The Personal Testimonial
Another article in the Improving Affiliate Program Performance Series
There are two main aspects of your site to consider when trying to earn an income through affiliate programs. The first is increasing the number of visitors your site receives. Now, I won't be talking about web promotion today, there are many other sites out there can do a better job of this than I.
What I would like to talk about are ways to maximize the results, say the number of referred leads or sales you generate, from the traffic you receive. In a previous article I touched on 5 specific ways that you can create value for your visitors and encourage them to check out the affiliate sites you have chosen to promote. In this article, I am concentrating on one aspect in particular. The personal testimonial.
>From the recent survey on the ClickQuick web site, it seems that the personal testimonial is a widely under-used promotional method. Only 8% of ClickQuick's visitors who responded chose the testimonial as their primary means of promoting affiliate programs on their site. Hopefully, if you are one of the majority who use other means such as banner ads, this article will help convince you to give the testimonial a try.
A personal testimonial on your site can be the most powerful way to encourage visitors to check out affiliate programs and their offerings. The initial assumption of course is that your visitors somehow trust your opinion or at least your honest word. This will take some time, especially if you are creating a brand new site. Just like any business relationship, your visitors will actively look for reasons to trust you, but most people need some 'evidence' as to why you are trustworthy. Probably the best recommendation for this is to provide a good, consistently honest, and valuable product, service, or information resource.
Once you have built up a trust level, and remember this will be a constant effort as your site brings in new, first-time visitors, the testimonial can begin to work its magic. If there is a product or service you have used personally and found valuable, providing a brief description of your positive experiences will help encourage more of your visitors to check it out. The testimonial can come in terms of a specific product, or a company or web site. In can range from something like "I used this product and it works great, and saves me time too!" to "I have ordered with this merchant in the past, and they offer excellent customer service and timely order delivery." Even simpler testimonials such as "I personally recommend XYZ product" can help boost results. But generally, the more personal the testimonial, the more effective it will be.
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