I think that anyone associated with affiliate marketing would agree, getting that first sale is definitely a boost to any affiliate's psyche. However, there are some affiliates that receive a ton of clicks to their website, have made a sale here and there, but have such a poor click-through rate that they want to quit affiliate marketing altogether. I have some advice for people with such a problem. My first bit of advice is?Don't Quit. My second word of advice is to read further on.

I have always told affiliates to evaluate their website as if it were a magazine. Not many people can afford to publish their own personal magazine but that doesn't mean that just because the ease of entry into a website is a lot easier than a magazine that you are going to get readers. Take a step back when evaluating your own website. Would you read your own website if you weren't the creator/writer of it? I see many affiliate sites that are pages and pages of just banner ads. I can only sit and ask myself what is that affiliate thinking? I don't approve any sites like this into our program and I hope that I am not in the minority because those sites certainly do not add any benefit to the web. An affiliate site should not be 95% ads and 5% content. This formula should be switched. A site should be 5% ads and 95% content. The ads should be a nice accent to your content. Ads shouldn't be your site's content.

In my experience, successful affiliate sites contain three very basic characteristics. They stick to a specific interesting niche, they have useful content and they have unique content. For example, if you want to create a sports site, I wouldn't suggest creating one that covers every sport and every team unless you have the writers to be able to cover all these topics correctly. Pick a specific team that you want to focus on or a specific city. This takes care of the interesting niche characteristic. Secondly, make sure to offer your expertise on the matter. Don't merely post scores or paste an article that was written in the local newspaper. People are going to look on ESPN.com or in the local newspaper for this information. Instead, give your own opinion of the game, what went right, what went wrong, what needs improvement etc. This takes care of both of the useful and unique content characteristics.

This brings me back to the original topic of receiving a ton of clicks to a site but having a low conversion rate. If you have taken care of creating a site that sticks to a specific interesting niche, has useful content and has unique content, you are bound to get traffic to your website, but it doesn't mean that you are going to have a good conversion rate.

How do you improve your conversion rate? Presell. Presell. Presell. This is an extreme case, but think of those late night infomercials. They make you want to purchase something that you normally would just walk by in the aisle of a store without a second thought. How do they do this? By making it sound like the product is a MUST buy. You need to convince your readers that they need to purchase a rotisserie that will cook an entire chicken in 5 minutes, so that it is the moistest chicken that they have ever eaten. In other words, telling someone to click a link for the purpose of clicking a link is not going to do the trick. Why are they clicking that link? What is there? Why is it so great? Your readers should know this information before it is clicked. Make sure that they don't walk right by that product on the aisle.

So what do the best presells have in common? Generally a great preseller is already a user of the product or service that they are selling and communicate their extreme happiness with that product or service. You cannot short change the importance of a testimonial. Who would you rather listen to when researching a product, the person selling the product or a fellow consumer? Of course you are going to listen to your peers first and foremost.

Incentives are also a must. Why should you purchase right now? Remember, most web shoppers are going to see the product and walk away to a competing site unless you push some urgency for a buying action. Offer a coupon, rebate or some sort of while supplies last message to your audience.