If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably dreamed of quitting your nine to five job, imagining money coming in while you’re
sipping on a tropical drink on some romantic island, or in a winter cabin warming your feet by the wood burning stove.
It doesn’t have to be a dream. The dream can be your reality someday if you really want it.
This article is all about affiliate marketing for newbies. I’ll be giving you the low-down on what affiliate marketing is, how it works, what you need to know and the best way to get started.
Affiliate Marketing: What Is It?
In layman’s terms, affiliate marketing is when you promote a product or service for a third party via your website, blog, YouTube channel or any other social media, and earn a commission every time someone purchases the product or service via your link.
Affiliate marketing is a legitimate business model and has been around since before the internet.
Real Examples of Affiliate Marketing Programs
Everyone knows Amazon.com. And if you’ve never heard of them or have never ordered anything from Amazon, then you’ve been hiding under a rock for way too long. It is the world’s largest affiliate program. To become an affiliate for Amazon, you would sign up as an associate and then you would choose a product or products to promote on your website with your special link.
The disadvantage of Amazon is that the commission payout is very low compared to other affiliate programs. For example, if you were promoting a specific book that costs around $9.95, your commission would be about .39 cents. You’d have to make 1,282 sales just to make $500 a month. Of course, you can always choose bigger ticket items, but this is just an example. As a newbie, there’s no way you’ll be making over a thousand sales per month right away.
EBay and ETSY also have affiliate programs. You don’t need to have an ETSY account or an EBay account to become an affiliate for these platforms. All you have to do is sign up and promote them on your website with your affiliate link.
There are literally tens of thousands of affiliate programs that you can choose from and millions of products. Since this article is aimed at newbies, I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much information at once. I’ll do another post on just affiliate programs in the future.
Is Affiliate Marketing As Easy As Everyone Claims?
The process of affiliate marketing is simple, yet it isn’t always easy. If you think the money will come rolling in as soon as you post your affiliate link, then maybe affiliate marketing isn’t for you. It requires a real commitment to be successful. This is a real business and you need to work at it just like you would any other business.
Anyone can become an affiliate marketer, but not everyone will be successful at it.
How Do I Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer
Content, content, content. You need to constantly post valuable content for whatever it is you are promoting.
People do business with people they know, like and trust.
Your job as an affiliate marketer is to engage your readers, interact with them, get to know them and what they want. If you provide content that helps them out and you continue to write quality content, then you will build up your authority and your readers will begin to trust you as an expert. Also, be real and show your personality.
If you feel more comfortable behind the camera instead of behind the computer typing out words, then start a YouTube channel and begin promoting your products with videos.
When Can I Expect To Make Money Online?
This will be different for everyone depending on how much traffic you get, how much content you post, what types of products you’re promoting, etc.
I’ve known some affiliate marketers who make money within the first month and others who have been at it for a couple of years and have only made a couple of hundred dollars.
If you work really hard, post three or more articles a week and you have the right keywords, you will probably make money a lot quicker than someone who only posts one article a week.
How Much Money Can I Expect To Make?
You can expect to make anywhere from 1% commissions all the way up to 50% commissions. The sky is the limit and it really just depends on the types of products you promote and how much the payout is for those products. Some affiliate marketers make under $100 per month and there are others who make six figure incomes. It really is dependent on how successful you want to be, how committed you are to the process.
What Will I Need To Start My Affiliate Marketing Business?
- Monetary Investment
- Website
- Affiliate Program to Accept You
- SEO Skills
- Content
You will need a small amount of money to invest in a website and to invest in yourself if you want to learn more skillsets.
Apply for affiliate programs. Pick ones that resonate with you. I suggest having a specific niche before applying anywhere so you will know who to apply with.
It will come in handy if you know SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Your keywords and how they rank is what will drive traffic to your website. Without traffic, you will have no sales.
Content, content, content. It is very important not just to post content, but post quality content that helps your readers.
Is There a Step By Step Process Where I Can Learn As I Go?
Yes, there is a step by step process where you can learn as you go and it doesn’t cost you a thing to get started. I’ve been a member for over a year now, and I’ve yet to find an educational platform as good as this one. I absolutely love it because I’ve learned so much and it’s taught me how to do things the right way and in the right order. All you have to do is create your FREE account and then you will have access to module one of The Entrepreneur Certified Training which contains 10 lessons. I believe you also get access to Module one of Affiliate Bootcamp training, plus you get access to the research tool which helps you find the right keywords for you posts. You get to build a free website, and it is step by step and very easy if you follow along.
I can’t express how much I Iove this platform. I know you will love it too. Get started now for FREE. No credit card required
and so much you have access to. Below is my profile for the platform.
If you have any questions or need help please leave comments below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Thank you!
JarieLyn
The information in the article is so relatable and
I think affiliate marketing is better than to work
for someone else and build up there wealth I just
wanted to ask how can I produced content much
faster as you stated it is important to produce more content
are there any tools for content production to produce more content fast
Hi Sabelo,
There are speech to text tools that will help speed up the content production for your website.
Here’s a link I found for the top 10 speech to text tools:
https://www.elegantthemes.com/…
I hope this helps!
JarieLyn
Discussion about the topic
Affiliate Marketing for me is a life saver. I only wish that I had the mind set as a young woman in her 20s then when I first join as I do now. I have a blog coming up about affiliate marketing and I take a real deep dive as to what affiliate marketing is and how much it is valued at in the USA (think Billions of USD).
I have five years of experience with affiliate marketing, Particularly with Wealthy Affiliate. However, I have also tried out Click bank, amazon and click funnels. Presently learning how to do email marketing and conversions.
Although its five years off and on. Much has changed inside of five years and during these times I was in and out of college. So, I was not as dedicated to building my own business up as I am now.
