I was in the market for a digital camcorder last year. Now, I have a pretty decent understanding of technology in general —but as far as camcorders go, I don’t know that much.

I have a few friends however, that had purchased camcorders several months prior to me, and so I asked each of them about their experiences. It turns out they had both done some research prior to making their purchases, then of course, after buying the camcorders they had used them. This gave them firsthand knowledge of the two different products.

Each friend was able to give me some excellent recommendations about camcorders in general and more importantly about the specific models that they had purchased. Both friends liked their respective camcorders and each was able to give me several pros and cons about them.

I walked away with a mental list of the good and bad features of each camcorder…

When I went into my local electronics store, I had pretty good understanding of the available features and which of those features I wanted in my camera.

I wound up buying the same camcorder as one of my friends. While each friend gave overall positive reviews of their camcorder and while I trust both friends – I weighed their recommendations against what I was looking for and made an educated decision based on what both friends told me. Had I been looking for a different set of features, I may have purchased the other camcorder – but the one I chose was the closest match to what I was looking for…

You see, both of my friends were Authorities on their specific camcorder model. Each friend gave me their honest opinions about their respective camcorder —essentially warming me up to what each camcorder offered.

When I went into the electronics store, I knew what I wanted and was ready to buy – Listening to the salesman was really just a formality – I couldn’t wait to get my new camcorder home…

So what does all this have to do with affiliate marketing? —Everything!
In the affiliate marketing world, my two friends could have been two separate Authority Websites – each one was trustworthy, had first hand experience with the product they were promoting and each gave me good honest reviews (what I call “warts and all” reviews) about those products…

Other things I’d expect from an authority site:

If I had follow up questions about the camcorders, I’d be able to contact the website owner to get more specific answers…

I’d also expect to see both of these sites linking out to other good sites within their niche. They may even be linking to each other. Why? Because each website would have their visitors best interests in mind. They would know that while they may be AN authority in their particular niche, there would also be other good sources of information—even though they may be direct competitors (no one site can be all things to all people!).

I would also NOT expect to see banner ads promoting, toothpaste or shoelaces or other odd products. I’d expect that all advertising on the site would probably be pretty closely related to camcorders…

I would probably have both of these websites bookmarked and would probably recommended those sites to other friends, if they were in the market for a new camcorder.

So you see a successful affiliate marketer knows that credibility is everything – They understand that their website needs to reflect their commitment to their visitors. Those visitors in turn are happy to listen to what they have to say and will also happily let others know about them. That’s the power of The Authority Site!

NEW: See my companion video “What is an authority site?”

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Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

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