5 Mistakes Every New Affiliate Marketer Should Avoid

If you are starting out, here are 5 mistakes every new affiliate marketer should avoid so you can get to your goal of having a successful online business.

I remember when I started in affiliate marketing.

I thought I could do it all faster and better than everybody else that was in the business already for many years.

When we start something new it's easy to believe that everybody else was wasting their time doing the things we are being taught. 

It took me a year or two to fully realize what were the biggest mistakes I made that held me back from reaching my goals.

Although I had excellent training from Wealthy Affiliate, and they told me not to do certain things, I still did them. 

It wasn't until I also followed the advice from another platform run by Jim and Rick did I realize that I was being stubborn and stupid. It's not that Jim and Rick's training was much different but I think it was like the information was coming from an outside source that I believed them more than the same advice provided from what I consider family at Wealthy Affiliate.

1 - Too Many Websites

Once you've created your first website and see how fast and easy it can be it won't be long before you want to create another, and another.

If you are like me you will think that if one website can make you a few thousand dollars a month then all you need to do is create a couple more and you can multiply your income.

This, in fact, is true.

If you can create one successful website there is nothing that says your next one can't be successful as well.

There are thousands, if not millions of niche website topics you can create.

All you need to do is follow the same recipe and all your websites can be successful income earners.

The problem when you think of this as a newbie is the fact that your first website has not been successful yet.

Your recipe for a successful website has not been created yet so why would you think of using the same website "recipe" and spend time creating other websites.

I was one of those that jumped into that notion early on. I had started one website, barely had 5 posts on it before I went ahead and started on another website.

Those first 5 blog posts were also quite terribly written as well.

Here is my best advice I can suggest for beginners when creating their first websites and this was in the training, over and over again at Wealthy Affiliate but I was too stubborn and stupid to follow.

Start with one website!

Create one website, write at least 30 blogs. 10 Pillar, 10 Staple, and 10 response blog posts. Create videos for each post and work on growing your social following. You can learn more about this strategy here.

2 - Too Many Affiliate Programs

This is another one that is somewhat related to the first mistakes to avoid where we try to spread ourselves too thin.

Similar to the idea that if we have more websites we can make more money signing up to more affiliate programs will make you more commissions.

I thought that it would be great if I can have something like 100 affiliate programs and have links all over my websites will make me loads of money.

The problem is that you lose credibility when your site is just plugged full of links to affiliate programs, especially when your content is not very good.

All your doing is trying to push people to buy products without providing any valuable information or help.

I review websites every day where people have basic 100-word descriptions of 10 best of products that have images and affiliate buttons all over the page.

That is a poor user experience.

When you create a website, think of the user experience.

Do a quick self-test, if you were searching about the topic you are providing on your website, would you stay on your website or hit the back button?

My best suggestion is to focus on one or two affiliate programs that you can truly feel proud of promoting.

Choose a couple of affiliate programs that you use every day or know a lot about and trust to be a product or service that is a great value and quality.

That way you can become the authority on that product, service, and topic.

3 - Worry About Website Design

People get too caught up in the bling bling part of website design.

If you follow the beginner's training at Wealthy Affiliate you will have a website up and running within minutes.

It will be a basic and functional website.

As a newbie, you will be reviewing websites from people that have been building their online business for years and you want yours to look like their websites...Now!

Don't worry how your website looks.

I'm not saying make an ugly website. You still need to have a good layout and navigation setup but leave the fancy landing pages, opt-ins, and flash media once you have more experience.

During the first 3-6 months, your website will have a little amount of traffic. What it looks like will have little effect on those that visit.

The most important part is to have good quality and helpful content related to your niche topic.

It's your content that will help your website rank on the first SERPs and keep people coming back.

If you spend too much time on your website design, that takes time away from creating your content which will slow down your progress to reaching your goals.

4 - Distractions

Squirrel!

If it's not getting pulled in to take a closer look at another product or idea it's wasting time reviewing statistics or social media.

It is hard not to be attracted to the newest shiny thing that comes along. The worse time is when doing research on a new blog post. I always learn something new and want to know more.

Before you know it you've just wasted time looking at more stuff you don't need.

A little trick I try to follow when writing a new blog is to have a timer for 1 hour. My goal is to write at least 1000 words within that hour.

If I meet that goal a allow myself a break to whatever I wish to do, including getting distracted for 10 minutes. I usually do take a 10-minute stretch or bathroom break but once in a while, I will go look at that next best shiny thing.

Take breaks but find a way that works for you to stay on track to reaching your goal.

5 - Try To Sell

Many newbie sites I review comes across too much like one big sales pitch.

This does link to point #2 where we tend to sign up to too many affiliate programs and now feel we need to get people to click on those 100 links now!

If you can, it would be best to write your content without having any affiliate programs set up.

That way you will not focus or think about selling anything and you will just create content that helps people.

Not only will that helpful content assist your site get to that first SERP but not having any affiliate links will get your site noticed as a helpful site not trying to sell anything.

Not having any affiliate links will give your website a huge boost over those that are riddled with affiliate program links.

Help people and the money will follow.

Again, this is in all the training at Wealthy Affiliate and from Rick and Jim but we are often blinded by the potential income.

Conclusion

I hope this list of 5 mistakes to avoid as a new affiliate marketer will help you reach your online business goal for success faster compared to if you continued on your own.

In summary you want to stay focused on one website, keep the number of affiliate programs you want to promote to a minimum, don't worry how your website looks as long as you have the basics covered, don't get distracted by all the newest and greatest ideas, and don't be that salesman that follows a person around asking if you are ready to buy something yet, over and over again.

If the product or service you are promoting is part of what is required in order to answer the question for your reader then go ahead and suggest it. 

Sure, you may get a commission but if that product or service is going to help them then be sure to tell them about it.

Have you made any of these mistakes? If yes, please tell me about it below. I would love to hear about it and I always respond.

If you have any other questions or comments please leave them down below as well.

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Cheers

Paul