Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. It allows the average person with access to a computer to make a substantial second income. However, 95% of people who try affiliate marketing online end up failing. The reason most fail is because they read one or two books or articles about the subject and think they can just copy what they read and watch the cash roll in. This leads to many mistakes that end up costing the affiliate money. Here are several mistakes that affiliates make.
#1) Copying - There are tons of articles and programs out there that promise to make people thousands of dollars just by doing what they do. The problem with that is copying what they're doing might work, the fact that hundreds or even thousands of people are trying to copy the same thing makes competition incredible. The one way to avoid this is to copy their methods, but don't use the same product they are using. Find a different product that is shown to make money but doesn't have as many people trying to push the product the same way.
#2) PPC - Making a profit from PPC advertising is possible, however you have to be careful about what keywords you use to promote a specific product. Those ads that are appearing in the first few pages of Google are spending 2 - 5 dollars PER CLICK and bidding on hundreds of keywords. Those people have enough money to fund the advertising and still make a profit. Those who are starting out in the affiliate marketing business cannot afford such costs. Instead of hundreds of keywords with tons of competition chose a few longer, more targeted keywords that will attract more specific people. If you are promoting a weight loss product instead of using weight loss product as one of your keywords, use "effective weight loss system". ALWAYS use quotes around your keywords otherwise it will attract random clicks.
#3) Free Traffic - There are more then just paid forms of advertising to attract potential customers. Using social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, or personal or public blogs and forums can attract hundreds of potential customers to any product you wish to promote. Other methods include classified ads. You can post classified ads in local newspapers and in classified ad company's online. One effective but lost form of advertising is fliers. Simple fliers in windshields and posted on public bulletin boards can attract many potential customers.
#4) Commitment - The biggest mistake that beginner affiliate marketers make is not staying committed to their goals. They try one or two methods and when those don't work they simply quit. Affiliate marketing is about perseverance. If you make a mistake you should try to learn something from it and not make that mistake again. Those people that end up failing and quitting are abandoning the opportunity of a lifetime. Thousands of people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars more a year through affiliate marketing then through their jobs alone. The market is there, you just have to find a way to tap into it.
