If you have not already noticed that most affiliate programs have had a payout decrease over the last couple months. Some affiliate programs have really dropped their payouts as much as 75%. This affect is a huge blow to most affiliates running campaigns. One of the big problems is for those who run search engine campaigns, as this drastically reduces the profit per click.

A few tips that might help out would be:
- Talk to your affiliate manager about getting a payout increase
- Run comparable offers
- Try new ways to promote your offer that cost free
- Talk to your affiliate manager or the company about creating a special promotion

On the other hand, some newer affiliate programs have come out with very nice payouts while other affiliate programs have increased affiliate payout to try to boost sales. I have seen a few affiliate programs offer bonuses, contests, and special prizes.

New affiliate marketer mistakes are gonna happen. But preparing yourself against them can help you rise to the top and become a successful affiliate marketer. Lets take a look at the top ten new affiliate mistakes.

1.) Using an existing script or someone else’s work

This doesn’t work for one big reason, everyone else is using it too! If you think you bought something that is “unique” then run it through CopyScape. This is a free service that searches for website plagiarism and duplicate content online. Upload your content and run the site url and you will be surprised on how many copies of your “unique” bundle they sold. Read my story on Sue who thought she bought a special site package and the disappointments that I found for her.

2.) Filling site with ads

I see a lot of new websites created by new affiliates filled with adsense, adbrite, and other ads. As this is a good means of additional income for your site, it should not be the main attraction. Making the ads your main attraction takes away from your sites usefulness to the visitor. For example, if I where to visit a site with lots of ads and then see a tiny blob of content I will just leave the site without clicking on the ads. But if the website had a nice informative content and mentioned XX product I would click on the ad to learn more. I would then browse around the site for awhile and see what other information is useful to me. If the site is really good, I would then bookmark it and tell my friends. My rule of thumb is; build the site for the visitor, not for the money.

3.) “Jumping the Gun”

Launching a new site without fully testing it or creating a campaign without researching it can cost you thousands of dollars. It’s easy to waste $5,000 on a search engine ad that yields little results but could have been avoided researching more and finding that if you might have used another keyword could have yielded you the same results but with only $500. I see this happen a lot and have seen new affiliate marketers waste $40,000. Really makes you sick.

4.) Picking the wrong host/domain

Not to many new affiliates realize how important their domain and hosting company is. Having a good domain could mean better natural search rankings, easy for your visitors to remember, and so much more. Even more important is a good host. I highly suggest staying away from free hosting companies. These where good back in the day when hosting was expensive, but now you can find hosting for cheap. I suggest Hostgator for any newbie. They have great 24/7 support and provide you with free templates to use. Having a bad hosting company results in server downtime. This means that your website will return a “404 Page Not Found” error when people try to visit. If you are running any paid traffic, then you are just wasting your money.

5.) No link management system

Now many affiliates might not think this is too important, but when you consider dead links, link thefts, expired links, bad links, ect. then you might consider getting a good affiliate link management software. I suggest Manage Affiliate Links for any affiliate marketer. Not only does it cloak and protect your links from link theft, it will email you when a link is dead, expired, or broken. This is very important if you manage more than one site or don’t check your links often. A down link can costs you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

6.) Spamming!

This is a big no no and will make a lot of other affiliates upset. I for one, hate getting spam email or messages and neither does the next person. Spamming on message boards, blogs, forums, websites, so on is a good way to get you banned or blacklisted. Try to look at this way, would you like it if I where to dump my trash all over your yard everyday? Spammers are the scum of the affiliate world.

7.) Not putting in the time

Making a million dollars does not happen overnight. It takes time to build a successful online business. Many new affiliates think that if they do this or that they can easily make a lot of money. This is one of the biggest misconception new affiliates have of affiliate advertising. Like any other business, you have to put in the time to reap the benefits.

