If you have an online business, chances are that you have done affiliate marketing at some point in time or have thoughts about doing so in the near future. The fact is that more people are turning to this industry as it’s probably one of the most lucrative businesses of all times. Many people are attracted to it after seeing so many other affiliate marketers make money online like it’s their second nature. But is it really that easy to make money promoting other people’s products?
Failure Rate Statistics – Take it with a Pinch of Salt
While I was doing some quick research on what the failure rate is of affiliate marketing, I came across different results provided by supposedly “Internet Marketing consultants.” Some gave the failure rate as 95%, while others said it had improved from 95% to 80%. Yet none of them made any qualifications as to how such statistics were obtained or how many affiliate marketers participated in the surveys that were conducted.
I did eventually find a website that provided some credible albeit a little outdated information that says this:
“…In reality, that 95% figure is a myth. The SBA (Small Business Administration) Office of Advocacy at www.sba.gov/advo reports a study of firms started in the 2nd quarter of 1998. The conclusion: Sixty-six percent of new small businesses survive two years or more, and 40 percent survive six years or more. That’s a lot better picture than a 95% failure rate!”
Why So Many People Failed Affiliate Marketing
Putting statistics aside, and if you are finding it pretty tough making money from affiliate marketing, rather than focus on why you can’t succeed in this business, it might be easier to do some reverse engineering here. Try to find out why so many people failed in affiliate marketing would be a better approach.
1. Lack of Preparation
Many marketers missed out one key preparation when starting affiliate marketing – research. If you are a merchant you ought to be looking at your affiliates’ websites to determine if these fit their products and services. It’s not just a numbers game, that the more affiliates you recruit, the more money you stand to make. Similarly, if you are an affiliate marketer, you do need to do research of your merchant to ensure that their products and services are related to your own interest, knowledge and theme of your business. After all, you are going to be promoting them on your own website or blog.
2. Your Website
Your website plays a central role in your affiliate marketing business. You as the affiliate marketer will have to carefully plan your site’s ‘look and feel’ and choosing a good domain name is important too as it gives you that extra boost in your business:
Don’t you just hate visiting a website surrounded by too many icons, flashing graphics and links galore and have that mental “get me out of here” feeling before you even got around the site? I’m sure you’ve experienced it countless times yourself, and that’s something you don’t want your own visitors to feel too. Monetizing your website is important because you do want to remain profitable in business, but overdoing it can and will have adverse effects.
Playing the devil’s advocate, you could still have an ugly site and yet have good content to attract your visitors to stay. After all, like they say, “Content is King.” Well, yes and no actually. If you’re going to rely on content solely to retain your visitors, then your content has got to be quite compelling and just a little short of mesmerizing. Are all your articles written with such high standards and consistently at it too? If not, you may be better off just improving your ugly site and providing a better than average user experience when visitors come to your website.
Many Internet Marketers who don’t take affiliate marketing seriously enough often used their own personal website or a blog that focused on other themes or topics and expect to make lots of money. They don’t and probably never will this way. The most effective way is to purchase a new domain to focus entirely on your affiliate program. This ensures the search engines know what theme your website content is related to. It also helps in getting you free organic traffic when visitors arrive at your site after searching for a relevant keyword of your affiliate product.
Alan Mater is an online business owner and has been an affiliate marketer for the past several years. If you’re looking to get started as an affiliate and make money online, check out this proven work from home opportunity.
Alan also offers free online buy cheap Minomycin online training for those that already have an online business and want to market it effectively.
