Getting started as an affiliate is easier than you think. And the sooner you get started, the sooner you will start receiving commissions!
Here are 6 ways you can get started right away:
1. Get to know the Products: You can better promote a product if you are familiar with it and like it. We’re not just saying this to get you to buy our products, but a personal recommendation and good product knowledge goes a long way. The more you know about the themes, plugins, and WebDesign.com training, the easier it is to talk about them.
You may not be able to try every product you promote, but it is well known that affiliates that use the product will make better sales.
2. Write Your Own Recommendations & Ads: You can always take any pre-written text provided in our affiliate program and see how they work for you, but it’s generally better to write your own recommendations and ads. They add a personal touch that will persuade people to find out more.
Tips for Writing Ads & Recommendations
Be Aware of Your Readers’ Needs: Understand the benefits (most important!) and features of the products that will appeal to them.
Share Your Experience: Give concrete examples of how a plugin from PluginBuddy has worked for you. Don’t just say you love it…illustrate the benefits it has provided to you. Describe how easy it was to use and customize the theme you are promoting. Share how much better, easier, faster, etc. you were able to get your site just the way you wanted it. If you’ve taken classes at WebDesign.com, talk about how what you learned has helped you. Or talk about how easy it is to learn from Benjamin, The Professor.
Give Information, Not Necessarily A Sales Pitch: Remember, content is King. Keep the tone informational and friendly…gain trust of your reader first. Your job is to get people interested, excited, or curious enough about the themes, plugins and training that they’ll click through on your affiliate link. You warm them up, and then let us close the sale.
More Internet Writing Tips
- Use a provocative, attention-getting headline: Ask a question; give a hard to resist benefit; tell your visitor specifically how you’ve benefited from the product.
- Prove your claims: Don’t say, “It worked for me”. Say, HOW it worked for you. List concrete benefits of using the product, how you implemented the use of the product and what results it produced.
- Avoid excessive exclamation points!!!!!! It looks like insincere hype.
- Avoid excessive capitalization. WRITING IN ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS IS LIKE SHOUTING! Don’t yell at your readers, okay?
- Keep it simple. People tend to skim while reading on the net and it can be hard on the eyes. Some ways to do this are to:
- Break up your paragraphs into bit-sized chunks
- Use headlines and subheadings
- Write in short sentences with simple language
3. Never Expect a Banner or a Graphic to Do All the Work for You: “Banner blindness” is a common phenomena, and can occur even on the best designed sites. In other words, when someone comes to your site, they are looking for information and may ignore banners. Let the graphic can grab their attention, but remember that text and information is what they’re looking for when they want to buy.
4. Create a Whole Page Review Dedicated to a Product: Now, we’re not trying to bully our way into your website by asking for a whole page. The fact of the matter is, full pages work. Your full-page feature will serve as the focal point of many of your promotions. You can have full page reviews on as many themes, plugins, and trainings you want. The more quality information you share, the more people will turn to you for your trusted advice.
Benefits of Full Page Recommendations:
• Permits targeting specific keyword phrases to rank well on search engines.
• Commands your visitor’s full attention.
• Allows you to go into detail about why you like and recommend the product. Include product benefits, features, personal experiences, graphics and anything else you feel is relevant. You can NEVER give too much information.
• Helps you warm up your visitor to the product before sending them to the website where we encourage them to buy.
How to Use Your Full Page Recommendation:
• Optimize your page for search engine visitors. Do your keyword research (http://www.wordtracker.com) to see what people are looking for and optimize your page for that. Include your chosen keyword phrase(s) in your title tag, description tag, page content, etc.
• Link to your full page recommendation from various areas of your website. Perhaps you’ll put a graphic and a little introductory information on your home page or in a sidebar. Then, you can give your visitors the option of following the link to the sales website or reading more about your product review.
• Recommend iThemes and PluginBuddy products (andWebDesign.com training!) to others in email or on message boards (only where allowed), and send them to your product review page. An affiliate link is often looked upon with suspicion and may not be allowed on a message board. Besides, you know these people; they want to know YOUR opinion. What they don’t want a sales pitch from us.
5. Promote the products in Your Opt-in Newsletter: If you have an opt-in newsletter list, tell them about what you use to make your site look and run great. Your personal recommendations will go a long way.
6. Promote the products in Your Signature Line: If you frequent message boards or belong to email groups that allow signatures, tell people about the great products you found. Include your signature in all your business and personal emails, too.
See? 6 simple ways you can get started.
You don’t have to do all of them at once. Just pick one or two and start implementing them today. As you get comfortable with them, try some of the other simple ways to get started.
And as always, let us know if we can help.
