If you have been involved in or researching affiliate marketing for any period of time you have seen these statements repeatedly:
“Content is king!”
and
“The money is in the list!”
So, which is it. Which is most important for making money online. The answer is – BOTH.
King Content
You are in the business of selling products online. You want visitors to your website. You will never sell anything to the people who don’t find you. To get those visitors you have to give them what they want. People search Google and other search engines to find information they need or are curious about.
Online searchers are looking for product reviews, research, solutions to problems, advice, or just answers to questions that they have. You can provide that information through your content. The quality of your content is what can set you apart from the other websites in your niche.
Write your content with the intention of helping your visitors. Do not worry about what the search engines will want right now. You want people to read you articles. Only people buy products – not search bots. When you have an article that is truly useful to people researching your niche then, and only then, should you work to make it search engine friendly too.
Now do your keyword research and find places where you can reword or add phrases to your content to make it more searchable. The search engines want to send their users to the best content they can. That is how they please their customers. You have to do your best to make your site one that ranks high with them.
Quality content that includes keywords people are searching for is the best way to get prospective buyers to your site. These visitors will be the most targeted traffic you can possibly get. You can pay for ads that claim to be targeted. Good ones are, but they can never bring you as good a prospect as the one who searches for one of your keywords, visited you site and reads your content.
Just why is that? Both got to your page. Both saw your content. Why is the one who searched then visited your site a better prospect? It’s because they are invested! They did the search. They chose your site. They liked your content enough to read it. They have made an investment in you so they want to feel they made the right choice. That makes them very good prospects.
Once you have them on your site and reading your content, you can monetize that content by, sparingly, adding in affiliate links. You will be able to make some sales through your text links and also add banners, again sparingly, to your pages for more income.
Another reason that content is so important is that it is shareable. Links to your content from pother websites (backlinks) and social media will help add authority to your website and get your content ranked higher on the search engines. That is a double benefit for you. You will get visitors from those other sites AND more people will find you when they search.
So, content is king because quality content is:
- Useful
- Searchable
- Shareable
- Ranks higher on search engines
- Can be monetized
Websites Have Limitations
The sad fact is that, even for the best websites, only about 50% of first time visitors ever return. For most sites it is even higher – as much as 80% who never come back. People find what they want then move on to something else. They don’t remember where they saw what they just read and don’t take the time to find out.
Couple those statistics with the fact that someone usually has to see your offer several times before they buy. The number usually quoted is an average of seven impression before the buyer makes up their mind to pull the trigger.
That means that the sales from your website are going to be limited to a few impulse buyers and to the dedicated visitors that do come back to your site repeatedly. The odds are not in your favor.
The Opt-in List
That is where the opt-in list comes into play. It is why “the money is in the list.” If you can convince those fleeting visitors to give you their email addresses, then you can put your offer in front of them repeatedly. You can get them to come back to your web site and you can sell to them through their own email boxes.
How do you get those visitors to give you something as precious as their email address? You give them something for free or for a ridiculously low price. People love free and cheap things but, they must believe they will benefit from what they get.
You can , reports or training courses related to your niche. If you sell your own products, you might give away free samples. You can sell them a product at a price much lower than they could get it elsewhere. Look at the offers you get from other marketers. They are a good source of ideas for your own giveaways.
The way you market to your mailing list makes a huge difference in how successful you will be with it.You are going to have people who unsubscribe – some of them as soon as they get the freebie – it’s just a fact of email marketing. For the ones who stay, you want to build trust with them. Start off with a series friendly email that welcome the subscribers and introduce them to some of the pages and posts on your website. Don’t try selling anything in the first few emails.
When you do start to include affiliate links, use them as ways to solve problems for your readers. Like the content on your website, your emails should convey helpful information with affiliate links added sparingly and where they support your text. Any banner ads should be related to the content of the email
Start your marketing efforts off with low priced items. Things like low cost eBooks or inexpensive niche related items are good. If your subscribers feel there is very low risk they are more likely to try buying from you. You want to get that first sale even if you make little on nothing in profit. This is how you turn prospects into buyers. Try hard to keep your subscribers and lead them to buying more of your offers.
By the way, use a good email service like AWeber, GetResponse, Mail Chimp or others. Don’t try to do this on your own unless you have a large staff and can devote full time resources to it. The laws and regulations covering email marketing would take all your time just to research them. Failure to comply can be costly. The fines are high and your business can be shut down.
Summery
Yes, content is king and yes, the money is in the list. To be successful at affiliate marketing you need both.
Your website content brings in visitors and makes a few sales. It is also the place you capture your visitors email addresses for your mailing lists. This is your home on the Internet. Your "base of operation."
Your email lists let you put repeated offers in front of prospects and buyers. It also brings repeat traffic to you website. This is how you get those seven or more interactions it takes to make a sale. For online marketers, your list is your most valuable asset and needs to be protected.
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