If you’d like to make money online, one of the easiest ways is through affiliate marketing. You don’t have to make or sell your own products. You just promote other people’s products and make a commission whenever someone clicks on one of your product links and buys something.
This sounds easy, but it can still seem intimidating to know how to begin the journey and what kind of action steps to take. Your affiliate marketing tips are outlined in the eight steps below. These steps will cover everything necessary as a beginner starting an affiliate marketing business.
This will allow you to take action and to get the ball rolling. You’ll learn how make money from many different platforms, and to do so in any niche that you choose.
There are thousands of products that you can recommend to your website visitors, which will earn you a commission from the product vendors. You can start slowly and build your business at your own pace and in your spare time.
Step 1 – Decide on a Niche to Focus On
A niche is a topic or business/marketing segment that you want to work in and develop. When doing this, first of all pick a topic that you like and already know something about.
Hint: To increase your chances of success, pick a niche that is popular. The most popular niches for affiliate marketing include:
• Health and Fitness
• Pets
• Gardening
• Food and Recipes
• Self Help and Personal Development
• Sports
• Cosmetics and Beauty
• Travel
• Finance and Investing
• Luxury Items
• Gaming
• Travel
• Education
You’ll need to write content (articles) on your chosen topic. You’ll need to be very interested and excited about it and be able to arouse the curiosity of your readers. That’s how you’ll convince them to buy products you may be recommending.
Your readers will be able to tell be reading your content, that you really enjoy your chosen topic and have a lot of knowledge about it.
If your chosen niche isn’t something you’re thoroughly familiar with, you’ll have to do research before you write. Your readers should feel that they can trust your opinions and knowledge.
Step 2 – Analyze What Your Audience Is Looking For
You’ll now need to figure out what your audience needs and wants. In whatever niche you choose, your audience will have specific questions they want answered, and will be looking for products in that niche to solve their problems and reach their desired goals.
Writing articles and then promoting certain products that meets the needs and wants of your audience is what will make you successful. If you appeal to your audience, then people will like and want to read your blog.
Start the process with keyword research. There are various tools available for this online. Some are free and some are paid. Wordstream has a free keyword tool. Wordtracker has free and paid versions. Google Keyword Planner is free, but you have to have a Google Ads account and set up an ad. However, you don’t have to actually run the ad. In the past there were none of these requirements with Google Keyword Planner, but nowadays they’re trying to strongly coax you into paying for advertising!
When you use a keyword tool, you’ll see a list of items your audience is searching for related to your topic. For example, if you put in the word “shoes”, you might see keywords like “shoes for men”.
You see other keywords and phrases pop up, so you know what people are searching for. Some longer search phrases might come up that are more specific, like “shoes with stars on them”. These are called long-tail keywords. These phrases might have a much lower search volume, but they tend to be low competition.
Sometimes the long-tail keywords are questions, like “what are the best work shoes for standing all day”. With this keyword you could write a blog post titled “What are they best shoes for standing at work all day?”
You can also research audience needs on forums. Just search online for forums in your chosen niche. You’ll see questions that people are asking about different topics. When you search keywords related to your topic and see questions, think about how you could make that question into a blog post.
Step 3 – Start an Affiliate Website/Blog
Next, it’s time to build a website, but before you do that you need to register a domain name, like “xyz.com”. Try to pick a domain name that closely matches your niche. A dot com name is the preferred choice over anything else, such as .net, . info, etc., because .com domains have a much greater recognition and authority. Try to pick as short a domain as possible – from 1 to 3 words is best.
Try to pick something that is catchy and easy to remember. Look for available domain names at Namecheap. Many common words won’t be available, but if you experiment with different words, you may be surprised at what you can find. After getting a domain, you’ll need a hosting company. We don’t recommend using the same company as your domain registrar, as the one you pick for a web host. This is because if there is some kind of serious problem or dispute with your hosting company, you’ll still own and have control of your domain at the registrar you bought it from. So, if you have to look for a different host, you can just change your domain nameservers to whatever host you find.
To find a web host, you can do web searches for “hosting company reviews”. However, keep in mind that these review sites are going to recommend companies that pay the highest commissions. Don’t click on links at the review sites. Instead, go directly to the website of whatever company interests you. Then, you can put the name of that hosting company in trustpilot.com to see what kind of reviews these companies are getting.
