No matter what type of affiliate product or service you’re selling, you’re probably always looking for ways to get your offers in front of more prospects . . . and you’re looking for ways to get folks to click on your affiliates links.

It is often said that marketing is a numbers game – the more targeted prospects who see your offers, the more money you make.  Of course, that’s assuming that your have a great product to promote and that you have compelling reasons why the prospect should click on your link now.

With that in mind, here are five killer tips for getting others to click your affiliate links . . .

1.  Buy and Use the Product You’re Going to Be Promoting

It should come as no surprise that most affiliates never purchase or have any experience with the product they are promoting.  It’s simply lazy marketing to slap on an affiliate link to an email and hope that someone clicks and buys the product.  How can an affiliate give a good and truthful recommendation to a product without owning it and trying it out?  Seems rather logical doesn’t it?  Truth be told, the vast majority of affiliates are much more concerned about their potential commission than the best interest of their customer.

2.  Build Trust First

People buy from those they know, like and trust.  So if you’re a virtual stranger who’s asking people to click on your affiliate links, guess what happens?  Usually, not a darn thing!  No one clicks because no one that sees your link trusts you.

Instead of hitting your prospects cold, you need to publish a newsletter and/or preferably a blog, too.  By doing this, your prospects get to know you with each issue you send out or article you post.  You’ll also build trust with your audience by providing free, quality solutions to their problems, questions, and desires.

3.  Pre-Sell Your Products

Even if people know, like and trust you, they’re still not going to rush to click your affiliate links unless you give them a good reason to do so. What that means is that you need to pre-sell your affiliate offers before you send your visitors on to the vendor’s page.

Here are three ways to do exactly that…

a.  Do a product review or comparison.  If you want to sell a single product, then you can do a product review.  This is where you share the good points (benefits) of the products, the product’s flaws and your “verdict” (whether you recommend it or not).

Tip:  If you just want to offer the product benefits, then you’re basically writing a sales letter.  Now that’s OK, but don’t confuse it with a product review.  A review is an honest assessment of the product, including product flaws.  However, don’t be afraid to share the flaws, as doing so makes people trust you more – and that greater trust increases your conversion rate.

Alternatively, you can compare two or more similar products – flaws and all – and let your readers know which one you recommend.

b.  Share a case study.  People want proof that a product works.  One way to offer proof is by sharing a case study of what types of results you or someone else got by using the product.

c.  Build anticipation.  Another way to get people to click on your affiliate links is by building anticipation and curiosity.  You can do this over a series of emails.  Alternatively, you can also do it in just one email, where you get people curious about the sales page.

4. Add Value to Your Offers

When you’re an affiliate, you’re in direct competition with other affiliates who are selling exactly the same product.  One way to virtually eliminate the competition is by adding value to the offer – that is, you offer a related bonus product or service to those who purchase the item through your affiliate link.  Make the bonus offer relevant and useful to the product being promoted if at all possible.

Examples:

• You offer a free sales letter critique to those who buy a copywriting course through your link.
• You offer a free blogging course for those who purchase a traffic-generation course through your link.
• You offer a free exercise book and a free recipe book to those who purchase a diet course through your link.

5.  If You’re a Serious Affiliate . . . Build an Email List in the Niche

It’s no secret that the best affiliates tend to focus their promotion efforts in a few targeted, and often related niche marketplaces.  Why do they do this?  One reason is that they understand the specific marketplace and the desires of prospects in it.  They know the types of products that sell well, they know how and where to contact prospects, and they know the various vendors that are selling successfully.  Here’s another important reason:  they can promote and sell related items to the same prospects that have purchased previously in the niche.  That strategy is a whole lot easier and more productive that finding new buying prospects.  So these successful affiliates build niche mailing lists and often have great targeted audiences that they can tap into with related offers.  It’s a huge advantage over other affiliates that are simply prospecting for first time buyers!

In summary:  You can get more clicks to your affiliate links and more money in your pocket simply by doing these five things:

• Buy and use the product you’re going to be promoting.
• Building trust in your prospects first.
• Pre-sell your products.
• Add value to your offers.
• Build an email list in the niche.

Apply all five of these tips ASAP and see if you don’t start enjoying more sales, too!

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com

There are many skills that come in handy for small business owners. I’d like to take a minute to share what I feel is one of the most helpful and valuable skills anyone can develop with some practice.

I am the first to suggest that if a business owner doesn’t personally possess a skill, he can outsource to find it, take on a partner who has it, or simply study and learn and practice until a skill becomes part of his talent.

But if you know how to do this, you will have all the content, products, and online help a business owner could ask for.

Anyone can do it. Most newbies avoid it. It takes some effort, but it gets easier every time you do it. It’s a skill that has literally made people millions! Seriously.

We learned it’s basic steps in elementary school (if you paid attention), practiced it a lot in high school, and refined it in college.

Here’s a hint if you haven’t figured out what this skill is:

According to Samuel Johnson . . . “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.”

The answer is of course . . . drum roll . . . research!

Nowhere is the lack of this skill (or at least the willingness to do it) more evident than in many people’s failing businesses.  Often owners and webmasters avoid it at all costs.  Certainly research takes some effort, knowledge, and patience.  But I believe even those who aren’t experts in research have a distinct advantage over others that don’t or won’t do any research.

