The world of SEO is full of opportunities and challenges, read on to learn about common SEO affiliate marketing mistakes and what you can do to avoid them. Every affiliate marketer can’t wait to see the online traffic pouring into his or her website. Every time you get more visitors, your spirits soar.
Leveraging social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and using email marketing are very important strategies that you as an affiliate marketer should employ to bring traffic to your website ( See Cloudways webinar on “make money as an affiliate marketer.” To win at affiliate marketing, you need to develop a thorough SEO strategy.
Still not convinced? Here are a few statistics to get you started:
As much as 93% of online experiences begin with search. (Source: Search Engine Journal). In just one second, 69,973 searches are performed on Google. (Source: Internet Live Stats). 75% of users do not even go to the second page on Google. (Source: HubSpot). The first organic result on Google is clicked 33% of the time. (Source: Search Engine Watch).
40% of people only use search on their smartphones. (Source: Think with Google). Reading these statistics, there is no doubt about the importance of SEO. However, many affiliates are still confused about SEO for promoting their products and services.
10 SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistakes You Should Never Make
Affiliate marketing and SEO can be a deadly combination; if you master SEO, you can succeed in the affiliate marketing game. However, it takes a lot of effort and practice. As an affiliate, you surely need to harness the power of search. Let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes affiliates make when it comes to search engine optimization:
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #1: Taking a keyword-focused approach instead of focusing on solutions. For Google, one of the top factors in ranking websites is “user experience. The value of a web page is determined by whether or not the visitor was able to accomplish the desired task. If your web page does not, no amount of keyword insertion will make any difference.
Keywords are extremely important. They are the words and phrases that users type into search engines. But you need to understand their intent. They are not entering keywords to read your general article. They are looking for a solution! In the world of affiliate marketing, it’s all about providing value and building long-term relationships with people.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #2: Not Creating Original Content
Many affiliate marketers “mistakenly” believe that more content will give them an SEO advantage. They may hire amateur writers or use some sort of article writing software. Such content does not perform well with search engines because it provides no real value to the end user. In fact, Google penalizes duplicate content.
Content is king, and even more so in the world of SEO. Google.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #3: Not Optimized for Mobile In 2018, 52.2% of global website traffic was generated from cell phones. As these trends suggest, the number of cell phone users will continue to grow. With Google’s introduction of the mobile-first index, it is even more important to provide users with a mobile-friendly experience. Make sure your website is responsive; use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see how your website performs on smaller devices.
Not being mobile optimized will make your website look odd on these devices. You don’t want that when you are trying to give your users trust and credibility. SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #4: Using Cheap or Free Web Hosting As an affiliate, you may be tempted to get cheap or even free web hosting. Sure, you want to save money.
However, choosing cheap or poor hosting services can be the worst decision you can make as an online marketer. From server downtime to long page load times, regular web hosting can prove to be a major headache. Read our blog to learn more about how slow and unreliable web hosting services can negatively impact your website’s performance.
Choose a managed SEO hosting provider that gives you complete control over your website’s design and architecture, from 24/7 support to excellent uptime rates, giving your affiliate business the edge.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #5: Using Irrelevant Backlinks
Backlinks are like a lifeline for an affiliate website. Backlinks tell Google that your website is relevant. In the past, you would create a blog post and link it back to your original website. However, now that Google has become smarter, this tactic does not work. To get Google’s attention, you need to have a website with a high Domain Authority (DA) link to you; since a website with a high DA is linking to you, it must be relevant.
You may not be able to get listed on Forbes, but find relevant and authoritative websites in your niche; with Moz, you can find out the page rank of websites in your niche. For competitor analysis, SEMrush can be a great tool.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #6: Not Having a Fast Website
Website speed is one of the most important ranking factors. This is fairly obvious. Imagine: a visitor comes to your site to buy a product, but the page takes too long to load. Online users do not like to wait. According to Neil Patel’s blog, 47 percent of consumers expect web pages to load within two seconds. Slow page load times are surely not helpful, and Google places great value on user experience.
Furthermore, a one-second delay in page response time is said to decrease conversions by 7 percent. Want to check the speed of your website? Google’s PageSpeed tool can give you useful insights.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #7: Not Migrating to HTTPS
Cybersecurity has become a serious concern for Internet users. As an affiliate, you need to make sure your website is secure for your users. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure; using HTTPS instead of the normal HTTP in a URL tells users that it is safe to use this website.
To obtain this security status, an SSL certificate is required. Many hosting providers offer SSL certificates for free. HTTPS at the top of their list is also a ranking factor; Google first announced this in 2014. In fact, by 2017, almost half of Google’s first-page search results are HTTPS. The idea is to make the web a safer place.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #8: Omitting or Duplicating Meta Descriptions. Your affiliate site may have many pages. From blogs to product listings, you want your site to be massive. With such a site with many pages, you may ignore or duplicate the meta description. A meta description is a snippet that appears below the title in search results.
You should try to write a meta description for each page; keep it to 160 characters or less and include keywords in the meta description as soon as possible. A unique meta description for each page will set you apart from your competitors. Here’s how Goodreads, a book review site, adds meta descriptions to their site to great effect:
EO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #9: Using Undefined Canonicals
As an affiliate, you may be dealing with content or products with multiple URLs. Canonical URLs tell search engines that certain similar URLs are exactly the same. This prevents duplicate content issues.
Canonical URLs provide search engines with a preferred version of your website. This enhances SEO because search engines know about all links in the canonical version. Categorizing your website into silos is another good practice. Using well-defined categories can direct users to affiliate links in a systematic way.
SEO Affiliate Marketing Mistake #10: Ignoring SEO Best Practices
As an affiliate, you can never be satisfied with the fact that the product or service you are promoting is of high quality. From thin content to slow websites, mediocre SEO will hinder your success.SEO is no different whether you are a multinational or an affiliate. What Google cares about is providing value to its users, and as a result, users will continue to use Google.
SEO requires continuous effort, but once you get your website to the top of the list, you will know it was worth it. Research the best SEO tools and use them to your advantage.
Finally.
Combining affiliate marketing and SEO can be a great move for your online business. You may get leads quickly with pay-per-click campaigns, but to win in the long run, you need organic SEO. From optimizing for mobile to reducing page load times, you need to do SEO the right way!
Avoid SEO mistakes – it’s a process. It is a process and you learn as you go.
We at Cloudways are dedicated to helping you on your affiliate journey. We have a team of SEO experts and professionals who can guide you every step of the way. From providing keywords to creating content structure, our web hosting affiliate program offers a comprehensive solution.
Have you made any of the above mistakes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
