Most of you probably know Ken Jeong best for his role as the over-the-top Mr. Chow in The Hangover movie franchise. Or maybe you liked his character on the TV series Community. For those of you who aren’t so familiar, Ken Jeong started out as a licensed medical doctor practicing with Kaiser Permanente in the...
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This post is based on episode 183 of the ProBlogger podcast. Do readers engage with your Facebook page? A lot of people spend time on Facebook. And as bloggers, it makes sense that we want to reach them. Unfortunately, it’s increasingly difficult to grow your audience using Facebook – especially if you don’t have the budget...
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Germany, Austria, Switzerland: Geo Breakdown My friends from MGID periodically do geo breakdowns and share useful insights about the country, its consumers, how they behave...
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Darren: Hey there, friends. It’s Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. Welcome to Episode 278 of the ProBlogger Podcast. The podcast is designed to help you start...
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You are here: Home / Interviews / Interview with Jorge Imedio From Landing track Tracking Platform August 28, 2019 By Kj Rocker I have been...
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Ana Sousa is a Data Scientist at Cxense, a data management platform that offers online advertising, analytics, conversion rate optimization and content recommendations for publishers....
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Online forms are a necessary part of websites today. Whether it’s a simple contact form, survey, user registration form, event registration form, or even a...
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By: Michael Dunlop Topics: Get Inspired,Make Money Online More posts about: Passive Income, Website Monetization Superstar Bloggers Making Fortunes Online Today I decided to research...
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You are here: Home / Interviews / Interview with Eugene, Head of Customer Success for Rich Push September 13, 2019 By Kj Rocker Today I...
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Change is ever-present for marketers, fuelled by the evolving nature of technology, consumer behaviour, and market conditions. So, how can marketers navigate change – both...
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This post is based on episode 173 of the ProBlogger podcast. Are you confident you’re using quotes legally and ethically on your blog? Quoting other people’s...
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There are hundreds of possible PPC metrics you could track for your paid campaigns – people make entire careers of it. If you’re just looking...
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By: David Aston Topics: Make Money Online More posts about: Blogging Tools, Conversion Optimization SamCart, a new SaaS product for digital marketers is something we’re...
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Since I started blogging over at Beyond the Rhetoric, I’ve written and published nearly 4,000 blog posts. Right here on John Chow dot Com? That...
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Emma Martell is Head of Social Content at Virgin Trains, and is due to speak at next month’s Festival of Marketing on ‘Harnessing the Power...
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This post is based on episode 198 of the ProBlogger podcast. If you’ve been blogging for a while but haven’t started monetizing your blog, you might...
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So, I recently listed off five reasons not to start a blog in 2019. I realize this may have sounded completely out of whack, seeing as it was published on a blog that’s meant to make money. And it was a list coming from a person who makes a good part of his living from blogging. Why would the blogger say that you shouldn’t be blogging?
True, while all five of the reasons I listed in that post are perfectly valid, truth be told, I still believe that opportunities are available for people who wish to start a brand new blog today. From scratch. There are certainly challenges to be overcome, perhaps even more so than starting a blog ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean blogs should be completely discarded.
Indeed, there are many reasons why you SHOULD start blogging in 2019. Let’s explore five of them.
On some level, it’s true that you “own” the content that you post on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. On another level, you really don’t. You have no control over the algorithm, how that content is displayed, or how it can be shared. Not really. Let’s be perfectly honest here; no one actually reads the terms and conditions, so short of turning to your lawyer, you really have no real idea for what Instagram can do with your photos and captions. Not really.
Remember what happened to Flickr? You thought that you had unlimited photo storage, but then Flickr was acquired by SmugMug and they changed all the rules. If you want to keep more than 1,000 photos, you have to open up your wallet. You might “own” the photos, but you don’t “own” how they’re stored.
When you have your own blog, on your own website, on your own domain, with your own web hosting, it’s all yours. It truly is your home on the web and you are wholly (or at least mostly) in control.
Continuing with this line of thinking, you also completely control what the branding of your blog looks like. You have total control over color schemes and logos and layouts. You control what you what your blog brand to represent, what it stands for, and what it offers. It’s all yours.
That’s not the case when it comes to any of these other platforms. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have all changed their layouts considerably over the years. You have to work within the limitations of what they offer you, like the character limit on Twitter, or how longer text posts on Facebook are shown. They say a logo must be no larger than this, or a video upload can be no longer than that.
With your blog, that’s all completely up to you. You control the branding.
All of these other platforms on the web have their own respective approaches to online content. You can’t be on YouTube if you’re not interested in producing video content. You can’t be on Instagram if you have no interest in posting images and photos, particularly in formats and dimensions that are conducive to the best user experience.
And while you can write lengthy video descriptions on YouTube or extra long captions on Instagram, the text is not the focus of either. If you actually enjoy writing, but you don’t want to write a book (or you want to write shorter form in addition to books), then blogging could be the way to go.
