Affiliate marketing is a good way to produce an extra income but only if you are prepared and go about it the right way. Here are some mistakes you'll definitely want to avoid.

1. Choosing the Wrong Products

Any product you choose should offer a solution to a problem that your audience has. First choose who your audience is, then find solutions for them. Doing it the other way around can include the risk that there is not an audience for that product in the first place.

2. Joining Too Many Networks

You can't make good income from affiliate products if you spread yourself too thin. Choose just a couple networks and work directly with some good products and their managers to ensure the best mix of products for your audience's needs.

3. Not Investing in Helpful Resources

There are a lot of very helpful products, services and solutions today that can help make your life easier as an affiliate marketer. Set a budget and invest in your business. You can't make money without spending, but you want to spend it wisely.

4. Not Using Technology to Its Fullest

Email lists, autoresponders, social media, blogs etc... all involve using technology. Seek to learn fully each new piece of tech that you add to your business before adding the next one.

5. Not Looking at Your Competitors

Many times your competitors are doing a lot of things right that you can learn from. If they are successful, you want to look at them. Buy some of their products and sign up for the lists. Make a note of what they're doing right and wrong and make a plan to do even better.

6. Thinking You Don't Need SEO

Search engine optimization is important, no matter what you're doing. You can use it when you are completing a social media profile, a guest blogging bio, and more. It just means that you are considering the search engines (and your audience) in whatever you do, both on and off your website.

7. Not Finding Multiple Streams of Income

You don't want too many products, but on the other hand you don't want to deal with only one. You need to diversify your income stream by adding more than one product. The trick is ensuring that all products fit with your ideal audience.

8. Spending Too Much Time Creating Marketing Collateral

With most products, choose programs that create all the marketing material for you. The reason is that you should not be driving marketing strategy, the company should. If they can't take the time to create marketing materials for you, it's probably not the product you want to promote.

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