A Way to Get Solid Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is at once one of the most profitable and risky ventures you might get into in online business. Like it or not, we are all judged by the company we keep. Naturally, you will want to affiliate yourself with marketers who have good reputations.

There’s the rub. By going the easy way and shopping on affiliate list sites, you run the risk of affiliating with disreputable marketers. You could very well wind up being part of “the wrong crowd.”

It can even get worse than that. For one thing, you will want affiliates who are in markets relevant to yours. This gets even more important if you realize that some affiliates are in niches that may be an embarrassment to your business, or make your targeted clientèle uneasy.

On the same token, you don’t want to link up with your competition. While you want relevant links, you don’t want to draw business away from your site. It’s also far too tempting to link up with a huge number of affiliates. All in all, it’s caveat emptor when you “shop” for affiliates.

It seems then that it’s a better option to partner up with someone you already know. This obviously puts affiliate marketing in the “long term goal” category of a business plan. However, for all the hassle of reputation management it will save you, it’s worth it.

The best way to start getting good affiliates is to get to know them. This will involve a lot of legwork on your part, of course. In any case, a good place to start is on your own reputation. Start by making yourself an authority in your niche. Establish a reputation of good products and customer service.

You will also want to start hanging out in affiliate marketing forums. Get to know people, make your presence known, and begin thinking about who you want to affiliate with. Throughout this, maintain your reputation by joining in conversations, offering solid advice and all around showing that you have “the stuff.”

From here, you can start attending seminars. These can be focused on affiliate marketing, or they can be more general. This is a great chance to put faces to names, on them as well as yourself. You can also meet new people here and begin to develop relationships with them.

At any point during this process, you may get solicited by affiliates. This is a good sign that you’re in a good place to start picking and choosing who you promote. Naturally, you don’t want to just pick up any yahoo who claims to be an affiliate. In all cases, check out their credentials. Surely they have a resume, right?

Over time, you will develop a collection of people you will want to affiliate with. While this seems to be a slow and “old school” way of doing things, really it’s the best way of doing it. It’s especially true if you want to get into full partnerships.