They say that if you want to keep the mind fresh and if you want to keep life interesting, then you should strive to learn at least one new thing every day. When it comes to blogging, since you’ve got your own website on your own domain with your own web hosting, there are bountiful opportunities to learn about just about every aspect that goes into a blog.
This is a good thing! While you may certainly choose to outsource many of these tasks, particularly since the professionals can probably do it better than you can, it’s good to gain at least a basic understanding of the various moving parts. Dive into SEO. Pick apart some PHP. Learn about taking good photos and how to edit them. Dabble in social media management.
All of these skills will serve you well as you expand your online business throughout the web and into other endeavors too.
I’ve said so many times before that if you want to make money online and you want to have an online presence, you need to have your own website. This may not necessarily be true if you want to operate under the cloak of darkness as a stealthy arbitrageur or affiliate marketer, but if you have any interest in being an influencer or gaining opportunities as an established expert in your field, then you need a website that’s your own.
Even all of that aside, you can’t really make money on YouTube from day one. You need to meet minimum requirements to gain entry into the YouTube Partner Program. You can’t make money from day one on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram either, as you need to establish your presence before you can seek out brand deals and sponsored post opportunities.
But a blog? You can start making money right away by signing up with a variety of ad networks, inserting Amazon affiliate ads, Google AdSense blocks, or any number of other opportunities. You won’t make much in the beginning — let’s not fool ourselves — but it can be a nonzero amount. That’s how you build positive momentum.
And you do want to make money online, don’t you? Then, if you haven’t already, go ahead and start a blog. It could be the best decision you make all year!
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So you’ve decided to start a niche site and plan to make money with affiliate marketing.
Great.
What kind of content do you plan to publish?
Lemme guess.
Product reviews……
…….product reviews……..
…………..more product reviews.
And, of course, a few product comparisons that establish the superiority of the product you’re promoting against all its competitors.
How do I know?
Because I keep reading comments, like the one below, in NicheHacks Private Mastermind Group.
Read this screenshot below carefully and tell me if you can see what’s fundamentally wrong with this comment…
When you think everything other than product reviews is “a bunch of filler content” you know your content strategy is messed up.
This is a common theme among new affiliate marketers (I can share a dozen more screenshots)
For them, an affiliate site is created to make money (which is true) and the only way to make money, according to them, is by publishing one product review after the other (which is wrong).
Unfortunately, most of these “product-focused” sites don’t make much money (unless they spend a fortune on advertising). And even when they do, they leave a lot more on the table that they could’ve made with a better content strategy.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
To develop trust, and turn complete strangers into leads, customers, and repeat customers, successful affiliate marketers don’t just rely on product reviews and hard sales content.
They build and use content marketing funnels. Not sure what that means? Don’t worry…
In this in-depth article, I’ll tell you exactly what is a content marketing funnel, why affiliate marketers need it more than ever before, and how you can create one for your site.
Keep reading to find out…
Before explaining the concept of a content marketing funnel, I want you to think about your own purchasing behavior on the internet.
Would you buy something from a typical sleazy salesman who tells you a million features of a $50 product only to make quick cash from you without understanding what you actually need?
I won’t and probably you won’t either. The stat below explains why, look carefully at this image…
Source: Roadside Marketing
According to DemandGenReport, the average online buyer views 4-5 pieces of content before even thinking to purchase a product.
Why?
Because a buyer goes through several stages before actually making the decision to buy something.
HubSpot, a multi-million dollar inbound marketing company, calls this the buyer’s journey and describes its three stages as Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
Have a look at the description of these three stages in the image below and tell me if they represent the actual process you go through when buying a product…
Source: HubSpot
As the image shows, the buyer journey starts from the point a buyer becomes aware of a problem or opportunity. Then…
They enter the Consideration Stage where they know the problem and are actively evaluating different ways to solve it.
And finally; it is the “Decision Stage” where the buyer actually starts comparing different products to find the most suitable one.
The product reviews and comparison posts that most affiliate sites publish are useful in the decision stage since they help the buyer choose the right product.
But what about the first two stages?
By publishing content for the decision stage only, you’re losing out on other potential customers who’re in the Awareness and Consideration stages because you’re not publishing any content for them.
Plus, because you’re only publishing Decision Stage content, your site would only rank for product-specific and commercial intent keywords that usually have low search volumes.
As a result, you’ll potentially miss out on hundreds of leads and thousands of dollars in sales.
To counter this, and to create a content strategy for every stage of the buyer journey, you need to create a content marketing funnel.
Here’s how to do it…
In marketing terminology, a funnel is a process through which you attract prospects (i.e. potential customers / people interested in your niche) by creating awareness about a problem, turn them into leads by providing them specific knowledge of the possible solutions, and ultimately turn them into customers by offering them the best products to solve their problem.
