Why Most Affiliate Sites Fail, SEO tips with Mark Preston

think about your affiliate website as a real real business and the reason a lot of sites have tanked from my research is the just informational websites that's the fact is the just informational websites and the ones I've seen in the affiliate world that's doing well and holding their own are actually attached to a real business a real brand I'm John Wright and you're listening to affiliate bi the business intelligence and affiliate marketing podcast brought to you by stab welcome to the Fate bi podcast today we're

chatting with Mark a Preston who is the founder of customer growth unlock and he's the host of the talk about digital podcast on top of that he's got an SE an extensive SEO background he's written four books on the topic of SEO as well as customer growth Mark welcome to the show thanks for having me it's great to be here yeah I'll try not to ask too many self-serving questions as a SAS company but I believe your work in customer growth as a coach is valuable

for the affiliate marketing world so I want to start off by asking two kind of challenging questions first part is what would you say your work looks like in applying this to affiliate managers and on the affiliate program side of business and then the second one and the most important one is how would you say this applies to the work that an affiliate marketer has to do themselves right themselves right now I'm going to be honest here right and I've run affiliate schemes in the past

myself so I understand the challenges now customer growth and affiliate affiliate affiliate marketing is connected because in effect without the content on the website making people want to click on the link so you earn money then it's pointless but what I'm seeing is in the affiliate world it's all about how can we write content to get ranked get ranked get ranked organically and that's the wrong approach really and obviously there's been lots of changes in the affiliate World recently and lots of websites of Tanks but

we need to focus on what's really important for the person not a user not a piece of data but the person that's visiting your affiliate website what's important to them it's not about just he has a top 10 list the best so and saws around whatever is and add your affiliate links in what benefit does it have to them and this is what we need to get into in the affiliate world we need to think about what's important for them and why they should actually read

that page and click on the links rather than just pumping out let's just say AI content just to get ranked that's basically probably tank now and what's worse is that a lot of this content probably isn't even AI generated but I think what you just said I'm going to summarize it is I think there's a too much of a transactional approach there's Affiliates that are writing like you said okay we're to do this top 10 list and here's your top VPN here's your top casinos here's

your top books and it's too transactional it's like they're not even thinking about the user they're just going I'm here to make money and I think there's two problems on both sides of the fence affiliate writing this generic content that's trying to sell and then the affiliate manager that says Hey I want I just want more Affiliates and I want more sales coming through and it's like they're missing the personal relationships behind all of this yeah the thing is you have to think about why should

somebody go to your website when you're probably trying to sell the same thing as a thousand other people and that's what you need to think about in the whole customer growth projection think about your affiliate website as a real business and the reason a lot of sites have tanked from my research is they just just just informational websites that's the fact it's the just informational websites and the ones I've seen in the affiliate world that's doing well and holding their on are actually attached to a

real business a real brand yeah no that's good I want to double click on that a bit further which is I think when you're a real business a real brand and I like to say also a real product you're moving in that first part data territory so I think the old way was here's your top X list and then we just want eyeballs and SEO traffic and clicks and I think maybe we're moving towards going wait a minute who is my customer and if you're not

even at minimum capturing their email I think you're missing out on the biggest part which is well you know if Google's going to take away your traffic you'd be it'd be a crime to not have at least captured their email but once you have their email you can say how do you get better at your content I think this is where a lot of Affiliates they're in a total dead end and they're trapped they don't really know where to go yeah I mean again as an

affiliate marketer you are running a business now I want to take the honest out of people who think affiliate marketers are just it's a sad land it's a real business model that I run in the past but you need to think about it as a real business and you need to think about every person that visits that page or the pages on your websites is how can we make the most of them how can we convert them okay if they don't want these 10 things is

what can we give them how can we sign them up to something of value relating to it and again coming back to the customer growth map it all out map out the flaw and the journey of that person what is the specific reasons they are looking at that page and reading that page and focus on the reasons behind behind it it sounds almost like too simple but if it it goes with it saying it's if you're getting all this customers and attention not just because you've

got a book and a podcast but you run you must be running into business all the time that struggle with this basic concept because when I listen to what you just said which is like map it out it sounds obvious but I'll be honest when I've built affiliate sites in the past I've not done this simple exercise but if you take what you just said about map it out and apply to some of these failed affiliate sites they're going to be I think you actually gave

them like a step in the right direction to go what do you expecting them to do you want them to just click on links how is that going to add value what do you want them how do you want them to get into the site and how do you want to try to keep them there not just say hey I want the fast click exit make the sale and run yeah run yeah historically is a lot of Affiliates not all of them but a lot of

