When you monetise your website through Affiliate Marketing, you are trying to drive qualified traffic to buy the products offered by your partner. But how can you sell something effectively if you don’t believe in its quality?
Chances are you can’t. This is where product reviews come in, those written by you or someone else who has actually used the product. Marketers refer to this as social decision marketing.
What a trusted person says about something is highly influential when it comes to making a purchase.
Honest Product Reviews
The first step in running a profitable and above-board Affiliate Marketing website is to only offer products that you yourself believe are of high quality or general usefulness. So it is best to offer items you’ve used. The only ethical way to promote a product is to have tried it yourself.
This can be a great way to determine what partner you choose for monetisation of your website. If you are a big fan of a certain brand of tools, for instance, then that is the perfect company to partner with.
Don’t just rely on your own experience, consider letting a friend or family member use the tools, too, and ask them to write a review. If you’ve already sold some items, ask for customer feedback to use on your website. The more people who claim a product is great, the greater the believability, and the greater social decision marketing you can leverage.
What Products Should You Write About?
Many companies that offer affiliate marketing programs offer a wide variety of products. Obviously, you can’t buy and review them all. So concentrate on those items that are best sellers – either as listed at the manufacturer’s website, or determined through search engine research. These are the products that are most popular with consumers and comprise the keywords they will use to find a seller.
Conversely, it can also be a good idea to write about brand new products. When a popular and trusted manufacturer offers something new, you could be the first to drive sales through your positive review, and beat out all the others who wait to post a review.
Where To Post?
You may want to set up a blog separate from your website to post your product reviews and include a link to your affiliate sales page. This gives the reviews more credibility, and it also gives you inbound links important for website optimisation.
You could also post your reviews at various other sites on the internet, again with a link to your sales page or a web 2.0 page (such as a HubPage or Squidoo lens) that points to your landing / sales page. Look for blogs on a related topic and offer to write a guest post and social bookmark those reviews as well.
Using the above example, you could target blogs related to home construction; your review of a table saw would be the perfect complement to the content and you could list your Amazon affiliate links on the review. The same could be done if you’ve tried out a Clickbank fat loss or muscle-building ebook.
Remember that social decision marketing can play a key role in the success of your Affiliate Marketing venture. Just be sure your product reviews are honest and that you are selling items that you yourself would buy. This way, you will minimise your chances of returns while increasing your online reputation as a helpful online netizen.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Affiliate marketing is great in term of earning online. All I can say to survive and be on top among the greatest affiliate marketers is that you should be willing to invest your time, money and effort and never give up.
Hi Amyrhiz,
That is true there are so many Affiliate Products that will work for you, as Sean said “Remember that social decision marketing can play a key role in the success of your Affiliate Marketing venture” follow that strategy and you should do well
The main point is to use the product and believe in it. After all your credibility and reputation is on the line which is so important for the internet. You aren’t dealing with people face to face so it takes a lot of work to gain their trust
Hello Sean,
It makes sense to promote products you only believe in because you (or someone you know well) has used the product. I could not be honestly selling a product unless I knew what the product was used for. My working and tone of writing would give me away if I was not 110% sure about he product.
I am still thinking on how to put all this together to make my next website.
Cheers
Lisa
It’s the only way to go in my opinion Lisa. If you have a product you believe in and can market to people with a clear conscience, you will have much more success I believe.
Hi Sean,
Until a seller is known and has a good reputation that they sell quality products or services – it is beneficial to have a well known person recommend the product or service. Could also have them write a review. One that I can put on my sales page or set up a separate blog and, link the review to my affiliate product page.
Hi Sean,
This is great advice. So, we set up a special blog just for product reviews? I don’t write about anything else? What do I give customers in return for their product review? I think it’s unethical to pay for the review so do I just not give them anything?
Also, I feel like I should include all reviews whether they’re good or not so good. If they’re not good though, I should try to rectify the situation and then get the customer to amend their review? Or, do I leave it as it stands?
You could go either way Jazz, a blog dedicated to reviewing products, or by reviewing certain relevant products on your current blog. I am sure you could find a free report or something similar to give to people who write honest reviews for you, just as a way of saying thankyou!
Hi Sean,
I really enjoyed reading this article on how to write a productive review. It is something I want to perfect.
The possibilities that’s available on the net is exciting for this netizen. Ha! I have to look this word “netizens” up and see if I’m using it correctly…or is it a Sean creation?
Is my belief confirmed here Sean, that until I am known as a trusted seller on the internet it would be a wise move to have a well known person give me a testimonial on a product I am selling? That is if they are genuine about liking the product and is willing….. It’s a thought.
If you can organise someone who is well known to write a review for you Jill, it should certainly help to give your customers more confidence when it comes to decision making time.