Affiliate Marketing (A Complete Guide To Make Money)
Most people don’t know that the thing about affiliate marketing is, you need to start before you can make money.
You need a proven-and-tested blueprint to get you from “What the heck is affiliate marketing?” to “I’ve nailed this and I’m making enough to sail my way smoothly through the rest of my life”
If you want this blueprint, we’ve got you.
In this blog, we’ve outlined a detailed guide on Affiliate Marketing for beginners.
We’ll show you what affiliate marketing is, why it’s so promising, and exactly how to get started (Step by Step).
This post may contain affiliate links which means we may receive a commission from purchases made through links. We only recommend products we rank as well rated and we can personally used: Learn more on our Private Policy page
Ready To Learn?
Let’s go straight into it.
What Is Affiliate Marketing? (Definition and Example)
We know the term “affiliate marketing” might sound big and scary.
Maybe you know nothing about marketing.
The very thought of selling stuff is enough to drive anyone screaming to their room, where they pull the covers over their heads like a horror movies.
Relax, it is easier than you think.
Affiliate marketing has nothing to do with cold calling random people and badgering them to buy the latest stuff they don’t need.
You don’t even have to be an extrovert to take part in this super lucrative business.
Because the truth is, affiliate marketing is simply about helping people to make good buying decisions.
It all starts with gaining an audience.
You can start a blog or become an social media influencer on any platform like Facebook or Instagram.
Once you have a strong following, you sign up for partnerships with good brands related to your expertise.
Like PhotoJobz- How to Sell Your Photos
Also created on Video Marketing Blaster (VMB)
You then promote these brands’ products and services to your followers, earning commissions each time you make a sale.
It is that easy!
Definition Of Affiliate Marketing
“Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. The third-party publishers are affiliates, and the commission fee incentivizes them to find ways to promote the company.”
Shopify also define affiliate marketing as:
“Affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic that lets a product owner increase sales by allowing others targeting the same audience—“affiliates”—to earn a commission by recommending the product to others. At the same time, it makes it possible for affiliates to earn money on product sales without creating products of their own.”
So, you get the idea of what it is by these two definitions outlined above.
Now let’s move into a detail example for you to understand crystal clear.
Let us suppose that you love books, so you start a blog reviewing your favorite novels, reference reading and nonfiction reads.
Like this reference book :
Affiliated Marketing For Beginners 2022
In time, you gain a strong following of people who share your passion and interest.
So, you sign up for a great book affiliate programs that offered reading items by bookstores.
In your blog, you promote their books to your followers…
…and when Your Followers buy an item from using your special links, you earn commissions for each sale.
Awesome, right?
But will it work?
Can you really earn a decent income from affiliate marketing?
Also, how much of an upfront investment do you need to make? (If you’re already drowning in debt, you might not be in the position to invest in any kind of business.)
These questions lead us to…
Affiliate Marketing for beginners: Is It Worth It? (+How Much You Can Earn)
The truth is, we would like to jump right in and tell you that YES, YES, YES affiliate marketing IS WORTH IT.
But you really shouldn’t just take our word for it.
So, let us look at some stats to show you how much you can potentially earn as an affiliate marketer.
According to Glassdoor, the average affiliate marketer makes $78,544 a year, with $48, 000 on the low end and $130,000 on the high end. (Imagine: even if you earn $48,000 a year, that’s enough to cover some of your debt.)
So yes, we say for sure that:
AFFILIATE MARKETING IS WORTH IT.
Which brings us to our next question.
How much do you need to invest to get started?
As a (probably broke) beginner, can you afford it?
Surprise, Surprise.
You don’t need to bury yourself in debt to start a lucrative affiliate marketing side hack.
In fact, you can get the ball rolling for just under $50.
(Yup, simply borrow the $50 you need for a low cost hosting plan like Bluehost hosting. Take it from your parents or spouse, and you’re all set!)
So, in case you haven’t been able to digest all this because sure, it sounds too good to be true…
…let us say it again.
You can start an affiliate marketing business for only $50.
And this can lead to you earning, in the best scenario, up to $100k plus a year.
Now, let’s get down to the step-by-step on how to do it.
Affiliate Marketing for beginners: The Foolproof #-Step Guide
Note to self, we did say that getting started in an affiliate marketing program won’t cost you a ton of money.
But that being said, it’s also not a get-rich-quick hack.
You won’t go to sleep one night, and wake up the next morning with thousands of dollars in your bank account.
Yup.
You need time plus you need to work hard.
And…
…you need to do things the right way, step-by-step.
This is exactly what we’ll cover in this next section.
So, let’s go!!
Affiliate Marketing for beginners (Step #1: Select Your Niche )
Are you excited to begin your affiliate marketing journey?
If yes, you’re probably ready to sign up for ALL the best affiliate programs out there.
I mean, the more the better, right?
(For reference you can read our blog on How Many Affiliate Program Should You Run)
Not so fast.
Remember, affiliate marketing is about building trust.
So, first of all you need to pick a niche and set yourself up as an expert in that subject area.
Let’s look at an example.
Here’s Mike Vestil, a well-known and successful affiliate marketer.
Notice something about his blog, though.
It’s not some random platform promoting a bunch of unrelated, random affiliate links.
