Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to earn money online for beginners to the internet business world and for experts as well. Affiliate marketing means you (the marketer) promote other people or companies’ products by directing buyers to their website and receive commissions whenever a sale is made.
If you’re looking for a legit and effective way to earn online, then go the affiliate marketing route. Here is a quick ‘hitchhikers’ guide to affiliate marketing success.
1. Choose the niche – Before you begin, look for a topic that you can stick with for a long time. Whether the niche is on travel, electronics, books, health, or even your expertise, make sure it could also satisfy the needs of your readers, regardless of whether they’re looking for information or products. As much as possible, pick only one niche to promote for each campaign you start to avoid confusing your audience and yourself.
2. Find affiliate programs – You can choose to find a product to promote first, which would also decide the niche you enter, but if you decide on a niche first, the next step is to find products or offers to promote that are targeted to that niche. There is an abundance of affiliate programs that are easy to find and join for free. Just search around for products that seem suitable and then check their website to see if they have an affiliate program. You’ll want to register with a few different affiliate programs so you have a bit of a portfolio. Choose companies with good reputations, such as Commission Junction, Amazon or Clickbank.
3. Build your affiliate site – Once you have your niche, and affiliate programs in mind, it’s time to build the actual website. I love building affiliate websites using the free blogging software called WordPress. Include product reviews, tips or tutorials about the niche, insights about the product or other helpful information that readers are looking for. To ensure you have online presence, perform keyword research whenever you write an article or feature a specific product. Make sure to include your affiliate links to products you wish to sell in the content (articles, videos, images). The special affiliate links you get from your affiliate accounts track all your commissions – so it’s very important that you use them and don’t modify them, or you won’t get paid!
4. Spread the word – Your goal is to make people visit your affiliate website. To encourage traffic to a new website, you can use traffic generation techniques, such as submitting to article directories, commenting on other blogs, creating videos and uploading to video sharing sites, making accounts on social networks, and many more. Those new to affiliate marketing should probably learn all about the techniques that require no monetary investment first, before you go deeper into advertising your site with paid ads.
5. Build a list – One of the most important parts of affiliate marketing is building an e-mail list of the visitors to your site. You can do this by having a free newsletter, offering a free report, or coming up with other incentives to get subscribers. For example, one marketer who has a Halloween costume affiliate site offers to send his subscribers discount coupons regularly. The only thing he asks for in return is to join his newsletter subscription. Not only does a list serve as an excellent way to advertise, it’s also a good way to interact to your market.
If you’re new to affiliate marketing, you can earn a substantial amount by promoting hot selling products the right way. Follow the steps above, work hard and you’ll surely be on the way to earning commissions regularly.
