5 Affiliate Mistakes to Avoid that will Increase Your Sales

Affiliate marketing is indeed one of the best ways to make money from home, and affiliate programs give everyone with access to the internet the opportunity to make a living online. Affiliate programs are typically free or very low-cost to join, simple to get started, and pay commissions regularly, so an increasing number of people are turning to them as a way to start a home-based business. However, there are a few Affiliate Mistakes that affiliate marketers frequently make that severely harm their business.

By avoiding some of the most common mistakes made by affiliate marketers, you should be able to improve your chances of making sales and increasing your affiliate commissions quickly and easily.

1) Not researching the affiliate program before your start promoting it

It's incredible how many affiliates jump on the first affiliate program that comes their way, sign up simply because it has a high commission rate, or promote it simply because every other marketer promotes it. If the program does not complement the overall theme of your site, it won't be easy to persuade your visitors and subscribers to buy it. Why would they want it if it has nothing to do with the area you're aiming for?

2) Not using your signature file correctly

Many affiliate include a signature file in all of their incoming email messages and forum posts, but they do so incorrectly. Twenty lines of text containing affiliate links to various products are not considered a suitable signature file! It could easily be construed as spam. Keep your signature file to five lines or less, with an attention-grabbing or intriguing first line, and go heavy on the links.

3) Not writing your ad copy

Nothing is more annoying than seeing the same advertisement on the internet or in email messages from ten different marketers. How valuable will your message be when it arrives, and the reader sees it for the tenth time? Before sending out the ad, take the time to fine-tune it to your target audience and subscribers. Personalize it to make the ad your own, so it no longer appears to be an advertisement.

4) Not paying for your domain name and hosting account

Even inexperienced internet users can identify a free hosted site. It's unprofessional and gives the impression to your visitors that you haven't made any money online and probably don't know what you're doing. How can your visitors trust you if you haven't even taken the first step toward adequately establishing your business? A domain name costs less than $10 per year at GoDaddy.com, and a small hosting account costs less than $5 per month. Adding to your account will most likely benefit you in the long run.

5) Not capturing your leads before you send them on to the affiliate product site

What good is it if you spend time and money marketing to get someone to click on one of your affiliate links, and then they leave the product site without purchasing? There is nothing! You've just squandered the time and money it took to generate that single click-through in the first place. Set up a squeeze page to capture your leads' email addresses before sending them to the product site. That way, if they don't buy, you can contact them later and try again (and again and again and again). This has the potential to be priceless!