You are an affiliate marketer when you are rewarded by a company or companies for visitors or customers who click on their sites because of your marketing/advertising efforts on their behalf. Being an affiliate marketer means you need to get traffic to get paid. If you don’t know how to get traffic (people, eyes) to visit or click on those companies site you are promoting then you don’t get paid. That is how affiliate marketing works.
…but if you learn how to send targeted traffic, then…wow!…that is your goal and that would make you a successful affiliate marketer.
Becoming An Affiliate Marketer
When I started looking to work from home online I didn’t know anything about affiliate marketing, I don’t think I had ever consciously heard of it. I have tried to find legitimate work online before and I knew about MLM and knew that was something I did not want to do and a lot of the data entry work from home offers were mostly scams in disguise.
I didn’t have a product to sell so I needed to do a lot of research to find out what I would actually enjoy doing online and how to make money doing it. I needed to kiss a lot of frogs along the way to finding a place that was not shoveling s#*&^%.
===>Some things to ask yourself when getting started:
- Do I know anything about building and hosting websites
- Do I know anything about how to get a website ranked in search engines
- Do I know anything about how to get people to visit and interact with a website
Joining Wealthy Affiliate will change any NO to a Yes
Remember I said I never really heard of affiliate marketing and I sure didn’t know anything about coding and setting up and hosting a website. Although you can be an affiliate marketer without a website (a topic for another post), I knew the best option for me was to secure my own website and find a place that could teach me how to actually navigate my way around the world of earning a living online.
My research led me to Wealthy Affiliate the name really sounded corny and I hoped it wasn’t a get rich scheme, because I didn’t want to waste any time finding out that it was, it was not a waste of time, I found out after researching it and joining for FREE, that it was not a scam, it is now my University, I have learned a lot and I will continue to because this place teaches you what you need to do to set up your online business for success and a community full of like-minded people ready to support you and give a helping hand. No Bull.
Joining Wealthy Affiliate gave me what I needed to go out and start joining some programs by applying the knowledge I am constantly gaining. The first affiliate program I joined was, you guessed it…WA…that was a no brainer…it was working for me and I believe in it so, no question about that, so why not tell other and save someone some time and money.
What are your interest, what are you passionate about, find those things in an affiliate program to promote and you will enjoy the time you spend working on them. This will be your niche.
Get To Know Your Affiliate Program
Search online for a list of affiliate programs a lot of people are familiar with Amazon, eBay, AdSense but they are not the only ones so do your research to find the ones that are a good fit for you. For instance, most people end up joining Amazon, and because Amazon has a set time period in which you have to make a valid sale they will close your account if you don’t but you can re-open at a later date, so be ready to service the programs you are joining. Although all affiliate programs have their own policies their structure are quite similar but you have to be sure to follow program policies or you could have your account closed. 
Break your list down to a manageable number and break it down again and choose to promote things of interest to you and remember joining just one is also OK because you can promote multiple products from some programs.
When you first start you should do so with a number you can manage without feeling overwhelmed and as you gain experience you can then add more affiliate programs to your income stream. Something to consider when deciding on a number and that is how much time you are able to dedicate to managing the affiliate programs you join.
These companies all have their own promotional material available for affiliates so that is something you don’t have to think about, you have your website and hosting taken care of (hopefully by WA) it has been researched for you, so all that is left is for you to start promoting.
How Do You Get Traffic
One thing that I know for sure is, in order to succeed you will have to find a way to get people to see your site…to see you….you need traffic…a lot of it. It will be the blood of your online business.
Now you have a website and you have hosting for your site and you are also armed with a list of affiliate programs and you are ready to join the ones that are the best fit for you. You now have to start writing, you have to write about the niche you chose, using keywords that are relevant to your traffic(targeted promotions).
- ==>What are keywords
- ==>What is a niche
- ==>I don’t know how to write
Those things and more is what you will need to learn in your quest to earning online, so you have to find a platform where you will learn all about what they are and how to do them. I’m using Wealthy Affiliates (WA) but do your own research before investing your money. Some platforms will give you a FREE trial period, maximize this time period to get to know all you can before it runs out, WA also has a FREE sign up but they don’t have a Trial period you can stay FREE forever.