A content marketing funnel does all of that using content at the different stages of the funnel.
This is how a typical content marketing funnel looks like, check out this image and study it carefully to fully understand…
Source: Shopify
As you can see, just like the buyer journey, a content marketing funnel also has three main stages with almost the same meaning.
Each stage of the content funnel aligns with the stages of the buyer journey. Now let me explain why this matters to you as an affiliate…
To create specific content for each stage of the buyer journey. In easier words…
A content strategy that creates awareness of the problem your (affiliate) product solves, educating your prospects about the possible solutions, and turning them into customers by promoting the best available affiliate products.
The content you publish in every stage of the funnel has a different objective, let me give you an overview…
ToFu targets the topics that create awareness and are aligned with the general interests of your audience.
It doesn’t directly promote any products or services and primarily aims to provide useful information to your target audience.
For example, if you’re in the weight loss niche promoting different fitness products or diet plans, your ToFu content could target topics similar to the ones below
Source: PhlebotomyExaminer
Or something like this
Source: TheNest
These are informational articles that not only create awareness of the problem your product is solving but also help you rank for high traffic keywords in your niche.
The whole idea of publishing ToFu content is to become a reliable information source for your audience so that they start trusting you.
This is the content that’ll drive traffic to your site, help you get backlinks, and acquire subscribers.
But it doesn’t directly promote any products (although it does link to MoFu and BoFu content where relevant)
MoFu goes one step further and targets topics that talk about the different solutions of the problems your audience is facing.
The objective of MoFu content is to help your audience understand the different product features and to turn visitors into email subscribers.
At this stage, your content will comprise of case studies, specific product examples, comparisons, downloadable lead magnets.
Here are a few examples of MoFu content topics
Source: Health
This article reads like an informational piece from the outside, but in reality, it shares the details of a specific program that it’s promoting for a commission
Here’s another similar example
Source: redbook
Again, this article follows a similar approach and suggests a number of weight loss programs without actually going into the details of any of them.
Case studies are also a frequently used content type at the MoFu stage of the content funnel
Tell me if the article below would interest you if you were worried about your weight
Source: Shape
This writer shares her experience with a very specific diet program without actually promoting it. The focus of her article was still on the problems of the reader instead of making a sale.
She does link to the sales page of the product she’s promoting but doesn’t really push it in the content.
These are typical examples of MoFu content that is narrower in approach as compared to ToFu content but still doesn’t directly promote any products.
It is at this stage that brands convert readers into subscribers so that they can take their communication to the next level.
For example, look at the screenshot below and tell me if you’d be interested in signing up to this email list if you were looking for weight loss advice.
Source: Redbook
Do you see what’s happening here?
ToFu content on this topic created awareness about the problem (obesity/being overweight).
When the readers became familiar with the problem, MoFu content gave them more specific information, shared a few possible solutions, and took the relationship to the next level by turning them into subscribers.
That leads into their BoFu content…
Their audience is now ready for BoFu content (product reviews/comparisons).
For SaaS companies or other business models, BoFu content comes in the form of webinars, product demonstrations, product description, sales landing page copy, etc.
But for the conventional blog style affiliate marketing businesses, BoFu is mostly product reviews, feature details, product comparisons, etc.
Like the article below which directly reviews the different aspects of a weight loss program.
Source: BarBend
Or this article that rates the different features and aspects of a weight loss program along with a detailed review.
Source: HealthLine
As I said earlier, most affiliate sites are limited to this kind of content only.
It’s great in converting people into customers, but only when combined with ToFu and MoFu content that creates awareness and builds a relationship with the readers before finally making the sales pitch.
This is how a content marketing funnel works.
ToFu content funnels visitors to MoFu, and MoFu funnels prospects to BoFu where they’re turned into customers.
The content on every stage of the funnel answers the queries of your audience and moves them closer to the eventual sale.
This is why many successful affiliate sites that don’t even rank for high buyer intent commercial keywords still drive more conversions than sites that only publish reviews. Because their ToFu and MoFu content convinces readers to buy and the sale is made through the internal link structure of their site.
To help you understand how this applies to your affiliate marketing business, let me explain the whole thing using a recent experience I had with a client who’d hired me to develop a content marketing strategy for their business.
You can map this on your own business and adopt the same approach.
My client wanted to start a site that made money by promoting different recurring commission SaaS programs like ClickFunnels, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, LeadPages, etc.
Like most other affiliate marketers, they only wanted to publish product reviews and rank for commercial buyer intent keywords.
Thankfully, they consulted me and together we created a complete 6-month content plan that catered to every stage of the content funnel.
Here’s what we did (and how you should do it as well)…
BoFu content makes you money.
It is the content that pitches different products to the readers and uses calls to action to drive sales.
Product reviews, comparisons, etc. are examples of BoFu as I’ve already mentioned.
