Today I’ll show you how to get traffic for affiliate marketing. I’ve been an affiliate marketer since 2007 and have discovered a few solid ways over the years that consistently work.
Affiliate Traffic Channels
Affiliate traffic channels include organic traffic, paid search traffic, and email marketing.
Organic traffic is where you post links to your website or blog posts on other websites hoping that some of those visitors will click through to your site.
You can also use social media sites like Twitter for this purpose, although it might be more difficult to see success here because there are so many people posting links all the time.
Paid search advertising helps drive consumers directly from Google’s results pages (or their keyword searches) straight into an advertiser’s web page or specific location within a larger
Search Engine Optimization
One of the most popular is using search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a strategy that involves optimizing your website to rank higher in Google and other major search engines.
This means more relevant traffic will come to your site, but it is a slow process.
SEO requires some technical skills and a lot of patients.
Generally speaking, it will take several months for your content to be ranked in Google. And then, there is still no guarantee that your site will maintain the ranking it achieves.
The good news is, if you learn how to do it yourself, SEO won’t cost you a thing.
The key to success with an SEO campaign is making sure all of the content on your website ranks well for keywords related to what people are searching in Google or other major search engines.
It’s important to optimize your web pages and make sure links from sites like Facebook and Twitter point back to relevant posts. This helps increase traffic even more and provides a signal to search engines that your content is being shared on social media.
To learn more about SEO, read my article on the topic.
Blogging
One of the best ways to get traffic for affiliate marketing is by blogging. This works in conjunction with SEO.
Blogging will bring in more targeted visitors, while guest posts will give you an additional option of how to acquire new readers through your content.
It works by targeting your audience’s problems and providing solutions to them through your content.
Most people will go online to find the solution for their problems, which is where you can come in.
Blogging involves optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in Google and other major search engines. This means more relevant traffic will come to your site, but it is a slow process due to following best practices such as link building and having good content (in-depth articles).
Another technique that can be used to improve your blogging and SEO efforts is “link building.”
In this case, links are built between other websites on the web so that when your site is linked to, more people will see it and click on the link.
A great way to build links is with guest posting.
Guest Posting
Guest posting works really well because it provides affiliate marketers with free traffic that’s higher quality than many other methods provide, such as pay-per-click advertising.
It’s higher quality because, like most forms of organic traffic, the information has been sought out by the visitor.
This is a quick overview of what you should do:
-Find a blog or website with a similar audience to your target audience
-Research how often they publish, the nature of their content, and the posting guidelines
-Start reaching out to the website via email and social media with guest post topics
-If you’re accepted, send in your draft (with a link to the original content as well)
-Ask for feedback before submitting the final article. If provided with positive feedback and no major revisions are requested
Popular websites will receive lots of guest post requests, so it’s better to approach small to mid-level sites, at least in the beginning.
Persistence will pay off here.
Email Marketing
Email is my favorite traffic source.
With an email list, you can have a direct message with your audience and create automated campaigns.
For affiliate marketing, there is no better way to drive traffic and sales. Email marketing lets you sell to your audience over and over, as many times as you like.
But you do need to strike the right balance between promotional and useful content. If you bombard your email list with an endless stream of affiliate products, they will switch off or unsubscribe.
However, if you provide a healthy mix of helpful content such as tutorials, or entertaining emails, your email list will be more receptive to the offers you make.
Email marketing has been the most successful way to drive traffic towards my offers, but it still requires some finesse when applied to affiliate marketing.
YouTube
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. And it’s the best way to show people how your product works, what they can achieve with it, and why you’re so excited about them.
YouTube reaches billions of people globally and is a great source of affiliate traffic because it’s the second biggest search engine in the world.
Video also establishes rapport faster than articles and cannot be beaten for building trust.
You can add links in the description of every YouTube video you upload. But it’s important to tell your viewers to click it; otherwise, they might not realize it’s there.
Social Media
If you’re looking for free traffic sources, then social media channels are a good place to start. Some of these options include Facebook Groups, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest Pins.
However, organic social media reach has decreased over the years. Organic reach is the approximate percentage of people who see a post from an account on social media.
Now, only about 3% of your followers will see a single post that you share. And this percentage may decrease in the future as more social media platforms put pressure on marketers to spend money on ads.
Groups And Forums
Niche-relevant communities like forums and groups can be a powerful source of free traffic.
It’s sensible to establish yourself first before promoting anything.
Participate in conversations, answer questions and be an active member of the community.
