I haven't had a whole lot to do with affiliate marketing over the years, I've only advertised a couple of affiliate products in that time. So I don't know much about the topic.
I'm interested to know what are the main pitfalls one should be aware of when it comes to affiliate marketing?
Are there any SEO implications from linking to affiliate products? What is Google's thoughts on the issue?
I know a lot of people use redirects it comes to linking to affiliate links, is this considered best practice?
Also where is the best place to find affiliate products to promote?
And what is the Australian affiliate product market like?
Are there any other questions that I should be asking before I start dabbling in affiliate marketing?
Biggest pitfall... hmm different for everyone, but I would say, a poor product that reflects badly on your own reputation. If you are recommending a product strongly, then becareful that the product is actually worth while. Otherwise you may lose the trust/respect of your crowd.
The other issue I find with most affiliate marketers is they just push the sell all the time. This to puts people off. The most effective scenario is to offer good value and respect with every piece of your communication. Anything from what is on your websites, to your emails, newsletters etc.
It may all seem common sense, but I find alot of people miss it completely.
From my experience, google prefers fresh and consistent relevance. If you have a domain with a single page, that never gets updated or further developed, then it won't think much of you at all. Especially if it gets a high bounce rate from searchers.
Sometimes people don't directly link to product sites they are promoting for several reasons. Sometimes people cut the URL out and go directly there, thus possible commission is linked. The most common reason is for tracking. This really depends on how advanced the marketer is. Some will track their email subscriber, some will track subscriber and the actually on page link (So even though they have 3 links to the same site, the placement and the incentive to click the link becomes important). Another reason, is they are split testing their pages. So they will have different redirect links signalling the click through rate of each page.
I have not dealt with any Australian affiliate programs. I have only dealt with international programs such as clickbank and commission junction or directly with provider. eg Amazon. So far all my programs are running through clickbank.
If there was a key or a secret then one of the them would have to be to control your own crowd. That is, don't work hard to get traffic and then on push them to a product site, but instead, learn to acquire contact details and establish a rapport. That way a relationship can develop and you can leverage that relationship multiple times.
The other big one, if you are serious, would be to test and measure everything. Test headlines, test malouts, test colours, test link positions, words, layouts etc.. Just test, measure, adjust, repeat.
Like anything, there is group that won't make any money, some that will make a little, some that can make a living and a minority that makes a fortune.