One common mistake alot of CB newbies make when they get into affiliate marketing is that they think this is a get rich quick scheme where the millions overnight promised to you by certain eBooks is a reality. These are some big things that they forget, simple... but big: 1) They forget that affiliate marketing is like a job. It takes work, skill and there is a definite learning curve no matter how much information you cram into your brain. Like anything, you need to test it for yourself. 2) One shot. Email marketing is a great way, but you have to use it effectively. When people hear the words "The money is in the list" they think that placing an email submit form on the sidebar is effective. They also think emailing out to their current list of friends/family/colleagues is effective. 3) Statistics. One big key to success is being able to analyse web stats and sales stats and optimize/develop for improvement. A good tracking system I'd recommend you install on your site is Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/). You can find out your users location/browser/language/screen resolution and much more information so you can optimize your site correctly for your visitor. Testing out different site formats is also key. Does a review page work best? Or perhaps a personal story? 4) Shooting high. You'll find many first time affiliates shoot for all the high gravity products. True, this does mean they're selling... but what's your competition going to be like? If you don't have a strong list of people in the same niche or sufficient cash for PPC and you're entering something like Forex it's going to take you much longer to turn it into a profitable business then someone who is established. Shoot for something with a gravity of above 25 or so with lighter competition. 5) Magic traffic. It takes hard work to rank for keywords, especially ones with bigger competition. There is also alot of hype and bull out there when it comes to SEO and how it should be done leaving a lot of new affiliates baffled? DoFollow? NoFollow? Blog Posts? Forum Sigs? Web 2.0's? I suggest you learn one web optimization strategy, implement it... learn how to do it effectively and then move on to the next. Also check out www.SEOmoz.org for a good resource. 6) What you're told. Alot of new affiliates base the success benchmarks off much more successful and established affiliate marketers. For example, some new affiliate marketers get told that they can make $2000/month within a month, and if they don't? They quit. You also get alot of new affiliates asking: How much should I earn by XX? How many subs should I have by XX? How many sales should I have by XX? Alot of these questions are entirely dependent on you and you're affiliate marketing strategies, picked niche etc so logically you can't ask anyone else, no two situations are the same. That's just my lot .
Well you can make even more but you have to have an exact system and no sleep in that one month. One thing is certain: I won't achieve my target $3K in a month THIS MONTH but I will never ever quit until I crack this biz Good thoughts BTW. Thanks
Of course you can do more, but when people jump on the "One stop to CB richness boat" people think the work is like p*s* easy when in reality it isn't.
What can I say? Newbies tend to make this mistakes. specially the ones that doesn't even know what they are doing in the field of Affiliate Marketing. They think they can accomplished it in just a short period of time.
Well said. You couldn't sell this great information; People want to pay for empty promises of overnight wealth in any e-book they can get their hands on. I wonder why that is... Great post.
I always set myself a goal of getting 500 visitors to an offer. I always track my traffic so I know where it is coming from. Bit.ly is a nice free example of tracking. If after 500 visitors the offer is not converting the way I like, I move on to something else. It is work like anything else. There are no magic bullets, but if you work smart (maybe outsource some of your article writing) you can make some decent money within 60 days. Don't give up after 3 days because you haven't seen any results yet!!!
Wow great points for sure, borderline sticky worthy! I know many people, myself included, made similar mistakes when we started out
nice post edrectory .... and yes, wouldn't life be great if we could sticky some of these useful posts!
Very true. Its a job ..its a business. It's those people who claim to teach how to make instant money , or make money in 24 hours or 3 days who are to blame. selecting a niche is easy.sticking to it and mastering 1 traffic system is what most people have difficulty with.
Yeah, it's really true. This is my first time at CB but you know it's so hard to make sales. So, thanks for your information