WordPress is the preferred platform to build your site. You may be intimidated if you’ve never built a website, but you’ll be surprised how easy WordPress is to use once you get the hang of it. Search on YouTube for tutorials on how to use WordPress. You don’t have to pay for any courses you may run across online on how to build a WordPress site. You don’t need them. There is plenty of FREE information on YouTube. Go to https://wordpress.org/themes/ to pick a theme for your new site. There are some paid themes, but more than enough free ones that will suit you fine.
Whatever host you chose will have instructions on how to install WordPress. It’s a fairly quick process. There are even several YouTube videos showing how to install WordPress.
It’s best to choose a theme that’s simple and easy to navigate. Studies have shown that people don’t really like those fancy websites with windows that pop on and off and pages that slide up and down. People would rather have a site that’s easy to read, navigate, and find the information they want. If your site is too fancy, people will quickly get annoyed and click the cancel button on their browser, leaving your site.
Step 4 – Get Familiar with the Different Affiliate Companies
Being an “affiliate” means a company will allow you to promote their products on your website via a special link and earn a commission when someone clicks your link and buys. The most popular of these, of course, is Amazon. Amazon sells everything, so whatever your niche is, products are sure to be on Amazon. Most of their products are also returnable for refund or replacement, including many books, CD’s, DVDs, and even some consumable products. Amazon is free to join as an affiliate, but the downside is their commissions are very low.
Another popular platform is Clickbank, which is also free to join. They sell mostly digital products, but also sell some consumable products like nutritional supplements. They pay high commissions – up to 70%! Clickbank is actually the vendor for everything and stands behind the products, offering a money back guarantee. Many Clickbank sellers also offer some great resources to affiliates, including banner ads you can copy, pre-written articles, and other items.
Besides the ones above, probably the top 3 affiliate networks that most marketers use are Commission Junction, ShareASale, and Linkshare (now called Rakuten Advertising). However, there are many others. If you have a very specialized niche, you can do a web search for affiliate networks in that niche. These networks may have stricter acceptance standards than Amazon or Clickbank. You also have to be accepted separately at the individual companies whose products you want to promote. The bottom line for approval is you must have a website. Some of these companies come across as being too stringent and even arrogant. They may want you to be an established webmaster for many years and/or provide proof of your visitor traffic. If you’re not accepted at some companies, just move on and learn from the experience. There are plenty of other companies out there that will accept you.
Step 5 – Join Social Media Sites
Using social media is a great way to get your “brand” out there. The most popular social media site is probably Facebook. Facebook may shy away from or have penalties for trying to “promote” on your regular Facebook page, but you can set up a “Facebook Business Page” or start a “Facebook Group”.
Other popular social media sites to use are YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. These are all free to sign up to. With Facebook you can make your business page or group name the same as or similar to your website. With the other sites you may be able to also make your username the same as (or similar to) your site name. If you have a catchy name, then people will easily remember it.
YouTube will probably always be extremely popular. Using it will expose you and your site to a large audience. You don’t have to know how to make “professional looking” videos. You never really know what could happen until you try – sometimes even a very simple video will catch on with people and get a lot of views and “likes”, and a lot of attention to your site.
You can learn about and use the latest trends and hashtags. For example, #minecraft is a popular hashtag on TikTok where users may post videos having to do with enjoying the Minecraft video game. You could come up with your own hashtags related to products you may have on your website. Make a video showing yourself or someone else using a certain product and have a link back to your blog/site.
People nowadays seem to have short attention spans. For Instagram try to come up with posts that are eye-catching. When using video, the challenge is to come up with a short video that gets to the point and grabs people’s attention. This is especially true for Instagram and TikTok. On Instagram and TikTok try to keep your videos no more than 1 to 2 minutes. For YouTube you should try to keep videos no more than 5 to 10 minutes long.
Step 6 – Decide on Products to Promote
You need to decide on the exact products you’ve found from affiliate networks that you want to promote with included affiliate links. What you decide to promote will depend on the niche you’re in and what you’ve found on affiliate networks. In certain niches you might be promoting mostly digital products, which includes eBooks, downloadable products, online courses, software, graphics, digital magazines, etc.
