Dating Affiliates - 10 Tips To Be Successful

I like to study people. In fact, when I’m out and about, people-watching is almost an obsessive hobby of mine. You can learn a lot by watching how people conduct their lives. If you look on my bookshelf at home you’ll notice more than an average number of biographies. Now if we apply this obsession to dating the logical conclusion is to pick apart the top dating affiliates and attempt to isolate consistencies. I do this all the time and what follows is second nature to me. It should be the easiest blog post I ever wrote. In saying all that, I hope you find it useful too and, perhaps, become one of the people I’m studying in the future!

1. Be an SEO Expert

The top dating affiliates are invariably good at search engine optimization. In fact, if you’re going to be any kind of webmaster slash online promoter, you had better be good at SEO. One of the best pieces of advice I can give you on SEO is one that I got from an interview with Matt Cutts. Do not try to dominate for hugely saturated markets. Stay clear of trying to rank #1 for dating or personals. Instead, choose a niche, make a well optimized site and, through white hate search engine optimization, attempt dominate that niche at some time in the future. Once you have that nice dominated, move on to another one. Rinse and repeat. The best dating affiliates are those clever seo experts who dominate niches . . . one after another.

2. Be A Traffic Expert

This is, of course, related to being an SEO expert. Here, though, I’m talking about knowing every single way to get dating traffic. Most top dating affiliates have, at one time or another, tried every method of getting dating traffic. And you would be surprised at how many traffic sources exist. I wont detail them all in this article. The important thing to know is that YOU as a dating affiliate must know THEM if you want to be a top dating affiliate. Some ways to get dating traffic include blogging, article marketing, seo, ppc and paid advertising, forums, joint ventures, traffic trading, classifieds (online and offline), pic posts, tgps/mgps/legal tubes. Keep reading Promote Dating if you want to learn every single traffic technique (Kristian, that was a shameless plug).

3. Understand The Dating Sites You Promote

It amazes me that most dating promoters have not actually signed up and used their promoted sites. Now I’m not suggesting you rock out with your cock out on Fling or Amateur Match but, hell, at least join up and check it out. The top dating affiliates know every inch of the sites they promote. Let’s face it, you should really know your product - inside and out - before attempting to sell it, right? This makes sense. If you know you the product, you know what features to promote, what aspects appeal to your target audience, and you become familiar with that target audience through interaction. A great new selling feature of Amateur Match is the fact that they have photo-verified members. This is a great selling point. Top dating affiliates know this and everything else about the sites they promote.

4. Understand Your Target Audience

Knowing the target audience might well be the most important trait of a successful dating affiliate. Know your audience and you know what buttons to push. The very best way to get to know them is to interact with them. If you run blogs, chat to them in comments, read what they have to say, take it in. Likewise, do the same if you own a surfer forum or any other kind of site that offers interactions. Think about this one, folks. It makes the most sense of all. If you don’t understand online daters, singles and swingers, how will you know what appeals to them, what features get them excited, what latest trends to capitalize on?

5. Foster Good Relationships With Sponsors

Who will help you more, a stranger on the street or an old friend? Top dating affiliates foster close relationships with their sponsors. I have contacts to every one of my sponsors on both my ICQ list and email address book. I know them all very well. Heck, I even get to see photos of their families, and get invited for drinks and to come to parties and shows. Do I do this just for selfish reasons? Not at all! Having friends online makes life far more rich and interesting. Working alone at one’s desk can be a lonely occupation. But the point is that making friends with your sponsors is just good business sense. If you have a problem or need help you can go to them. If you want to negotiate a better payout, similarly, you stand a better chance if you’re on friendlier terms. But don’t just take, take, take. Remember to give back too: offer feedback on sites, be a beta tester, bump threads, etc. A relationship is a two-way street. The top dating affiliate will develop real friendships with sponsors who come to value them more as an affiliate.

6. Move With Market Trends

The dating industry is evolving every second of the day. This means, for the top dating affiliate, opportunity exists in following trends. Let me give you an example: Millionaire dating or rich / wealthy person dating. No sooner had one site sprang up but, months down the line, we now have dozens of such sites. Just imagine how much easier it would have been to rank well in the beginning if you’d got in on the ground floor of the new market trend. Recognizing new trends and, most importantly, responding to them is a trait of all top dating affiliates. You get first shot of getting a winning domain name, first crack at ranking well in SERPs, and first try at selling to an interested public. Ignore market trends at your peril. You might rank wel for a search term now, but what happens when interest in your niche has dwindled? This leads me onto my next tip . . .

7. Have A Diversified Portfolio

Spreading risk works for stockbrokers; it works well too for webmasters. Having all your eggs in one basket is just too risky, folks. Now this analogy applies in varies ways to dating affiliates. Do not go promote just the one niche, do not have just one dating program, do not rely on just the one traffic-source. If you have one dating program that you promote with one site by using one traffic source then you only have to lose any one of those three elements and you are out of the game. Diversify. Spread your risk. Multiple dating sponsors, multiple, sites, multiple niches, multiple traffic sources (see tip 2).

8. Be An Ad Copy Expert

This is invariably overlooked by dating affiliates and yet without knowing how to write good copy we don’t know how to press the right buttons. Just think about this: Almost everything you do involves writing advertising copy. Hell, even what I’m doing now is ad copy for the search engines, intending to attract an audience. As I write I’m conscious of my keywords and their density and the need to make the content useful yet also concise enough not to bore. I’m writing ad copy. Doing pretty well too, I think. I could recommend a few books but I have honestly never read books on ad copy. What I did, a long time ago, was read dozens of free online resources on the subject. As a future top dating affiliate, you should do the same.

9. Be In It For The Long Haul

The same question gets asked time and time again on forum: which program will make me the most money?  The answer: revshare.  If you want quick money, promote the hell out of free email signups.  That’s quick, easy money.  If you wan BIG money, promote percentage programs.  To promote percentage you need to be in it for the long haul.  I’m talking years.  It can take several months of heavy promotion before you start to see big number with revshare but it’s definitely worth it because you wont make bigger money with any other program, guaranteed.

10.  Learn From Other Dating Affiliates

I saved this one for last because it neatly wraps up our top ten list.  I cannot express passionately enough just how much more money I have earned by learning from other dating affiliates and people who work in the dating industry.  Small tips, big tips . . . they all add up.  You just never know when someone will drop a technique on you that will literally add thousands to your pocket each month (which, incidentally, I do that here on Promote Dating all the time).  Make friends, network, and always be humble enough to listen and learn.

So, what do you think.  You like that top ten list?  I wish I could have written it a little more concisely.  Other than that, I said what I wanted to say.  I hope you find it useful and it makes your pockets that bit heavier.  All the best!