Affiliate Marketing for Beginners.
Imagine earning $100 each time someone buys a product you recommend online. You don’t have to sell or even touch the product. If this sounds too good to be true, you’re not alone—and it’s not! Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money on the Internet, and there are thousands of great products you can promote that will result in high conversions for your business without costing you anything upfront. Follow these affiliate marketing tips to get started right away!
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing, sometimes called associate or referral marketing, is a type of performance-based online marketing. Affiliates are rewarded for generating business through their referral links. As an affiliate marketer, you get paid whenever your referral clicks on your unique tracking link and completes a purchase. This can be a sale on your site, or another site where you may receive advertising fees. This form of digital marketing works well with products that have large online audiences, such as blogs and social media networks. Other great affiliate marketing opportunities exist in network marketing where affiliates earn commissions by referring customers to various services offered by another company’s website.
There are many different types of affiliate programs for marketers to choose from.
Do I need a blog?
If you want to make money through affiliate marketing, you need a website. Whether or not you also need a blog depends on your specific goal. If you are trying to grow an audience and sell them something, then yes, you will probably benefit from having a site where people can go to learn more about your brand. However, if your focus is on affiliate marketing alone—you just want to be able to send traffic through affiliate links—then maybe having a separate site is overkill (though it’s worth noting that there are pros and cons in both approaches). In my opinion, it's better to build more than one asset (whether it's multiple sites or different types of sites), but once again that decision is up to you!
Do I need high-quality content?
The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they think of affiliate marketing is writing. And it makes sense — if someone else’s site generates revenue from your content, you can make money from theirs. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Affiliate marketing offers a variety of ways to earn money online, like paid advertising (i.e., Google AdSense), recruiting affiliates, blogging/vlogging and more. Keep in mind that many of these methods are time-intensive and require technical expertise and high-quality content production.
Must my blog be about a certain topic?
Is it about a certain topic? If so, be sure to include that fact in your title. This is especially important if you're writing about a general topic but are going to focus on one niche. For example, instead of how I lost 10 pounds, it would be better to say how I lost 10 pounds in 5 weeks as a vegan. You can still have an overarching title that includes your niche like: How I Lost 10 Pounds & Managed to Stick with my Vegan Diet Over these 5 Weeks - But don't forget your initial niche! Otherwise, people will click on your post and not realize it's only focused on one area. They may then click off and choose another post more applicable to their goals.
Why affiliate links in general don't work well
So firstly, what is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is where you find companies that offer a product or service that you want to promote. You usually need a special link (called an affiliate link) that gets tracked back to your account so they know who referred them. In exchange, you get paid a small commission whenever someone buys something through your link. For example, I have an Amazon Affiliates account where I've promoted a few different products over time and if anyone buys something from Amazon within 24 hours of clicking one of my links, I get about 4% of their purchase as commission (which is pretty good). As long as you only recommend stuff you personally believe in and use yourself it's very passive income.
Make your readers trust you
It’s true that affiliate marketing is one of a few ways bloggers can make real money from their blogs. However, if you want to earn money from affiliate links it’s vital that your readers trust you and like what you write. This means avoiding spammy sales techniques and obvious plugs for products. Instead, focus on creating amazing content that provides real value to your readers so they will see any recommendation as something they really need to know about—not just some product you’re trying to sell them. If you have an audience that trusts you, then making affiliate sales will be far easier for you. They’ll feel more comfortable buying after reading your recommendation because they are confident in your integrity. And when readers believe in your integrity, seeing affiliate links become natural to them without being disruptive or annoying; after all, if you would use/buy/try it yourself then why wouldn't they?
Use an affiliate network
Many affiliate marketers use Amazon’s affiliate program as a way to get their products in front of larger audiences. It’s free to join, and after making your first sale you can choose from a wide range of banners and promotional offers to put on your site. Amazon is one of the biggest affiliate marketing sources there is, with thousands of products available through its affiliates program. However, if you are selling high-value products online or want some help spreading your word about a particular product, other programs may be better suited to your needs.
Create a catchy promo graphic
If you're going to take advantage of affiliate marketing opportunities, you need a powerful promo graphic to help you stand out from your competitors. Not only do these graphics grab people's attention, but they also convey useful information about you and your business. Be sure to make them look professional—you don't want anyone mistaking your brand for that of a spammer! (See Chapter 3, Designing Your Website, if you're confused about how to create graphics.) Here are some other tips
Promote your products on social media channels.
For example, share products with your Facebook fans using Facebook ads. If you have a large Twitter following, you could be paid to promote a product or service to them. You can also build an audience on a niche site or social media site and leverage it to drive traffic to your site and offer promotions. Remember, you must always give value before asking for anything in return.
Track your conversions.
When it comes to affiliate marketing, there’s one metric that matters above all else: conversion rate. That is, how many people took a specific action (you can think of it as an action similar to a form submission or an ad click) that you defined? It could be making a purchase, subscribing to a service, checking out your product demo video, or even filling out your contact form. The key is defining what you want people to do and then working back from there. You can easily find your overall conversion rate in Google Analytics—it’s listed under Conversion > Overview on most reports pages—but we have other methods we use to track conversions as well.
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