Instead, it’s a valuable, trustworthy, entertaining blog on all things related to travel.
That’s Mike’s niche, and the products and services he promotes are all related to travel. (Think travel insurance, hotels, flights, and so on.)
So, before you start promoting affiliate products…
…you need to set yourself up as a well-known name in your industry.
And before you do this, you’ll naturally need to pick an industry (or niche).
So, how do you select a niche?
Here are three guidelines to help you:
Pick a niche related to something you love. Are you a bookworm? A health enthusiast? A dog lover? Pick a niche you can talk about from your heart, and you’ll never run out of things to say.
Find out whether the niche is profitable. Although you may love star-shaped tomatoes and dying cats red, yellow and blue, there probably aren’t a lot of people who will relate to you. So, before you decide on a niche, make sure there are people who’ll follow you and eventually buy what you are promoting.
Perform keyword research to find low-competition, high search volume keywords. What people type on Google shows you what they’re interested in. This is why keyword research is a must when it comes to selecting a niche. (For a complete guide on how to do keyword research, read our blog How to Find Good Keywords for Affiliate Marketing (4 Simple Steps to Strategically Plan Your Way to Success. And don’t worry. You can subscribe to a reliable keyword research tool like KWFinder for only $29.90 a month.)
Fyi, you can also use a good SEO Checklist tool that can guide you with the detail steps and procedures SEO-Buddy which we highly recommend for beginners.
If you can tick YES to all the three points above, you have a good niche on your hands.
Affiliate Marketing for beginner (Step #2: Build Your Audience)
In order for you to make sales, you first need an audience of people who love and trust you.
I mean, why would anyone believe in the recommendations of a random, unknown blogger?
The question is, how can you build your own loyal following?
Here are three steps to take:
Start a blog. For the foreseeable future , blogging will remains the single best way to do affiliate marketing successfully. And if you’re a beginner, this is good news. That’s because starting your own blog won’t cost you the moon. In fact, you can start one with Bluehost for a meager $50.
Do Keyword Research. Take note of this: writing on obscure topics will get you ignored online. That’s why you first need to find out what your audience is interested in. Don’t worry, though. You aren’t required to conduct surveys or spend hours a day cold calling. That’s because you can sign up for a reliable keyword research tool like KWFinder for only $29.90 a month.
Create unique, mouthwatering content. Starting a blog isn’t enough. You also need to give people a reason to visit it. We have done Affiliate Videos to capture the attention of our visual audience (see example: How To restore Your 20/20 Vision). The best reason? Standout content. When you entertain, educate, and enlighten your audience with valuable content, they’ll be magnetized to you like a moth to a flame.
Note: you can also gain a following through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. But this can be much harder if you don’t have loads of followers and will take you a longer time to accomplish a good footing.
Affiliate Marketing for Beginners (Step #3: Join Affiliate Programs)
So, you already have a strong following?
Congratulations! you are ahead of the game.
It’s now time to sign up for your affiliate programs.
But remember: not all affiliate programs are created equal.
Here are three indicators that the program you’re picking is the right fit:
It’s something that will benefit your audience. Affiliate marketing isn’t all about making extra cash. It’s primarily about helping your audience and improving their lives. So, if you think a product or service won’t do your followers any good, cross it off your list immediately. It is always good the test the product and get some personal view on what you are selling.
It’s profitable to you. Sad fact: some affiliate programs will pay you peanuts in commission. Or have an extremely low conversion rate. And so on. So, before you join a program, check out its terms and conditions first.
It’s something you trust. Of course, you should never promote products and services you don’t believe in. Again, in a perfect world, we’d say never promote something you haven’t tried. But since the world is less than perfect…you can go for reading reviews and doing extra research on the programs you plan to promote.
To find some affiliate programs that match your niche, you can join affiliate networks like:
- ShareASale
- ClickBank
- Shopify
- Amazon
- Flex Offers
- Impact Radius
Or you can just research out to a company you love, find out if they have an affiliate program, and ask to sign up for it.
Affiliate Marketing for beginner (Step #4: Promote Your Links and Start Making Sales)
So, now you have a blog site and a strong following.
You’ve also found and signed up for some profitable affiliate programs.
The next step is to promote your affiliate links to your followers either in your blog post or from your video and other social media ads.
Remember, however, that affiliate marketing shouldn’t be about randomly copying and pasting your links to your website.
To succeed, you must promote these links naturally.
You can write reviews, product comparisons, or even a resource page listing all your favorite products and services.
For a great example on Resource Page check out what the guys at Smartblogger.com are doing on their site.
Affiliate Marketing for beginner: The Single Best Way to Make Passive
Being a beginner doesn’t have to mean being broke.
That’s because there are tons of ways you can make a nice, fat side income hack.
One of the best ways is through Affiliate Marketing.
Yup!
With a $50 investment and a little time and hard work set aside, you could be earning $30,000, $70,000 or even $100,000 a year in affiliate commissions.
So, stop the procrastination and go ahead and take the plunge.
Read, Read and Go back over this blog 10-times if you must.
Sign up– for an affordable web hosting services. Start the blog you’ve always dreamed of. Begin promoting your affiliate links.
In no time, you’ll find yourself sitting on a nice pile of cash, wondering why you ever thought being a beginner was hard or expensive.
