My Costliest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

It seems that nearly every affiliate marketer has written an article on the biggest mistakes in affiliate marketing. Well, here are the biggest mistakes I made early in my affiliate days that impacted my progress. If any of this sounds familiar to you make the corrections now and it might save you a few years of misery and disappointment while going through the challenges of growing your affiliate business.

Be focused and have a clear vision.
I believe the greatest mistake I made in the early days of affiliate marketing was placing too much focus on making money. That might sound a bit ridiculous but the problem with focusing on the money is that if you are starting from the bottom, I mean with a new website and limited search knowledge, you forget about building the foundation of the website, and you’ll simply be spinning your wheels. I believe if you are beginning your journey as an affiliate marketer you should set goals like increasing your website traffic, increasing visitor time, decreasing bounce rates and learning as much as you can about Internet marketing, especially SEO. Once you have those metrics in check you then have a site capable of converting, and once you get the first one right the next one will come much easier.

Here are a few things I did wrong.

1. Spending too much time finding the perfect merchant and the perfect products.
   While it’s true that some networks are better than others, and certain products will convert better than others, as a beginner affiliate marketer you need to resist the temptation to spend valuable time testing new merchant programs and do spend that time increasing the visitors to your Website. The reason, without the necessary volume of website traffic your site won’t convert anything no matter how perfect the product. 
2. Suffered from burnout and lost interest in affiliate marketing.
   Realize that affiliate marketing is a long term commitment and results don’t come overnight. I built my first affiliate website in 2001. After working the website hard for over six months, sometimes isolating myself for weeks at a time testing new programs and building the site which resulted in only a few sales, I decided affiliate marketing was totally bogus. I got discouraged, took down the site and went in a different direction. I returned to affiliate marketing about four years ago, and in hindsight realize that my affiliate marketing was working, and if had not given up I’d be an eight year affiliate veteran reaping greater rewards today.
3. Wishing away my job while building an affiliate business. It feels like a catch 22.
   I think most are drawn to affiliate marketing because it’s an opportunity to truly be your own boss while doing something you love to do. And while affiliate marketing is seriously time demanding, and having a demanding job can postpone your success as an affiliate marketer; expect most affiliates need to have a job even after the affiliate revenue begins to roll in. If you are a new affiliate marketer chances are you spend less than 20 hours per week building your business, so focus on increasing traffic and creating good content, the revenue will come in time. 
4. Stick to your niche and avoid the too many distractions.
   While I think anyone who wants to earn income online needs more than one Web property, it’s easy to abandon one really good project for a new one that you think might do even better. Do this and eventually you end up with two or more projects with low to mediocre performance. And while it’s easy to recognize trendy affiliate programs that generate more revenue than your current programs, you have to remember that if you join those high revenue affiliate programs you will also be competing with some of the top search marketers.  

So those are the things I did wrong early in my affiliate marketing career. They are common sense things easily avoided but with all the information available to us it’s easy to lose focus. If you carefully pick your niche, set your goals and accept that affiliate marketing takes time you’ll eventually get there. Just keep your day job for now.