You've designed a great looking web-site, signed up for affiliate programs and filled the site with a whole bunch of affiliate links, but you're not making any sales. Does this sound familiar? There are many factors to take into consideration when coming up with a strategy for making affiliate sales. In my opinion, one of the first places to take a good hard look at are QOLs.
Okay, so what on earth are QOLS? Simply put: Quality Outbound Links.
Think about it: for every link on your web site, you are sending people AWAY from your web-site. That's like owning a bookstore and saying to someone, "There's a Starbucks across the street, why don't you leave now and grab a cup of coffee?" Well, if you're sending your potential customers away, you better be getting back something in return. Obviously, you want an affiliate sale.
Affiliate sales are a numbers game. We all understand that only a percentage of those you send away will buy. So the key is to make that percentage as high as possible.
You can increase the numbers is to create quality outbound links. Creating a specific page on your web site that talk about the product or service you're linking to typically can accomplish this step. In essence, what you're doing here is prepping the customer. Going back to the bookstore analogy, instead of just asking the customer to leave and go to Starbucks, you are now saying something like, "Hey, that Starbucks coffee is really good. You should go and check out the new Super-Duper Mocha Latte." This can also be called a referral.
That's what a specific pre-selling page can do for you. You whet the prospect's appetite and get them excited about the product. Now your affiliate links (banners, text, whatever) have moved up the ladder to QOLs. Studies have shown that effective sales pages increase the ratio of hits to sales (conversion ratio). So make the most of that traffic you are sending away by taking the time to create a good marketing page. You merchant may even have some material that you can use. The point here is just don't stick a link or a banner on your web page and expect to see great results. It rarely happens unless you have a really targeted visitor base, which bring up the second step.
But first you need to understand your demographics. Any good business owner needs to know his or her audience. If you're core customer in your bookstore was a 10-14 year female, would you be sending her to Starbucks for a cup of coffee? Of course not.
Outside of studying your web logs, check out Quantcast.com. This service can be very valuable in learning about the demographics of your visitors. By understanding that, you can market to that segment specifically. Once you found your answers, choose appropriate affiliate programs and create your QOLs.
What's really cool here is that QOLs = QILs. You quality outbound links will be quality INBOUND links for the merchant, thus increasing the merchant's own conversion ratio. Hopefully, they'll appreciate that.
This is not the be-all end-all to winning at affiliate programs, but it's a great way to hit the ground running.
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