One of the amazing thing about affiliate marketing is, it’s easier to get approved by affiliate programs than AdSense.

Most of the affiliate programs/networks approve application instantly. But this is not the same for all affiliate programs/networks. Some of them are picky.

Affiliate managers receive hundreds of applications daily. Some of those applications are from spammers. To keep the quality of their affiliate programs, sometimes they check the details of the applicants.

If you have a heard time to get approved by affiliate programs/networks, read on. In this post, I will be sharing a list of things you need to do to get your affiliate application approved.

1. Get a Top Level Domain & Make Your Site Live

The first and most important thing that affiliate managers look at is your website. You need to have a top level domain name (like RoadToBlogging.com).

Subdomains like Blogspot.com, WordPress.com are good for personal blog. But if you want to make money from your blog, these are not the best choice. If you haven’t registered your own domain name yet, go get one from Namecheap.com.

Read: How to Start a Self-hosted WordPress Blog

Then you have to make sure that your site is active and live. Affiliate managers don’t have a lot of time to check your site frequently. So make sure they find your site live.

2. Quality Design & Quality Content 

When an affiliate manager visits your site, the first thing that s/he looks at is your site design. You have to impress him/her with your site design. In this case, first impression is the last impression. Here are few things you can do to make your site looks awesome.

• Use a Premium WordPress theme. Here at RoadToBlogging, I am using ThriveThemes.
• Declutter your sidebar. Don’t use too many Ads or widgets on the sidebar.
• Keep the links to important pages like Affiliate Disclosure, Privacy Policy, About, Contact, etc on the footer.

The next thing that an affiliate manager looks at is your site content. Content is the lifeblood of a blog. It represents the quality of your blog. Here are few things you can do to impress affiliate manager with your content.

• Show blog posts on the homepage.
• Republish old blog posts which are related to the affiliate program that you’ve applied for.
• Republish old popular posts.

3. Apply for Relevant Affiliate Programs

The topic of your blog has to be related to the affiliate program/service. There is no point in registering for an SEO affiliate program when you are running a food blog. Most of your clients will not be interested in the offer no matter how well you promote it. And affiliate manager won’t approve you.

You can do following things to find relevant affiliate programs of your blog.

• Join affiliate networks like ShareASale, CJ, ClickBank etc. These are the hub of different types of affiliate programs.
• Do a Google search. If you are running a health blog, search for the term “Health-related affiliate programs”.
• Find what other bloggers are promoting on your niche.
• Check if any bloggers in your niche are publishing income reports. If you found any, check the sources.

Check: Top 10 High Paying WordPress Theme Affiliate Programs

4.  Take a Look at Terms of Use

Normally we don’t read “Terms of Use”. We agree with the terms of use anyway. But it’s a good idea to take a look at terms of use.

A lot of affiliate programs don’t allow PPC promotion, coupon code promotion etc. If you are running a coupon code site, there is no reason to join an affiliate program that doesn’t allow coupon site.

So I’d recommend you to check the terms of use. At least, the bold lines of terms of use.

5. Don’t Provide Fake Information

Some affiliate programs may not be available in your country. Don’t join those programs by faking your country. What if they ban you once you get some commissions.

In fact, you should not provide any fake information like your name, identity etc. If you cannot register with who you are, how can they trust you with their marketing. So you have to provide original information.

Original information will also help you to connect with affiliate managers easily.

Read: 10+ Affiliate Networks & Programs That Pay Through Payoneer

6. Use Domain Email Address

Sometimes affiliate managers have hard times to figure out real owner of a site/blog.

You can make it easier for affiliate managers by providing your domain email address (like istiak@roadtoblogging.com). When you use your domain email address, it proves that you are the owner of the site/blog.

Read: How to Create a Free Email Account With Own Domain Name

And never use special email for every new affiliate program (like hostgatoraff@gmail.com). Any email that contains the name of the affiliate program in it, automatically ends up in a low-quality zone. If someone creates a special email to sign up for an affiliate program, it also indicates that they are trying to hide something. It means you can’t be a trustworthy partner.

7. Don’t Social URL as Your Website

Almost every affiliate programs ask you to enter your website URL.

Don’t use your social URLs as your website unless you are using social networking sites for business and you have tens of thousands of followers that match the merchant’s target market. If you have very few followers, it is very tough for affiliate managers to figure out your promotional strategy.

So it’s better to use your website URL rather than social URL.

8. Explain How You Will Promote the Products/Services Properly

Every affiliate application contains a field named “How will you promote us?”.

This is the place where you definitely want to impress the affiliate manager. Just explain how you will promote products/services properly. But don’t make it an essay, just make it precise.

9. Make Your Application Grammatical & Spelling Errors Free

If you are going to promote a product/service internationally, you need to have a good command of English.

So when you are going to apply for an international affiliate program, make sure your affiliate application is grammatical and spelling errors free.

You can use Grammarly to check grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes.

10. Traffic Souces

Traffic source is also important. Affiliate managers may check the origins of traffic to an affiliate website. There are several tools that provide the traffic sources of a site.

So don’t use any traffic generation sites to make your site looks popular. It’s better to show who you are. Affiliate managers don’t hesitate to approve new sites.

11. Don’t Join an Affiliate Program to Use Your Own Affiliate Link

Never register for the affiliate program if you want to buy a good or a service yourself. The vast majority of affiliate programs will ban you right away and some will even terminate your account immediately.

So even if you had a good intention to promote a product or a service at a later stage, you will not get a chance to do so because of this one original action.

If you are looking for a bargain, it is a much better idea to just send an email to a sales representative. They will be happy to provide you with a discount instead.

12. Be Patient

Affiliate managers usually have to go through dozens, if not hundreds of applications every day, so it does take some time. And there is nothing worse than receiving several follow up emails within the first day.

Affiliate managers understand your excitement and eagerness to get started. But answering a ton of emails about the application status just distract them from checking the applications.

So be patient with the reply.

Read: A Step-by-Step Guide to Monetizing Your Blog With Affiliate Marketing

Over to You

I hope this post will help you to get approved by affiliate programs and networks.

Now I’d like to hear from you.

What is the biggest struggle you face while applying for affiliates? And what is the common reason of denying by affiliates?

Let us know via comment. We will try to help you out.

[thrive_text_block color=”note” headline=””]I’d like to give a big thank to Victoria Galperina, Head of Affiliate Marketing at SEMrush. She helped me a lot to compile this list. Actually, most of the tips of this post are provided by her. SEMrush has an affiliate program named BeRush. If you happen to be in internet marketing or SEO niche, you can join BeRush. [/thrive_text_block]