Interview With Raheel

“All I had was a computer, family to take care of and bills to pay.”

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you entered into the affiliate marketing world?

Well you might have seen the name AquaMarine on the stats page. Yup, that is me.

 

It was a friend who introduced me to affiliate marketing back in the day when Yahoo Answer used to be a big thing. One day I was in the office and a guy next to me was answering some weight loss related question and leaving his website link in the reference. I asked him what he was doing. He said “I am leaving my website so people can click on the link and buy the product”. I was so confused but he was really kind and explained to me how it all works.

 

It’s been 8 years since then. ClickBank was my first network. Then I got into the health market and made some really good money, but they started shaving so I decided to look for other companies. Health products were my thing so I worked for mostly all health and beauty related companies.

How long have you been with HN?

Over 6 years now, it seems like ages.

How long did it take you to make your first affiliate sale and how many do you generate now?

It took me 40 days to make my first sale. I still remember getting that sms notification: “Congratulations! You just made a sale of 27.98 (USD) commission.” Trust me, I still have that saved in my phone!

 

For the last 3-4 months I have remained a Platinum member with 500+ sales a month. I pushed really hard last month to try and reach one thousand sales but due to a shift in ranking (Google) I reached about 800, which I guess is a big achievement for me.

How do you know if a product is good enough for you to promote it?

Well, to be honest, I only promote a couple of products here at HN. Not because I don’t like them or they are bad but I guess it gets very complicated and hard to manage them all at once. I pick one and stick to it until I rank my website in the top 3 for its keywords on Google. If someone tells you this is not a good product to sell they just don’t know how to sell it. A good salesman can sell ice to eskimos.

How many hours per day, on average, do you work on your affiliate campaigns?

Well I am always working, even in my sleep I’m thinking of ways to promote my websites.

Can you share with us a few useful tools which help you to successfully run your affiliate websites and campaigns?

The only useful tool you need is your brain and your computer, of course. Think outside the box. Be different. When comes to SEO, focus on quality rather than quantity. One relevant backlink is better than a thousand spammy backlinks. You read this everywhere but hardly any people follow this. Diversify your anchor text profile, your backlink platforms, even your writing style, and your taglines.

New affiliate marketers find it hard to build a good amount of traffic to their websites. What advice do you have to help them bring targeted traffic to their websites?

First of all, don’t give up in the middle. I know how frustrating it can be not generating any sales. I have been there but don’t quit – trust me. I come from nothing. I had nothing – all I had was a computer, family to take care of and bills to pay.

 

Highly targeted traffic comes from Branded keywords. For example “PhenGold” people who search for PhenGold already want to buy PhenGold so no matter how your website looks, they will still buy it. All you gotta do is rank your website and push it to the TOP, even above the merchant website. That’s it. I know it’s easy to say but trust me, if you know what you are doing you can beat any website on Google. All it takes it hard work.

 

However, it’s always important to target generic as well as branded keywords. Also have a mixture of non-branded and branded domains as you don’t want to put all eggs in one basket as there is always a risk that a brand might change or be discontinued which would be the end of your income. By targeting both keyword and domain types you can generate more traffic, make even more sales and secure long term income.

 

Or, if you are a social media marketer you can find people who would be interested in your product. Let’s take the example of PhenGold. Find a personal trainer with a good following on Instagram and ask if he/she wants to sell a shoutout or a status update. People who follow these gym junkies are already looking to get a slim and sexy physique. I have made 3-5 sales a day promoting the 3 Week Diet Plan by using this method.

The HN team are cake lovers. What is your favourite cake?

Chocolate fudge cake is my favourite.
Most importantly, I am really glad I found HN. It has been very lucky for me. I wouldn’t have made it this far without the support and guidance of the affiliate managers. I owe this to you guys. Long live HN!

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