How Can You Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing has been around even before the internet. And since 1994, we have the opportunity to utilize this business model online. But how can you make money with affiliate marketing?
There is no one-size-fits-everyone approach, but that’s actually a benefit of affiliate marketing. There is no right or wrong approach and yet you can take advantage of affiliate marketing programs in many different ways.
However, some people associate affiliate marketing with MLM schemes – which are two different things.
And in this article, I’ll show you the most common approach to affiliate marketing and how you can start your affiliate marketing journey, right today, for free.
Sounds too good to be true? Keep on reading! By the end of the article, you’ll have a plan in place and you’ll know exactly what action to take!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
I wrote a complete article where I explained into detail what affiliate marketing is and how it works. I recommend checking it out.
But for now, here’s a quick explanation so you can quickly understand how it works.
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where a business or a store rewards its affiliates for each sale they help make.
In other words – as an affiliate marketer, you help companies & stores promote their products in return for a commission.
How much money can you make?
It all depends on the type of the affiliate program you’ve joined, the commission percentage they offer, and how well you can convert your traffic.
And do you need money to get started? No! That’s the best thing.
Anyone can browse and join affiliate marketing programs. Amazon? They have their own affiliate program known as Amazon Associates.
Even your local stores such as Walmart and Target have their own affiliate programs. You didn’t know this, did you?
But why would some of the largest companies accept affiliates? Affiliates are able to help them bring more traffic and increase the number of sales.
In fact, affiliate marketing drastically helped increase the size of businesses – including Amazon!
Everyone has to start somewhere, right?
Why I Think Affiliate Marketing is the Best Online Business Model
Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time and it isn’t going anywhere.
That’s just one of many reasons why I think that affiliate marketing is the best way to go if you’re interested in creating a sustainable online business.
Another reason is the versatility. You get to choose which affiliate programs will you join, how will you promote the products, and how will you convert your audience.
Therefore, you’ll never see two successful affiliate marketers who run their online business the same way.
And the most important reason is the cost. In comparison to brick & mortar type of business – starting an online business with the help of affiliate marketing costs absolutely nothing in the comparison.
All you will need is a website – and that’s about it.
So are you ready to learn how can you make money with affiliate marketing? Keep on reading to find the easiest & most sustainable approach!
How Can You Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?
Remember how I mentioned that affiliate marketing has a very versatile approach?
That’s why I think you probably don’t even notice affiliate promotions online. Almost every successful YouTuber is an affiliate marketer and earns part of their income with the help of it.
Do you have favorite blogs? You’ve most likely come across affiliate offers without knowing it.
Some people even decide to pay ads to promote affiliate products in order to earn a commission. This is one of the quickest, yet the most expensive ways.
Down below, I’ll focus on the relatively slow, but steady, sustainable, and free way to build a brand online that will help you earn commission through affiliate offers.
The 4 steps are the following:
- Create a website
- Rank for keywords
- Drive traffic to your site
- Earn commission on sales you make
Create a Website
How long do you think it would take you to create a site?
We live in a modern world where we don’t even need to code the websites anymore. Instead, there are useful platforms such as WordPress and hosting providers that allow us to create sites in a simpler way.
Therefore, you could create your first site in under 10 minutes, right today. How much will it cost? Nothing!
Yes, with your own website, you will be in full control of your content and branding. This will give you the opportunity to rank your site for keywords you want and reach the audience that would be interested in what you offer.
The best thing about this approach is that you get to choose your niche and create your site around something you’re passionate about or around something you’ve very knowledgable about.
I highly recommend choosing a narrow niche. This will help you still reach a decent amount of exposure with fewer competitors.
I wrote articles on how to choose your niche, and how to create your own website in 10 minutes – so I highly recommend giving these guides a read!
Rank for Keywords
So when you have a website, what’s next?
Creating content is the next piece of the process. But even before writing content – you should do keyword research.
Why?
By finding out keywords that people often search within your niche, you will be able to rank your site for these terms. And what will this achieve?