When creating a content marketing funnel, you’ll start by publishing BoFu content first.
This is what we did as well.
Since our goal was to make money by promoting tools such as GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, ClickFunnels, etc. we came up with the following titles
Here are the key points to remember
Start by listing all the products you plan to promote and create review articles for all of them.
BoFu articles are usually small in number since you’ll only publish as many reviews as the number of products you’re promoting. But they need to be really high-quality posts which means you either need to have niche expertise yourself or hire professional writers to do this for you.
These are your money pages where you’ll refer traffic through ToFu and MoFu content. It won’t bring you much traffic from search engines, but this is where the sale will happen.
For traffic generation, we’ll move to the next step.
What problems are Getreponse, AWeber, and ActiveCampaign solving?
They allow users to run effective email marketing campaigns and set up completely automated online business funnels.
Many people have never heard of any of those tools.
But they’re curious how marketers are able to send emails about exactly the things they’re looking for.
They’re curious how they get emails every day at 9AM sharp from the same marketer with long and detailed content.
They’re curious how marketers get the time to send so many emails, run full-time businesses, and still travel the world all the time.
They’re the people who have a problem/need but have no idea how to solve it (many don’t even know they have a problem)
ToFu content targets these people.
For the tools my client was promoting, we came up with titles such as
These are just a few examples.
All of then create awareness about the problem and adopt the problem/need-first approach.
They make readers dream without even mentioning the services we’re promoting (email marketing)
Their objective is to drive traffic, create awareness, build trust, and funnel leads to the MoFu stage.
You can publish ToFu content after you’ve published product reviews and comparisons on your site. You’ll also add internal links in these articles to any relevant BoFu content that you already have.
Unlike BoFu content, creating ToFu content is an ongoing process. For every product, you can create as many ToFu articles as you want. Every article will help you target new keywords, generate more traffic, and funnel more leads to the later stages of the content funnel.
Which brings me to the last step of the puzzle.
MoFu is often a confusing stage for marketers because it lies directly between ToFu and BoFu stages.
It’s not as broad as ToFu content but not as specific and salesy as BoFu.
So it needs to be created with a balanced approach.
Its objective is to use the trust you’ve built with ToFu content to introduce the products you’re promoting without aggressively selling them.
Both ToFu and MoFu link to BoFu content that you’ve already published.
For the products my client was promoting, here are some of the titles we finalized for the MoFu stage
– 11 Reasons Why Your Business Needs an Email List
– Step by Step Guide to Creating a Sales Funnel With GetResponse
– How To Increase eCommerce Sales by 377% in 30 Days With ActiveCampaign
– 27 Lead Magnet Ideas to SkyRocket the Growth of Your Email Subscribers
As you can see, these titles aren’t as broad as ToFu but not as specific as BoFu either.
They’ll attract traffic that is actively looking for ways to build and grow an email list or have already heard of GetReponse and want to know what more it can do for them.
Like ToFu, you can create multiple MoFu articles for each product you’re promoting. They’re great for traffic generation and creating the topical relevance of your site.
Once you have written reviews for all the products you plan to promote, you can keep investing in ToFu and MoFu content as long as you want.
As always, every ToFu and MoFu article will have internal links to the relevant BoFu articles.
This is how you connect the different stages of the funnel and keep attracting new traffic to your product reviews, comparisons, and other BoFu content.
To give you a better idea of how exactly these different types of content help your business, let me quickly share some of the key benefits of a content marketing funnel in the next section.
I’ve already described the whole process of setting up a content marketing funnel and how it works for your affiliate business.
But let me share a few specific reasons why this is the only sustainable way to create a long term content-based affiliate business.
Stay with me.
What’s the conventional affiliate site approach?
Find a product(s) with a good commission structure and create a dedicated 5-10 page site with lots of reviews, comparisons, and long-form content that aims to rank for specific buyer intent keywords for that product.
Look at the screenshot below and tell me if this looks like a typical niche site or not?
Source: TheFunnelClicker
The moment you land on this site, TheFunnelClicker, you know it is created for just one purpose – to earn affiliate commissions from ClickFunnels.
It has published thousands of words about the different aspects of ClickFunnels and reviews it from every angle.
But what if ClickFunnels terminates its affiliate program?
This business will die an instant death.
This is the problem with product specific niche sites created with such a narrow focus.
With a long-term vision, the site owner could’ve built a sustainable online business that wouldn’t have been dependant on just one service or product line.
For example, here’s another ClickFunnels review by a different site.
Look closely and tell me why this ones better than the previous example I shared.
Source: ScrewTheNineToFive
Unlike the previous example I shared, this site is not dependant on any single tool.
It’s an authority site that generally covers topics related to online businesses, making money online, digital marketing, etc.
Along with ClickFunnels, they’ve reviewed tools such as LeadPages, GetResponse, MailChimp, and others.
