Here, in no particular order, are my top tips for online affiliate marketing in the UK.
1: Do add value. It's a dreadful term, but it's very pertinent to affiliate marketing. Build websites that are different and that add something to the online shopping experience. It could be, for example, a site featuring in depth expert reviews of digital cameras, if that is your area of expertise.
2: Do find you niche. This is closely related to the first point. If you have a subject you know a lot about then concentrate on it. It's likely that you'll be able to provide unique, relevant content that search engines will love and your users will find engaging. If it's your passion as well, all the better.
3: Do think like an end user. Ask yourself A: "What would I like this site to do for me?" and B: "Is my site doing this?". If the answer to A is "Show me some relevant information about something I'm thinking of buying" and B is "Yes", then you're doing well.
4: Don't join get rich quick schemes. You'll probably come across plenty of 'upload this link and retire' type affiliate programs which promise the Earth for very little effort. Avoid.
5: Do join the big networks. They have the major affiliate programs with high street names and run platforms that include online reports, automatic payments, XML feeds and web services. You can pretty much guarantee sales will get tracked and you'll get paid the right amount and on time. The networks I use the most and have had good results with are TradeDoubler, Affiliate Window and Commission Junction. Also worth signing up to are buy.at, Webgains, Paid On Results, AffiliateFuture, dgmPro and OMG.
6: Do join quality independent programs. Some really great merchants don't join the networks, preferring to develop their own affiliate scheme. The big players in this area are Amazon with its excellent Associates program and Google with it's ubiquitous AdSense program.
7: Don't overdo it. Resist the temptation to join every affiliate program going and to create hundreds of cloned 'cookie cutter' web pages plastered with links and banners. It will drive away search engines and users alike.
8: Do use web services. If you're a bit of a code monkey then some of the networks, as well as Amazon, run well developed web services which allow you to query their massive product databases and build cool websites and mashups.
9: Don't hide from the tax man. Even if you're making a relatively small amount of money from affiliate marketing, the tax man will want to know about it.
10: Do join affiliates4U.com, a thriving community with lots of help and advice for beginners and pros alike.
11: The banner is dead - long live the banner! Users tend to subconsciously filter out advertising banners on websites, yet many major programs use them heavily. I find that they perform very badly, but if you can make them work for you then great.