People will come visit your site because you are supplying them with something that they need, not the affiliate program but something else, information on ”how to.” or reviews on products and services that you have used. You build trust with your visitor by writing and telling the truth about products and services your opinion will eventually matter to them because you have supplied them with information that they needed and they found yours to be true and helpful.
You provided answers to their online search. In a way, they will come to rely on you.
Their interactions with your site have been positive so purchasing something based on your recommendation is a no-brainer. You have to build trust. When that happens, you get paid.
- ==>know your customers
- ==>write reviews on products and services in your niche
- ==>write relevant contents to your site
- ==>post to social media
Promoting – You Have To Actually Do It
So you’re up and running, you have:
- ==>a niche
- ==>a platform – somewhere to create and host a website
- ==>a website set up with keywords rich posts
- ==>you joined at least one affiliate program
Now that you have joined a program you have to start promoting the products/services using the website you created and the promotional materials that is available through the affiliate program. Your affiliate program site will provide you with information on how to get their banners and any other promotional materials they may have for use on your website in your marketing campaign.
Click Here!
This is not a one trick pony show so this process has to be repeated. The key is finding a place where you are going to get training and not just a one time run through course, you get ongoing training that is always available to you. I cannot stress this enough, you MUST implement whatever you learn or there is no point in saying you want to earn online. It’s a lot of work to get to a point where you will be earning a full-time income. You have to be consistent and persistent. There really is no shortcut.
Affiliate Give Away
Being an affiliate marketer is probably the easiest way to start earning a decent income online. You will see your earning potential based on the time you invest in becoming an Affiliate Marketer. I hope this answered some of your questions about becoming an affiliate marketer. I highly recommend you start with Wealthy Affiliate, It is Free to join and I know it will cover your needs so feel free to see if it’s a good fit for you.
If you have any questions here is a direct link to my WA profile
Thanks for stopping, please leave your comments below
bbyard
Affiliate Marketing is definitely very appealing to me. It is very easy to get started but there is definitely a lot of hard work involved. A company like wealthy affiliate can definitely place you on the right track and teach you what you need to know to be successful.
I love the concept of affiliate marketing. Once you get the training you need to be successful it is a matter of following a simple few steps (rinse and repeat)
As you know traffic is the lifeblood of any business. I personally love to gain traffic organically through SEO means, but many people also find success in purchasing targeted traffic.
Great input and guidance on Affiliate Marketing. Thanks for sharing.
I like the rinse and repeat…thank you
Hi, I want to make coupons or cashback website does wealthy affiliate provide support to setup these type of affiliate websites or they are just providing support for bloggers only? If they are not providing support to setup these sort of websites then what platform we can choose to setup coupons or cashback site. If you gave any idea about revglue’s revembed technology “revglue.com/blog-detail/5-how-to-setup-a-uk-discount-voucher-website-in-ten-minutes” they are providing some tools to setup coupons and cashback website.
My one friend recommend my to use revglue’s revembed technology to setup coupons or cashback website but I am little confused while using it because its a UK based new website and I don’t have any idea about it. If any one have idea about it please share and help in this respect. Looking forward for your response and thanks in advance.
Hi Alex. You can host any business at Wealthy Affiliate, it’s not just for bloggers. Depending on the business we all need additional tools to operate. There are plugins, (additional software or tech know-how) that are offered which may be necessary for the function of a particular business. Example: If you want to operate an ECommerce, you would get the plugins needed to run your store. What Wealthy Affiliate gives you, is the platform to host your business, all the support you will ever need, updated tools, and a massive community to give you feedback and help. So, Yes, you can have your coupon or cashback website at WA. Check out this link on cashback/coupon site. https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-create-a-cash-back-and-coupon-website
I hope that will help, I confess I know nothing about setting up that kind of site. Good luck and thanks for stopping