A beginners guide to the best affiliate marketing. Making money and building a business that will continue for years to come.
Why would you want to be an affiliate?
As an affiliate you sell someone else's product and get paid a commission. The most famous of these is Amazon or Walmart although over time the commissions have decreased to a low 2-3% making it hard to make money.
I became an affiliate to build a business, one that would regularly grow in income and allow me a work from home lifestyle.
I therefore looked for recurring income offers that will pay me a share every month for years to come. One sale may make $20 a month but a hundred will deliver $2000. and continue to grow with input. What's more you can be an affiliate for a range of businesses so your income feeds will come from multiple channels thus building your income faster and providing a protection for your channels.
The benefits are many and include;
- No stock holding
- Billing and collection by others
- Customer support by the company
- Guaranteed monthly payments
- Association with only high value companies.
However all this does not come for free, it requires your participation in the marketing process and delivering new customers to the companies on a regular basis.
Customers are the lifeblood of every business.
How can you get customers as an affiliate?
Certainly you can recruit family and friends or all the other hard ways or you can invest in a website and begin online marketing.
The good part is that getting started can be relatively free and your journey will not involve large financial investments unless you decide to pay for advertising. At that time of your growth you will invest on a positive return format so you earn more than you spend.
As you read this Blog which is part of a series in small business marketing you will see some affiliate links from which I may make money, most have free options so you are not being asked to front up with your card,
I prefer the try before you buy option because we all have a rush of blood at times and leap before we look. Over time I have subscribed to the better services mostly because of enhanced features but also access to higher paying affiliate incomes.
A beginners guide to the best affiliate marketing and seeking opportunities.
Are their many affiliate opportunities?
Affiliate opportunities are everywhere in every business line you can think of. You could not count the number of companies in a day. However be warned there are good ones and probably some on the shaky side. First of all I will only send you in a good direction, one that has been well tested and has a chance of getting results. Secondly it is not a get rich quick scheme, it will take time and effort but it will possibly build a valuable future for you and your family.
I know many affiliates that earn well over a hundred thousand dollars a year and some in the million range, These are people just like you and me, battlers that have put in the time and effort to achieve massive results.
Finally I consider it as much a hobby as a job, I enjoy writing and contributing to the small business world sharing my many years of experience in recurring income.
Opportunities are where you look.
Where do you start to learn to be an affiliate?
I wish I new the answer to this when I started out. I had some really dud attempts at making money in the early days because I believed the overcooked hype.
The internet is full of scams and other sources set up to earn money for the promoters.
That's right they make the money and not you, it may not seem fair but that is the cloud world in which you will embark.
Wealthy Affiliate is several things including being an affiliate provider
- They provide business grade web hosting
- The platform is based on the leading WordPress platform
- You can access domain names at a proffered rate
- Three levels of membership:
- Free starter pack, Paid service with additional benefits, Bundled service for the more professional.
- Full training program in both written and video products
- 24-7 Customer support
- Customer blog site and contact centre
- 5 ways of support
And to top it all off you become an affiliate on day one of the journey.
You can start free, and in fact remain free for as long as you want and get a free website to start. How good is that?
A beginners guide to the best affiliate marketing and your challenge.
The wealthy affiliate challenge
You start your journey by learning to build your own website, yes you can do it because it is a show and tell program that holds your hand all the way. Then you will learn about Niches (areas of business in which you would like to be involved) and funneled into something that suits you, it will be your choice.
Keywords and the ways to structure for SEO will all be explained in simple terms.
Learning to attract customers and providing a product is all in the program so every step is covered for you.
How to find affiliate programs will be next and in fact they have onboard access to about a thousand of these so the guess work is taken away from you.
Finally making money while you sleep by using the proper methods and ideas that suit your direction.
All the while working and communicating with like minded people traveling a similar journey.
And that my friends is the free program so imagine how good the paid ones are.
Affiliate marketing is a sales business.
What sort of companies offer affiliate opportunities?
If you want to dive in the deep end think of any product and do a Google search. Then leave a gap and type in the word affiliate and pesto a range of opportunities both good and bad however they are all there.
Then you have reputable companies like Get paid for your great content. shareasale.com.”>Share-A-Sale that manage a range of opportunities that you can join and get paid from.
At least with Share-a-sale you know the products are legitimate and that you are not being hoodwinked into rubbish. It is nice for someone to have your back if things go wrong.
Many companies don't want to run their own programs so they outsource it to amalgamator's
that front end the product . Others include Wealthy Affiliate, Warrior Plus, eBay etc.
