Posted in Affiliate Marketing by Nick Smith on 24th of October, 2008

Successful affiliate marketing requires that you build a positive relationship with your website visitors and potential visitors. As it can take sometimes take several visits before a visitor is wiling to trust you and click on links or purchase products and services, the better the relationship you can build the more likely you are to improve this situation.

Being involved in social networking and social bookmarking sites allows you to communicate with potential visitors before they even reach your website. In affiliate marketing terms it lets you bookmark your most popular pages and have others do the same for you. The most important aspect of using social bookmarking and social networking in this way is the provision of appealing, high quality page content.

The social web is certainly alive and well with many more people getting involved in the bookmarking, tagging, and commenting process. The more popular social bookmarking sites enjoy millions of users, many of whom may be looking for the information and products that you offer. Even if you don't bookmark your own pages, you can still provide the tools for others to do so.

Good affiliate marketing requires that you do all you can to drive traffic and build a relationship as well as drive traffic to your affiliate marketing site. Adding bookmark and social media buttons allows your own visitors to help you towards your affiliate marketing goals. Interesting content with a genuine purpose will inevitably lead to new visitors that have come through the social media websites but it doesn't hurt to give them a friendly nudge in the right direction.

For more information, please see our affiliate marketing management section.