As an affiliate, your main objective is to sell the products and services offered by your partner merchants. Unless you can do this, you can never hope to make a significant amount of money with affiliate marketing programs. All things being equal, you will need to increase your site traffic before you can experience more sales. By the law of averages, the more people are aware of the products you are offering, the more products you will sell.  

Here are a few tips that can help you boost your site traffic: 

1.     Optimize for the search engines. The most successful sites on the internet are the most visible ones. Now there are various ways to achieve increased visibility on the internet, but the foremost method is that of search engine optimization. The details are too technical to discuss here, but the purpose of search engine optimization (SEO) is to help your site achieve higher rankings on the search engines. If you have used a search engine, you will notice that any particular keyword search will return thousands, if not millions of results. Most people will not bother to browse through all those results; they will prefer to look into the sites already displayed. Statistically speaking, the sites listed on the first results page will garner the highest amount of traffic, putting those sites in a better position to make money.  

2.     Joining internet directories. While internet directories are no longer as widely used as search engines, some people do use them. It is important that you do not overlook the potential customers that these directories can bring to your site. To join an internet directory, you will have to submit your site for approval, and you will be categorized accordingly.  

3.     Provide fresh content. Your site must continually be updated if you expect your visitors to keep coming back. Your site must have useful content, as well as tools that will help your target audience. Make your site as easy to navigate as possible, and be sure that your links work the way that they should. There is nothing that frustrates people more than a “broken” website, and once your site has been labelled as such, chances are slim that many people will want to come back.  

4.     Build an online community. In other words, build relationships with your potential customers. Make your visitors feel welcome and appreciated, and they are likely to come back. Be interested in solving their problems and they will thank you with their business.