#1 Consistently publish content. Whether you have a blog or a website, the key to drawing attention and earning top page ranking is through content.  It’s also the best way to ‘presell’ which we’ll get into next.  So what type of content can you publish?  Here are just a few options:

* Autoresponders.
* E-newsletters.
* Blogs posts
* Social networking via forums, social networking sites, and chat rooms
* Articles
* Press releases
* Reports
* Ebooks
* Reviews
* Audio and video posts
* Ecourses
* Workbooks
The list could go on and on…

Step Two – Network.  Networking, online and off, is a great way to spread the word about your business.  Social networking in particular can be extremely effective for sharing your unique knowledge and expertise.  You’ll drive more traffic to your website and thus increase your affiliate sales.

Step Three – Pre-sell.  Your job as an affiliate is to pre-sell.  That means you don’t have to give the heavy pitch just sharing information is enough. In fact, blatantly selling on your website may actually decrease your affiliate sales.  Pre-sell by writing articles, courses, reviews, blog posts and other valuable and informative content about the products you have chosen to represent.

Step Four – Chose your affiliate products carefully.  You not only want to choose quality products, you also want to choose products that have a good conversion rate.  If you’re working hard to send traffic to their sales page, you deserve a sales page that converts.  This leads to the next step.

Step Five – Track and test.  Tracking and testing not only who comes to your site but how many conversion you make with each product and each promotion and/or marketing tool is the only way to ensure you make money and continue to increase your affiliate sales.

Make More Affiliate Sales

Finally, look for unique affiliate products and/or complimentary affiliate products.  For example, if you’re an affiliate for a pet training business, a complimentary affiliate product might be pet training tools.

Being an affiliate can be a fantastic way to make a living and increasing your affiliate sales makes it all the more enjoyable.  Creating your content is only the beginning, look for ways to broaden awareness of your website through networking and other internet marketing strategies, presell your products and share your knowledge and expertise with others.

Social Media Traffic

Social media is all the rage. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace have become a daily part of mainstream culture. Celebrities tweet, have Facebook pages and everyone seems to be connecting via these online mediums. Business owners are smart to tap into these tools to drive traffic to their sites, yet many are missing the mark. Here’s how to lure social media traffic to your website.

1. Offer insight about your industry. When you’re online at your social networking site of choice it’s absolutely important to participate, but how you participate can make all the difference. If you’re merely commenting about what you had for dinner and your new car, then you’re not optimizing the site or your time. Instead, make sure to offer insight about your industry. This doesn’t mean every post has to link to an article or postof yours.

You can link to relevant content on other sites, offer quotes and data. So while it’s great to share your personality on these sites, it’s also important to establish your credibility and authority. Provide relevant and useful information, and people will automatically go to your site to learn more about you and what you have to offer.

2. Use attention-grabbing headlines. Embrace copywriting techniques and post curiosity-driven headlines. Use questions – for example, “Do you want to know how to make $100 in 5 minutes?” You can also use comments, controversy, how-to statements and other attention-grabbing headlines. Don’t forget scarcity and urgency too. “Only one day left to grab your copy of________”

3. Offer giveaways. People still like getting something for free and you can promote your freebies and giveaways on social networking sites. Reports, online courses or tutorials, blueprints, ebooks and video and audio content are all great ways to motivate traffic to your site.

4. Use special promotions for your unique social media audience. If you have Facebook fans, consider offering them special promotions for signing up and for being a fan. You can do the same thing if you have a twitter account and so on. Consider giving each new friend/follower a coupon via a direct message to them. That coupon will motivate them to at least visit your website and may turn them into a customer or subscriber.

Be willing to test and track to see what works. You can create a special webpage to drive social networking traffic to. You can even duplicate that page and use a unique URL for each site you participate on. This way you can track your traffic from each post and from each social networking site to see what works. It’s a great way to gain insight to your audience and to ensure you’re optimizing your time and efforts.