Passive income…that’s the dream for everyone, right?

Affiliate Marketing is somehow connected to easy money. That’s why there are so many people out there doing it the wrong way, thinking they will make money just by practically shouting out “Buy now”.

Well, here’s a truth bomb thrown at you.

You’re not going to make any significant money if you don’t provide value.

Here’s what my experience as an Affiliate Marketer has taught me so far regarding what works and what doesn’t.

1. Know what the hell you’re talking about.

Affiliate sites are product/service review sites. What’s the core of reviews? Actual valuable info. You’re not going to create thorough head-to-heads between 2 products if you don’t know what customers want to know regarding those. And truth is, you can’t provide that if you don’t know the subject matter well enough. Users are not stupid. Yes, you might be able to fool some people being half-knowledged on a subject, but you can’t scale an affiliate site if you don’t really know your stuff. This goes even more for affiliates that are into niches, like online gambling for example (which is popular for affiliates), that require expertise.

2. Pick a niche you like.

Affiliate Marketing has one big advantage that can also turn out to be a disadvantage. You can choose to promote whatever you want. The tricky part though is to avoid choosing a niche you don’t actually like just because you heard that conversion rates are good and you’re going to go from rags to riches in no time. That stuff doesn’t happen and you’re just going to end up writing about something you hate. It’s no secret that one of the recipes for success is to do something you love and Affiliate Marketing is no exception to that.

3. Don’t go after competitive keywords.

Do you know what’s the Holy Grail of keywords for an affiliate marketer? Best [insert niche keyword]. Good luck trying to rank for those if you choose to build a site around them, and trust me as I know that from experience. Of course, it always depends on the vertical you’re in and how saturated it is. However, picking the right keywords and also studying the intent behind those keywords is something that makes or breaks Affiliate Marketers. One of the worst things you can do is mixing up intents, namely using keywords that have an informational intent in a piece that’s purely written for transactional purposes. A good technique to avoid going after competitive keywords is to choose to review products that are new and not so popular yet and get a head start on attempting to rank for keywords related to those, as opposed to old and competitive ones.