If you can create websites, affiliate marketing is a good way to build an income stream. Set up a site with products or services supplied by sellers that work with affiliates, add special tracking links to the product pages, and if you market your listing pages well, you can get payments when someone uses your links to reach the seller site and buy. There are many types of businesses who are willing to work with affiliates, these might include travel agents, retailers, estate agents or insurance firm. Companies like these pay commissions to affiliates bringing buyers to their sites.

Monetising your Site

It is important to make sure there is a good fit between yourself and the clients you work with. Then you will feel comfortable and motivated to market their product or service for the long term. Lucy McGuire is a travel writer living in London who has a monetised website based on her love of travel. She has promoted services such as Thomas Cook Airlines on her site, and has received commissions from clients for customers sent from her website to make bookings on these travel sites. She recommends affiliate marketers to promote products and services that they enjoy and complement their interests.

Boosting Commissions Earned

Some new affiliate marketers get themselves established but are disappointed to only earn small commissions. For those wishing to do better, there are guides available online with in-depth strategies designed to boost affiliate incomes. There are many techniques available, and some of them are very technical. Here we will touch on a few of them: Content, Social Media and the Call to Action.

Quality Content

Google’s latest search algorithm gives a lot of emphasis on the importance content, and for good reason as ‘content is king’ is the foundation for effective marketing and sales. Content that adds value to the product and offers a fresh perspective on it will boost the number of buyers. Becoming an authority like Lucy McGuire, the marketer mentioned above, is the way forward. Getting your message out there is vital, and sites belonging to other people can bring visitors to yours. Writing guest posts works well if your content suits the readers of that site and is acceptable to the site owner. This will bring visitors to your site and links that Google will recognise as being of good quality, which will boost your position in the search results.

Social Engagement

Affiliate marketing efforts can be given a huge boost through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Highlights of any content you create should be shared on social media with links back to the new content on your site. People on social media enjoy fresh content, and images in particular are popular. If you have an eye for design and can create a sequence of your own images of the product or service you are promoting, these will stand out and get noticed on social media feeds and timelines. Use the images from your client site but change them in artistic and attention-grabbing ways. Use beautiful lettering and custom backgrounds. Link the images to your client site with the relevant affiliate links.

And Finally, the All-Important ‘Call to Action’

Many affiliate sites don’t do well because they take care of everything except telling the reader what to do last, rather like a salesman who has a good chat to a prospect then leaves without asking if they want to buy and turning them into a customer. Remember to tell the reader what to do: follow this link, complete this form, or even ‘Buy Now’.  Just tell them and they may well do it!