In the business world, knowledge is power!  Knowledge and understanding of the niche marketplace, of consumer preferences, of cutting edge techniques and strategies, and of news, events, and the competition all increase the business power of an entrepreneur.

Let me tell you this (of which I’m 100% certain):  those business owners that do their market research (or have someone on staff do it) will have a distinct advantage over competitors that don’t do research.

I believe that, in many instances, small businesses fail because the knowledge and understanding of the solo operator about his/her own niche market is not sufficient … or is just plain out of touch with reality.  Smart research helps to eliminate that problem.

Research has many “pluses” (things beside owner knowledge):

• You get a more sure and detailed answer to your questions
• You benefit immensely just from the actual process of “digging” for an answer
• You become exposed to both (or many) sides of a question or issues so as to enhance your total understanding
• You learn a lot about related or peripheral issues that affect the subject so that you are better informed
• You learn what doesn’t work or what has failed in the past (things about the subject to avoid)
• In the end, you become a better business owner because of what research has exposed you to

You will never be at a loss for content, blog posts, articles, information products, or help in solving a problem because knowing how to do research means the knowledge of others will always be available to you (especially when you draw a blank and don’t have clear ideas of your own).

How do you do research?  Excellent question.

Why don’t you go research that subject.

After you’ve had a chance at personal discovery, I’ll come back with a few ideas and tips of my own.

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com

Just imagine if you were able to develop one of the most popular blogs in your niche.  Think of how much money you could make selling your products or affiliate products if your blog was niche relevant, admired by all, and visited heavily by targeted niche prospects!

Imagine how big your list would be.  Think about what it would mean when you were ready to exit the business – imagine how much money you’d make selling your “authority” corner of the web.

All of this is within your reach – especially if you follow these 10 suggestions for becoming a better blogger:

1. Survey your readers to find out what they want

Adding a poll or short survey to your blog not only makes your blog interactive (which is a good thing), it also gives you an idea of what kind of content and solutions your readers want!  It helps you to target your paid products as real solutions to the desires of your subscribers.

2. Give your readers info that they’d gladly pay for

Just because your blog is free doesn’t mean you should post content that’s not worth anything.  On the contrary, you should post valuable, helpful, relevant content – the kind of solutions you’re market is already paying for – on your blog.  By doing this, you can build trust and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.  Great free content leads to increased sales of paid products.

3. Write about hot or controversial topics to spur discussion

When there’s a controversy going on in your niche, grab a side and blog about it.  Push a few emotional buttons.  Then create a call to action at the end of your post where you specifically ask your readers for their comments and feedback.  The more emotionally charged the post, the more likely it is that you’ll get comments – regardless of the stance you take.

4. Join the blogosphere discussions

Your blog is not an island.  Start visiting and commenting on other blogs in your niche and join the community discussions.  You can comment directly on their blogs or better yet, write a response on your blog using a trackback link.

5. Optimize your posts for the search engines

You don’t have to optimize every post you make.  But if you make a point to optimize at least one post per week, you’ll see a steady increase in traffic.  Often new bloggers don’t realize the SEO effect of simply publishing unique, authoritative, and relevant niche information as blog posts and comments.

Tip: Use a tool like WordTracker or the Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool to uncover your niche keywords.  Often it pays to choose words that have low competition or that are long-tail and very descriptive.  Then include your keywords two or three times for every 100 words of content.  But don’t practice what some call “keyword stuffing” (adding too many keywords to the point that the narrative becomes unnatural and “spammy.”)

6. Arouse curiosity with password-protected posts

Your visitors can see that your blog has a lot of good content. But then they notice that you lock up your best content behind password protected posts (with the passwords only being available to your subscribers).  You can bet curiosity will get the best of many of your readers . . . and they’ll subscribe to unearth addition valuable content.

7. Learn to create killer headlines

People will decide whether to read your post or not based on your headline.  As such, use headlines that include words like how to, you, amazing, secrets and discover.  I like to keep a swipe file of my own headlines and those created by others that seem especially enticing.

8. Vary your posting style (some long, some short, etc)

Don’t always post a 400 word “how to” article.  Instead, mix things up by posting articles of different lengths and different styles.  I prefer most of my posts to be in the 700-1200 word range, but that’s not a “set-in-cement” standard.  I have found over the years that short 300 word posts that many bloggers use are simply a way for them to rush through this task of posting new content often.  Your posts need to be long enough to be able to give value and be at least somewhat detailed.  By the way, this post is 904 words long.

9. Interact with your readers by answering their comments

Your comment section isn’t just a place for your readers to talk amongst themselves – it’s also a great place for you to interact with your readers.  Since people buy from those they know, like and trust, this simple act of interacting will grow your income.  It will also set you apart from almost all of your niche competitors as it takes time to give individual attention to your prospects and customers.  However, I have found that it is time well spent and it pays dividends over the long term.

10. Make blogging a part of your daily routine

Add “write a blog post” to each and every daily to-do list until it becomes a habit.  If you write just one new and unique blog post per day, in a year you’ll have 365 posts – and a whole lot more readers, subscribers and income if you set things up correctly!

In summary, creating a big, popular blog isn’t a matter of doing one thing.  Instead, you can create a better blog (and become a better blogger) by consistently taking a series of small but purposeful steps.

To you online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com