So, maybe you want to dive into the world of Internet and Affiliate marketing. People are making TONS of money via the web so why shouldn’t you jump in on this bucket of gold?
It’s not hard to become an affiliate marketer but it IS hard to become a successful affiliate marketer. Hopefully the tips I’m about to outline help you on your way to making money online.
Most people think that you have to have a product or service to make money online. This is not the case at all. All you need is a little creativity, motivation to succeed, a little budget and you too can start bringing in online paychecks.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a form of Internet marketing in which a person drives website traffic to a companies website, product or service and in return they receive a commission for bringing in a lead, sale or even as simple as a click. So, you drive Customer A to buy a Widget at Company XYZ’s website. Customer A buys the Widget for $100. In return you are rewarded $15 for bringing in that sale.
Affiliate marketing can be in the form of an actual sale, just a simple lead or even just a click through of an online advertisement. Each company will set their own commission structure on what they will pay the affiliate in return for driving traffic, sales and leads to their website.
How Do I Get Started As An Affiliate Marketer?
Realistically, you can start affiliate marketing in a matter of days or even a matter of a few hours if you are already familiar with some of the concepts. Here are the three things you need to get started.
- You need to be an affiliate of a company. You can do this easiest by signing up with an affiliate network. I recommend Commission Junction, ShareASale.com, CPA Empire and Never Blue Ads. These four affiliate marketing networks will give you more than enough to get you going. There are many more but utilize these first and expand to new networks as your business grows.
- You need a way to market the product. Here is a post in itself but I will give some basics on how you can get an affiliate campaign up and running in no time.
The easiest way is if you already have a website or blog that receives website traffic. To make money online, you need website traffic. It’s as simple as that. It’s a numbers game. Everything comes down to traffic and conversions and if you have traffic that converts, you WILL make money online. You might even make enough money online to quit your day job and focus entirely on your online endeavors.
So, if you already have a website or a blog, you can sign into your affiliate accounts that we talked about above and find a merchant that sells a product or service that relates to your business. From there you can place their advertising banners and text links and other forms of affiliate links on your website or blog. When someone clicks on the link or banner, they will be directed to the merchant site and this is where you can make your commission if it’s in the form of a sale, lead or click.
A quick tip: If you have a particular web page or many web pages that receives a lot of website traffic, advertise your affiliate links on these first. Monetize correctly and you will be off to a great start.
The next way to promote an affiliate offer is through pay per click marketing. This is a post in itself but PPC marketing is basically a way for you to bid on keywords in Google, MSN and Yahoo and when a user does a search on one of their search engines, your add could appear in front of millions of potential prospects. Google Adwords is probably the PPC engine you should master first. If you can master Google Adwords, you can master the rest. Google is the big dog so learn all you can with Google before you move to the smaller PPC engines. To learn more about Google Adwords, Start Here. Most people fail to learn this information so if you can learn this first, you will be ahead of most of your competition.
Email marketing is another great way to monetize affiliate offers. You have to be very careful not to spam anyone so make sure you touch up on your email marketing etiquette before you begin an email marketing campaign. Email marketing is especially valuable if you already have a marketing list built for your business. Most people and businesses fail to properly monetize their marketing lists. This can be a HUGE earner if utilized correctly.
Develop a website or a blog or both. If I had to pick which one to start I would go with a blog and I would go with the Wordpress Platform. You can realistically set up a blog within a matter of a few hours, even if you have no experience whatsoever. Pick a blog topic that interests you and something that you have a huge knowledge base of. If you are not interested in what you are talking about, the blog will fade and you will not succeed. If you can regularly update your blog with USEFUL and VALUABLE information and content, you are asking for success. Blogs don’t start turning profit overnight but post unique articles regularly and you will soon see the traffic pour in after a couple of months. Just don’t give up. This is the number one reason blogs fail. People will update them for a month or two, they don’t see the traffic they thought they would get and they stop. Just keep posting content. Don’t give up. It will pay off. Once you start receiving decent website traffic, it’s then time to start monetizing your blog with the proper affiliate advertisements so head over to your affiliate network and put up some banners and text links on high traffic pages.
Before you start a website or blog, it’s a good idea to get your own domain name and hosting account. There are free ways of starting a blog or website without these but they will be bogged down with third party advertisements so get your own domain for $9/year and a hosting account for $10/month and you will be MUCH better off. This is a very small investment for the amount of money you can bring in. Trust me on this one.
- A little budget does not hurt. You will need a little bit of money. Most people think that they can get into Internet marketing without spending a dime. While this can be true, it’s MUCH easier if you have some sort of a budget to work with, especially with Pay Per Click marketing. Figure out what you can afford first and don’t go overboard. You can start small and always increase. I do suggest re-investing all revenue back into the business for the first year. Gradually ramp up your earnings. Don’t expect to throw up a blog and the next day collecting checks. It just won’t happen. Be realistic about your Internet marketing ventures. Do you think they built YouTube and Facebook overnight? Not a chance! Take your time. Learn the business. And learn from your mistakes.
There are many great resources out there on affiliate marketing and the majority of them are free. Blogs are a GREAT place to learn so start with them:
Super Affiliate Mindset
Uber Affiliate
Cashtactics
Zac Johnson
These are great resources so read their ENTIRE blogs first. You will come out with a wealth of information on affiliate marketing and also Pay Per Click marketing.
Best of luck and I hope you find your pot of gold online!