For every review, they have multiple ToFu and MoFu articles that attract traffic and turn visitors into subscribers.
Because of the wide range of topics it covers in its ToFu content, it is able to promote other products that are similar to ClickFunnels.
As a result, it is a much more stable business that isn’t dependant on any single product for its survival.
Plus it is able to generate much more traffic thanks to its high-quality ToFu and MoFu content.
This is what a content marketing funnel does to your business. It changes it from a risky, short term site to a long-term affiliate business.
One of the primary benefits of creating a content marketing funnel for your affiliate site is that it helps you target high volume and high traffic long-tail keywords.
How?
When you publish product reviews only, you can only target commercial keywords that are very specific and target an audience that is already familiar with the product you’re promoting.
By adding ToFu and MoFu to the mix, however, you can expand your scope and publish long-form content about the broader topics that interest your audience.
For example, SmartBlogger is one of the most popular sites in the Make Money Online, Freelancing, and Blogging niches.
Just look at the number of backlinks and monthly visitors it attracts.
90% of its content is informational, is in the range of 2000+ words, targets broad topics, and helps them rank for long-tail keywords.
This helps them drive traffic to review articles such as the one below that can not attract search traffic on their own.
Source: SmartBlogger
Here’s a different example.
WebsiteSetup.org is one of the most popular sites in the “Start a Blog” niche and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliate sales by promoting different web hosting services and website builders.
But it’s not the reviews or comparison pages that are the main traffic drivers to this site.
It’s ToFu articles like the one below that ranks for hundreds of long-tail keywords and drives thousands of visitors every month to this site that ultimately convert into customers.
Source: WebsiteSetup
Just look at some of the long-tail keywords it ranks for
This is a classic example of how setting up a content funnel can drive traffic to your site and turn it into sales. It allows you the freedom to target a wide range of long-tail keywords that are relevant to the products you’re promoting and drive traffic from them.
There are more than 200 factors Google uses to determine search rankings.
But content quality and backlinks are still the two most important factors with the biggest impact on your search visibility.
Over the last few years, affiliate sites have started investing a lot of money in creating high-quality content. But since they still mostly publish product-focused content like reviews and comparisons, they struggle to attract backlinks.
Most high authority sites are reluctant to link to reviews because usually, they’re promotional pieces with affiliate links.
A study by Dejan Marketing found that people link to content for one of the following reasons.
This is where ToFu and MoFu content comes in handy because unlike product-specific content, it gives you more space to create link-worthy content.
You can create content on topics that are of general interest among your audience instead of writing specifically about a product or its features.
One of the biggest mistakes affiliate marketers commit is trying to build backlinks directly to their money pages (product-specific content). Very few high authority websites allow that.
Most of the times, you need to adopt an indirect approach.
Here’s how it works.
You create link-worthy ToFu and MoFu content on broader topics that are not directly promoting any products. You then build backlinks to it through outreach and other link building methods that I have discussed in detail in some of my previous posts.
Once you get those backlinks to your ToFu content, you transfer its authority by creating internal links to the BoFu content on your site.
The strategy is simple and can be easily replicated.
Keep publishing link-worthy ToFu content to get backlinks from high authority sites and keep transferring the benefit of those backlinks by creating internal links from ToFu to BoFu content on your site.
Another major reason for adopting the funnel approach is that it allows you to build long-term relationships with your audience and drive repeat sales.
That’s very hard to do if your site only has product reviews and other BoFu content.
And repeat sales, by the way, is the secret to any successful business.
The image below shows an eye-opening fact and it boggles my mind why more businesses and marketers don’t pay heed to it.
Source: InvespCRO
Did you read that?
It’s 60-70% easier to sell to someone who has purchased from you before as compared to a new client.
Why don’t more affiliates take advantage of this?
Because they only publish BoFu content, have no conversion funnel set up, don’t build their email lists, and have a short term approach.
A well-rounded content marketing funnel solves this problem completely.
Sales is not an event, it’s a process.
A process in which a stranger is introduced to a problem/need then briefed about the possible solutions, and finally offered the best product that solves it for them.
This can’t be done in one go.
It takes time and multiple engagements to convince people about the usefulness of a product.
By publishing BoFu content only, you might convert those who’re already aware of the product you’re promoting but you’ll miss out on the thousands of people who’re still unaware of its existence.
With a content marketing funnel, you’ll be able to add strangers to your sales pipeline and turn them into customers through multiple engagements and tailored content for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
As a result, both your conversion rates and sales numbers will increase dramatically.
A site that only publishes product reviews, can only make money through affiliate sales.
There’s no other way.
But a site with a more holistic content strategy immediately opens up new monetization possibilities.
Why?
Because with a content marketing funnel, you build an audience instead of focusing on one-time sales.