Affiliates it's been okay we're focusing on this Niche let's pump it into ARF sem rush or some keyword tool let's okay let's pump a lot of content out there relating to this specific thing specific thing but you need to take a step back and think stop think stop writing tons and tons of content around a certain topic which is obviously named as topical as topical as topical Authority and think about how much content do you have on your website that's actually related to after sales and

that's another big issue I've found in the affiliate world is a lot of the content is what you're doing you just servicing your competitors customers and you think about what content do I actually need in order to generate that next step the sale and think about what problems have they had before they've come to that point and focus on them because when somebody goes to the to the to the website and they read it you want them to think yes that's me that's what you want

you want not just connecting them on an emotional level but you need to think yes I'm reading yes that's me I want is the word you don't want to force people you want people to click on those links and buy it because you've already connected and showing them that yes you understand understand understand them would you say that so here's the old way like we're trying to put on the hat of the affiliate manager and the affiliate program the old way is like you get a

as many Affiliates as possible and you're trying to get as many sales but do you think there's like a new change that should take place where the affiliate manager understands the work that you do and says wait a minute this affiliate is missing out on some amazing content in this area and I can help them so rather than the standard approaches how do I become number one listing in your homepage it's like a backwards approach I think people are missing out on this high value longtail

maybe even low volume keywords where it's wait can we get a blog post that's a little different that kind of you know fills the Gap I just think that maybe affiliate managers their job isn't to do this on behalf of the affiliate but if you want to like level up and say how do you get the Affiliates attention without just ruining the conversation by going hey we're all asking for that top position on the homepage I think it's wrong so I'm just thinking out loud maybe

there's a way that if affiliate managers understood this customer Journey better they could actually pivot and go where are the gaps on a specific website yeah I mean from the affiliate managers is basically what they're doing they're trying to get lots of Affiliates that's already got an audience to sell their products in when you strip it right down that's what it boils down to the problem is if there's no guidance to Okay so we've already got 50 Affiliates targeting that one product so chances are unless

you've already got a strong audience you're not going to make a dent you know and we need to from an affiliate manager they need to start thinking more strategically and helping their Affiliates and guiding them saying these are the gaps in the market this is the gap we're seeing that it hasn't been touched yet because quite frankly if you're an affiliate and you're selling a certain range of products that a thousand other Affiliates are selling well well chances are just it's just not going to going

to going to happen and we need to think about that reality and think about is it am I actually going to make some profit from this because this because unfortunately some affiliate managers They Don't Really Care some do not and I've been in both the affiliate world and the Drop Shipping world and it's the same and it's bad but if you're getting somebody to sign up as an affiliate you want to give them the support and backing to help them generate yeah that's actually very true

I think that's the biggest thing what I see Bing in affiliate marketing space you don't have a lot of managers that care they care more about just the results rather than building a relationship and their conversation starts off that way you're like oh I'm just another number to you great let's let's pretend to do business and I'll put you through my own funnel of I also don't care when you don't care yeah I think in a way it's it's influencer marketing an affiliate if you think

about it an affiliate is an influencer some already have an audience and exposure some do not and if you think about it in that approach when businesses work with an affiliate the one goal is how can I get more exposure for myself and my product because in effect what they doing is saying in the affiliate World I'd rather give 20% or something away I wouldn't actually have had in the first place and they probably if they have to do it themselves self they're probably going to

put a lot more marketing budget behind that one sale and that's the thing it's just but it's what gets me it's there's no backing or support there to support the Affiliates it's like they all out there and they all just testing things seeing what works and what doesn't and doesn't and realistically I think there should be more support Affiliates and to make them think let's work with you on building a real business a proper Business Without just pumping website after website out that's basically targeting a

certain Niche with no actual focus on anything the good news is that you have an infinite supply of potential customers in the affiliate marketing space on the manager side maybe one day we'll get some changes happening there and do some introductions yes it's yeah I'm going to say it's I think we just need to think logically about things step out of whole manipulation world because obviously there's Ai overviews and lots of things have changed and there are changes and I've seen why sites of tank we

just need to step out of the manipulation and think okay I I am running a real business what is important yeah and you mentioned before about one example where it's you like taking an let's say a site whether it's a SAS an affiliate site and going what is the customer Journey what is the map what is the value so I want to ask as a customer growth coach what's inside your training what are some of the things you work on first of all is again with

an affiliate is why have you chosen that certain product Niche or range products what made you choose that if it's just that that give the affiliate commission that's not really a good strategy right we need a reason and realistically if it's something you are invested in and you're excited about then it's a lot better now think about it is you are just one of the businesses that sell that product don't think about it as an affiliate now as a business you need to understand all the

