For most small sites (meaning daily traffic < 500 unique a day), any chance of making over $100 a month will come with promoting different affiliates; however, many cannot seem to convert well. The problem is usually not the traffic, but it is your promotion plan.
Too many times I have seen people simply sign up to some affiliate network and then start dispensing ads all over the site. While you still may get some conversion, the odds are definitely NOT in your favor.
When it comes to successfully converting with little traffic, there are a couple things that need to happen:
We will look at these a little closer, but let me throw a backdrop situation so I can provide some examples. For my stock market I usually average somewhere around 200 visitors a day. Not must to get excited about, right? But, what if I told you that I was converting around $400-500 a month from one affiliate program? Yes, you read correctly.
I’ll show you how the following with help you with your promotions.
You must have experience with what you are promoting
We are not email marketers or whatever you want to call them, so usually are blog post are most personal. People have to come our site and want to see what we say. If you promote something that you have never used, then how do you know how good it can really be? If you are not willing to ask for a free sample, use a trial, or actually buy the program you are promoting, then why would somebody else?
When you are promoting these products, the reader needs to see that you clearly know how great this program is. The financial service I promote on my stock market blog allows me to use it for free, since I am an affiliate. So I actually know if the service is any good. By using it, I can tell people cool tricks I have found, how it helped me making winning trades and so on.
Now I am not saying you need to use it forever. For example, there are many paper trading stock market services out there. In other words, they allow you to practice trading stocks without having to use real money. Although I trade real money now, just like most people I started out paper trading. So I try the service out, see how good or bad it is, and then give my hands on review and expertise on the product.
Your affiliate must be willing to work with you
Although it is hard to put a percentage on it, I would say that somewhere between 60-70% of your affiliate success will come from the company of the product you are promoting. Are they willing to work with you or are they just hoping you might sell something? Most of the time, all affiliate programs have an affiliate manager responsible for different partners, and their main job is the help you sell. Obviously, the more you make the more they make. How good they are is another question.
I like to think that you can always get a feel for how good the affiliate team is by how they work with you. Are they willing to let use the product/service for free? Will they let your give away some free stuff every now and then? Odds are that if that certain product is bringing in sales, then they would feel confident in making up that money they lost by giving it away.
With the financial service I promote, the affiliate manager/relations is simply amazing. They basically do everything for you, but all you to get the commission. I make sure to work with them. Ask them ideas on how I could better promote different things, and they make sure to keep supplying me new and unique content to help me to promote.
What you are promoting must blend with your site
Probably the popular things many do is sign up for a network, scour for relating programs, and then throw all different type ads all over your site. While technically there is nothing wrong with this, we have to remember that we are not experiencing thousands of visitors a day like all those other sites. So if we want to increase our conversion rate, then we have to take what we are promoting and throw it into the visitors face.
Almost turn your site into a partner of that certain affiliate. For example, one of the services that financial affiliate has is a free trend analysis. At the bottom of any stock recommendation I post, I make sure to throw in that free trend analysis link. When people are researching stocks they love to get as much advice as possible, so why wouldn’t they choose that. I get a little commission for that, and then even more if they decided to do a little more. That also ties in with how good is your affiliate program.
The goal is to try and make it so your affiliate programs are directly connected with your site. They flow hand and hand, and by the time people are done visiting your site, they are going to want to learn a lot more about that what you are selling.
Affiliate must add value to site and visitors
A huge mistake many people do is that they don’t show relevant affiliates. Yes, your site is about making money in the stock market. So why are you putting up ads with making money through Market Leverage? Often times, many new site owners get trapped thinking that their visitors would have interest in making money online. Usually you are networking with other site owners and so one, so you get tricked into believing that others will want to check this out.
Too bad that won’t work. People visiting your site don’t care about making money online, and do not really know about the whole idea about making money online. If they did, then why are they at your site? Keep a single focused site, and don’t derail from the topic. Whatever you are promoting should directly benefit the visitor.
Also think of them like customers, if they are unsatisfied by something they bought from you the first time, then why would they come back? The financial service I promote, essentially makes money for my visitors.
Choose the right affiliate
This is really simple. Some affiliates just won’t covert and others are ATM’s. It is up to you to find the right one. Usually the ones that will work the best for small traffic are ones with dedicated affiliate support. Affiliate managers that are willing to work with you. They have experience with this are are willing to help you out. Also look for subscription packages. Visitors know they can always cancel, but at the same time, if they like it then you will be getting reoccurring commission for every time the renew.
At the end of the day you need to find the affiliate or affiliates that are truely the best fit(s) for your site. You don’t need to promote a million different things to make money. In fact, the less the better. The last thing you want visitors is to think you are just spamming them with merchandise. Don’t ever assume and ask. Who knows are far your affiliates are willing to go? You won’t unless you ask.
Tags: affiliates, traffic