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February 9, 2012

Most Affiliates Get this ALL Wrong

What’s your biggest concern as an affiliate marketer?

If your approach is anything like the hundreds – no, thousands – of affiliates whose questions I’ve fielded over the years, your primary concern is probably how to get more traffic to your site.

What I’ve discovered while reviewing their sites however, is that these affiliate marketers are putting the cart WAY before the horse.

All it takes is a quick spin around the site to know that even if they did get gobs of traffic every day, these affiliates probably wouldn’t earn enough to buy their daily Starbucks double tall non-fat no whip mocha.

What the heck are they doing wrong?

Well, more traffic won’t help the affiliate whose copy couldn’t sell air to a drowning man.

In other words, they’ve neglected to address what should be their first objective – turning browsers into buyers, or sales conversions.

Affiliates shouldn’t really try to sell products, however. That’s the merchant’s job.

What affiliates need to learn is what Ken Evoy of SiteSell refers to as pre-selling.

I consider what I do as ‘selling WITHOUT selling‘. Almost exclusive use of that technique is the reason my merchant partners tell me that I’m their top affiliate or have the ‘best conversion rates‘ they’ve ever seen… often both.

Furthermore, I spend far more time trying to get the message just right than on traffic generation.

When you focus on conversion rates first and foremost, any and all traffic to your site becomes more valuable. Furthermore, that focus is absolutely essential to get a satisfactory ROI (return on investment) when using pay per click (PPC) marketing.

If your affiliate site doesn’t convert at least 2 percent of your visitors into buyers or if you want to improve your conversion rate, you need to read my short article ‘How to Sell WITHOUT Selling‘.


Ken Evoy offers MYCPS! (Make Your Content PreSell) as a FREE download.

Ken says “There are actually two ways to build a Web site online. The first way is all about “keeping it real.” Add to the Web. Write, and write well, about what you know and love. Overdeliver great content to please visitors and make the Search Engines love you at the same time.

What he says is absolutely correct. Furthermore, preselling is about writing to communicate and it is skill that you can learn through this book.

Download MYCPS! (Make Your Content PreSell) now.


About Rosalind Gardner

Rosalind Gardner is a blogger, speaker and Internet Marketing consultant, best known for her "Super Affiliate Handbook", (referred to by industry professionals as the 'bible' of affiliate marketing) and Rosalind Gardner's Academy - a multi-media version of the book.

Disclosure: We are compensated for our reviews. Click here for details.

Comments

  1. Dan Cruz says:

    Very important lesson in your post there Rosalind but I think both facets should be addressed equally.

    I think the ideal situation is to split test 2 pages and then start driving traffic to your sites so you can see which version of your copy works best.

    I guess that would be like working on your copy prior to driving traffic to your site right…

    Hey, great post!

  2. Jim says:

    Hi Rosalind,

    You’ve hit the nail on the head about pre-selling. However, I must admit, whilst agreeing with you, I find that I can get over enthusiastic with how a product or service can help people and start selling it myself.

    I think I need to just learn to step back a little…

    Jim