The internet has a magical quality about it that makes some people believe that riches can be obtained from affiliate marketing without actually putting forth a real effort to earn them. Internet marketers encourage this even more by inventing schemes or software that is designed to make money for people with minimal effort on their part.
The real secret to success as an affiliate marketer is not found encrypted in software code, within the pages of an e-book, or in a video coaching course. In fact, the real secret should actually be common sense to most people, but their dreams and desires can often prevent them from realizing it.
One simple difference can be found between professional, super affiliates and long time beginners that simply can’t seem to generate steady commissions. It’s the #1 thing that will determine your long-term success, and I’m going to tell you exactly what it is in this article.
Dedication
That difference that separates the winners from the losers is dedication.
This is really the #1 secret advantage that some affiliate marketers have and others don’t. You have to find it for yourself. What inspires you to try to make money online as an affiliate?
Someone who is dedicated to achieving something and is willing to put forth the hard work that is necessary to achieve anything important already possesses the tools and secrets they will need to become successful. All it really takes is to have that determination and the patience to stick with it until the hard work pays off.
The main problem with affiliate marketing is how it actually appeals to people. By simply becoming a middleman for online retailers and consumers, someone can make a lot of money with minimal effort.
This mindset encourages people that have a strong desire to stop working a real job to get started with affiliate marketing because they think it will offer a lazy way to make money.
It is completely true that a lot of money can be made from affiliate marketing without putting forth any effort, but there is more to the story. The problem is created because people do not realize that those money making situations that do not require effort will not create themselves.
Traffic & Sales
Affiliates have to build websites to promote offers and then drive traffic to those sites. This is done with a variety of marketing techniques like obtaining search engine rankings for free, targeted traffic.
Once these sites and traffic sources are set up, they will typically continue to generate money for an affiliate without any effort. However, the actual process of reaching this point requires a lot of hard work like detailed research, picking the right products to promote, writing content, and marketing the site.
For this reason, an established super affiliate can be and is certainly entitled to be lazy, but marketers just getting started need to create a strategy and put forth the time and effort needed to carry it out.
Extended reading about gaining traffic and sales for affiliate websites can be found here:
How to Improve Amazon Affiliate Websites for a Bonanza of Traffic & Sales
Long-Term Laziness
Many affiliate marketers will start out with a lot of dedication and determination to succeed. After dabbling in a few different areas without success, they feel like the time invested is simply not worth the potential money that can be earned. This often causes them to give up and quit, which is an extremely common story among beginners in this industry.
In addition to being determined to succeed and willing to do the hard work necessary to get there, it is extremely important for affiliate marketers to stay focused.
For beginners, this means staying focused on a single project until it is completed. There is simply nothing worse that an affiliate can do than to start a lot of different sites, do some of the work needed for each site, and then get discouraged because they aren’t making money.
When it comes to building a single, new affiliate site, it is also important to properly plan the project before it is even started. This allows marketers to get an idea of what type of time and effort will be necessary to complete the website.
First-time site builders should stick to creating sites that do not have more than a dozen or two pages. This will help to keep them on track to complete a site that has the potential to make money. Once a site can be made that is making money, it can be a massive motivational boost that will keep them going to make more sites, but the real trick can sometimes be to reach that point.