There are over 440 million blogs in the world and most of us are looking to make money out of these blogs. Affiliate marketing seems to be one of the easiest ways to monetize these blogs these days, and almost all blog owners are aiming for it.
How to Start affiliate marketing? If you are a merchant and want your products to sell more and to reach a large audience base, you hire affiliates who promote your products in exchange for a financial incentive via your affiliate program. So, the entire thing basically works on revenue sharing.
You would also need the assistance of some of the affiliate marketing tools like LeadDyno that will not just help you to keep a track of the clicks, sales, and commissions earned in real time, but will also give you the opportunity to connect with their wide network of affiliates and influencers who can help promote your product on your behalf.
Our affiliate marketing for beginners guide will take you through the entire process of making your first sale.
-
Decide which niche you want to target
This is the fundamental step where you must decide upon a niche before you start building your website. This helps you decide which market you are going to target. While deciding your niche, ask yourself a few questions.
-
What topics interest me the most?
If a topic interest you and you are passionate about it, it will be much easier for you to work on it. For instance, if you are highly inclined towards technology, you can choose the technology niche
-
Is this niche profitable for me?
While you should follow your passion, it is also important for many to know if the niche can help you earn good money. Most of us choose a niche based on its profitability and that keeps the passion going.
-
Which topic can help me write around 100 posts?
Whether you choose technology, fashion, or any other niche, the topic you choose must have a certain depth helping you to generate a lot of content out of it. This helps build a site that’s authoritative, optimize visibility on search engines and more.
-
Is the niche used by competitor affiliates?
Before deciding on a niche, make sure that it offers you the potential to earn as well. Therefore, avoiding a highly popular niche is smarter because those are usually competitive.
-
Are the products in the niche in demand?
Make sure that the products in the chosen niche are equally in demand and have the potential to generate profits.
-
Does any of the niche selected offer affiliate programs?
Check if the selected niche is associated with an affiliate program or you will end up wasting your precious time for nothing.
-
Analyze the Affiliate Programs
Now that you have selected the niche, dig deep inside and take your time to research on what’s the kind of products and programs offered by the affiliate program. While joining an affiliate program, keep these points in mind.
-
Which merchants use the selected affiliate network?
Get to know if other similar sellers are also using the program so that you know if it’s going to work for you too.
-
What amount of commissions can you make from these products?
Choose an affiliate program that has a generous payout and can help you earn some good profits for you.
Additionally, use leading affiliate tracking software like LeadDyno to keep a track of your commissions, while you network with other affiliates for mutual benefit.
-
Do you believe in the products and services you are promoting?
Affiliate marketing for beginners also includes the aspect of whether you believe in the products and services you are promoting. If they are good enough quality wise.
-
Develop a website
This is when you start executing your research and so, you need to build a website, preferably using WordPress. WordPress CMS is user-friendly and you do not need to be tech pro to set up your site.
-
Purchase a domain
Get an address for your website by buying a domain while setting up your site. You need to select a unique one because most of the names are already taken.
-
Buy a hosting and set it up
A domain is an address, and hosting is an abode where your website will live. This is the space on the internet where all your files are saved. Hosting is pretty cheap these days, so select a reputed provider.
-
Get WordPress and install
Install a content management system (CMs), preferably WordPress since it’s easy to use for amateurs.
-
Apply a theme
Select a free theme from WordPress or buy a premium one from their library. This will be seen on the front end and should be attractive enough.
-
Create content
Once your site is ready, now you need to develop content and this is the crucial part. Make sure that it’s relevant to your niche and audience. It should be interesting and search engine friendly to get the desired traffic.
-
Create great content
Content is king and so, you need to focus on the quality of the content t be successful in your affiliate marketing endeavor.
-
Review products
Product review is the best way to start and can offer a substantial return on investment when done well.
-
Offer solutions to questions related to the target market through blog posts
Search through competitor blogs, forums, and social media platforms to get the trending topics that would interest the readers in the current time. Create “How To” articles offering solutions and the list articles that offer solutions in a clear steps for a better understanding of readers.
-
Timeless content
Trending keywords and proper use of the same comes in play here. This will ensure that your content stays timeless so, run a thorough research on which keywords have the potential to perform better.
-
Informational products
Offering informational products like mini-courses or e-books is a common practice among affiliate marketers. Once the reader provides their email address to get this, their contact details can then be used for e-mail marketing.
-
Create an audience
Building an audience base largely depends on your content quality. It should be compelling enough to make readers come back and get regular sales for you.
-
Use social media to promote your content
One of the most effective ways to build an audience is via popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. Whether you promote your content links or ask a question, it should be compelling enough to attract an audience.
-
Write guest posts for high traffic blogs
Writing guest posts for high traffic blogs is another popular way of promoting affiliate products or affiliate links. Guest posts are mostly unpaid and focus on the exposure and promotion of links fetching more traffic to your website.
-
Create an email list
Encourage your audience to sign up for updates or newsletters, or create an email list using a lead magnet, this is still one of the best ways to push your content to the target audience.
-
Get more traffic to your website from search engine using basic SEO methods
Organic search still plays a crucial role in getting traffic to your website so, make sure that your website is SEO optimized. Simply keep the basic SEO techniques in mind and that should do good enough.
-
Go for paid advertisings
From using paid advertising like banner ads on small niche sites to the ones on the social media platforms, paid advertising is much more affordable these days than we thought.
-
Market affiliate discounts
While you must show your audience the value of the product and services you are selling, you should also keep adding value to the products by offering the audience something more ad too so, you can use different ways like:
-
Reviews of products
Make sure your product reviews are honest and out of the actual experience. Give a balanced opinion with both pros and cons to gain the trust of your audience. Link the review to the merchant page leading the reader to the product and complete a sale.
-
Banner Ads
Placing banner ads on sites is a common practice. Usually, this is provided by the affiliate programs. Simply insert the banner on a page that attracts high traffic. Placing the banner ads in the right location is the key.
-
Email promotions
Instead of selling it hard first to build a relationship with your audience and then promote your affiliate products using the email list.
-
In-text links
This is the most common way of promoting affiliate products and one of the easiest ways too. Simply add links to your blog post and if the reader clicks on it and completes a sale, you get a commission for the conversion.
-
Discounts
If the affiliate program is running an offer or providing discounts on products, it’s the perfect opportunity for you to promote the products using these discounts to the readers.
-
Repeat steps 4 to 6 continuously
Yes, in order to increase your profits, you must keep repeating steps 4 to 6. Remember, that just like any other business even this will require your constant efforts, but unlike other ventures here you reap the benefits of lifelong once you have done the initial work.
So, simply follow the 7 rules in this affiliate marketing for beginners guide and make your way to success in your endeavor.