The 6 Commandments of Affiliate Marketing

Very few things remain constant for more than a year or two on the web these days. But there are a few truisms about online affiliate marketing that aren’t likely to change at any point in time. I call them the 6 Commandments of Affiliate Marketing. Ignore them at your own risk!

1. Thou shall know thy niche’s problems. And not their small problems, either. You need to know the problem(s) that keeps them pacing the floor at night, distracts them at work, nearly makes them run through a busy intersection–you get the picture.

2. Thou shall provide thy niche the solution to their problems. This is how we make money in affiliate marketing–by selling people the solution to their problems.

Find or create a viable, quality solution to your niche’s problem(s). Then, tell them why it’s such a good solution.

But how are they to know if your recommendation is worth a damn? Because you’ve paid attention to the next commandment of affiliate marketing:

3. Thou shall provide thy niche with value–and ask nothing in return. Why? Because that’s how you make money with niche marketing!

Giving away free information or even, sometimes, software, instills trust in your audience. They know you’re not just out for money, sure. But more importantly, they know they can expect value from you. Because of this, they will be much more likely to buy what you’re selling.

4. Thou shall not sell the same product over and over. New products constantly come out in every niche and it’s a good idea to see how well they sell. First, however, you need to pay attention to commandment number five.

5. Thou shall test drive before selling. Because guess what? That hot new affiliate offer in your niche may just be a piece of crap. And what happens if you sell it to your list or loyal blog readers? That’s right–the crap rubs off on you.

Your reputation is everything in online affiliate marketing–even if it’s “only” the reputation of one of your pseudonyms. It can be tempting to go ahead and recommend a high-priced clunker when you know your readers will trust you. But aside from being highly unethical, it’s a very good way to stop anybody from buying anything from you (or your pseudonym) again!

6. Thou shall not sit on thy kibitz. “Build it and they will come,” only works in the movies–not in affiliate marketing. You can build the world’s most value-laden, content rich website with the highest-converting sales pages that anybody has ever seen. But that won’t matter if you don’t get people to your site!

No matter how keyword rich your content is, you’ll have to get out there and do a little SEO. And no matter how good your SEO is, you won’t survive today if you don’t go out there and play the social media game.

Get out there and strut your stuff and show the world what you have to offer. Get on facebook and Digg and a forum or two. Let the world know what you’ve got.