* Many affiliate marketers make a huge mistake of posting their ads on forums. Forums can be used to promote your affiliate programs and your website but in a proper manner. Posting banners is very similar to spamming and may easily upset forum administrators.

* Always do your research before promoting your affiliate program to a potential customer. Do not offer affiliate programs to visitors who are not at all interested in the products associated with the program. This is a futile endeavour.

* If you promote affiliate programs offered by other merchants, ensure that you develop your own advertising copy. Many websites commit a common mistake of using the same advertising copy as used by the merchant themselves.

* Avoid Copyright infringement in all cases. Always use original content or ask permission to use graphic images or text found on other websites.

* Do not submit your programs to free websites. These may be free but your programs would hardly ever be noticed, especially by Search Engines. Moreover, your own ranking would get lowered if you submit your affiliate programs to such websites.

* Avoid using caps on your web page or email ad. Using caps is symbolic to shouting, which never goes well with potential customers. A few words may be written in capital text to give them additional emphasis. However, such practice should be limited.

* Always respond to all queries sent by visitors as soon as possible. A slight delay in your response could easily result in loss of a potential client.

* Do not use pop-up ads along with your webpage. Most surfers are likely to close their browser if they come across pop-ups.

* Do not host your website on a free server or use free email accounts. This gives a negative impression to visitors. Using free hosts and email accounts looks cheesy and loses sales.

* Many websites do not have an opt-in list. Create an opt-in and opt-out list for your visitors. Without these, there is no way of tracking potential customers. Visitors should be allowed to opt-in at any time as well as opt-out at any time.

* Most sites have a poor tracking mechanism. It is essential that you track all business activities. Accurate record keeping is crucial. There are many software tools, discussed earlier in this chapter, than can automate your record keeping process with minimal error.

* A 'mall' site is best used as a central hub to send visitors to your other domains. As a main or only site, unfocused mall sites don't get traffic from the engines, and they don't convert well to sales. Highly focused theme sites attract traffic and sales.

* Offline advertising may not be effective. A lot of money and effort should not be wasted on offline advertising. Most people rarely check websites that are advertised in local magazines or newspapers.

* Avoid focus on animated banner ads. These simply use up bandwidth, thus making web pages load slower.

* While advertising do not degrade other competitors. It is recommended that you highlight your products' uniqueness and superiority but never mortify other products.

* Banners or text links that expire are guaranteed to eventually send your visitor to a broken link or show a broken graphic on your page. Time sensitive advertising is best used only in email advertising campaigns.

* Never put affiliate links on your homepage. This is similar to asking your visitors to leave immediately. Give them a chance to browse, sign up for your newsletter and decide that they'd like to come back to your place before introducing them to your affiliates.

* Technology changes with amazing speed. To keep up with this rapidly evolving industry, you must invest time and money in research. The investment is a tax write-off, and will pay you back many times over in additional revenue.

Hopefully this list has proven helpful to you and has shown you some red flags to avoid when it comes time to promote your own affiliate site.
About the Author

Clive Harman is a professional trainer with 38 years experience and has just published a no-holds-barred, tell-all, never-revealed before training programme that will lead you Step-by-Step through the mine field of Internet Marketing but - Hurry there's only 250 openings! Plus save $100 on this training course! http://www.cliveharman.com/t/im.html

Recently, an interesting email came across my desk. I'll paste it below.  Take a few seconds and read it, and see what you think. It's very interesting... Dear friend, As you may know, I have a very deep passion for Affiliate Marketing. In fact, this website is a true labor of love for me. As publisher, one my many duties is to review the many books, programs, ebooks, and courses about Affiliate Marketing that are on the market today. I’ll be honest with you. Most of them are garbage. (Although I do strongly recommend the programs in the “Must Have” box to the left). But, let me tell you, when I came upon the following headline, I new I found a winner… "Earning Extra Income With Affiliate Marketing – Having Your Cake and Eating it Too!” Now, the reason I knew it was a winner was because of the name behind the headline. James Martell. Many consider James to be one of the true geniuses in our field. I have a lot of respect for him, and I urge you to drop what you are doing right now and click the link below. I’m going to leave this note up for a few days, but will probably take it down soon, so if you are interested in saving a few bucks, go here now. Talk to you soon! -Bob PS. Here's the link: (please continue)