If you’re a content affiliate, then congratulations! Original information has the biggest impact on the decision to buy in today’s overloaded digital landscape. You play an important role in the purchase process.
Content affiliates are usually very highly regarded because the added value they bring is a plus for any brand with sales at stake. Affiliates that specialize in content often become brand ambassadors and some of them deliver substantial traffic to their preferred vendors.
The benefits are nice, but it takes perseverance and generating quality info on a regular basis for content affiliates to stay at the top of their game.
Here are some useful tips to help you maintain a healthy online presence and keep driving more traffic to your vendors.
1. Integrate your content channels and keep them up to date
Let’s say you have a blog. From an SEO perspective, this is not enough if you’re reaching for the stars. You also need a business Facebook page, Twitter account or even Tumblr/Pinterest page depending on your chosen niche. If you’re already posting original content on your blog, send it to your email list and post it on social media channels Make sure your blog, email and social channels are visually consistent and updated regularly. It’s important to showcase your hard work across different channels because you never know where your next client might be spending time online.
2. Make your website user-friendly
It can’t be stressed enough that a website should be responsive and easy to navigate. Besides providing fresh information to users, the whole experience should be pleasurable. Your pages should load fast (if they don’t, change your hosting provider); your images shouldn’t be blurry but rather simple, colorful and appealing; and all website content must represent the brand guidelines you establish.
3. Encourage user-generated content
If your niche allows it, don’t just enable the comments section for your visitors, but also make time to respond to them. Start discussions with other influencers or professionals you admire in your field. Conduct interviews. Build your online personality step by step, with patience and respect. When people are searching for a product or service online, they’re usually curious about other users’ experiences. You might be surprised by the relevant insights and rich perspective other people can bring in the comments section and beyond, so do your best to spark interesting discussion across your online presence.
4. Change
Yes, change is good, so from time to time, take an afternoon to brainstorm new concepts for your business. Is a new development opportunity out there you haven’t leveraged yet? Maybe an app? An event you haven’t attended yet? A new brand in town you want to sponsor your upcoming contest? Moreover, think about the look and feel of your website and your brand identity. Make additions to the vibe in your little online corner at least once a year.
5. Bring value by pointing out the benefits
Customers don’t necessarily want to know the technical characteristics of a product or service – those are usually easy to find anywhere. What they really want is to make sure that their needs will be met. To make this clear, you should underline all of the benefits customers get by buying what you’re promoting. For example, if you’re selling a PDF tool with the option to extract, split and rotate pages, as well as convert them to Excel or Word, your clients will be more than happy to know their PDF tool will allow them to easily manage, secure and edit PDF documents in multiple formats. All information about a product must be displayed in an easily understandable way with a focus on benefits.
Have other tips for content affiliates? Let us know in the comments.