the the challenges and the reasons why somebody would want to buy that product now when you're mapping out the website you need to give enough context for somebody to want to buy that product right because the journey is if you are targeting people that doesn't know they need that product yet then those pages need to link to the pages that focus on the people that do know they need that product and that again that's two different audiences ideally you want to be targeting the people that

already know they need that product in the first instance but then you need to back it up by the people that's not that's not that's not sure that they need that product then from there you need a way for them to give them trust well buy from me so you need to look as though you're a real business you need all the things on you need some if it's just purely a basic information site I personally I'd never click on click on click on anything and

again you need to think if it's product it's product based you know personally I'd just go to Amazon Amazon directly why would I go to your website so you need to have something there and I think I think that the world and digital is changing dramatically dramatically dramatically Al and we just need a fresh perspective on the whole customer Journey but theoretically even though I'm a digital person there's no better way of getting a piece of paper and drawing little boxes on how things link together

and by doing that you'll actually spot actually spot gaps because there might be an AB c d process but when you've drawn it out oh that's why I'm not getting any sales because be is missing so you need to think about what do people need to know in order them to go to the next stage along the customer growth growth Journey so we we've talked about what they should be doing but I want to zero in on your experience of when you work through these Journeys

what are some of the common mistakes that you're seeing in any business of what they're doing wrong is there like a top five list or common patterns or the things that are some of the worst sins you can do it it's really I think a lot of things is based on the information that's already out there they just too confused and everyone's telling them this need to spend a lot of money but in effect you don't what you need to really really understand you say understand

your customer know who your customer is that that's we need to go deeper than that we need to understand why and what these products and you need to go not just like this is a red dress and it's very pretty and blah blah blah these are all the dimensions let's just what is the reasons why the people want to buy these products and is it just products you're selling or on the pages can you actually Implement something an something an alternative that's maybe a free thing

like you said to sign up to the newsletter or whatever there needs to be something there but the most common mistakes I find is people talk abouts too much right they don't focus on the person and again it people the person behind who's reading that there's a lot of this I'm fantastic I'm they sign that but nobody cares people are going to that page to for a solution to what their problem is and that's what we need to focus on theirs and we need to write

content in you and your rather than me and I and that's them are the main mistakes it's not anything atable moment it's just common sense that I've found Time After Time and people are trying to just write stuff for the sake of writing it and pumping out 2,000 word pages when it could actually be said in 300 words and would you say that if there's only the time when you are going to talk about yourself is that more suited for kind of what's our story like

I think affiliate sites and I know in SAS companies I hear story is important and the second we started sharing our story about why we decided to go down this journey to build our SAS the answer was we're doing this for other Affiliates and that was actually part of the story would you say that's the only case where people should actually be like look if you want to talk about me the me goes in into our story which obviously hopefully should be focused on the customer

and then the rest of it needs to be like I think the stuff you're talking about like the ICP like your ideal customer profile this is common and SAS but no one talks about this in affiliate marketing I think the the exercises you have in SAS should be copied left right over to affiliate marketing exactly the problem is a lot of Affiliates they just see it as keywords how can we get ranked or how can we drive people to these products relating to these keywords and

they do they need to step back and they need to really think about the people that's buying it because if you can connect with those with those with those people then you've got a lot better chance you know and it's not just about pumping a page of content out and buying a load of links to that page that's that was was was your real business and you was a local Builder sir would you actually do that what would it that's what I'm trying to get at

is in the affiliate world if that was a real business not that your business is not real what I'm saying is a traditional business then would you want a website like that you put in together yeah so true I want to talk about things that like I'm experiencing in my s space and I'm like you know what I don't think this happens in affiliate marketing things like customer feedback and surveys like on all these affiliate sites when I actually have an opportunity to sign up to

the newsletter or even if they have a login because the product base I honestly cannot remember the last time someone said hey we're looking for your feedback here's a survey we want to understand you a bit better in SAS this isn't common but it's at least done a little bit more because I think with SAS it's a little less forgiving where there's companies that actually build these types of tools so it's top of mine what do you think about these basic concepts again it's just common

sense because if you don't know what's wrong how can you tweak it and make it make it make it better and again just asking your own audience that you already have not just how did you find this page go into detail say oh how can we know we're not perfect how can we provide a better service for you and I think that it can be anonymous you don't have to but the information there will help you help you structure the S better it will help you

because nobody in this world is 100% perfect and people will want different things but if you don't understand why people are maybe leaving the page without clicking then how are you supposed to fix it and I think it's such a such an underrated underrated thing is I love to receive not pure negative feedback but comments on yes okay how can we make your experience your experience better I'm not saying that you know what's wrong with everything it's just the wording you use how can we make