As you rank your site for these keywords, you will be able to reach a specific audience that will be looking for information/products available on your site, and you’ll be able to get free organic traffic.
Of course, ranking takes time – but it’s far better than writing posts that aren’t optimized for search engines.
I wrote a great post about how to find keywords for free which also includes a guide on how to optimize your posts – so I recommend checking it out.
Drive Traffic
If you decide to go the slow route – organic way, you will have to play the waiting game. It takes a couple of weeks for search engines such as Google to index your site and your new content.
From there, it takes a couple of weeks to have your content ranked. The new site takes a bit longer, but as long as you are creating valuable content and you are consistently working on your site – you’ll see results sooner than you think.
It might take months for your best posts to rank on the first page of search engines – but the wait is worth it.
Why?
Once your posts rank well – it will stay there for as long as you update the post and you keep refreshing it with quality updates.
In return, it will bring traffic daily to your website for free.
You could also take a paid route and invest in ads that will help expose your site to a targeted audience right today – but this route costs and not everyone has a lot of money to invest in their new business.
Also, if you have a budget to run ads, you should ensure that your site is well optimized so that you have a great return on investment.
Earn Commission
When you have a website that is well optimized, and you have posts that rank for keywords – the visitors you receive will be reading your posts.
Whenever your visitor clicks on your affiliate offers on your site or in your post and makes a purchase – you will earn a commission.
The more visitors your site gets – the higher the chances are to get more sales, which results in higher revenue.
Of course, you get to choose your affiliate programs and you get to choose how will you promote them. Joining an affiliate program of a brand that you know much about, have used, and you trust – you could easily write a quality review that will help users decide whether they should purchase the product or not.
This is just one of many ways you can earn commission through your website.
But do you want to hear the best thing?
On top of the affiliate programs, you can monetize your site in other ways such as running ads.
Can You Really Get Started with Affiliate Marketing for Free?
It all sounds simple & easy in theory, right?
But this business model includes a lot of different aspects and you will need to learn at least basic information about each one of them.
With access to the internet, you have the ability to search for information using Google, YouTube, or any other platform to find information.
There is a lot of free information – but having to sift through everything can definitely slow you down and have you wonder whether you’re on the right path or not.
I’ve been there and I struggled with way too many sources that contradict each other.
Luckily, I came across an educational platform that has organized training on affiliate marketing. It is based on the same approach I’ve described in this post, yet only it includes a lot more information.
It also includes tools such as keyword research tool, hosting, and a community full of affiliate marketers.
This educational platform is called Wealthy Affiliate and I wrote a full review on the platform, showing you exactly what you can find inside, once you join.
And the best thing?
It’s free to join as a starter member, it’s free to have up to 2 websites, and the keyword research tool allows you to search up to 30 keywords a month.
It’s a platform where I’ve learned about 75% of everything I know and I was even able to freelance some of the skills I’ve learned there to make full income online.
Wealthy Affiliate has been around for 15 years now so is there a better place to learn everything there is about affiliate marketing, with all tools being included?
I’ve looked around but I wasn’t able to find anything that can compete with Wealthy Affiliate so far.
Click Here to Learn More About Affiliate Marketing!
Conclusion
So how can you make money with affiliate marketing? The right answer is – however you want to!
Whether you decide to run ads to a landing page or you decide to start your own site/blog and monetize it through various channels (including affiliate marketing) – it’s up to you!
The principle I’ve explained in this article helped me create two online businesses from scratch and even start a service-based business by freelancing my skills that are related to affiliate marketing.
But with the services and tools we have nowadays – starting an online business for free is definitely possible.
Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite online business models. Even though it requires a lot of hard work and time before everything falls into its place – but it can generate passive income, it is sustainable, and it’s very easy to get started.
Did you ever try to start an online business? Do you think affiliate marketing will ever change?
I hope you’ve learned how to create an online business with the help of affiliate marketing – but if you have any questions or you’d like to leave feedback – don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below!
