Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

You’re interested in affiliate marketing as a way of making money online and I know that’s a great choice for SO many reasons. I started affiliate marketing in 1997 and my online business as an affiliate marketer has provided me with a lifestyle that I would never have even dreamed possible had I continued working at my day job.

So, let’s get you started…

NOTE: Most of the links on this page will take you to other pages on this site. You can either hit the ‘Back’ button at the top left-hand corner of your browser window or the “Affiliate Marketing for Beginners” link at the top of every page to return to this article.

If you haven’t already decided to become an affiliate marketer, you might have the following questions about affiliate marketing.

1. What is affiliate marketing?
2. How does affiliate marketing work?
3. How much does it cost to start up as an affiliate marketer?
4. Can I Really Make Money as an Affiliate Marketer?
5. How much can I earn as an affiliate marketer?
6. How long does it take to make money as an affiliate marketer?
7. and my favorite… Affiliate Marketing Advantages: 17 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is and what its advantages are, let’s look at how you can start an affiliate marketing business.

Starting an affiliate marketing business involves the following 8 basic steps:

1. 1. Choose your niche.

      A niche is a topic. The topic you choose should be one that you are both passionate about and knowledgeable about. You can, however, choose a topic about which you are not knowledgeable IF you have a passion to learn about that topic. You may already know exactly what you want to blog about and that’s great. But if you aren’t so sure about your topic or if it is viable (can make money) then you’ll have to do some niche market research.

   2. Register your domain name.

      After choosing a potentially profitable niche market, you need to buy and register a domain name. Sorry, but free hosting sites like WordPress.com is unacceptable to reputable merchants. Far too many affiliates with free hosting sites have had their sites shut down without prior notice. As a serious affiliate marketer, you absolutely need to have your own domain name and website.

   3. Create your website/blog.

      If you registered your domain with GoDaddy, then you’ll need to pick a hosting service on which to create your website. I heartily recommend that you use WordPress as a platform for your website, and WordPress specifically recommends certain hosting services. Each of these hosting services makes it easy to install a WordPress blog. A WordPress blog has been the best and easiest way to create a website for the better part of two decades now. WordPress is a free platform that just keeps getting better and better.

      Here are a few articles about WordPress that you will find useful when building your site / blog .

   4. Create content for your site

      I suggest that you create at least 10 articles on your website before you attempt to join any affiliate programs or advertising networks such as Google Adsense. Good merchants will check your website to make sure that it looks good and has great content before they accept you into their programs.

      To learn more about creating content for your blog, please read these articles:

   5. Start building a subscriber list.

      The biggest mistake that many new affiliate marketers make is thinking that they do not need a list of subscribers. Let me say that it is absolutely imperative that you have a list to grow your business.

   6. Choose affiliate marketing programs

      I suggest that every affiliate marketer start monetizing their site with Google Adsense and ‘easy to enter’ affiliate networks such as Clickbank until they have traffic to warrant joining larger affiliate networks such as CJ Affiliate and Shareasale.

   7. Put affiliate links on your blog

      In your initial articles, you’ve written about products that you like and want to promote to earn commissions. Once you’ve joined affiliate networks you can get links from them to promote those products. Go back through your articles and add your affiliate links.

   8. Promote your site

      Google is your friend. When you structure your site appropriately you will show up in Google’s search results.

      To enhance the process of getting recognized by Google, you should do some basic social media marketing, such as creating both a Facebook profile and Page, as well as a Twitter account. Note: The previous links go to my personal accounts to demonstrate how I promote my sites.

   Did you find this post about affiliate marketing for beginners informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

   Cheers,