So, you’ve researched your niche, created a website, sourced your affiliate offers and started creating content.
The next stage is how to generate traffic to your content and affiliate offers.
If you have arrived on this page directly without reading any of the previous articles, then this post is one of a series of articles for affiliate marketing beginners. This article covers Lesson 7 of a series of 7.
There are plenty of places to promote content and generate traffic, but before moving onto the various sources, it’s worth considering the type of content you’re putting out there.
In a similar fashion to researching your niches (covered in Part 4), you should also be researching keywords and traffic before you write any content.
Also, consider the type of content you are creating. The following work well for affiliate marketing:
- Tutorials and “How To” guides
- Product Reviews
- Product Comparisons
- Courses
- Product Alternatives Lists
- Case Studies
- Product Recommendations
Think in terms of meeting needs and solving problems when building out your content.
Let’s look at potential traffic sources.
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Sources to Generate Traffic
Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing and other search engines.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is any kind of advertising that you have to pay for, versus owned or earned advertising.
Google Ads
Not surprisingly, Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) sits at the top of the tree. With an extensive ad network, known as the Google Display Network (GDN) that includes millions of third party websites, Google is the kingpin when it comes to paid advertising.
Google Ads are displayed on over two million websites and in over 650,000 apps, with more than 3.5 billion daily searches.
It’s also the most competitive and can prove expensive.
Bing Ads
There are around 133 million unique searchers using Bing, a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft.
The figures translate to approximately 5 billion monthly searches. It might not be on the scale of Google when it comes to delivering traffic, but it’s also less competitive when it comes to bidding on search terms.
Microsoft also serves Yahoo! search traffic
Social Media Ads
All of the mainstream social media networks allow advertising. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest.
In the case of Facebook and Instagram, Social Media Ads can be particularly effective as they allow targeting of groups based on specific demographics, interests and geography.
Facebook Pixel can also be used for re-targeting potential leads.
Solo Ads
Solo ads are email-based ads you buy from owners of email lists. Typically the list owner will send out a dedicated email to their audience about your promotion or offer.
There are dedicated Solo Ad networks where you can manage the whole process. Examples include:
- Udimi
Other Pay Per Click and Display Ad Networks
- Adblade
- Adroll
- Advertise.com
- Bidvertiser
- BuySellAds
- Clicksor
- Leavers
- Revcontent
- Yahoo! Gemini
Social Media
Pinterest has over 200 million users with a demographic that is reportedly around 60-70% female.
Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users making it the biggest global social network.
Facebook Pages
A Facebook page is a public profile specifically created for businesses. It allows you to separate your personal Facebook profile from your business profile.
Facebook Groups
A Facebook Group is a group community for people to share their common interests and express their opinion.
Facebook Live
Facebook Live is a feature for the live broadcast of user videos from the Facebook mobile app. The feature allows users to broadcast live to a group, page or their own personal profile.
Facebook Watch Parties
A Facebook Watch Party is a feature for Facebook groups that allow users to hold screenings of a list of pre-recorded videos. Group members can all watch and comment on the videos at the same time to create a shared viewing experience.
Messenger
Messenger is Facebook’s messaging app, serving both Facebook and Instagram.
Over a billion people use Instagram each month with around half of the users logging in daily. Only Facebook and Youtube post bigger active numbers.
The demographic is consists of a younger audience with approximately 70% of the userbase under 35 years old.
Instagram doesn’t allow users to post hyperlinks in posts, but you can place a link in your profile, so that’s where you link to your offer.
LinkedIn, has over 500 million members with around 260 million of this number logging in monthly.
Slideshare
SlideShare is a channel for presentations, infographics, documents, and videos. It is part of the LinkedIn ecosystem and owned by Microsoft. Slideshare receives an estimated 80 million unique visitors per month. There are approximately 38 million registered users.
Twitter has approximately 320 million monthly users.
Youtube
Youtube has nearly 2 billion users making it the largest video network.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking websites are sites on which users share their web pages, videos, articles, blog posts, and images.
Examples include:
- Mix
- ScoopIt
E-Mail Marketing
“The money is in the list!” used to be the old marketing mantra. The power of e-mail marketing may have been diluted slightly since the advent of video, artificial intelligence and chatbots but is still an essential tool in the box for driving targeted traffic.
Question and Answer Websites
Q&A websites allow anyone can ask a question and get answers. You can leverage the power of these channels to drive traffic to your site and build your authority on topics.
Examples include:
- Quora
- Yahoo! Answers
- Ask.fm
- Experts Exchange
- Answers.com
Article Websites
Article Websites are useful for driving additional traffic because they usually have their own “ecosystem” of readers.
Examples include:
- Medium
- LinkedIn Pulse
Forums
Also known as message or bulletin boards, forums have experienced a decline in use since the advent of social media. However, they aren’t dead yet. Far from it. Some forums still pull in big numbers of loyal patrons.
Reddit is the biggest forum on the planet and one of the most visited sites on the entire Internet.
The website is split into “subreddits” that are specific interest areas.
If you intend on promoting your website on Reddit make sure you are posting in line with the rules of the subreddit and also adding value.
Low-level efforts at self-promotion don’t go down very well.
Niche Forums
There are thousands of niche forums covering all kinds of topics.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is where the owner of a blog will write a guest article for another blog in order to increase traffic to their sites.
Webinars
A Webinar is a scheduled online meeting or presentation usually held in real-time where multiple people can follow the presentation and interact with the host.
Hosting a webinar offers an opportunity to present topics that engage with your target audience. Content should be interesting and informative. It is also an opportunity to build personal relationships and trust.
The use of Webinars to engage and educate audiences while promoting the value of products and services is growing rapidly.
Providers of Webinar Software
The following merchants all provide Webinar platforms:
Engagement Pods
An engagement pod is a group of users (known as a ‘pod’) who team up to help increase engagement on each other’s content.
Typically, an engagement means a “Like”, “Follow”, “Share” or a “Comment” on a social media profile or website.
Some social media networks like Instagram and LinkedIn have banned the use of engagement pods, whereas Pinterest shows less concern. Indeed, one of Pinterest’s key strategic partners called Tailwind actively promotes pods through Tailwind Tribes.
Thank You!
That’s it for A Beginners Guide to Affiliate Marketing. We hope you found this of value as a beginner.