Unfortunately, we’ve seen enough mistakes in the affiliate space to compile a list of ‘worst practices’. Here are ten things you should do if you want to fail as a Forex affiliate.
- Don’t have a website: in this day and age, you need your own site to talk about whatever it is that you’re promoting. Just sending out links or buying ad space isn’t going to make the grade.
- Send spam email: This is a great way to get banned by your account manager, and possibly get in trouble (if you’re in the USA) with the government for violating the CAN-SPAM act.
- Give up after two weeks: If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. However, just because it is hard, doesn’t mean that you should give up unless you’ve found something that works better for your bank account. Building a reputation in this field is difficult and takes time…stop looking for shortcuts.
- Copy other people’s sites: Don’t think you can just copy/paste what someone else did. Not only will your site never rank, but you could get in trouble for violating copyright laws. Think for yourself; be yourself.
- Try to build more backlinks instead of creating value: This isn’t 2006 when you could just get to the top by making blog comments. Google’s algorithms are much smarter these days…not always, but the cream usually rises to the top…so produce some sharable, solid content.
- Push only Forex broker affiliate programs that pay the most: This is a short-term approach. You ultimately want to give people good information, not trick them into signing up as an affiliate with some fly-by-night broker. FX is a broad field and some of the players aren’t worth the recommendation.
- Position currency trading as a get-rich-quick scheme: Don’t always appeal to the lowers common denominator. Yes, people want to improve their lifestyle, but there is no need to manipulate them into thinking that currency trading is a sure thing. It is, in fact, one of the riskiest endeavors out there if you don’t know what you’re doing. Tell people the good and the bad–they’ll appreciate the honesty.
- Ignore the TOS of your affiliate partnerships: Yeah, a good way to get banned is to ignore the agreement you made with the brokerage house…if they say ‘don’t spam’ then don’t be surprised when you don’t get paid because you were found to be spamming.
- Spend so much time and money designing a website that you have little left for promotion: Your site is just a vehicle to help people get to another site. There’s no need to put all your time/effort into the site itself when it is the content that typically accounts for a bigger ROI.
- Going for keywords that have too much competition: Starting out with the idea that you’re going to rank on the first page for a term like ‘Forex’ is just crazy. Instead, start with things related to currency trading, and pivot from there once you make a name for yourself.
Ok, hope this little list helps you!