The core of affiliate marketing has remain the same over the years even with all of the changes and upgrades. In my up coming article I ask this question that I saw you leaning towards inside of your article. My question was this, before you try affiliate marketing, do you understand the business model?
I believe this is important, and is one of the reasons why a lot of people who choose this industry gives up so easily. Lack of understanding of the knowledge presented to them.
Sometimes you have to tweak the information presented to a person like you did with the commenter who asked was there a quicker way to get content written a lot faster?
In one of your other paragraphs you also stated that Affiliate marketing isn’t for every one nor is it easy, but it requires a lot of work and dedication because it is a real business. This I whole heartedly agree with you on.
I address all of these topics in my 4000+ word article. I swear my fingers are invincible. Anyway, your over all delivery of the topic was excellent, straight to the point, and simple to understand.
In my opinion if you have not started this already, you should take a nose dive into how much this industry is valued at for the year 22-2023. I say there is enough zeroes behind the first digit to make us all happy.
Thank you so much for your feedback Shakida. I too, wish I had started this a lot sooner in my life. I’m in my 50’s now, so I consider this my second half of life.
Wow, 4,000 + words… that’s amazing. There really is a lot to say about affiliate marketing. Wishing you much success.
Hi JarieLyn
This is a nicely covered article on the benefits of Affiliate marketing. It really is the best job in town because you can build a real business with very little outlay.
No stock, no debtors, no billing, and little if any customer service.
In addition to this, you can gather multiple streams of income from various affiliate partners and
there are no limits to what you can achieve.
However, it takes time and effort to be in the earner’s circle.
Peter H
Hi Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to give me feedback on this subject. It really is the best job in town, especially for the long run.
Thanks for this very insightful information. I really do believe that this is helpful. I do believe that affiliate marketing is much more valuable and worth it then a 9-5 job. Especially is someone can do it the right way so thanks again. As I am still learning what are some ways to maker more properly as I am still learning?
To do it the proper way, I suggest learning from affiliate marketing experts such as the community at Wealthy Affiliate. If you take the training and follow the step by step process, you will do fine. It just takes time to build a business and to get traffic to your niche website.
Thank you for this article. It is very informative and encouraging to anyone who is looking to become an affiliate marketer or has a dream of increasing their income.
It was easy reading and demonstrates knowledge of SEO techniques. Your questions lead the reader through a process of gaining basic knowledge to become familiar with Affiliate marketing.
Using content as an affiliate marketer is presented in a simple five-step process. Sometimes people come in expecting a get-rich-quick business. All businesses require working persistently and consistently to achieve your goal.
You lead the way through your article easily. Gave good basic information to encourage and help the reader to become committed to accomplishing a realistic goal.
Thank you for this article.
Othnyel
Thank you Othnyel for such amazing feedback.
My intention was to give the basic steps without overwhelming the reader with too much information.
This is a well-written article about the advantages of affiliate marketing. It is the best job in town because you may start a serious business with little money. There is no inventory, no creditors, no billing, and little to no customer service.
Furthermore, you can generate different streams of income from various affiliate partners. I believe that affiliate marketing is far more valuable and worthwhile than a traditional 9-5 job. Thank you again, especially if someone can do it correctly.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree that the best part of affiliate marketing is that you can generate a variety of different income streams. Diversify, diversify, diversify.
Great article! It was to the point and easy to understand. I know you said you will get into affiliate programs in another article, so I just wanted to tell you about share-a-sale. It is an affiliate marketing hub with thousands of companies on it. You can sign up as an affiliate, then browse the companies to find ones that match your niche. Also when you sign up you automatically get an affiliate link to promote share-a-sale too.
In your section about Amazon, I just wanted to point out that when a person uses your Amazon affiliate link for a certain product, anything else they purchase while they are shopping also gets added to your commission. For example, if they purchase the book for $9.95, then purchase a bookshelf, end table, and lamp, you get the affiliate commission for all of that.
One thing I think people forget when they want to start affiliate marketing…is the marketing part. You can’t sell what you don’t advertise. As you pointed out, great content advertises your products. I think that is what turns people off when they think it is a get-rich-quick plan. It is a legitimate business model, which requires real work just like any other business.
Another way people can do better with their affiliate marketing is to diversify. If you pick a niche that you love, but it is not generating much traffic, you can expand to another niche that you love and know a lot about. You know what they say about baskets and eggs!
“We Are Comics”
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative feedback Ninjetta. This adds value to my post for any newbies landing on my page.
I do have an account with Share-A-Sale. I will definitely be promoting them as well.
Love your site. It is informative, straight to the point and gives a true representation of what affiliate marketing is all about. Love your use of graphics The format is great. So true about Amazon. sometimes wonder how you get enough affiliate commissions from them to make a dent in your income. The examples wee good. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Virginia, I will keep doing the best I can. I appreciate your kind comments.
Thank you for this post over affiliate marketting and if it is for newbies. I believe that almost anyone can do affiliate marketing. The one thing that I do find easy is the fact that I can make posts about things that I am passionate about. In that sense it is so easy to do! It gets complicated with technical stuff, but luckily there are programs for that or you can hire people to do it if you don’t want to deal with it. I have a girlfriend who is good at it so she does all that for me.
Thanks for your reply Jessie. I agree that when you pick something that you really like and/or you are passionate about, it does make it a lot easier. How nice that your girlfriend is good at the technical stuff.
Amazing post on affiliate marketing for newbies!
Such a well written and informative article.
I started doing affiliate marketing since 2016 and it’s been a gamechanger.
One of the best parts is that you don’t need to create a product. Just partner up with a company you align with and leverage a blog like this to drive traffic!
It definitely is a lot less stressful when you partner with a company who has a product or service that you like and feel good about. It makes writing a blog about it much easier.
Thanks for your comment.