7 Money and Time Wasting Affiliate Marketing Mistakes I See Beginners Making All The Time
For a variety of reasons, beginning Internet marketers usually start with affiliate marketing. Although affiliate marketing is a tried and proven method for achieving success online, the majority of beginners fail to ever see many or any results.
I've listed below the most common mistakes beginning affiliate marketers make.
These are in no particular order.
1. Free Classified Submissions - Classified sites are all but a complete waste of time. Buyers DO NOT search the free classified sites and few of the listings ever get ranked well in the search engines. The only exception is with Craigslist...for some niches.
2. Free Sites like Blogger and Squidoo - Sure, these free sites are great to supplement an existing and "real" web site. But most beginner throw up a small Blogger site, paste some affiliate ads on it, and then wonder why they get no sales. Worse still, the beginner creating these sites doesn't usually have a clue about picking niches and keywords...much less search engine optimization.
3. E-mail Blasts - There are so many reasons NOT to do this; I won't get into all of them here. Paying $49 to blast out an email message to a million people is simply a foolish waste of money.
4. Going 100% Free - Are there ways one can succeed with affiliate marketing with zero investment? Sure. "Bum Marketing" is the chief method associated with "free". However, beginners too often equate free with "quick and easy". There is nothing quick and easy about affiliate marketing. Beginners severely underestimate the amount of work and time required to succeed.
5. Making Web Sites - Most successful affiliate marketers have web design skills and/or are skillful with WordPress blogs on their own domains. Beginners will buy or try almost anything to avoid investing the time to learn these skills.
6. Buying Short-Cut Packages - "Begin earning $500 a day tomorrow....No experience needed....No website required...Work just one hour a day..." If a new affiliate marketer believes they can succeed with a "package" like this, then I have some ocean front property here in Oklahoma I'll sell them too.
7. AdWords - PayPerClick LOOKS so easy on the surface. However, beginners waste much time and money when they simply "jump into" PPC without understanding it. I know that no matter what I say here, most beginners will have to try it anyway. That's OK. However, AdWords beginners should set their budgets no higher than they are willing to lose each day. Beginners can expect to lose 100% of their daily budget 99% of the time in the beginning as they learn.
If you would like to add other beginning affiliate marketing mistakes, please post them!
I've listed below the most common mistakes beginning affiliate marketers make.
These are in no particular order.
1. Free Classified Submissions - Classified sites are all but a complete waste of time. Buyers DO NOT search the free classified sites and few of the listings ever get ranked well in the search engines. The only exception is with Craigslist...for some niches.
2. Free Sites like Blogger and Squidoo - Sure, these free sites are great to supplement an existing and "real" web site. But most beginner throw up a small Blogger site, paste some affiliate ads on it, and then wonder why they get no sales. Worse still, the beginner creating these sites doesn't usually have a clue about picking niches and keywords...much less search engine optimization.
3. E-mail Blasts - There are so many reasons NOT to do this; I won't get into all of them here. Paying $49 to blast out an email message to a million people is simply a foolish waste of money.
4. Going 100% Free - Are there ways one can succeed with affiliate marketing with zero investment? Sure. "Bum Marketing" is the chief method associated with "free". However, beginners too often equate free with "quick and easy". There is nothing quick and easy about affiliate marketing. Beginners severely underestimate the amount of work and time required to succeed.
5. Making Web Sites - Most successful affiliate marketers have web design skills and/or are skillful with WordPress blogs on their own domains. Beginners will buy or try almost anything to avoid investing the time to learn these skills.
6. Buying Short-Cut Packages - "Begin earning $500 a day tomorrow....No experience needed....No website required...Work just one hour a day..." If a new affiliate marketer believes they can succeed with a "package" like this, then I have some ocean front property here in Oklahoma I'll sell them too.
7. AdWords - PayPerClick LOOKS so easy on the surface. However, beginners waste much time and money when they simply "jump into" PPC without understanding it. I know that no matter what I say here, most beginners will have to try it anyway. That's OK. However, AdWords beginners should set their budgets no higher than they are willing to lose each day. Beginners can expect to lose 100% of their daily budget 99% of the time in the beginning as they learn.
If you would like to add other beginning affiliate marketing mistakes, please post them!
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