Are you promoting affiliate products? Struggling to increase your sales? Wondering if you’re making mistakes in affiliate marketing? You’re in the right place.
Affiliate marketing is the BEST way to monetize a blog or website.
Why? It can help you generate sales even while you sleep.
In the last year, i.e., 2022, we generated over $18,800 a month from the blog you’re currently reading. You can check out our blog’s income reports to find more details.
Here’s one of the earning reports from an affiliate program called Semrush;
As you can see above, we made over $459,000 from just ONE program.
That’s a BIG number, right?
Reaching that milestone wasn’t easy. We made a ton of affiliate marketing mistakes in our 12+ years of blogging journey.
In this post, we’ll talk about the three most common affiliate marketing mistakes most people make and how to avoid them to get better sales. Let’s get started.
3 Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2023
1. Don’t Put ALL Your Eggs in One Basket
When we started BloggersPassion, we heavily relied on web hosts like HostGator.
Suddenly, people started complaining about HostGator’s hosting services and its pathetic customer support.
That’s when our sales started to drop.
We learned a BIG lesson.
Don’t put your eggs in one basket. Don’t heavily rely upon ONE affiliate program. NEVER!
Yes, your favorite affiliate product can give you hefty commissions per sale, but you’ll never know its future.
A lot of things can go wrong, such as;
- They can stop adding more value to their products (an example is HostGator)
- They can stop accepting affiliates (SiteGround is a great example)
- They can stop paying hefty commissions (Semrush used to pay 40% recurring commissions, now it’s only giving us one-time commissions)
- And the list goes on and on
How to fix the problem?
Pick recurring affiliate programs: Recurring affiliate programs help you generate commissions for a lifetime, not just once. For example, Kinsta web host offers you recurring commissions.
Similarly, you can try these best recurring affiliate programs if you want to make commissions repeatedly.
Always choose 2 to 3 alternatives: Let’s say you’re promoting an SEO product like Semrush, and you REALLY like it. But don’t just stop there. Find other good (affordable or better) alternative tools to it and promote them as well.
That way, you’ll give your target audience more relevant recommendations. Let them decide whatever they want to buy.
Looking for inspiration? Check out these affiliate marketing quotes.
2. Not Creating Engaging Content
Content is KING and QUEEN.
Don’t try to sell with your content. Help your audience.
Read it again.
But most affiliate marketers focus on promotional content instead of informative content.
Also, some people plaster their websites with ads everywhere (in the footer, header, sidebar, within posts, etc).
When someone visits your website and finds ONLY promotional content or ads, they’ll most likely get turned off.
How to fix the problem?
Follow a proper content ratio. You can consider something like 3:5 (3 out of 5 blog posts you publish should be informative).
If you’re struggling to create epic content, here are a few tips we often use to create engaging content on BloggersPassion.
Use strong headlines: 8 out of 10 people will read your headlines, and only two out of ten will read your content.
If your headlines suck, people will NOT read your content, leading to fewer conversions and affiliate sales. That’s why start with a magnetic headline that conveys the main idea of your blog post.
Strong headlines instantly grab your readers’ attention and encourage them to keep reading your content.
Use images and videos: Using images and videos can help you break up the blog post and make it more visually appealing. This can also help explain your points quickly and make your content sharable.
Remember, most online readers prefer scanning instead of reading every word. Make sure to use short paragraphs and subheadings to break up the text and make it easier to scan your content.
Use real-life examples: Most affiliate marketers don’t include real-life examples. That’s why they often struggle to generate more sales.
If you want to create high-converting blog posts, use examples to illustrate your points.
Not only using examples makes your content more relatable, but it can help you with better sales.
Use strong calls to action (CTA): If you’re promoting affiliate products, you should know when and how to use calls to action.
A call to action is a text prompt designed to encourage your audience to take action.
It could be asking them to leave a comment, signing up for a free trial, sharing your post on social media, or signing up for your email list.
3. Neglecting SEO
Want to succeed as an affiliate marketer? You should learn and implement SEO.
SEO (Search engine optimization) is the process of improving the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you ignore SEO, you’re making it difficult for your target audience to find your website, leading to less traffic and sales.
How to fix the problem?
Here are a few SEO tips we use on BloggersPassion, which can help you with better rankings.
Target long-tail keywords: There’s a HUGE competition in almost every niche. You can’t compete with other high-authority websites by targeting the exact keywords.
That’s why targeting long-tail keywords help with faster rankings. They’re easier to rank for because they often have fewer monthly searches.
Did you know that search engines like Google use over 200 ranking factors to determine the relevance and quality of a web page? It also considers keywords. That’s why using relevant keywords for every post you publish helps with better rankings.
While doing keyword research, come up with several keywords with similar intent.
Why? It’s a good idea to use various related keywords in your content rather than focusing on just one or two. This can help your content rank for a ton of relevant search queries.
Don’t forget on-page optimization: On-page optimization is optimizing your content for relevant keywords to attract more search traffic.
Use relevant, high-quality keywords in your blog post titles and throughout your content.
Use header tags such as h1, h2, h3, etc., to break your content into subheadings and make it easier for search engines like Google to understand your blog post’s KEY points.
Use ALT tags to describe the images in your blog post. This can help search engines understand the images and how they’re relevant to your content.
If you’re using WordPress, install the Rank Math SEO plugin, which helps you optimize your content better.
Internal links are essential: Most people are unaware of the importance of internal links and often publish new content without them. That’s a BIG mistake if you’re looking for more search traffic.
Make sure your blog post has a simple and SEO-friendly URL structure. Link to other relevant posts on your blog, as this can help search engines like Google to understand the context and relevance of your content.
Internal links can also help with link juice, better search crawlability, improved user experience, and more.
FAQs | Mistakes in Affiliate Marketing
Here’s a list of frequently asked questions on affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing involves affiliates promoting products of other companies, and they earn commission on successful sales.
What am I doing wrong in affiliate marketing?
You’re not focusing on SEO. If you want to increase your affiliate sales, you need high-quality traffic. Search engines like Google can help you with highly qualified visitors who can ultimately purchase from you.
What is the biggest problem in affiliate marketing?
Creating content that ranks is the BIGGEST problem. Most people create generic content that adds zero value. Mediocre content will NEVER rank and doesn’t help with sales.
What are the disadvantages of affiliate marketing?
Some of the common disadvantages of affiliate marketing include the following;
– No control over the affiliate program
– Inconsistent earnings
– Too much competition
Why do most affiliates fail?
One big reason most affiliates fail is that they don’t care about what their audience wants. They only focus on promoting products instead of helping people with their content.
Related Resources:
Final thoughts on common affiliate marketing mistakes
Affiliate marketing is a long-term game. You can’t succeed if you’re looking for overnight results.
Make mistakes. But learn from them!
Be consistent. Know your audience. Promote the right products, and you’ll start generating sales. There are no other shortcuts.
So what are your thoughts on the mistakes most affiliate marketers make? Do you make any of them? Let us know your views in the comments.
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