. I was always looking for that ebook that had the magic formula, or the software program that would be the KEY to my success. But I was only padding the wallets of gurus who are selling junkie products online, promising the world. I lost a lot of money trying to get the shortcut to making money on the internet. One reason I started this blog was to show people that there are FREE ways you can learn how to do everything in affiliate marketing. This is a free blog that has a goal to coach people how to work hard and earn a living from home. No magic pill.. Just some helpful advice.
3. They quit too soon.
People usually quite right before they are to see a great break-through. If you are new to affiliate marketing and you have not felt like quitting yet…. don’t worry.. you will. But how you handle those situations when you feel like quitting is what is going to make the difference in your marketing campaigns. There is a lot of competition out there in this field now, but let that motivate you to work even harder and smarter instead of giving up too soon.
4. They get side-tracked with other niches.
This is an easy trap to fall into. You found the perfect niche to promote, but wait… what is this.. Oo a new awesome product to promote…And then you get that twinkle in your eye and start promoting a totally different niche than the one you started with. Stick with ONE niche. Just one. Otherwise you will tempted to go in a million different directions and never succeed in any one of them. Check out my post on choosing one specific niche.
5. They are not original.
Don’t copy everyone else’s ideas, and certainly NEVER copy their articles or web pages. First of all that is stealing and secondly you are teaching yourself bad habits by not trying to THINK on your own. Be creative and come up with new ideas of promoting your product. The more you do this the more ideas you will have. Don’t be scared to try something new that no one else is doing yet. You will at least have little competition that way. If you get a really original idea you can write your own ebook on it and make a small fortune too.
6. They do improper keyword research.
Another typical mistake is to just search for keywords that are getting searched for a lot and have little competition. These are not the only factors you need to look at when doing keyword research. The main thing I look for in my research is that a keyword is profitable! There are certain keywords that people use when they are looking to buy. Let’s face it.. there are millions of people who do searches online simply because they are bored and are not looking to spend any money. And there are others who search with certain keywords because they want to make a purchase. Learn the difference.
7. They think traffic and targeted traffic are the same.
You can pay for traffic from a PTC (pay to click) website but you will just be wasting your time and possibly hurting your site in the eyes of Google. You don’t just want traffic. You want targeted traffic. That is, traffic that is looking for the exact things youhave on your website. And you get this kind of traffic with search engines mostly. There are a lot of programs promising you 5,000 hits a day for a dollar or two, and you might even get all those hits, but what you won’t get are sales. Don’t trust these programs at all. Instead, learn the right SEO practices.
8. They don’t use an email autoresponder.
Email marketing is one of the biggest parts of my affiliate marketing practices. It’s very easy to build a list of emails with a simple form on your website. It will cost you about $20 a month using Aweber, but it is a huge mistake not to use them. If you never get email addresses from the people that come and go on your site then you are punching holes in your profits bucket. Sign up with Aweber and send out a weekly newsletter or just allow them to subscribe to yoru blog via email with an autoresponder. Once it’s set up you don’t have to do a thing. You can check out my post on why you need an autoresponder for more info.
9. They don’t think they need a website.
A website or blog is crucial to ever become successful with affiliate marketing. Otherwise you will be writing article after article, submitting them to Ezine Artciles or Go Articles, only to see those get fewer and fewer views, and there’s not much you can do about it. With a website you can build your brand and build momentum at the same time as becoming an authority on that particular topic.
10. They don’t have a business plan or schedule.
This is the very first thing you need to do. Write down what your goals are with affiliate marketing. Do you want it to take the place of your “real job”? How much do you need to make a month to survive? And then make a list of tasks you need to accomplish inorder to reach those goals. Then schedule out how you need to go about accomplishing those tasks. Make weekly tasks to get done and get them done at any cost. Make it doable though, and not too lofty that you can never get all of those thigns done. The more direction you have the better you can build your business and not get distracted. You will hit what you are aiming for every time. So aim your goals in the right direction.
11. They start using Google Adwords too soon.
Been there, done that, and yes, I bought the t-shirt. Or should I say, I bought Google some nice birthday gifts. I started off in CPC advertising for my affiliate marketing right away and blew a lot of cash before I realized that my strategy was not working. I recommend you get a proper handle on all the free methods before you loose a small fortune with cost per click ads. Or, you can go ahead and start with Adwords without any affiliate marketing experience and come back here when you are broke and ready to learn again.. I promise, I will be here.. lol
A fantastic read….very literate and informative. Many thanks….what theme is this you are using and also, where is your RSS button ?
Wow! you have answered the question that has been bothering me for quite a long time now. Thanks for sharing and will look forward for more informative post like this.
Very informative article. As a newbie in affiliate marketing it is very helpful to me and I have to avoid them. Thank You