You will certainly have heard about success stories from affiliates who are making their living just by selling products which they haven't even created themselves... How did they know which affiliate program to promote?

Going after the money or your interests?

When you're promoting affiliate programs, you have two choices: Either you can decide to promote popular items which are very likely to be sold as there is a huge level of interest (a lot of competition also) or you can promote something you really like, something that is related to your hobbies and interests.

The best thing is to combine the best of both worlds by promoting a product which is in demand but which interests you as well. For example products related to golfing are very popular and there are a lot of keywords related to that area. And if you are a golfer yourself, you will have no problems finding topics to write about on your site.

You could write about how to improve your golf swing or where to find the best golf equipment or you simply explain golfing rules. That's up to you.

Whatever you decide, make sure you do your keyword research. The best tool I know of to find related keywords to your main keyword is an online tool called KeywordDiscovery. With this tool, you'll find dozens if not hundreds of related words and phrases together with an analysis for the profitabililty in the search engines. It even shows you how often people have searched for these combinations.

I'm using the suggestions from KeywordDiscovery myself now to create highly targeted and optimized affiliate sites!

What are the most important facts before promoting any affiliate program?

1) There must be a demand for the product the merchant is offering. You can check this by visiting Overture.com and see if any sellers are bidding on keywords related to the product you want to offer.

2) The commission must be substantial in itself. If you're promoting a $5 item then you need to make a lot of sales and it can be as difficult as selling a high ticket item. Make sure it's worth it. Commissions of 50% would be desirable (mainly digital goods) but for high ticket items even just 20-45% will do it.

Personally, I would not promote anything that offers me a commission lower than $15 per sale.

3) You should be able to reach someone at the company if you have any questions related to the product. After all, if you don't know enough details, how are you going to sell these items to your customers?

4) The sales letter must be convincing enough to get people to buy the product. Put yourself in your customers' shoes and ask yourself: Would I buy the product myself when I was visiting this page? Moreover, the sales letter has got to have enough testimonials included. This will boost your conversion ratio.

5) There should be a money-back guarantee for the product being sold. If the affiliate program owner doesn't offer this, then you better search for something different to promote...!

6) Physical address and contact info should be visible on the site.

7) The affiliate program must offer realtime statistics so you can see how many visits you are converting into sales. If you are using an affiliate network like ClickBank or Commission Junction, be sure to use tracking links for your ads to be able to check the number of visitors.

Where to find those profitable affiliate programs?

There are several dozens of affiliate program directories and these places are the first choice for affiliate marketers to look at when searching for new products to promote. Typically, the best known directories will be searched first, like Alan Gardyne's AssociatePrograms.com or Chuck McCullough's AffiliateMatch.com.

Another way to find the most profitable affiliate programs is by searching in regular affiliate networks like the before mentioned ClickBank (for digital goods) and Commission Junction (mainly physical goods).

Conclusion:

Most super affiliates will look in affiliate program directories to find their top performing affiliate program. If the product owner offers a fair share of the profits (for physical goods around 5-20% and for digital goods about 35-75%), the super affiliate will choose the one which offers him the highest payout when the points 1-7 of my list above are okay with the merchant.

Detlev Reimer

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