Start giving away valuable content for free without any expectations or ulterior motive. People will begin to take notice and might follow your online journey – as you’re already providing value to them.
It’s important to understand that building a relationship takes time, so don’t expect instant results from this strategy.
Additionally, remember not everyone is on social media. Some forums allow readers to subscribe via email instead, which means they’ll get notifications every time a new post goes up (just make sure it doesn’t contain spammy links). This can help you accumulate more followers over time since subscribers won’t have to actively search for what you share anymore.
However, even when you feel confident enough to promote something, it should not be an affiliate link.
The promotion of affiliate links is probably allowed on these forums, and sharing them will result in spammy content being posted and place your account at risk.
Only ever promote useful content, and link to high-value content pages like articles, blog posts, videos, or podcast episodes.
Linking to blog posts, articles, or other content pages on your site is ideal because you’ll also benefit from the backlink.
You can also join a forum related to what you’re promoting and mention it in the signature of all messages without ever linking back to it from within the post itself.
This will help drive traffic slowly over time.
Quora
Quora is a powerhouse of traffic when used right.
Quora is a question and answers website and is easy to use. It is an excellent place for people with questions to seek answers from knowledgeable people.
That means you can make your voice heard.
Quora has also become very popular because many well-known influencers are using it heavily as one of their main marketing platforms.
Some brands will offer customer service on Quora, which gives them more visibility than they would have from just blogging or social media alone.
The key to using Quora for traffic generation is to approach it in a similar way to forum marketing. Add value, don’t sell.
And never link directly to an affiliate offer. Always link to a content page that sites in between the traffic source and the affiliate product.
Medium
Medium is an open platform that lets almost anybody publish content.
It’s a great place to get your voice heard, which is why I think it attracts people who are knowledgeable in their niche.
Medium will allow you to link directly to an affiliate product from within your content, so you don’t need to create a content page that links in between your traffic source and the affiliate product.
The downside of using Medium is that you’re not building your own asset but someone else’s, just like with free hosting companies.
Paid Affiliate Traffic
Paid advertising can be done through Google AdWords, which offers ads that work similarly to search engine results pages (SERPs).
These are ads that show up at the top of SERP listings so that potential visitors can find what they want quickly without having to scroll down any further in their browser window.
One way you can get traffic for affiliate marketing is by buying ads on Facebook or Twitter.
Paid ads may seem like a quick solution, but they don’t always work well because all the clicks go to one ad and are not spread out among several options like organic searches do.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Another option is using search engine advertising (also known as pay-per-click). This works really well for beginners because you can see results fast, and it’s typically cheap to get started. The downside is that your ads will be displayed alongside other advertisers who are bidding higher than you are, so sometimes there isn’t a great chance of making money this way. But if the budget is tight or you’re just getting started in affiliate marketing, then PPC may be right for you.
Google Adwords
Google Adwords does not allow direct linking to affiliate offers, so you need a bridge page at a minimum. They also provide a keyword tool for finding relevant, high-volume keywords that can be used as part of your content marketing campaign.
Adwords puts your advert at the very top of the SERPs for your main keywords.
However, you are bidding against your competitors who might be able to pay more than you. That means it’s not always great.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are probably the fastest way to get traffic to your affiliate offers.
However, you’ll need a pretty good budget.
This is because of their bidding system, which can make it difficult for small operators to compete.
Facebook Ads has access to a wide range of demographic data, which they use for targeting purposes.
You can also combine Facebook Ads with an email or retargeting campaign, and it becomes very powerful.
If you have the money to spend, it’s a great way to quickly get traffic from people who are already aware of your brand.
Sponsored Posts
One final strategy I want to mention is sponsored posts.
Sponsored posts great if you have a budget, as sometimes these adverts can run into hundreds of dollars.
This is how sponsored posts work; you pay a company to publish content on their website.
It’s like a guest post, but money exchanges hands.
Typically, these posts are used to increase brand awareness or attract more traffic.
Sponsored posts have some downsides; however, Google tends to frown on these unless the sponsorship is disclosed.
This means it can be more difficult to rank in search engines.
There’s also an inherent bias against sponsored posts that may cause readers to discount the article or website and not take you seriously even if the content is good.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is no one size fits all solution when it comes to driving traffic to your affiliate links.
Maybe it’s best to use a combination of these strategies as part of your affiliate marketing strategy.
But whichever option you choose, hard work and persistence are required to succeed. And eventually, the fruits of your labor start to speak for themselves to reward you with passive income.