8.) Copying someone else’s idea

Similar to using someone else’s content and articles is copying someone else’s idea. This is done when you basically clone their site and its concept. For example, eBay is a billion dollar idea and has been doing good because it was the first to bring the concept online. Now, how many eBay clone sites do you see making a large profit? Not many at all. Especially since so many more people create a new auction site everyday.

9.) Bad sales pitch

Once you get the visitor to your website it is time to convert them to a sale. Having a bad sales pitch or landing page is another way to loose thousands. Using Google Analytics Website Optimizer can help you compare different landing pages and help you find which one converts the best. To help create a better sales pitch ask friends and family to review your website before launching any ad campaigns.

10.) No idea of what you are doing

Very similar to jumping the gun is having no idea what you are doing. Yes, you could make some money but if you studied and learned how to build a great website you could be making a lot of money. I still run across top 100 sites that could be making more money just by changing a few things, nothing would be different to the user. A lot of websites have high earning potential but just don’t know it. Research, study, and learn and maybe one day you will be one of the top affiliates “Gurus”.

Its back again, Google Adwords has sent out more coupon codes to entice users to spend more money on advertising. I received about 5 post card size cards from Google and Hostgator with different amounts of value per Google Adwords promo code. So make sure you check your mail today (snail mail, not email). My values ranged from $25-$75. I had a few sites with hostgator awhile back, but I have seen Google partner up with other companies on this before. I am posting a few codes over at Search Engine Promos for free for the taking. Here are some pictures of what to look for: (Click Photos to Enlarge)

The days of being able to bid for search engine ad placements for spots 1,2,3,4,ect. are over. I miss the days when they showed you who was first and what bid it would take to be #1. You could bid for the spots. Now its just 1.1, 1.9,..blah blah they just try to bleed you out to be #1 by paying way more per click then normal.

It used to be like this:

Then all you had to do was raise you bid to $1.99 and you would be in the first spot. It was fun, simple, and easy.

Which do you prefer Google or Yahoo for search marketing? I like yahoo because in my experience the keyword bids have been cheaper. Its just been so tough lately trying to knock out the spam, crap sites that just click on ads to make money. I have tried Microsoft AdCenter but had problems with them in the past (When they where in beta stage) and lost a lot of money. But thats another story found here.

Maybe the single most important part of running an affiliate website is understanding how people find your site and how to make your site stick out among the billion or so other sites on the Internet.

If you’ve been using the Internet for more than an hour or two, chances are you know what a search engine is. Websites like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com have developed into multi-billion dollar corporations in the last ten years.

Using search engines is extremely simple. You just go to the site, type in what you want to find and click enter. But how can you make sure that your site will be found? As it turns out, it’s all about the keywords.

When a site like Google or Yahoo searches the Internet to come up with results from a web query, it takes the number of keywords on a site into consideration. It also takes particular keywords or phrases into account, too. If someone is doing a search for “Book about Rolling Stones,” a site that has that phrase or a phrase similar to it 10 times is going to come up higher than a site that only mentions it once. That’s why its so important to incorporate keyword text into your web content so that when someone does a search for, say, “Oolong Tea from China” and that just happens to be what your site sells, your site comes up high on the list, not buried on the bottom.

Learn more about Search Engines Basics and find Promo Codes for free Advertising

The trick is to incorporate these keywords or keyword phrases into your web content, and still have your content make sense. This is a super-tricky obstacle to get around. The best advice I can give is to simply read around and see what other affiliate marketing sites have done. Remember, your content is a huge part of your site. If people don’t stay on your site for a minute or two reading your content, they will never, ever click on any links you have and buy any products you’re selling. You must find the balance between a heavy use of keywords and well-written text.

Knowing how to use search engines is a big part of affiliate marketing. You can have the best content, the most timely links and the best product in the world and you won’t do a lick of business unless people can find you. Learning the art of incorporating keyword text into your affiliate website may seem tough, but it’s the difference between making a few bucks here and there and making it big in affiliate marketing.