Choose the three or four of the ones that have the largest number of active members and join those blogs or forums. Be careful here. Posting to blogs and forums effectively is going to take several hours of your time every week so don’t choose too many. Once you have joined three or four blogs and forums do not go in with guns blazing posting blatant advertisements. The idea here is to build visibility and credibility. Introduce yourself and behave as though you had just moved into a new neighborhood. Your signature tag that appears at the bottom of each and every post that you make should have your name as well as a link to your website.
Take you time to get to know the other posters in the community and become a valued member of the group. You will be building a good reputation, visibility and credibility. It takes time to build your visibility and credibility. While you are building them, you will also be promoting and selling products and services and you want to establish a good relationship with those who buy products and services from you. Be sure that you provide good information, good service and a guarantee if one applies. Go to great lengths to never appear to be a cheapo or corner cutter to your customers. Always treat your customers like they are your most valuable asset…they ARE your most valuable asset.
Never discount products or services or offer rebates. You don’t want to build that kind of reputation or that kind of customer base. Instead of offering discounts or rebates take the time and put forth the effort to add bonus incentives to the products and services that you promote to give them added value. The winners of the affiliate wars are the men and women who go to the trouble and take the time to build excellent reputations as experts and as fair and honest merchants.
People buy things on the Internet from people that they feel like they know and can trust. People buy things on the Internet from affiliate marketers who have the reputation as an expert or a guru and one who actually cares about the people to whom he sells products and services to. A positive and hard working, fair–dealing reputation will help you win the daily battles and, ultimately the affiliate war.