your experience experience better and would you say this kind of transends transitions more into product design user experience design with a mix of conversion rate optimization it's everyone's focused on content but I think sometimes design is something that gets done no more than once a year and in some cases every five years for certain sites yeah well I started in this industry in 2001 and for the first five years I must have built around 120 websites in different Industries and and I I basically sold the

leads to small businesses in those Industries in those areas so the focus was on conversions now if you if somebody goes to a website that doesn't look real right design is something you know that different people have different opinions on but realistically your website needs to look as though you are real not just using a standard WordPress template that's just you can see and tell your website needs to look real and from a design perspective it's not over complicating things but you need to add elements

to the design in order to help people convert people convert better I'm not saying it's a matter of turning a button from red to green or something like that it's the aspects it's the maybe adding a photo of somebody that's bought it or a c a story of somebody that's bought this product not a review as such but a story and said oh I've bought this product and bl this is it and again that's where interacting with the audience comes in because it's stuff like the

will actually make your affiliate Pages stand out and be different and think and connect with people or this story that's me that is me that's the reason why you know so it it's about thinking differently and looking at things differently agreed now where do you see the future of customer success customer support for any company that's trying to grow their user base is this a hybrid answer of AI chat BS that take our knowledge and experience of answering questions and just being better at it or

would you say there's probably a bit more to it and it shouldn't be only just AI we rely on well AI is actually a fantastic tool for for for support based on what you already know but is there's lots and lots of challenges and things that are probably new that you come across and people it's getting to a stage where people just want a human touch you know so there's a mixture I'd say AI support is like the first line and if they can't find out

what they want then it moves on to the human human human touch but in effect is yeah did if it's just the same questions being asked over and over again that an AR can use why don't you already have that information on your website so for me personally support is twofold it's one to gather the information that you're missing from your website so you can add it and two to actually find out what the new things are that you don't but and I think there always

going to be an element of manual interaction human interaction there I think 100% AI Focus support he's okay for repetitive repetitive things agreed I think there's always a benefit of not just having real humans for support but at the same time understanding it's if you're not going through these AI chat logs that's what is your customer telling you that's basically giving you the answers of like how do you make this better and I know as a SAS company we would have none of that if we

automated all that it's the more I interact with customers the more I'm like wait a minute this is the fourth time they've asked or they've complained about a feature or a feature that doesn't exist like there's no other way to get better than having those direct chats beyond the surveys and the different things you can do yeah it another thing that when I'm talking to business say I think just jump on Zoom with a few of your customers and just start asking them questions asking them

why are you actually working with me in the affiliate world is obviously you you don't get the raw date of who has purchased that's why if you can at least build your own list along the way on your website you can reach out out to him say oh I'm I just want to do a Q&A session just to get to know you a group Zoom chat for an hour and the chatter behind that will provide Gold Dust true so I want to ask the question we

ask all guests which is what do you see of the future of affiliate marketing as it intersects with business intelligence oh now it for me affiliate marketing hasn't died it hasn't gone away but if you do not change your approach to affiliate marketing then you're probably more or less already dead in the dust so as far as the future of affiliate marketing is concerned is it will still exist it will still P be powerful but your appro as an affiliate needs to change and without that

changing yourself just using old style tactics of keyword pumping content out on pages and buying links is just will not will not work I agree I think we need everything from what is the customer journey to more bottom of funnel content which to me bottom of funnel content is really asking those deeper Niche questions that they don't have volume behind them but the volume that does come through that does translate to sales I think yeah all the work you do it's sounds obvious and almost trivial

but it's no one's doing this and I think there's a reason why you're going to have infinite business forever is it you say it sounds obvious it does but I tell you what I was cach in a small business and said oh my goodness mark goodness mark I've been targeting the wrong people for the past year no wonder it's not working but the best things are usually the things where people sit back and think why didn't I think of that because it's so obvious but often

we're looking for the shiny object syndrome and make it too complicated ourselves but if you strip It Right Back to Basics that's what really matters build a strong a strong Foundation no I agree and I appreciate it Mark I want to thank you so much for doing this I want to pass it B to to ask how can people get a hold of you y just search Mar a Preston online you'll find me if you don't I won't be much of a customer growth coach and

my website is mar mar mar press.com I'm usually hang around LinkedIn and X so reach out to me on them too them too them too and like I say I'm happy to have a chat and answer any questions you have brilliant we've got plenty of links to put in the show notes so you'll find them there mark thank you so much for doing this yeah it's been an absolute pleasure thank you for tuning in to the affiliate bi podcast I'd like to take this time to

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