As far as i know nobody enjoys building links! There is a certain 9 to 5 feeling about it- the repetitiveness, the feeling that you should be doing something more constructive with your time, and the personal rejection you feel when someone doesn’t reply. You are at work and don’t you know it.
Building links is tough and never more so than in the early days when you have no exchange capital ie. you have two websites that are PR NADA and it feels you cant give your links away. Fortunately this feeling will pass, how quickly depends on your approach.
If you are smart and you have used a ‘mapped approach‘ to your site building your link exchanges will get easier quickly, and maybe even to the point where you no longer have to hunt good exchanges down, you are now the prey (in this particular example that’s a good thing). If you are less smart (like me which is probably why i didn’t use the term stupid) you will have niche websites all over the place and the original problems will continue for some time longer. Just one reason you shouldn’t spread yourself too thin.
In my experience it is at this point (basically the second hurdle after building the website) that most affiliates will give up and move onto something else. Others will just watch their stats daily in the hope that as the website ages the traffic will come – sorry amigo this aint going to happen.
Affiliate marketing in my experience has to be a long term venture and i am personally pleased that it is, if it was possible to create a success story overnight everybody would be doing it and the competition would be way too tough. Link building is hard because you are doing something for tomorrow and not only that you have no idea as to what affect it will have anyway.
When i began affiliate marketing the whole link exchange concept to me was alien and it was hard to believe that it would make any difference anyway- only after you have successfully implemented a link building strategy over a period of time do you realize/believe what a huge effect it can have.
My advice is to get over the fact that you are going to have to work for your money by creating content and building links, it is the only way to carve out a successful long term career in affiliate marketing. This is not an alternative to work IT IS WORK and you will have to work hard to make it a success.
Maybe once it is an overwhelming success you can sit with your feet up and pay others to do what you had done, but until then………..you still here? have you not got something better you could be doing with your time?
Thanks for the article. I am just getting my feet wet in the whole affiliate marketing thing and am building links to my existing site before I actually venture out with new businesses. I have been told that by posting comments on blogs such as this one will give me a link to my site as long as I list a website in the resource box. Does it make a difference whether i list my name vs a long tailed keyword?
Hi Adam,
In an ideal world you would want your “keyword” as your anchor text, for example: “webdesign” which then links to your website, however many blogs (including ours) may see this as SPAM. Though we are more than happy with your current name. Some blogs will allow it if it is a real comment based on the article. All links should be good though.
My last article (on Comment Luv) however provides you with a way of building links with your chosen anchor text that is not seen in a negative light.
Having the correct anchor text advises Google of the nature of your website, and they will therefore rank you higher for that term (over the long haul). You basically want to use the term(s) that you want searchers to find you listed under.
You may also want to consider directories, guest posting etc to also aid your SEO efforts.
If you need anything further just let me know! here to help.