4 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes Thats Hurting Your Online Business

Affiliate marketing is the lazy person’s dream. No customer service; automatic income everyday; earn money while you sleep; constant traffic to the sales page; high commissions; etc. But the problem that most new affiliates make is that they stay lazy – and therefore they don’t make any money.

One of the reasons that most people stay lazy is that affiliate marketing is an easy business to get into. All you have to do is join an affiliate marketplace, get your affiliate code, and you’re instantly in business. So most people make the assumption that since it’s so easy to get into, it must be easy to earn money in this business too.

Nope, not at all.

In fact, I will show you how to avoid the top mistakes most new beginners make, and how to start profiting from your affiliate marketing efforts. Here’s mistake number 1:

MISTAKE #1) Not picking a winning product

You don’t want to pick products that aren’t proven to sell. Every affiliate program marketplace has different categories, and you want to migrate into the category that most appeals to you. And within this category, you will find a list of products that are performing the best. These are the products that you want to start promoting.

What you don’t want to do is pick a product that isn’t proven to sell and that isn’t getting many sales for affiliates – even if you know alot about that subject. But sometimes, you will find a non-selling product that has a pretty good sales presentation. If you see a scenario like this, you will want to do your research as to why this product isn’t converting like it should be.

MISTAKE #2) Picking a product solely because of a possible large commission

Another thing along these lines that you want to avoid is selecting a product that has a large commission payout, but may be tough for you to sell. Everyone wants the large payout, but for products that cost $400 or $500, the sale can be tough. And if you’re a new affiliate who has no idea what you’re doing, then you should probably stay away from these products for right now.

These types of products are best sold via email newsletters. And if you have no idea of how to get traffic to your website, how are you going to get people to subscribe to your email newsletter?

Your best bet for right now is to stick to low cost products that you can earn an easy commission on. Once you’ve mastered that and are earning a nice $500 – $1,000 a month on the internet, then you can move on to more advanced things. But for right now, stick to the lesser costing products. Here’s another mistake newbies make:

MISTAKE #3) Not having your own website

This is the fastest way to not succeed in affiliate marketing. No matter what you’ve heard, you need your own website to successfully promote your affiliate programs. I say this because, alot of article directories and pay-per-click search engines are prohibiting the use of direct linking to affiliate program sales pages, and if you were relying on this strategy to earn some money, then you need to change it.

When you have your own website, you make the process of closing a sale easier. You can offer more valuable information, you can have them subscribe to your email newsletter, you can offer a review of a particular product, and lots more. You can even have Google Adsense ads running on your website to earn money from that too. Don’t be like most unsuccessful affiliates and not have a website. You will find that the little $10 – $20 a month cost of having them is more than worth it. Here’s mistake number 4:

MISTAKE #4) Being an affiliate to more than one product

Tell me, how do you expect to make money from a ton of products if you have no idea as to how to make money from 1 product? So if you become an affiliate for one product and have no idea of how to make money from it, how do you expect to make money from all of the other affiliate programs that you join?

This makes sense right? I know the idea of having multiple streams of income is appealing but true success comes from making money from one product at a time. Furthermore, it takes time to develop marketing campaigns for all of the products that you’re promoting, so if you don’t have the time to do that (or simply don’t want to do it) – then how do you expect to earn money from your efforts?

Stick to one product at a time. Once you’re earning money from one product, move on to the next. This is how it’s supposed to work.

Keep these 4 mistakes in mind before you do anything else with your affiliate marketing campaigns. They will save you alot of time, money, and grief in the long run.