You've probably heard some of the affiliate success stories from across the internet. You've also probably heard of the diverse benefits of affiliate marketing... Low start up costs, no products to deliver, no sales pitch to write, EASY! I was the same as you and it was these things that first got me into affiliate marketing. However, it took me a long time and several key distinctions to take my affiliate revenue from average to amazing.

In this article series I will attempt to highlight some of these distinctions in the hope of furthering your affiliate marketing knowledge and assisting in your success. I will attempt to give away as much information as possible without getting into trouble as a lot of what I am about to tell you, people are charging large fees to provide. Here are some of these distinctions.

1. Find A Good Product:
It seems so simple people often overlook this crucial aspect of affiliate marketing. If people are clicking through from your page to your merchants page and they are not being converted... You've got a problem. Most good affiliate programs will advertise their products conversion rates to entice potential affiliates. If they don't do this, ASK! Most affiliate experts recommend you purchase the product for which you wish to be an affiliate so you can sleep easy at night knowing its something you'd be confident to promote. Check your merchants page thoroughly looking at things like the general look and feel, and the perceived effectiveness? If your interested in this product? would YOU buy from this merchant?

2. Be a friend.
From a psychological perspective the reason someone buys something from an affiliate is that the opinion of someone who has used the product (ie already made the decision that the consumer is going to make) strongly confirms the pitch of the seller, and therefore the product is perceived to be more trustworthy. The affiliate should be presented as an average guy/girl who has used the product and knows the market and is different to the 'big company' (merchant) that is 'just out to make the sale'. If your page contains writing, it should introduce the affiliate personally, the tone should be friendly and informal (as you speak), and if possible could give an example of the success the affiliate has had using the product (or some other form of official confirmation of the products worthiness.)

3. Be an affiliate for more than one product BUT...
Obviously the more products you can be an affiliate for the better, but many new affiliates find it difficult to do this without compromising the effectiveness of their affiliate pitches. One great way to do this is to find a niche market that sellf more than one product. Let's take golf for example (hardly a niche market I know but go with it...) On one part of the site you could talk about the best putters (affiliate link) another part the best golf bags, another the best drivers and so forth. All your affiliate links are in AND if someone buys a putter you've recommended are they more or less likely to check out which driver you like too? You will notice however that this section did have a BUT...