If you have your own products, then you know one of your most valuable assets is your affiliate team. And adding another good affiliate is akin to adding money to your bank account.
If you don't yet have your own products, what's taking you so long? It's time to make a name for yourself by creating your own product. And once you do, unless you want to do all the product promotion yourself, you're going to want affiliates. Of course you can always list your product on Clickbank, JVZoo or the Warrior Forum and possibly luck into affiliates there from their stable of many. If your product should catch fire, this can work like a charm.
But if your product doesn't immediately catch fire, or even if it does but you want more affiliates or you're simply running your own affiliate program, here's how to find great affiliates ready to promote your product:
1. Create an optimized page for “your niche/keyword/brand affiliate program” so that your program can be found in Google searches.
2. Add your affiliate program to various affiliate program directories (search Google for “affiliate program directories” and you'll find a huge supply)
3. Join and actively network at the top affiliate forums (again, search Google for “Top affiliate forums,” there are many.
4. Use Google Analytics. Once you're inside Google Analytics, find the section that shows a list of all your traffic sources. Be sure to expand the list so that you can see all of them, not just the first 25 or so. We're assuming of course that you have a website that has been established for awhile, such as a blog.
Now then, find the sites that are the most relevant to your particular audience. You're not concerned with how much traffic they send you, but rather, if they send you traffic on a consistent basis. These will often be other bloggers and publishers. And what do bloggers typically need? More income.
Contact them and say something like, “I see that you are sending traffic to my site, thank you. I'd like to partner with you so that you can earn money on the traffic you're already sending me.” Work with them to make them an affiliate and show them how to promote your products to their readers in a manner that is comfortable to them.
5. You're not limited to Google Analytics. You can use any analytics program that tells you where your traffic is coming from.
6. Find out what sites are sending traffic to your competitors. First, if you don't already know who your competitors are, find out. Look for the websites that deal with the same topics, the same niche focused on the same audience as you do.
Using a site such as Hitwise, find the category you fit into and look at each site that fits into your category, or simply look up your competitor's sites directly to find out who their top referrers are, and approach these referring sites to possibly become your affiliate.
7. Using Alexa, type in your website's URL, and then click on get details. Under get details, you'll see click stream and related links. These related links are other sites that are similar to your own business, including your competitors. Look at the sites that are linking in and see who is sending the traffic. Approach these sites to be your affiliates.
8. Find websites that target your same market but aren't your competitors. For example, if you sell books on gardening then you might approach websites that swell gardening tools to form a partnership. You can promote their tools to your list, and they can promote your books to their customers.
9. Explore social media to find out who is talking positively about your product. If they have a website, list or loyal following, ask if they will consider becoming an affiliate – that is, getting paid to do what they're already doing. You'll be surprised how many say yes.
10. Again using social media, find out who's talking about your type of product but not necessarily your brand name. For example, if you design and sell purses, find out who's talking about purses and fashion and see if they want to become your affiliate. When searching social media, don't forget about YouTube – many affiliates are making videos to promote products these days.
11. Search Squidoo for your keywords and look for the lens builders that are either a good fit or are prolific in building affiliate types of lenses. See if they will promote your product on their lens or even create a new lens to exclusively promote your product.
12. This one might be obvious, but I'll mention it anyway – use Google. Search for sites in your niche that appear to be list building and/or promoting products. If it looks like a good fit for your product, approach them to become an affiliate.
13. HOT TIP: When searching in Google, try adding the phrase “powered by Aweber” to your keywords. This will give you sites that are building a list. Do the same thing for the other major autoresponders.
14. Place an “affiliates” link on the bottom of every page of your website to advertise your affiliate program.