What would you say if I told you there was a way to make money online without having to sell anything at all?
You’re probably thinking about affiliate marketing, right?
Well, you’re in luck because there are five things you can do right now to cut down on the amount of clutter and hassle that comes with being an online marketer.
1. Avoid Fluff
One of the first things you should do if you want to be successful is cut out all the fluff. Don’t bother selling a product you don’t believe in or promoting a service you don’t use.
When you’re starting out, it’s easy to be tempted into adding extra padding to your blog posts or videos to seem more “important” or “expert.” But adding useless filler is a big waste of time. Remember, you’re trying to grow your audience, not impress them.
And what’s the point of blogging if no one ever reads it? The point of blogging is to generate leads and sales for your product or service. If no one is ever going to read your content, why are you wasting your time writing it?
Cut out all the fluff. Keep your posts short and sweet. You’ll see more engagement and credibility from your readers if they are interested in what you have to say.
2. Focus On Customer Care
You’ll never make money if you don’t get paid. Your customers are the fuel that keeps the machine running. You need to show them you care by responding promptly to any questions or comments about your business.
When Amazon first launched, nobody cared about online shopping. So they focused on providing a helpful customer experience by sending emails with deals and answering every customer question. Now that Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers, you can bet they’re always looking for ways to improve their conversion rates and make sales.
Even if you don’t sell on Amazon, you might decide to follow their lead and provide the best customer experience you can. You can either do this by investing in staff to respond to questions or using tools like Google Analytics to track and improve your website’s performance.
3. Look At The Big Picture
Even if you have the best product in the world, if you don’t have the right audience, it doesn’t matter. They may not buy what you’re selling even if it’s the best tasting butter ever created. You have to consider the platforms your product will appear on, reaching the right audience is critical to any success you have online.
When deciding which platforms to use, it’s important to think about where your product will be featured and how often your product will be seen by potential customers. Popular food blogs like The Food Network and blog.foodnetwork.com follow a clear pattern of featuring products from brands with which they are affiliated and connecting those brands to their audience. Many of their posts start with some sort of promotional offer for a product related to what they’re blogging about. This method builds credibility and encourages readers to keep coming back for more.
For example, if you’re a lifestyle blogger specializing in food and fashion, you might choose to establish yourself as a reliable source of information on those subjects by featuring popular brands that appeal to your target audience. And the best part is you’re not forced to feature products you don’t believe in or use.
If this seems too much work, you could always opt for a no-strings-attached approach and just set up a blog. But even a free blog will require some work to build credibility and establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field. For some people, blogging might not be the right fit at all. If you absolutely love to write, you could always get paid to write for other businesses or brands. But if your heart is set on being your own boss, taking the time to build a blog that will eventually pay you back is the best option.
4. Measure And Manage Your Results
It’s always a good idea to track the results of your online marketing efforts. But, like many other things you might try, this can become a time-consuming process. The good news is there are a few tools that can make this part of your routine easier. Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools in this space, and it’s free. Any blog can easily install it on their site and start tracking visitor behavior and getting real-time reports on how their website is performing.
The key metrics to track in Google Analytics are visitors, average time on site, page views, and transactions (sales). Keep in mind that not all websites will have the same results, so you will have to find the key performance indicators that correspond to your target audience and goal.
Additionally, you should create key milestones for yourself as you progress throughout your blog’s lifetime. For example, if you want to have a successful blog when you’re 30 years old, create a roadmap to get you there. Identify the content that’s going to serve as the foundation of your blog – whether it’s about kids, lifestyle, food, or fitness – and start creating content now. Start small and expand your audience slowly. You’ll have plenty of time to grow into a profitable business.
5. Be Persistent
Even though you might not be making any money right now, that doesn’t mean you give up. Keep plugging away at it and eventually you’ll see results. Just because you haven’t made any money yet doesn’t mean that you can’t start.
If you want to be an online marketer, one of the best things you can do is build a reputation for yourself as someone who is passionate about helping people. There are many different ways to do this, but you can start by providing useful content to your audience. If you’ve got a subject that you feel really passionate about and can share your expertise in, try offering your services as a ghost writer to businesses that want to grow their customer base.
If you’re looking to establish yourself as an authoritative voice in your field, start a blog now and develop your content strategy. While it’s not exactly easy to get noticed when you’re competing with thousands of other blogs, once you do, it will be all the easier to monetize your content thanks to the many affiliate marketing platforms out there.