What is affiliate marketing? This is a very common question and the answer is quite simple: affiliate marketing is a way for you to earn commission by promoting, and recommending products or services to your readers.
And once it is appropriately set up, it can generate you money even when you are sleeping. How cool is that? This is called passive income.
Now that you know what it is and what it can do for you, let’s see how to get started with affiliate marketing step by step. I will be covering what topic you can choose, which products you can and you should promote, and how exactly to do that.
Find What You Like
The evolution of the internet and technology itself created so many opportunities for an online business that almost anybody with computer and internet connection can start earning money.
The most important factor for starting, or the first step in affiliate marketing, is finding a topic that you can talk about. A lot. Something that you are passionate about and you could talk, write and read about every day. That will be your niche.
This is important because compelling content is what attracts your audience and gives you an excellent kick to promote desired products.
So, what is your niche, your passion? It doesn’t have to be overly broad, like beverage reviews. In fact, a narrow, sharp focus will help your site appear higher in the search engines and stand out in social media. So, start by writing down topics that interest you.
Next, you need to find products which you can promote. Try and write 20 to 30 products in your niche that you can think of. We will get into details a bit later.
Now, you need to find companies, affiliate partners, that will pay you to promote their products through your content. Most common ones are Amazon and eBay, but there are vast networks of large affiliate marketplaces that list partners in many categories.
Some of the affiliate marketplaces are:
- ShareASale
- ClickBank
- CJ Affiliate
What Should I Promote?
The best part is: you can promote any product that you can buy online. Most likely there will be an affiliate program for that product.
However, just because you can promote anything, doesn’t mean you should promote it. Why? Well, you are doing affiliate marketing in order to promote a product, correct? And you would want people to buy it.
So, that product has to be of some relevance to your audience. Ask yourself these questions to narrow down which product will be the best for your readers:
- Would I use this product?
- Will people that read it and decide to buy it benefits from using this product?
- Is the buying process easy?
- Is the affiliate commission rate good? (not always a key factor but you don’t want to work for few cent, correct?)
If you answer these questions with “Yes” than it is most likely a good product worth promoting.
Place Where Magic Happens
Now that you decide what will be the core of your business and where you can get products to promote from, you need a place to promote them: You need a website!
Don’t worry, it is easier than you think, don’t bail on me now! This is probably the easiest step. SAY WHAT!? Yup, you read it correctly. Making a website has never been easier, and I will show you in a quick few steps why and how can you make it.
Before we jump into building a website, you must wonder what the price of owning a website is. Would you believe me if I say to you it is free? No? Well then keep reading and prepare to be amazed!
There is an absolutely AWESOME platform (which I am also using) that I love. Actually, this very own website was built on that platform! It is call SiteRubix. Feel free to test it! Just don’t forget to come back and read to the rest of this guide to find out what else you need to start with affiliate marketing.
After you choose a name for your website and your business, you can then customize it choosing from over 4000 different FREE themes. At least one of them will be suitable for you. And you can even customize it according to your wishes: colors, fonts, pictures… Trust me, you won’t be bored.
Promote It
So you get your very own website (for free, yey!). You know what will you promote, and you have the place to promote it. Now it is time to understand how will you promote it!
Remember when you wrote down those 20 to 30 products? This is when you will go to the affiliate company that you choose (remember, Amazon, eBay?) and search for that specific product.
Let’s say you want to do a review of Air Jordan shoes. You now go to your affiliate company. In this case, I am looking on Amazon. just type “Air Jordan” into search field and results will come
Over 7000 search results, great! No pick ones that YOU would wear. That way, you will promote the product that you like, and you will promote them with passion.
I like blue ones, so I choose them. Now I want to see what other people who have already bought them says about that particular product. Because let’s face it, if there are a lot of bad reviews on the product, no matter how good your review is, people will get turned off once they decide to buy it. Plus, your credibility will fall in your reader’s eyes.
Ok, so buyers reviews. Click on the link for the blue Air Jordan shoes and scroll down to Product description.
14 customer reviews, all five starts. That is what you want! It means buyers are satisfied with the product and you can be sure you are offering a quality product.
Now go back to where you search for Air Jordan shoes and on the right side of the product, there is a “Get link” button. Click on it, and it will lead you on the next page.
Now simply copy the link from bellow and put it in the picture of your well-written review of Air Jordan shoes and each time a person clicks on that link and buys it, you will get a commission.
Once the affiliate link is clicked, a small file called a cookie is stored in viewer computer. The merchant will see that you referred them with that cookie.
The important thing to say is that the buyer doesn’t pay anything extra. It is all already calculated in the original price.
And that’s it! That’s all there is to it! You can repeat these steps as much as you like.
Conclusion
I hope you can see how many advantages affiliate marketing have compared to other types of businesses:
- You don’t need to create a product. Creating a product can be too complicated and too expensive for most people. Affiliate marketing gives you already made products. All you have to do is promote it.
- It is one of the best choices if you want to work from home. You work whenever you want and wherever you are. Everything depends on your needs, will, and whishes.
- There is no limitation on revenues that you can earn.
- You don’t have to worry about technical stuff like customer support or how to ship the product. You are just the promoter.
- You can work your full-time job or part-time job and still do affiliate marketing.
- You don’t need a team of specialist or any significant investments to start your business.
And to wrap it up here are all the steps you need to do to succeed in your affiliate marketing:
- Pick a niche
- Find products to promote
- Create a website
- Sign up for Affiliate program
- Research your product before you decide to promote it
- Write a quality review
- Repeat with next product
I hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, share it with your friends on social media.
Do you know what you want to promote? Did you find your niche? Are you promoting already? Please share your thoughts down below in the comment section.
And if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to message me at dalibor@scamdebunk.com.
Have a beautiful day, and I wish you all the best in your journey!
Dalibor.
