Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways of monetizing a website. Bloggers and influencers around the world make a profit by creating valuable content and promoting products or services. According to Review42, 81% of brands have adopted affiliate marketing. Nevertheless, it’s challenging to turn an affiliate marketing revenue stream into a sustainable business. Check out our tips to increase your profit margin.
# 1 Enhance the user experience
Start by improving your website so your visitors can consume your content and enjoy it. Make sure that the design of your blog is clear and user friendly by choosing the right fonts and colors. Speed up your website to improve slow loading speeds. For example, you can try out code minification and image compression so your website loads faster. Furthermore, your header menu should be intuitive. We also suggest introducing blog post categories and search bars so your visitors can find the content they need without any problems.
#2 Optimize blog posts
Focus on the readability of blog posts. Try out the Hemingway Editor to make sure your articles are easy to read. This app performs automatic proofreading and provides a readability score. Shorten sentences in your articles and use simpler words to keep the reader’s attention. Use images and infographics to diversify the content. It’s a good idea to add an interactive table of contents at the top of each article so readers can navigate the text more easily.
#3 Create a mobile-friendly website
It’s crucial to have mobile-friendly blogs so that users can consume your content on the go. When it comes to affiliate marketing tips and website optimization, responsive web design is a must-have. With so many different tablets and smartphones in use, publishers need to adjust their content to every possible device that may access it. Your blog should load fast on mobile devices to decrease exit rates. Don’t give your readers a reason to leave your website. Instead, do everything in your power to provide an appealing mobile experience.
#4 Provide freebies with affiliate products
Offering something extra can differentiate you from other affiliate marketers. As a result, customers will be more willing to use your link and receive a freebie. What can you offer your customers? How about an insightful ebook, a video course, a report, or another valuable piece of content? Remember that the content has to be related to your affiliate product. Standing out from your competition will be very profitable, especially in the long run, since the content you can provide as a freebie will be scalable.
#5 Prepare an insightful review
Use the affiliate products yourself in order to know exactly how they can help your target audience. By having a personal experience with the product you will be able to describe it adequately and list it’s best features. When writing a review, you need to include all of the essential information about the product. Make it interesting and adjust the tone to your audience. Explain what problems the product solves and how it does so. Another idea is to create videos that will show how the product works in real-time. Make sure you add an affiliate link to your detailed review so that you get the credit for any purchases made thanks to your videos.
#6 Use multiple tracking links
When promoting an affiliate product, you need to track your links accurately. Many companies provide each affiliate marketer with their own link because their goal is to track how effective different affiliates are. Your goal, meanwhile, is to track the results of each of your links in different placements. For example, you might promote an affiliate product in a few blog posts, on social media, and in videos. To track the clicks from each source, you can use different links and therefore measure the traffic more precisely. Thanks to this information, you can find out which content converts the most and optimize your future campaigns accordingly.
#7 Create a detailed comparison
A great way to highlight all of the best features and advantages of a product is to compare it with a competitor’s offer. Prepare a blog post in which you compare and contrast the product with a few alternatives available on the market. Make sure your product stands out from the competition. Consider aspects that are crucial for potential buyers and don’t trick your readers. Write factual information only and be honest with your readers. If you have decided to promote a product then you should already think that it’s worth buying. Include the product’s value proposition and present the most important details. To provide easy-to-scan content, you can use an infographic to list features and inform which brands provide each option.
#8 Prepare landing pages and test them
Creating a few landing pages is another handy tip that can help you achieve success with affiliate marketing. Use a few different versions of landing pages to run split tests and find out which page works best. Landing page builders can help give you the edge in optimizing these pages by helping you quickly build compelling pages with an array of customizable features, such as call-to-actions (CTAs), headlines, images, and color combinations. Learning more about your target audience and their preferences can be achieved through this type of split testing so that you can optimize the content on the landing page for maximum impact. Product landing pages are an excellent resource for product promotion since they focus visitors’ attention on a specific topic or product and provide clear and insightful information about the product.
#9 Revamp call-to-actions
CTAs should be clear and focus on the desired action. For example, you can try out words like ‘buy’, ‘check out’, and ‘learn more’ to engage readers. Moreover, create a sense of urgency by adding ‘now’ to your calls-to-action. Play with colors and make your CTA buttons visible, yet still in line with your website design. Add supporting text to explain what will happen when a visitor clicks on the button. However, don’t overuse them. You can’t ask users to take multiple actions at once. CTAs can actually produce the best results when they appear only once per webpage.
#10 Take advantage of pop-ups
Some of the best affiliate marketing practices are those that help your visitors as well. Use pop-ups smartly. Otherwise, you can cause user frustration that makes them leave your page and never come back. Don’t be pushy. Instead, create useful pop-ups that will help your visitors get access to valuable content, discounts, or special offers. It’s a good idea to give readers some time to familiarize themselves with the content on your blog by only presenting a pop-up a few minutes after they enter the website or just before closing your page. This way, customers can make an informed decision about whether they want to buy a product or not. Such pop-ups can be much more effective at driving conversions because they’re more visible than CTA buttons.
#11 Make the most of heatmaps
Checking out heatmaps of your website, blog and landing pages will help you understand visitor behavior and therefore help you optimize your content. One of the most popular tools for creating heatmaps is Hotjar. ‘Hot’ spots are those that users click on often, while ‘cold’ parts of a website tend to be ignored. By generating heatmaps, you can easily find out which buttons, banners, or other elements are attractive for potential customers and which aren’t.
Boost your performance with actionable affiliate marketing tips
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to improve your affiliate marketing strategy. Every blog, product, and target audience is different, so don’t hesitate to try out a few of the presented methods for each. Analyze visitor behavior on your website regularly to get to know your audience and optimize any improvements. Adjust your strategy to each target group to make the most of your efforts. You don’t need a lot of time to revamp your website and generate more sales. We hope that our tips will help you increase your affiliate marketing revenue.
