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Affiliate marketing and content marketing are joined at the hip. If you want to be a good affiliate marketer, you need to put out good content. There’s no other way around that.
Even if you’re using paid advertising, you’ll be trying to get people on your email list. The emails that you send are content. There may be links to your blogs, reviews, etc.
The crux of the matter is that most people online come looking for either information or entertainment. Only a small percentage are ready to buy. This applies to anything from booking hotel rooms in a foreign country to buying a gun safe.
Before the purchase, these potential buyers will do their research online. They’ll want to know if the hotel they’re staying in has all the amenities they need. They’ll want to see reviews, etc.
If you have a website that shows up when they search for the hotel reviews and you mention how the proximity of the hotel to the local watering holes is a plus point, or you show all the different activities they can engage in that’s just a stone’s throw away from the hotel – the visitor will read the content on your site eagerly because it pertains to them.
In most cases, they’ll click on your affiliate links and book the rooms. Now you’d have made an affiliate commission by providing content that the visitor was looking for. That’s how it works.
There are 5 pointers to note when creating content. Failure to adhere to the tips below will mean that your content marketing falls flat, and you’ll not see much affiliate sales.
Must Be Relevant
Your content must be relevant to the products you’re promoting. If you’re promoting an outdoor grill, you may wish to have content on what to look out for when purchasing grills.
Or how to clean grills… or even easy grilling techniques to prevent a mess. Whatever the content may be, it must be relevant.
When writing content and thinking about SEO, try to think like a buyer and the sort of things that they will be typing into Google.
What do they need help with? Write an article helping them and then link to the appropriate affiliate product you are promoting.
By targeting longtail keywords, you know that whoever comes to your content is a red-hot lead. Yes, the amount of traffic you will get will be less but it is highly targeted and much more likely to buy something you recommend if your content is informative and helpful.
Must Be Interesting
Your content must be interesting enough to hook the readers by the eyeballs and keep them reading to the last word. If your content is vapid and dull, the reader will yawn and click off the page. There goes your sale.
Nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse. When visitors leave your site quickly, Google will notice this, and you’ll rank poorly in the search engines because your site has a high bounce rate and is deemed not ‘user-friendly’… So, have interesting content.
And, don’t be too formal and stuffy unless your niche expects that. Most niches don’t and readers will appreciate you trying to make the content interesting as well as useful.
Must Be Engaging
Facebook posts on your fan page are content too. So are the videos on your YouTube channel. But here’s what makes them so powerful – the engagement in the comments section.
Look at the comments and engage with your audience. The more you get to know them and respond to them, the more they’ll like and trust you. Engagement counts too.
Ask questions that encourage people to comment. Believe me, people are much more likely to comment if you simply ask them to.
Inject humour and your own personality into your social media content and don’t be afraid to be a little controversial now and again.
You ultimately want to attract the people that “get” you and repel those that don’t.
This way you will be much more likely to see visitors to your blog content click through your links as they like what you have to say and trust you and your recommendations; just don’t let them down!
Must Be New
Your content needs to be new. You’ll have to keep publishing content to stay up-to-date.
There’s no point in having a hotel review on your website that’s 8 years old when the hotel has already been torn down to make way for a shopping mall.
Always have a content publishing strategy and stay relevant with the times.
Yes, there are types of content which are classed as evergreen but even though they are evergreen, some of the details may change so you need to keep up to date with your market.
You can either update existing content which means you won’t lose any of the SEO juice for that particular post, or you can write a completely new post; both options have pros and cons so choose which way you want to go and do it.
Must Be Reliable
Whatever content you publish must be reliable too. The term ‘fake news’ is being tossed about everywhere these days. You want content that is trustworthy.
Readers can sense hype and drivel. So, make your content useful and it will help to sell your affiliate products too.
If you are teaching strategies and/or tactics, make sure that you know what you are talking about. It is a good idea to always practice what you preach because at least you know what you are talking about works.
If you are teaching erroneous tactics you will get found out and this can completely ruin your reputation in that niche, so always ensure that whatever content you create is accurate and as reliable as possible.
Stick to the 5 content creation and marketing tips above and you should see your content work better for you and increase clicks and ultimately, sales.
Many marketers are so focused on sales, traffic, and conversions that they neglect the content… which can make or break them. Don’t make this mistake.
“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” – Andrew Davis, Author
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