Your first choice to find digital products would be Clickbank. However, there are other affiliate networks selling digital products. One example is Avantgate. They’re a large network which started in 2006 and have more than 50,000 merchants. You can earn up to 75% commissions.
For Clickbank products first look at the actual sales page to see what kind of impression it gives you about the product. Next look at the affiliate resources page. It should tell you things like how popular the product is, methods affiliates are using to sell, and have other items like banners, promotional videos, prewritten articles to use for blogs, keywords lists, and other things.
On the Clickbank site check the “gravity” of products that interest you. Gravity is Clickbank’s measurement of the products performance. The number represents the minimum number of affiliates who have sold the product over the past 12 weeks. If the number is really high this means the product has had lots of sales. This could mean more competition in promoting. However, if you have a website/blog and people respect your opinion there’s no reason why you can’t get sales. If you’ve personally used a product and provide a review/opinion, this can make a big difference to your audience.
For physical products you would choose Amazon or one of the other networks. When picking products, first of all look for products that are popular, and people show a lot of interest in. Does the product manufacture have a good reputation? Look over the product reviews. A product you have already used yourself and can get excited about is a good choice.
Step 7 – Writing Content
Next you will need to write blog posts about whatever products you want to promote. Your posts or articles should include a lot of valuable information. You should answer whatever questions readers have about an item in a clear matter. Explain why people need the product and why it would benefit them.
Look to as many different sources as you can from the internet, books, and other places, and assemble notes. Online you may find other sites which have reviews about you chosen product. You can’t copy other people’s content, but you can use it to get ideas. Then write your article using your own words and in your own style.
Use headlines and first sentences that get people’s attention. It’s a good idea to make bulleted lists outlining the features of a product. Also mention how you and other people like the product, what they are using it for, and the features they like best.
It helps to include two or three images in your article, but don’t overdo it. Some good places to look for free images online are pexels.com, unsplash.com, and pixabay.com.
Whatever your article is about, try to come up with your own unique perspective and writing style. As far as Google and the other search engines go, in the past an article of 500-100 words may have been sufficient for you to rank well. Nowadays they need to be more than 1,000 words. 2,000 to 3,000 words is actually considered to be a good length for an article. Google likes long articles because it shows you’re giving the readers lots of value.
You may want to consider hiring a writer to write articles for your website. A good place to look for writers is upwork.com. Even if you pay for an article, you should still read it over, edit, and make changes as you see fit. As far as how often to post articles, some places may say to post 2 or 3 articles a week. However, this can be a lot of work and/or expense. It’s better just to be consistent. Even one article a week is OK as long as you’re consistent with that.
Step 8 – Using Affiliate Links and Building Traffic
When you apply to affiliate networks and/or join the Amazon affiliate program, you’ll receive special HTML code which is actually a link to a particular product. This earns you a commission if someone clicks on your link and then buys. These links have different cookie lengths – the length of time after someone clicks when you’ll still receive a commission.
Amazon’s is probably the shortest in existence – only 24 hours! However, you’ll receive a commission on everything in a person’s shopping cart – not just the original product you led them to. Other companies may have a cookie length from 30 to 90 days, or even longer in some cases.
When using WordPress, a good idea is to install a free plugin called Pretty Links. This will allow you to custom make your links, so to speak. For example, if your given link is xyz123 you can change it to “bicycle”. So instead of yoursite.com/xyz123 your viewers would see yoursite.com/bicycle, and they would be led to the same bicycle product.
There’s also a program called Linktree which allows you to combine several links into one page. Lots of people are using this on Instagram and TikTok. When visitors click, they end up on the Linktree page which has several links for them to choose from.
Building website traffic is a very broad topic that really requires its own separate article. If you follow the affiliate marketing tips given above regarding keyword research and writing content, your posts/pages may eventually show up in the search results, which will bring you traffic.
You should also get traffic from listing your site and interacting with people on social media. If you want to pay for ads, you can also buy advertising from Google, Facebook, Bing, and other sources.
Conclusion
If you’re a beginner, you should find lots of good affiliate marketing tips in this article to get you started and moving forward on your journey. If you already have internet marketing experience, you might also find some new tips and advice you can use.