And once you have an audience that trusts you, wants to hear from you, and takes your recommendations seriously you can make money from them in a number of ways
The infographic below shows some of the most profitable monetization methods that you can leverage once you build an audience around your site.
Source: YoungDigitalLab
You can diversify your income sources and move away from completely depending on affiliate sales.
This, of course, is not possible if you only think short-term, take the easy way out, and keep on publishing product reviews only.
All it takes is a change in mindset. So…
Move away from the short-term approach and think long-term by creating a well-rounded content marketing funnel that addresses the needs of your audience at every stage of the buyer journey.
It may seem counter productive to spend lots of time creating content that doesn’t directly earn commissions but you will quickly see that you actually generate more commissions by having the 3 different content (ToFu, MoFu and BoFu) stages.
Sure, doing so takes time but it’s the only sustainable way to build and grow a long-term affiliate marketing business.
The post How To 10x Your Affiliate Sales With a Content Marketing Funnel appeared first on Pdatas Blog.
You want in.
The idea of making money with the Amazon Associates program sounds enticing.
And when you buy products on Amazon, you’re always amazed at the pure volume of stuff they sell.
But your understanding of how it all works is, well, fuzzy.
Let’s bring it into sharp focus. I’ll walk you through the details you need to decide if Amazon Associates is right for you.
And if it is, I’ll show you how to make money by tapping into Amazon’s vast river of eCommerce. Instead of letting this monetization method flow by you, you can be a part of it.
Sound good? Let’s get started.
Amazon Associates is the name Amazon uses for their affiliate marketing program.
And what is affiliate marketing? It’s a marketing arrangement where you earn commissions based on the sales of the products you recommend.
For the Amazon Associates program, you give recommendations for Amazon products and provide links to purchase them within your content. If a reader clicks your link and buys the item, Amazon pays you a commission — not only for that linked product, but on all eligible products your reader purchases from Amazon within the next 24 hours.
Note you only get paid when your reader buys something. If they only visit Amazon, you won’t earn anything.
The Amazon Associate program is available for websites, blogs, social network channels, YouTube, or even mobile apps. In this post, we’ll focus on websites and blogging.
It all starts by signing up for an Amazon Associates account. But first, let’s cover a few things to make sure you are ready.
To promote products, you need a website or blog with high-quality content and an audience. As I’m sure you know, high-quality means providing value to your readers.
If you don’t yet have one, click here to learn how to start a blog.
Once your website or blog is established, and you have decent traffic, then you can create content which contains recommendations for Amazon products.
You can sign up for the program at any time. Then, once you’ve had three qualified sales, Amazon will review the sites you provided during the application process.
Amazon will reject an application if they deem the site(s) provided to be low-quality. Think of the poorly written, micro-length reviews that you’ve seen while shopping. The sites you leave in about a minute, right? In the eyes of Amazon, only high-quality sites provide their customers with a good experience.
Before you sign up, make sure your website or blog is ready and meets Amazon’s criteria. Why? Because if your application is rejected, you’ll lose everything you’ve earned up to that point.
No, a website is required if you want to become an Amazon Associates affiliate.
And that’s not all — there are other conditions Amazon currently mentions during the application process:
There are no traffic requirements upfront to apply, but you will need some kind of tangible traffic to stay in the program. That’s because you need at least three qualified sales within the first 180 days.
And no, you can’t just buy stuff for yourself. Amazon deducts anything you buy for personal use through your links. And if they determine you have a pre-existing relationship with someone, those sales would get deducted as well.
Amazon Associates is popular because their enormous product catalog provides a wide degree of opportunity to earn money online.
They sell physical goods in almost every market. There are hundreds of categories with millions of products you can promote to your audience. They are approaching 200 million products in 2019 (of which 44 million are books).
And Amazon knows how to sell. They capture 49% of all eCommerce traffic. They’ve been selling online for more than 21 years, a long time on the internet. They have plenty of experience in promoting products and converting customers.
It’s also popular because of the success people have enjoyed by using the Amazon affiliate program. Here are a few examples:
No other affiliate network can compete with the sheer volume of products offered by Amazon Associates. Amazon provides more opportunities given its range of products.
And since it’s a website people are already familiar with, conversions can be easier with Amazon than with other affiliate options. Amazon is a trusted brand.
However, Amazon doesn’t have the higher commission opportunities that the other affiliate networks may offer. To give you an idea of potential earnings, here’s a chart of the Amazon affiliate commission rates:
Amazon’s highest commission rate is only 10%. Other affiliate programs may have higher payouts due to offering commissions on cloud-based software, professional services, or online courses.
This is a high-traffic, trusted website. To put this in perspective, Amazon had 2.5 billion visits in May 2019.
Amazon has over 90 million Prime members. Prime members are more likely to purchase from Amazon vs. other eCommerce stores for the free two-day (or even one day) shipping alone.
And they spend a healthy amount as well. In a recent survey, Prime members spent an average of $1,400, and non-Prime members spent $600 per year.
