For the Seasoned Affiliate: Online Marketing in a Changed Landscape
Even for the seasoned affiliate, online marketing can be a new and challenging landscape. Every day, new changes come up that make it harder than ever before. In the last year, we’ve seen new FTC guidelines, huge waves of Google AdWords bans, and major changes to the type of ads Facebook allows. For many affiliates – even 6-figure monthly affiliates – this has lead to a dramatic decrease in earnings. For many, it has been like starting over.
For those who are looking for new sources of income online, there are a few things you can do to stabilize things for the future to ensure that you never take such a huge hit again.
- Diversify. Too many affiliates have just one or two successful campaigns. That means trouble if something happens to one of them. Even if they’re not all huge, try to have a few smaller ones that you could live off of if you ever had to.
- Save Money. Don’t spend all of your profits. Save back plenty in case you need to go into experimental mode again.
- Never get complacent. Even if you are making $100k/month, you should still be testing new traffic sources and campaigns. That’s the only real way to maintain that level of success.
- Create something of value. I’m not saying that every site you make needs to be content-rich and Google-friendly, but you should have something that’s an actual “web property” if you are in this for the long-term. It could be a top-notch blog, a content portal, or a product, but you should have something you could actually sell (ie not just a landing page).
What do you think? Do you have other strategies for weathering the low points and creating a long-term income online? Share in the comments!