Alright, I am going to simplify this process as much as I can for you because there is so much misinformation, outdated and confusing information as to how affiliate marketing works. It isn’t complicated at all, and you are just as capable as I of creating an affiliate marketing business (if you have fingers and a drive to succeed).
So if you have a few minutes, I am going to show you how I have built successful affiliate marketing businesses over the years, and you can do the same through the WealthyAffiliate.com platform.
So let’s have a look at the process of affiliate marketing and how that works…and then I am going to be jumping directly into the process of what and how to start an affiliate marketing business looks like and how you can get started TODAY (no joke), with your own business online.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
There is a plethora of information out there on affiliate marketing, but the problem is with so much information, there is going to be bad information, really good information, confusing information, and information that lies somewhere in between.
I have been running successful businesses within the affiliate marketing space for the last 20 years, and during this time, not a lot has changed, to be honest. The same “simple formula” that worked back then continues to work to this day. You have a product, and you have a customer. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to align these two things. That’s it!
Here is a diagram outlining how affiliate marketing works:
Now I am oversimplifying this a tad, but I am doing this for a reason. I don’t want you to be scared of the word “affiliate marketing” because you are just as capable of creating a full-time and very successful affiliate marketing business as me. All you need is the right training, the right guidance, and the tools necessary to get you there.
The thing is affiliate marketing, at its core, is very simple. There are a few terms that you will want to become familiar with.
Affiliate (YOU). You are the affiliate, which means that you can join companies like Etsy, eBay, Walmart, Amazon (and 10,000’s of others) and promote their products and services. When you join these companies’ Affiliate Programs, they will give you a special “affiliate link” that is exclusive to you and allows you to track all of the sales you generate.
Affiliate Program (a company like Amazon). Most companies have an affiliate program, 99% of all of the brands in the world, in fact, can be promoted online, and you, as an affiliate, can earn a commission. Amazon is one of the biggest affiliate programs in the world and will allow you to promote 100’s MILLIONS of products with a single account. Pretty awesome right?
Earning Affiliate Commissions. Affiliate programs will give you a kickback if you can send people to their website, and they end up buying something. Say you send someone to Amazon through your affiliate link, and they end up buying a fridge; Amazon will pay you a % of the total sale. Amazon offers around 3-6% commissions, so a transaction like this may yield you $50-100 (depending on the price of the fridge). Depending on the company and affiliate program, they will typically pay between 2% and 75% in commissions.
Unlimited Potential. As an affiliate marketer, your potential has no limit. The more people you can get buying through your affiliate links, the more money you make. Many affiliate marketers make several million dollars per year, and this can be a reality for anyone that is willing to put forth the effort to build an affiliate marketing business. But HOW do you build an affiliate marketing business? I am going to cover that in the next section.
The 4-Steps to Starting a Successful Affiliate Marketing Business
So how can YOU create your own successful affiliate marketing start-up? There are actually only 4-steps to creating a successful affiliate marketing business, and if you can follow these and have access to the training, tools, and support necessary to run your business (which I will be helping you with), you are going to be off and running!
So I am not only going to be giving you the exact steps but helping you understand how you can accomplish these steps.
Step 1: Choose an Idea.
The first thing you are going to need to do before you start the build-out of any business is come up with an idea for your business. This is also called the “niche” stage of your business, where you get to choose the audience and the category of your business. This could be anything, from training a puppy to basketball sports betting to video games, etc. There are literally millions of potential directions that you can head with your business. This is the exciting part.
I tend to recommend to people choose a passion/interest as their niche. This way, you will truly love your business, and when you love what you do, you never have to “work” a day in your life. The Internet and the affiliate marketing industry have afforded us all this very opportunity.
How to Choose Your Idea: Choose a niche or a passion. There are close to 5 BILLION people online now, so even the most obscure niches have vast audiences. If you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate, you have direct video classes walking you through the niche selection process along with direct help from the community (and myself), who can give you feedback on your niche.
Step 2: Build a Website.
Your website is the foundation of your business. Think of it like a shop within the offline world. If you have no “storefront”, you don’t have the ability to attract and help customers or the ability to sell anything. Your website is, in essence, your storefront, where you are able to help your audience, communicate with your audience, and promote products/services to your audience.
If you don’t have a website, you don’t stand the hope of running an online business. It is the first and key necessity you need to create a long-term business.
How to Accomplish: You can build high-performing and profit-ready websites with ease at Wealthy Affiliate. You can even get up and running with one for completely free within the Starter account. Another perk to using the website platform over at Wealthy Affiliate is that their hosting (where your website lives) is high-speed and ranks better than other providers. This can give you a competitive advantage and can lead to a lot more opportunities as you build out your website.
Step 3: Get an Audience.
In the Internet world, your website is also the place where your “traffic” will arrive. Without people coming to your website, there is no way to make money. So it is important to understand how to attract traffic to your website.
Traffic can come in many forms, but one of the most sustainable and long-term traffic methods is through search engine optimization. This means getting ranked in search engines like Google and, as a result getting all sorts of FREE traffic to your website. Once you have traffic, you have an opportunity.
So this is the next focus once you have your website up and running. Building out your website in a way that leads to traffic.
How to Accomplish: You need proper “traffic” training, along with a website that is set up to rank well within search engines. These are both things that are provided within Wealthy Affiliate. You have access to elite SEO training, along with classes and access to experts that will personally help you with your traffic campaigns.
Plus, there are many other ways you can get traffic to your website as you build it out. Social media channels, YouTube and video blogging, podcasts, and paid traffic channels. These are all covered in detail within the training at Wealthy Affiliate.
Step 4: Make Money.
Last but not least, the “make money” part of your business. This is where you earn money through affiliate programs. Basically, there are over 550 MILLION products/services that you can promote as an affiliate marketer in exchange for a commission. You will be adding these special links on your website from companies like Amazon, Etsy, Nike, Apple, eBay, etc…and you will then earn a “kickback” if someone goes from your website to theirs and ends up buying something.
The affiliate marketing industry is growing at the fastest pace ever, and affiliates stand to earn $12 BILLION online this year…with this growing even more next year. You can get your chunk of this pie.
How to Accomplish: Finding affiliate programs can be an inefficient task at the best of times. You typically have to go through a bunch of Google searches just to find what you are looking for. Within Wealthy Affiliate, you have instant access to an Affiliate Program search where you can search through 10,000+ affiliate programs across some of the top affiliate networks online.
Not to mention the training you will be getting on how to properly integrate affiliate promotions into your website to maximize conversions….along with some insight into the customer purchase lifecycle and critical information if you want to become a high-performing and successful affiliate marketer online.
So there you have it, how to effectively start an affiliate marketing business in a nutshell. If you are interested in creating your own affiliate marketing business and have no experience, or you are currently trying to build out or scale an affiliate marketing business and you are not getting the results you want, I CAN PERSONALLY HELP.
Again, I have been doing this full-time, and you can immediately connect with me within my home base, WealthyAffiliate.com. Upon creating your account, you will get access to training, websites, hosting, research tools, networking, mentorship, and direct support.
It’s also free to try; you can get a “test drive” Starter account for no cost…no credit card required. I highly recommend if you are even the slightest bit interested in becoming an elite affiliate marketer, you get rolling right now with your account. I will be reaching out to you within 30 minutes or so of your joining. 😉
===> Click Here to Create Your Test Drive Wealthy Affiliate Account!
And if you have any questions you want to leave here for me, feel free to do so. I will make sure I get back to you as soon as I can (usually within a few hours).
Thanks,
Martin