Affiliate Marketing — A Simple Yet Effective Guide
You work only a few hours a week. You have done most of the hard work. Now, whenever you wake up in the morning, you see that dozens of products have been dispatched and that you have made commissions in hundreds of dollars.
A book called 4-Hour Workweek put this life goal in many people’s minds. I don’t necessarily agree with the concept. If you want to achieve big, 4 hours of work per week, you will not cut it.
But when it comes to affiliate marketing, you can achieve bigger goals in fewer hours (if not in 4 hours per week).
This type of marketing is a source of passive income for you. The idea is simple: you promote other people’s products by joining their affiliate network. And you earn a commission whenever people buy stuff as a result of your marketing efforts.
It’s a win-win situation for both the business owner and the affiliate marketer. Business owners can earn more revenue without much effort. And affiliate marketers can earn a decent income if they don’t have their own products.
Here’s a great definition by Pat Flynn:
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
Let’s dive deeper into the topic and see how you can get started.
How to Get Started With Affiliate Marketing
Choose Your Platform
Many platforms allow you to earn money from affiliate marketing. Even Instagram is one of them.
But if you want to build an audience and earn top income easily, start with a blog or YouTube channel.
What does it cost to have a blog in 2021? Less than a hundred dollars. All you need is a domain name and hosting, and you are good to go. The web is full of resources that can help you along the way.
After you have set up your blog, you’ll need to do its SEO. For that, you can read resources from my blog. Once your blog starts showing up on top of Google search results, you can add affiliate links.
The second platform I’d recommend is YouTube. Unlike blogging, you don’t even have to spend a few dollars to get started because it’s entirely free. Again, do YouTube SEO and include affiliate links in the description.
You must disclose that you are adding affiliate links as it is an FTC requirement. They want you to be transparent when receiving income from an endorsement.
Select Your Niche
How can you compete against millions of other blogs? One way is to niche down.
Being specific is the key. For example, the topic of “medical” is too vast. You should go for more specific like “cancer.”
This will let you have a focused audience and more chances of top Google rankings.
After building traffic to one category, you can start with other areas.
One more thing about selecting a niche: choose a topic that you are passionate about, especially if you are the only creator. Affiliate marketing is a long-term game. You don’t want to choose a boring topic and leave it along the way.
Find Good Affiliate Programs
You’ll have to choose from the following three types of affiliate programs:
A. High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs
B. Low-paying, high-volume affiliate programs
C. High-paying, high-volume affiliate programs
Decide which programs to join based on your niche and expertise.
I recommend you start with a Google search and find programs that suit you.
Create Amazing Content
How will people click on your affiliate links? The first step is to create content where those links fit.
Don’t just put links anywhere and say, “buy this product.”
For example, you can review SEO tools in a blog post and link them to your audience. People will love it.
But if it’s an informational blog post about marketing basics, and you curate random products from Amazon, no one is going to buy. Plus, it can hurt your rapport.
For reviews, you should purchase the products and test them, which is the success factor of The Wirecutter.
Drive Traffic to Your Affiliate Site
Once you start creating content, you realize that you are not getting any traffic. The following marketing channels will help you:
Paid traffic: It can give a short-term traffic spike. As long as you are paying, you’ll keep getting traffic. But there’s also a chance of losing money with this method.
SEO: This is my favorite one. It’s time-consuming and requires patience. But if we talk about the long-term benefits, it’s the winner.
Email: This is a great way to retain your audience and send valuable content to their inboxes. For growing your email list, you can start with offering a free e-book.
Get Clicks On Your Affiliate Links
Your job is not done after bringing people to your website. You must compel them to click on your links.
First, consider link placement. Having links in the introduction or at the bottom of the page is not a good idea.
Second, you must consider the context. Include the link where you are talking about the product. Using callouts like buttons, tables, and boxes will also help you with clicks.
Convert Clicks to Sales
When people are on your blog, it’s up to you if they click on the link or not (previous step). But when they click on the link and end up on the merchant’s site, things are out of your control.
So how do you ensure that those clicks convert to sales? The trick is to find merchants with programs that convert well.
You can start with a Google search and find what other bloggers are making from the program you are interested in.
And sometimes, you have to go with your gut feeling. If you don’t recommend a product or program to your family or friends, don’t become its affiliate.
Conclusion
The dream of having a passive income using affiliate marketing is popular. Though it’s easy to approach, it can get hard in the long run because of the consistency it requires.
Are you an affiliate? What programs do you use to generate passive income for yourself?
Let me know in the comments below.
