Friday 21 February 2014

Affiliate Marketing: The Truth Behind The Myths

Affiliate marketing is a business that is often misunderstood. People outside of the affiliate marketing industry tend to have one of two misconceptions about what it is that online marketers do. Some people assume that you sit around on the Internet all day and wait for money to flow in, magically, while others think that your job involves voodoo-magic on a level that they could never learn. The truth, of course, is somewhere in between.  Let’s take a look at some of the biggest myths in the world of affiliate marketing.


 
1. Affiliate Marketing is Too Hard for Me to Try

This myth is usually repeated by people who looked into the idea of getting started with affiliate marketing but were put off by the strange acronyms and complex computer programs that they saw other affiliates using. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take long to learn that jargon, and most of those tools are not necessary early in your affiliate marketing career. Yes, there is a learning curve in the affiliate marketing industry, but there is a learning curve for anything that is worth doing.  Allocate a few hours each week to learning the business, and you’ll be amazed how quickly you pick it up.

2. It’s Too Late to Get Started

Many of the most successful affiliate marketers got started during the late 1990s or early 2000s. It’s easy to feel like if you’re entering the industry today, you’ve already missed the boat. That couldn’t be further from the truth. There are always new products coming up, new trends to experiment with and new services to establish yourself on. As the saying goes, the best time to start may have been ten years ago, but the second best time to start is today!

3. There Are No Good Niches Left

It’s true that it’s incredibly difficult to establish yourself in a broad niche such as “books” or “movies” today, but you don’t need to do that. There are thousands of niches out there that are relatively unexploited. Instead of trying to take over the world with your first website, pick a niche you know well and become an authoritative resource for it. Maybe you want to sell strategy guides for Candy Crush saga, or Yoga instructional DVDs. It’s much easier to do one thing really well than it is to succeed in a broad niche.

4. You Need a lot of Money

People who have money to invest in promoting their website may see success more quickly than people who are launching their first affiliate website on a shoestring budget, but that’s not always the case. All too often, the people with money to burn try to use that money to make up for a lack of research and knowledge, and end up wasting that money for little or no return. Start small and reinvest your profits; you can succeed.

5. Google is Killing Affiliates

Over the last few years, Google has released several updates that have caused a lot of problems for affiliates using old-fashioned “grey hat” marketing techniques. Affiliates that did not use excessive automation, bulk link building or other questionable techniques to promote their websites often benefit from Google’s changes. Google does not want to kill affiliate marketing, its mission is simply to stop spammers. Build a high quality, authoritative site and you will not have any SEO problems.

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