A beginners guide to the best affiliate marketing and making money.
Best paid programs with recurring revenue
When I look for everyday products that are or can be used by anyone I come up with a short list.
- Constant Contact email services. I am a user and have settled here having tried most other carriers without a whole bundle of success.
Email marketing is still the top performing product and used by every business across the world so not to be a part of this is leaving a lot of cards on the table
2. Video making and YouTube storing now dominate the market. In fact YouTube is searched nearly as often as Google with people wanting answers in video. particularly how to do things videos.
In days past videos were difficult and expensive to make and were only for the professionals. now days anyone can craft a great product with the tools available at Vidnami,
get your free book at Vidnami or enjoy a seven day free trial. This is a well paying affiliate group that apply to all business across all countries.
Traffic can create income.
Create traffic and get paid
Your SEO performance depends on traffic along with clicks, time onsite and drop off rate. These are important functions of every website and I have sourced the ideal solution. It is titled SparkTraffic and they offer a great free trial and low cost upgrades as well a reasonable affiliate program.
Spark create a perfect reflection on what a website should look like with appropriate measures in place.
Analytics should be studied everyday.
Measuring your traffic for a full understanding
Every website or funnel should be connected with a free Google analytics program to see where traffic is coming from, who they are and what they want. This is one of the first assignments when setting up a web page.
You can take that a step further and make those stats stand out on your website. For this process I use MonsterInsights because it completes my understanding of traffic. The monster also includes a great Keyword guide that ensures every post or page has a chance of being read. They have a very good affiliate program operated through Share-a -sale.
Traffic is an important issue.
Other handy references
Tracking your clicks is important so that you know where your activity is going. If the volume is low you have a chance at changing things to either improve them or delete them. I use Pretty Links a WordPress plugin that tells me all I want to know. There is no afiliate program but it is worth a mention.
Another is Yoast SEO a plugin that should be used on every website. Now there will be conflicting views on this because the competitor is All in one SEO a great product and recommended by many. However, for the beginner Yoast holds your hand in both writing and SEO ranking, and alerting of possible changes that should be made. I have used both and settled on SEO pro as a preferred product, No affiliate program however a necessity in your portfolio.
Making money is an incentive to try.
What about other training programs that earn you money?
First of all, I don't move far from Wealthy Affiliate because they cover just about anything and everything you will need other than one exception.
Some of us like a more school yard training exercise that takes us from start to money and we understand that need and I have my Mate Roy Carter fulfill that role with a really straight forward approach. Roy did well enough to retire to a holiday Island and run the show from a tin shack. Well not quite as he does live very well and only returns to London when he needs to. Roy does not accept everyone so tell him I sent you and you will have a great chance of joining the program because he will understand that you are ready to go.
Concluding affiliate marketing
I have shown you the tip of the iceberg however more than you need to become successful in a new career, now you just need to add time and effort to complete the exercise. I have said before this won't be a get rich quick scheme however you can start earning reasonably quick without spending a lot of money. Finally it is a long term goal to a real business income.
Content marketing will bring its own rewards.
Your journey starts now, Go for it!
I have to admit that the Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to start your affiliate marketing journey. I learned so much as their member for the past 5 years and still learning. They are ABSOLUTELY second to none. Not only you get the knowledge, but you also get tools and support, free hosting for your websites, a community to network with, and a chance to make income as their member! What else do you need?! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
My exact point Sunny, I read about so many people chasing dreams and finding disappointment.
And then up pops Wealthy Affiliate and the answers are all there.
Peter H
You are very on point. Affiliate marketing is an easy to start business where you don’t need the burden of huge capital to start up. And like you recommended wealthy affiliate is a good place to start with . A good and friendly community to help u with good training and equipment like the keyword tool. it is the home of affiliate marketing
Thanks parameter,
I always start with low cost or free products because we all kiss a few frogs along the way.
Thus we don’t lose a lot of money.
Chase your affiliate dream.
Peter H
Hi, thank you for guiding us through this new opportunity of building an online stream of income. It is sure new to me, but I know it has been around for a while. I would like to give it a try. And at first I was overwhelmed with all these offers I read online. But I have felt really good about Wealthy Affiliate. Several online say very good things about this platform. Thank you for your review.
Thanks Ann, and Yes no doubt Wealthy Affiliate is a great spot to start your journey.
It is all possible however time and training will bring a result.
Kind regards
Peter H