Looking to make revenue online? Got a computer/laptop and an Internet connection? Then Affiliate Marketing could be the simplest and quickest path to pleasing your dream.
Here, you’ll discover the 6 simple steps that will take you from whole learner to Affiliate Marketer in as little as 48 hours.
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing structure where a product vendor pays an “affiliate” a commission when someone buys their product. That “someone” has been referred to the vendor by the “affiliate.”
And it all happens online: You have a web existence, usually a website that you pull towards you like-minded visitors to, where you “warm them up” to the idea that the merchandise you’re promoting (as an affiliate) is the perfect respond to their pressing problem or requirement.
That “product” could be material (books, CDs, DVDs, clothing, jewelry, natural medicines, etc.) or digital (e-books, e-reports, software, online courses / training, etc.).
When your user clicks on your affiliate link (on your site) they are redirected to the vendor’s website, where the vendor will seal the sale; a lot easier after you’ve forwarded them to the product they need! When your site user buys the vendor’s manufactured goods you get paid a commission.
For example, if the product costs $100 and you get, say, 50% commission, you’ll get paid $50! And all for, on the whole, introducing someone with a vital problem or need to someone who can solve that problem.
Affiliate marketing is ultimate for beginners starting out online as it has a very low blockade to entry: it’s a very simple procedure that doesn’t need any fussy technical skills, you don’t have to have your own manufactured goods, and it doesn’t cost the earth to get started. In fact, you can get going at cheapest price possible!
And, you don’t have to sell, or fulfill, or keep stock, or deal with payment procedures, and you don’t have to deal with consumers; but the vendor will have to do this stuff.
All YOU need is an Internet connection and a computer/ laptop and you’re good to go.
AFFILIATE NETWORKS
Because affiliate marketing is so lucrative for both vendor and affiliate, over the years many “affiliate networks” have sprung up to help both affiliates and vendors manage their affairs much more professionally and easily.
Vendors can attract affiliates by marketing their products on these networks and affiliates can easily find products to endorse. Once an affiliate decides to endorse a certain product the network assigns an affiliate link / ID so that sales of that product can be linked back to the affiliate.
The affiliate network also takes on liability for managing the flow of money between vendor and affiliate either by electronic transfer or check. It also charges a small fee to both vendor and affiliate for the service.
There are many affiliate networks to choose from, but a beginner to affiliate marketing can easily get started with “ClickBank” and / or “Amazon.”
GETTING STARTED WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING
1. Choose Your Niche and Product
The first step is to decide which niche you wish to operate in. A “niche” is a group of people with very similar interests, e.g. gout sufferers, broken relationships, looking for car insurance, how to make money online, etc. But, of course, it also has to have confirmed “buyers” in it in order to make money.
So how do you find a money-making niche with a lot of profitable products you can endorse?
A very quick way to do this is to hunt affiliate networks for niches that have quite a lot of products that their stats tell you are selling well. If there are lots of products that are going well, you now know that the niche is a advantageous one, and, the buyers in that niche like those products.
In other words, there’s no second-guessing; you know for a fact that you can make money in that niche and you know for a fact which products are victorious, unlike if you had to widen your own product!
Once you’re pleased with a product, you sign-up as an affiliate for it and are given a unique link that you place on your website. When a user clicks on that link they go to the vendor’s sales page where, if they buy, you get paid the commission assigned to that product.
2. Get Your Domain Name
Before you setup your website you need to get a domain name based around your niche. For example, fastgoutcure.com, weightlossforseniors.com. Get the idea? This will become your website “address.”
Two of the most popular domain registrars are “GoDaddy” and “NameCheap.”
3. Get Hosting
Next, you need to get hosting for your website. This is where all your website files will be stored and secured. When someone enters your domain name in their browser they will be directed to your website.
There are very many web hosting companies out there, but you can’t go far wrong as a newbie by going with “HostGator.”
4. Set-Up Your Website
You then need to set-up your website. This needs to be highly appropriate to and laser-focused on, your selected product and niche. For example, having a website about “arthritis” and trying to promote a product that cures “gout” will neither rank well in the search engines nor compose sales.
Although gout and arthritis are linked medically, most people don’t know that, so they’ll be searching for “arthritis” solutions or “gout” solutions and Google will present WebPages on their search results that mirror that. So always stay laser-focused!
You don’t even need specialist software to build your website. The trendiest platform today by far is “WordPress” which is free. Most good hosting companies like HostGator and many other server providers allow you to select WordPress directly from within your hosting control panel in just a couple of clicks.
5. Add Great Content
There’s a proverb in marketing that “content is king!” I like to add that “GREAT content is king!” So the content on your website/blog has to be highly significant to, and laser-focused on, your niche, such that your site users get enormous value (and know they great value) from it.
For example, if your site is about “gout” you write content about what are the causes it, its symptoms, how it’s diagnosed, how it’s treated, any natural remedies, specific diet to follow, change in lifestyle, and so on. Give top tips, some recipes, similar case studies, news, etc. That is, keep adding “value” for your users.
6. Drive Traffic (Visitors)
Now, you can have the finest website in the world, the finest product(s) to promote that will definitely, help your marked audience!
So getting visitors (called “traffic” in Internet marketing) to your website is utterly decisive to your success and to helping all those people who are dreadfully searching for a solution to their problem.
There are basically two ways to get traffic to your website; “pay for it” or “get it free.”
Paid traffic is things like advertising on other niche websites, Google, Bing, Facebook, etc. You can also pay people who have large email lists in the similar niche as you to send out a promotional email of yours to their inventory.
But paying for traffic may not be the superlative option when starting out because you really should know what you are doing for the reason that it’s very easy to get “burnt” when you don’t.
Free traffic comes from things like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is the art of receipt of your website on page 1 of Google, Bing, and other search engines.
You can also get tons of free traffic from rearrangement of great content (with links back to your site) on Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and many more. When people click on your link they end up on your blog/website.
You can also create short and simple, YouTube videos that can drive traffic to your website via your site link in the video description.
One extremely admired way to drive free traffic to your site is to post comments on blogs and forums in the same or related niche to you.
Another very effortless way to get free traffic is by promoting short articles in Article Directories such as EzineArticles.
Over to You on Affiliate Marketing
This also has the additional benefit that other website owners in your niche are permissible to copy and make public your article on their sites, but they must leave your website link unbroken so that you can get free traffic from THEIR site too!
So, here’s your affiliate marketing checklist:
1. Choose Your Niche and Product
2. Get Your Domain Name
3. Get Hosting
4. Set-Up Your Website
5. Add Great Content
6. Drive Traffic (Visitors)
If you’re a learner to affiliate marketing don’t be overawed by all this; it really is very trouble-free to get going. Anybody, and I mean anybody, who has an Internet connection and a computer or laptop can be up and in succession, ready to start attractive commissions, in as little as 48 hours. And all this without any preceding experience.
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