So you have been wanting to get into affiliate marketing, and want to know the rules. You have your website and or blog all set up and ready to go. You have chosen your niche and market that you want to promote and make money off of. You just need links to start making money. Promoting other’s services and products is not something that is difficult to do. However, you will find that with all of the many companies that offer affiliate programs, and referral options, they all have their own rules that you must follow.
Affiliate marketing is rather simple to understand, unless you participate in a lot of different schemes. You may have a problem if you start receiving so many that you find it difficult to recall the regulations or the recommendations you must go by. This is because the rules for affiliate programs are as different as the companies. Each company is allowed to make their own rules. However, you might see many similarities. That does not mean that they are copying one another, or cloning their affiliate program so to speak, but yet it means that they have the same rules.
Affiliate marketing rules can be so very different. They can range from not mentioning the brand names that they sell anywhere on your website, to not have that particular market in your website URL. Because they are so different for each program and company that you promote, you are going to have to be sure that you read each one well and make sure that you understand it fully. You may not be able to join up on certain affiliate programs if your website’s URL is already set. This is a result of your failure to comply with the regulations.
The page rank rule is another regulation that you may encounter often if you are involved in affiliate marketing. Some businesses that let you advertise their goods or services won’t want you to rank higher on search results than they do. They won’t let you to have a website that ranks better in search engine results either. For instance, let’s say you wanted to promote coffee and wanted to sign up as an affiliate for Folgers. If you were to enter coffee or Folgers coffee as a search phrase, your website would not be able to appear in the search engine results above the official Folgers coffee website. The companies that have this rule in place for their affiliate marketing programs feel as if your website were higher than theirs for the product that they are selling, that it would hurt their business tremendously. And, it just might. They would rather have the straight sales any day, than the commissioned sales. Who wouldn’t?
It’s a terrific idea to have a spreadsheet with the rules and affiliate marketing programs you participate in. In this manner, you will always be clear about where you need to be in order to participate in that program.. This is the best thing that you can do for your affiliate marketing business. Not only that, you will also find that some of the sites that have broken rules and have been caught have resulted in law suits. Cover your tracks and make sure that you are following the rules that are set by that company for the best results.
You will also find that there is a thing that is called affiliate marketing software. If you can find a program that fits your needs and will help you keep everything straight, you may not have to worry about keeping track of them yourself. Make sure you are performing affiliate marketing correctly by using your program to keep track of everything. Your efforts will pay off eventually, and you will be glad that you went by the book and followed the necessary affiliate marketing rules.