So Amazon’s size can benefit you. Due to its massive internet presence, people know and trust it. This, in addition to the large variety of products, gives you more opportunities.
Amazon knows how to convert customers, how to get them to buy. They haven’t just survived on the internet for more than 20 years — they’ve dominated it and they know what they are doing.
Amazon uses the latest in artificial intelligence to drive their website and create “Recommended Products” categories. How many additional purchases have you made based on “Frequently bought together” and “Customers who bought this item also bought” type recommendations?
Another example is mobile commerce. Amazon isn’t missing the fact that mobile commerce is growing in popularity. As an Amazon affiliate, you’ll have the tools to help sell on mobile. They even have a Mobile Popover feature to help you convert.
You earn commission on everything your visitors purchase in the 24 hours after they click your affiliate link. This includes items that you didn’t provide a product link to.
So, if you have an Amazon affiliate link pointing to a book on fitness, and the person who clicks it ends up buying a freakin’ treadmill, you receive a commission for the treadmill even though it isn’t the product you’re promoting.
This is huge.
The Amazon conversion and upselling machine never stops working. Even if your reader clicks on your link intending to purchase just one item, Amazon will work hard to get them to buy additional goods.
There is no cost to join Amazon Associates.
There are no traffic metrics you need to achieve first before you can join Amazon Associates. And you only need to make three sales within 180 days of signing up to stay in the program.
Amazon handles all the customer service, so you don’t have to. Plus, they are known for their high level of customer service. As long as the products you recommend are solid, you don’t need to be concerned about customer dissatisfaction.
This is where the income is passive; you provide the recommendation, and everything else is handled by Amazon.
Amazon provides a reporting dashboard with analytics, giving you the feedback you need to optimize your promotions. Each affiliate link has a Tracking ID.
You can use reports to understand your market better — what they want and what they are buying. You can even see what additional items (the ones you didn’t provide a link for) your referrals are buying. If you see a trend, and it makes sense given your content, you can add these new items to your promotions.
Amazon will pay you directly — either through direct deposit into your bank account or Amazon gift cards. Checks are an option, but there is a $15 processing fee (unless you are outside the U.S. in which case the fee is waived).
You cannot include Amazon affiliate links inside an email. So, if email is your primary method for affiliate promotion, you should look elsewhere.
Also, you cannot send a full RSS email feed of your entire blog posts if they contain Amazon affiliate links; however, a partial (not full) RSS feed emailed to your subscribers is okay. Why? Because it’s a partial feed, the affiliate links will not show up in the email.
Emailing links to your blog posts, even if they contain Amazon affiliate links inside them, is perfectly okay.
It is essential to read Amazon’s Operating Agreement and check it regularly for changes. Amazon affiliates are required to follow the rules. It isn’t fun reading, but it is important.
If you don’t follow their rules, they can ban you from the program. If they do, you’ll lose any earnings that haven’t been paid out up to that point.
Compared to other affiliate networks, such as those promoting cloud software, professional services, or online courses, Amazon commission rates tend to be much lower.
The Amazon affiliate commission rate ranges from 1% to a max of 10%. So whether or not this program is worth your time will depend on the categories you can target, the price range of the items your readers purchase, and on your traffic levels.
Amazon decreased commission rates in 2017 and may do it again in the future. There are no guarantees that the 5% you are depending on won’t be cut in half.
Of course, the risk of change is the same for any affiliate marketing network.
After your reader clicks your Amazon affiliate site link, the clock starts ticking. You only earn commissions on what they purchase in the next 24 hours. So, if they wait a couple days to purchase, you won’t receive any commissions at all.
One exception to this is if your reader puts an item in their cart on Amazon. Then your cookie will last for 90 days on that item.
Commissions are paid monthly. And a customer’s order needs to be shipped first before your fees are earned.
Then you need to wait approximately 60 days from that point until you are paid for that sale. So if you earn commission in January, you’ll need to wait until late March to be paid.
There is a minimum payment threshold of $100 for checks. The threshold is only $10 for gift cards and direct deposit. (With the $15 fee for issuing checks, direct deposit is a better choice anyway.)
Amazon sells digital products such as Kindle books and digital music and videos. But as mentioned before, the higher-commission products such as cloud-based software and online courses aren’t currently available through Amazon Associates.
If you have a U.S. site, you won’t automatically get credit for purchases outside the country (such as Canada). Instead, you have to sign up for each country’s Associate program one-by-one. Then you need to use Amazon’s “OneLink” tool to localize the links on your site so you get the commission.
So you’ve considered the pros and cons of the Amazon Associates program, and you want to sign up?
Here’s the step-by-step guide:
1. Go to Amazon Associates and select “Join now for free” at the top-right corner.
2. A sign-in page will prompt you to either log into your existing Amazon account or create a new account.
3. You’ll see the Account Information screen. This will auto-populate with the name, address, and phone number from your Amazon account. Confirm the information.
