Chances are that if you are on my website you are looking for ways to earn money online. I’m sure by now you have heard the term affiliate marketing right?
You might have heard people saying it is a scam, dishonest, unethical or not worthwhile. Or perhaps you are interested in it, but it seems too complicated to set up an affiliate marketing company?
Let me guide you through what affiliate marketing means and what it entails.
Table of Contents
What is Affiliate Marketing
A very simple explanation of affiliate marketing is marketing a company’s products or services and earning commission on sales, leads or clicks that you generate for them.
So now you know what it is how do you earn money through being an affiliate marketer, what exactly do you need to do?
I’m going to set this out in point form because that is how I understand things best!
Choose a Niche for your Online Business
Think about what you are passionate about and can write about.This can be anything you like. The wonderful thing about affiliate marketing is that there is a market for anything and everything. As long as you can write about it, you can make money.
I will give you some personal examples here from some of my websites.
I am a mom of 2 young children so I am obviously passionate about being a mom right? Click here to see my pareting website where I write articles on babies and toddlers.
I am also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I am passionate about helping other people get clean too, so I write blogs on my experiences of being an addict in recovery and during the time I was using. Click here to see my website on recovery from addiction.
For more in-depth information on choosing a niche view this training.
Set Up your very own Website
This is not as hard as it sounds! Yes you will need to learn a lot in the beginning but the rewards will be great. If you don’t believe me just keep reading…
You can set up a free website here. You will be taken through the steps exactly how to set up your website and it will just take a few minutes to do.
Before you can make any money you need traffic. Think of it like any other shop. Before you can sell anything to anyone you need people to come inside. You won’t make any money without traffic.
To get traffic to your website you need quality content. Your website and all of your content should be high quality.
You want to solve a problem your audience has. They are looking for answers and information and you provide this to them. You must give them value when they come to your website. I will explain this a little more in the next point.
Learn how to get traffic to your website.
Monetize Your Website
Once you have traffic on your website you can then start to monetize your website. I’m sure you want to know exactly how to do this right?
I just spoke about providing value you to your audience so I will use an example from my baby website. A lot moms breastfeed their babies and a lot of these moms struggle with low milk supply and what to know to increase their breast milk production.
So I wrote a blog on how to increase your breast milk supply, with valuable tips for these moms. At the end of this article I added some really great books with more information. Do you see where I am going with this?
Click here to see this article.
In case you are not following, those books at the bottom of that article are Amazon products. I signed up to be an Amazon Affiliate. If anyone reads my article and buys anything from Amazon (yes not just those books, anything at all) I will be paid commission on that sale.
Amazon is not the only place to sign up as an affiliate marketer, there are hundreds of thousands of websites you can sign up with as an affiliate marketer.
But with Amazon alone I can market so many products related to the baby and toddler niche. Just on the breast feeding topics alone I can do breast pumps, breast pads, nipple cream, milk freezer bags, books on breast feeding…
Not only can I make money on all these products but I don’t have to deal with any stock, orders, shipping or customers. Once I have enough traffic all I do is research and write!
Do I need a Website to be an Affiliate Marketer?
I would certainly recommend that you start affiliate marketing website if you want to start affiliate marketing. If you start affiliate marketing without a website you will find it so much harder. How will you drive potential customers to your affiliate links?
If you are thinking of spamming links all over other people’s websites, well that is just not nice! I certainly don’t enjoy logging into my websites every day and finding spam filled comments!
If you are thinking of sending out your affiliate links via social networks, that is not a great option either. For starters a lot of social networks don’t like direct affiliate links being posted, plus you will need a good audience there too to make some money.
You may as well build your audience on your website.
If you want to send out your affiliate links via email I would also advise against this. You will still need to build up your list and then send out spammy emails which nobody likes, opens or reads.
If you set your website up you can add email marketing (and I highly suggest you do this) and your website will build your list for you. Everything can be done automatically with a lot less work.
Learn the Affiliate Marketing Basics
If you want to start affiliate marketing I really suggest you get some great training done. I have just given the barest outline of how everything works, there is obviously a lot more detail that you will need to learn before you start.
The great thing is you can learn exactly how to do this, and for free! Click here to join the best affiliate marketing training platform you will ever find!
Certainly not. This is a great way to make money online, it certainly beats all the other “online opportunities” out there. Aren’t you tired of all the scams and time wasting websites out there? I can tell you now that I certainly am!
This is the best way to make honest money online.
Is Affiliate Marketing Easy?
Yes and no!
Once you understand the process it can be an easy way to make money, yes. BUT you will need to learn how to do affiliate marketing properly. You will need to dedicate time and work hard on your website. It will take some time to set up and it will take time to start generating an income.
If you look at it like any other business you might want to start and compare it. Let’s take a retail store for example. You will need to make a huge financial investment to launch this.
Here are some basic costs you will be looking at:
- Cost of premises (renting or buying)
- Cost of setting up the premises (shelving, tills, storage space, packaging)
- Staff is a huge monthly expense, never mind the headaches of having to deal with employees!
- Cost of stock
- Insurance costs
- Security expenses
- Marketing costs (yes you will probably need a website too anyway!)
I have probably not even covered half the expenses and how long will it take you to generate a return on a new business? 6 months? Not likely, probably more like 2 or 3 years before you start breaking even.
Affiliate marketing will also take some time, but it will not cost you much money to start. In fact you can start right now for free! You will also most likely start generating an income much faster than launching another business.
Do I recommend Affiliate Marketing?
Hell yes, this is a great way to make money!
Do you want to continue working for a boss, for a low salary, most likely doing something you don’t really enjoy?
Or would you rather start a website focusing on something you are passionate about and start earning what you want to earn?
Work from anywhere you want and when you want to!
If you have any questions please contact me by leaving a comment. I wrote this just for you and I would love to hear from you.
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