The #1 Skill You Need to be Successful in Affiliate Marketing

Many people might think that web design or SEO (search engine optimization) are the most important skills that you need to be successful in affiliate marketing, but that isn’t the case. While both of these skills are helpful, and SEO is a highly valuable skill, I want to share with you the one skill that can help you be successful in affiliate marketing or any business you want to promote online.  That skill is effective writing.

Search engines are in the business of helping people find answers and solutions in the form on information which usually appear in written format.  Having a great looking website with content that looks like it was written by a 5 year old just isn’t effective in terms of instilling confidence, so you will quickly lose that prospect.  As well, most of the components of SEO and paid search involve writing such as:

• Writing effective web copy
• Writing blog posts
• Writing blog reviews and comments
• Writing articles
• Writing ads for paid search
• Writing press releases

Assuming you can learn the basics of search engine optimization such as finding the right keywords and getting them on your website, three of the most powerful methods of getting visitors to your website involve lots of writing.

1. Articles. Writing articles can bring you lots of website visitors, especially when the article is hosted on a trusted authority website. The problem is you can’t just write a single article; you need to be committed to writing at least an article per week to really get your message out if this a part of your marketing strategy.  This will also require some creativity so that you aren’t just re-writing the same content.

2. Blogging. Blogging is also a great way to get content out. In my opinion and experience, blog content holds much more weight and can be used in many more fashions.  For example, you can set up your own blog (always recommended) and then utilize RSS & Social Media sites to help promote your blog content. You could also write for other blogs (ideally those that are better known than yours) as a guest blogger and get in front a new audience.

3. Press Releases. Using press releases to get news out about your company can be powerful, but only if they are actually newsworthy stories and well written.  Writing effective press releases is a unique writing skill and does require doing your homework to ensure that you are using the correct format.

So what is one to do if you need to develop writing skills? You could look into taking a writing course at a local library or community college.   Another option is taking an online course at www.writingtrainers.com which offers a great variety of grammar and writing courses.

I hope you found this helpful.