7 Simple ways to drive traffic to your affiliate website

An affiliate website with little or no traffic, is as good as a fish in dry land. The sole purpose of an affiliate marketer is to promote products. And you cannot promote products to a nobody. Simply having a blog or a website does not guarantee you as an affiliate marketer to earn money. You need traffic to your blog or website. And if you get what I mean, then you should also know that I mean really massive traffic.

When you are just starting out with a website, getting traffic to it can turn out to be rocket science; and it usually becomes more complex rocket science when you simply sit around, grin about the fact that you  just created a website and you really can't bring bring yourself to terms with the fact that you really did it, then wait for traffic to flow in and applaud your effort- bad idea.

Frankly speaking, there should not be any kind of science in getting people to visit your blog. All you have to do is go out there, tell people that you got a blog or website, that you are blogging on this and that, and really want them to go have a look because it's gonna turn their lives around like a holy ghost. I will show you how...

1. Create good content.

Good content always get noticed by search engines such as google. If you have great quality content, your posts are more likely to show up on search engines. So how do you create good content?

• Use catchy post titles. When your posts show up on google and the titles are catchy, i.e they get people's attention and arouse their curiosity so that they want to find out what you are up to, they are more likely to be clicked on. At times a post title can even be more crucial in drawing traffic than the actual content. Put yourself in the shoes of that person searching for information and imagine what they are more likely to type on that search bar. 
• Detailed posts. Do not just fill you blog with crap because they told it should have a lot of content. As much as that is true, you should focus more on quality rather than quantity. Do not be sketchy or use poor language. Explain information in details as if you were writing it for a contest. Use easy language and do not try to be too witty.
• Blog regularly. Maintaining a consistent blogging schedule is something very few bloggers can achieve. But this is the key to great and fresh content. You must have a good blogging schedule. At least one post daily. That shouldn't be very hard even when you are blogging part time. When you blog once a month, your content will become stale and no search engine is gonna be dump enough to show it up hence no traffic.

2. Use social media.

Billions of people all over the world are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, youtube and myriads of other social sites. Why not turn them into traffic? Those people are not only in those sites to socialize, if you tell them that you got a nice product you want them to check out, they surely will come tumbling into your blog. Many smart marketers are using this sites to escalate their profits and by all means, they are reaping the fruits.

3. Use mailing lists.

This is what most bloggers are using to get and retain good amount of traffic. Mailing lists are very crucial in any kind of internet marketing when it comes to accumulating loyal customers. Once people sign up for your email list, they are yours forever ; unless you are too clumsy to make them opt out.

4. Use other popular websites. I have been going through Perez Hilton's blog- one of America's hottest gossip blogger- and I have come to realize that  some of the posts in his blog are not actually his but from other blogs! Why? His blog is popular with massive traffic and smart bloggers are using it to get traffic to their own blogs for a small fee. This is actually a good way to market yourself that most bloggers have not realized. Do you know of any popular blog in the same niche as yours? Well, why not get traffic from there?

But just how do you use other websites to drive traffic to your own blog or website? Simple...

•  Pay them to have some of your posts and links or banners to your blog displayed on their blogs or websites. The outcome could be more than you expected.
• Be a guest blogger. Write posts in popular blogs and websites in your niche and leave links to your own blog. Apart from getting traffic, you also get paid- delicious huh?
• Comment on their post and leave links to your own posts. Since many people people are likely to comment, many are also more likely to follow your link. The blogger might even notice your comment and if it turns his or her good spirits up, he or she might recommend  your blog to their readers. But first you should be sure that the site allows users to leave links on the comment section. Some would prefer that you buy an advertising space instead. If they do not allow links, you can simply mention the title of your blog or website and convince them to search it up on their browsers.

5. Include contests and forums in your blog.

This will make your blog more engaging and you are more likely to get more readers. If the forums becomes too interesting and educative, members might even suggest it to their friends who might also inform others and traffic will soon build up.

Contests are a good motivation for your readers especially when there is a prize- people damn love prizes.

Come up with a small contest that is relevant to your blog or website and get people to participate. Make sure to advertise it on social media and other sites not forgetting to mention the prize. That will get peoples attention and they all would want to participate.
 Now that you got all these people, how to you retain them as your customers in case the forum or contest flops? Be tricky.

What about you decide that for people to participate in your contest or forum they will first have to sign up with your mailing list. If that is a free process, which by all means it should be, why on earth would anyone hesitate to give a name and email address and stand a chance of winning a prize in return? Or you could say that for one to be a participant of the contest, they will first have to buy an Ebook from your site for a small amount? If the prize is good, some people will do exactly that- actually many of them.

6. Come up with a simple affiliate program. Now that you are an affiliate marketer yourself, you should understand the importance of affiliate programs. You know they are effective, you know you have been driving traffic to other people's websites through the affiliate links in your blog. Why not design one for your website? Marketing is all about using money to get money. And although it is relatively easy to make money online from scratch using the freelancing sites, if you don't invest enough in your blog, you won't get much in return. An affiliate program is a good example of a good marketing investment, especially for an affiliate marketer. 

Pay other bloggers and freelancers to get your blog known to the world. You will get more than triple of the amount you spent on affiliates. Take for instance you pay one affiliate who is a popular blogger with good traffic in his or her blog $5 per referral who make purchases on your site. The blogger might refer say 30 people 20 of whom buy an Ebook you are selling for $15. That makes you $300. You pay the affiliate $100. That makes you a profit of $200 from only one affiliate! So you can imagine how much you will make if you  had about a hundred affiliates that can drive you loyal traffic. You do the math...

7. Use link sharing sites.

  A friend of mine introduced me to a site which pay freelancers to share links on social media called adback. The main idea behind this site was that a client e.g owner of a blog creates a campaign which is simply paying a little amount to get the links shared by freelancers who have registered on the site, on social media, specifically facebook and twitter. I actually saw a bright idea behind this kind of initiative because bloggers can now have their posts shared to the world through social media for a small fee. I have included this technique on this list because am personally using it and I can guarantee it to be very effective especially when you have too much burden getting yourself advertised. Why not grab the chance and get your content out there without sharing it personally? The success behind this trick is that freelancers themselves choose links to share as long as the campaign is still active and because the more links you share the more you get paid because more people will click on your links, you can be sure that your posts will be all over the social media and people will come flowing to your blog and probably escalate your sales by a big percentage.
 The trick to getting more of your links shared on these sites is using catchy tittles. Freelancers love to share links with tittles that provoke people's curiosity and therefore click on the links. So don't make your headings too flat or professional so that they won't be shared.
 Click here to start sharing your links on adback and increase  traffic to your site tremendously.
If you also want to be a freelancer on adback and make some money you can click here.

With all these tricks combined with the ones you know personally and are using, there is nothing to pull you back from making your blog or website the next internet sensation by having the largest number of traffic to your site. All you need is some smart thinking and creativity, positive attitude towards your work and self confidence. Remember online business is no island. You work yourself and you are gonna die yourself. Connect with other like minded entrepreneurs, share ideas and put yourself on top of the chart.

                     To your blogging success 
                    By Steve Nathans