Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing

Review

The Routes

1. By setting up a new website specifically for your affiliate business.
2. Through an existing non-affiliate website.

A Brand New Web Site
First off, it should be said that this is probably the harder of the two routes into affiliate marketing as you are starting from scratch.

You will first of all need to come up with an idea - are you going to try and sell a specific product or type of product or are you going to have a general shopping / finance / gambling site.

Once you have your idea you need to register a domain name and find hosting for your website - you could use one of the free websites provided by ISPs such as AOL, but think about whether it gives the right impression. Would you try and run a shop from your front room? It is far better to register a domain name of your own and it is fairly cheap to do as well.

So you've got your idea, your domain name and your hosting - what now? Now you need to start building your web site.

There are two aspects of the design of your web site that you need to consider -

• The advertising content of the site - we will discuss this later in the article as it is common to both routes into affiliate marketing
• The non-advertising related content of the site - this is where an existing website has an advantage as there will already be content on the website.

1. In order to rank well in the Search Engines you need some content that they can index you on.
2. Visitors to your site are more likely to return to a site that provides them with information than to one that is just full of advertising banners.

What should this content be? That of course depends on the theme of your site. But to give you some examples -

• If your site was about a pop group, actor or other star then you could add a discography / filmography (and of course for each record / film you can have affiliate links to enable visitors to buy it).
• If your site was about widgets you could have a page on the manufacturing of widgets (if you appear to be knowledgeable in the subject people will trust your recommendations to buy products).

First off, all of the comments made in the section on new websites still hold true - if you're site is on a free ISP page consider moving it to its own domain (there are ways to do this without losing visitors).

The big advantage that you have over someone who is starting from scratch is that you already have content to attract visitors and search engines you just need to add in some advertising content. We'll look at how to do this now.

Adding Advertising

• Banner links
• Text links
• Content Units
• Pop-ups / pop-unders

Banners can come in many different sizes, common sizes are -

• 120x60 pixels - a small button
• 100x100 pixels - a square graphic
• 250x250 pixels - a larger square
• 468x60 pixels - a rectangular banner
• 235x60 pixels - a smaller version of the banner
• 120x600 pixels - the so-called skyscraper banner - runs down the length of one side of the page

Just sticking a few banners on each of your pages won't make you a fortune, but it will bring you some earnings. My experience has been that for a page with a banner at the top and other links built into the content - between 5% and 10% of the sales come from the banner. They are however good for filling up space - for a good example of this see the right-hand column of this site's homepage

Top Tip - Don't be tempted to just stick a load of banners on a page in the hope that it will earn you money. The search engines will ignore it and most visitors will take one look at all the banners and go elsewhere.

Text Links
A text link is exactly what it says it is - and they look exactly the same as any other linking text that you have on your pages. The only difference is that the link contains the same type of tracking code as a banner does. The good thing about an affiliate text link is that it can be worked seamlessly into your site's main content. Remember above where I talked about having a discography - and adding your links into it here's where a text link is perfect. For example -

  "... is a brilliant album, I haven't stopped listening to it since it arrived. I got my copy from Amazon.co.uk for half price." The blue text is your text link - you don't look like you are selling the album to them you are recommending it to them!

Text links can also take the form of calls to action, such as click here to buy.

Content Units Content units are provided by a merchant as a means of supplying affiliates with automatically updated content. For example, it may be a top 10 bestsellers list or a deal of the day.

The units are normally provided in the form of JavaScript that the affiliate can just add into their site. The merchant will update the content on their server and the affiliate always displays the latest deal - without any extra work.

An affiliate link is of course built into the content unit to track your sales.

Pop-ups / pop-unders Pop-ups are a new browser window that pops up with advertising content as the active browser session. Pop-unders are similar, except that they open in the background (the idea being the user finds them later on).

In the past many sites (particularly adult related) relied so heavily on pop-ups that they have gained a bad name. Also, more and more people are using pop-up blockers these days that their usefulness is fading.

If you want to use them, then do so in conjunction with a Cookie to ensure that a visitor only sees them once each visit and not everytime they change page.

Off course the types of advertising media that is available depends on the merchant that you are using. Some will have a large range of banners and pre-made text links while others will have the bare minimum. Normally, they will provide you with the full HTML that you need (including your linking code). All you do is copy it and paste it into your HTML.

Where to Link to

What can you do? - If the merchant allows it you can deep-link to the product page for Green Widgets. That way the visitor clicks on your link and goes straight to the page selling Green Widgets.

Where Next