4. Next, you’ll see the Website and Mobile App List screen. Add your website address here:
5. You’ll then complete your profile, traffic, and monetization methods. In the profile section, Amazon is looking for basic information as to what your website is all about, what topics you cover, and what types of products you intend to promote.
The preferred Associates Store ID is your username (usually your website address).
The traffic and monetization section looks for how you drive traffic to your website.
It also asks what other types of affiliate links or monetization methods you may have, and ranges for the amount of traffic you receive.
6. After that, you get to the Identity Verification screen:
7. Congratulations! Your account is set up, and you have your Amazon Associate ID number. Now just enter how you want to be paid (direct deposit, check, or gift card), and provide the necessary tax information.
Phew! Not too difficult, right?
Now let’s look at ways to pull in those sweet Amazon affiliate earnings.
Now that you’re an Amazon Associate, you can harness the power of Amazon’s selling machine to earn money for yourself.
You start by finding products which are available on Amazon and related to your blog’s topic.
First, brainstorm a list of products related to your blog topic that readers may be interested in. Go through the obvious first, then start to think in terms of cross-promotions.
Use Amazon’s commission rate chart to spark creative ideas by category. For example, for a parenting blog, toys only pay 3% commissions. But furniture pays 8% commissions. Is there anything you could ethically recommend?
Once you have an idea of products to promote, Amazon provides two easy ways to get links:
1. Log into Amazon. The SiteStripe tool automatically shows up at the top left of your screen once you are an Amazon affiliate.
This allows you to search for products on Amazon just like you would if you were shopping for yourself. Use the recommendations, and the “people also buy” tools to help you find products with excellent reviews.
When you find a product you’d like to link to, click on the desired link style (Text, Image or Text+Image), and Amazon gives you the link to add to your site. Easy, right?
2. Or, log into Amazon, then click on the SiteStripe bar to get to your Amazon Associates home page. Then select Product Linking, then Product Links from the toolbar. This search engine will display:
Here you can search by Amazon category and then refine it further. For example, If you select “Clothing & Accessories,” you can then refine by “Women,” “Men,” etc.
Or, you can search by specific product keywords, by ISBN (for books), or by brand and model number.
Once you find an item, you can select a link consisting of Text only, Image only (with an embedded hyperlink), or Text + Image.
Here are a few content ideas to get you started:
Keep your pages updated with new products. Also, periodically double-check your links, as you don’t want readers to click on discontinued products.
You want to focus on products which are best-sellers on Amazon. Best-sellers typically indicate a high degree of customer satisfaction with the product. Also, selecting best-sellers to promote can equal a higher probability of purchase.
Only recommend products you are confident in — either ones you have purchased yourself or, at a bare minimum, products you’ve thoroughly researched. It pays to be transparent and let your readers know the difference.
Remember you earn commissions on any product your reader buys in the 24 hours after clicking your link. So you could provide only one recommendation for a product that you feel confident about. Then, if your reader clicks on that one item but decides to purchase a different one, you will still receive a commission. And your credibility is intact.
Look into “Native Shopping Ads” provided by Amazon. These are product carousels of related products. Use your judgment and make sure this is a fit for the tone of your blog and doesn’t cross lines into too “salesy.”
Add YouTube videos to your page for product reviews. Buyers love unboxing videos and other visual content that helps them make a decision.
Use social media to share content containing affiliate links. To qualify, you need around 500 followers/links. Also, don’t forget to check the terms of service for each of these networks to confirm what type of affiliate links they allow. Facebook (including open group pages and fan pages), Instagram and YouTube are some of Amazon’s currently accepted social networks.
The ways to promote your Amazon affiliate links are limited only by your imagination, creativity, and, of course, Amazon’s operating agreement.
Stay out of trouble by avoiding these “don’ts”:
That last one is big.
It’s essential to be honest and transparent with your readers. You need to disclose as clearly as possible that you earn commissions from your product links.
In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that you include a disclosure on your website that you earn commissions. Here is more information on this from the FTC.
Amazon affiliate marketing also requires that you have the phrase “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” or something similar to it on your website.
Part of Amazon’s affiliate account review process will be to ensure that your website complies with all relevant regulations. And, of course, the terms of their Operating Agreement.
Amazon Associates isn’t right for everyone. But you now have a clear idea of exactly what Amazon Associates is and if it is a fit for you.
Don’t get bogged down in creating a perfect strategy. The most important part is to get started.
Start with one piece of content, some product recommendations, and build from there. And once the upfront work is done, you can sit back and enjoy watching the passive income flow into your bank account.
What can you do today to get those Amazon affiliate earnings flowing into your bank account?
The post Amazon Associates: The Ultimate Money Making Guide for 2019 appeared first on Pdatas Blog.
