Affiliate marketing could be the best choice that you will make after reading this article for sure.
Let me start Why. Affiliate Marketing is the most recommended and most used way to make money while you're sleeping. You know what I mean. Right.
With affiliate marketing, you get to promote someone else products on your platform, and if the readers/user end up buying that particular product you get commission over it. The commission varies from 8% to 25%, based on the product.
There are plenty of ways you can make money by placing ads in the post, selling your products, or leasing your blog space, or any other means as well. However, the best and easiest way is by selling products with affiliate marketing platforms like Amazon associates, Click Junction, and many others as well.
This way you will be acting as a doorway, no no, you will be acting as a marketer for other products and you get paid based on the product that you sold. If you have consistent traffic to your blog or to your site then you should consider affiliate marketing.
Reminder: This is not a "Get-Rich-Scheme". I'm telling this once again, this is not for those who want to get rich or scam people. If you do this kinda stuff you will be get banned quickly from google and from affiliate marketers.
You might be a beginner or just started the journey into affiliate marketing, go through this article, and I can bet your time won't be wasted.
Let's start with "What"?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
By this time you might have heard "Affiliate Marketing" at least 100's of times right. But did you never have this doubt? "What is affiliate marketing is"?
Hear me out,
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular tactics that are used to drive sales and generate online revenue, while you're sleeping.
Affiliate marketing is the most rewarding and also the most beneficial for both brands and affiliate marketers, "which is you and Me".
This is the definition of affiliate marketing.
Definition
1. Google: A marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
and this what
2. Wikipedia: Affiliate Marketing is a marketing practice where a business rewards one or more affiliates for each sale that they made by the affiliate link with their website or blog.
This is what I say
3. Punith: A Place where the seller(Online/Offline retailer) asks the blogger (Affilator/you and Me) to promote their products on your website and agrees to pay commission over that sale.
Affiliate marketing is like the face where you get to reach and say this is what I'm promoting and I think you can your this tool for the betterment of your life so buy this now. Affiliate marketing can be said to be one of the cheapest and quickest ways to make money online. Because there no involves no product creation or any kinda development stuff of any kind. You can do this by writing a blog post just like me, or create an online store and sell stuff, by promoting and digital marketing.
Now you know what is Affiliate marketing is, let's move on to another interesting question"How"?
How does Affiliate marketing Works?
By this time I can say you have an interest in building an Online brand and promoting stuff with affiliate links, right.
But do you know how this works in real-life scenarios?
This is the typical journey in affiliate marketing.
This is how you and I get paid. Once the customer clicks on an Affiliate link a cooky will be installed on the readers/Customer browser. Once he made the purchase you get credited with the commission.
As a Future affiliate marketer or if you're one these are the top three ways that work online.
As an affiliate marketer, you’re paid for every sale that was made on your link.
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Now you know how affiliate marketing works. Let's move on to my favorite question "Who".
Who can Start Affiliate Marketing?
This is the first question that I had when I'm starting out. "Who can start affiliate marketing"? Are there any restrictions on it?
In one Word "Anyone".
Anyone who has a digital footprint can start affiliate marketing and make money.
I know this sounds crazy. But this is true. Literally, anyone can join the affiliate marketing programs and can make money with every sale that they make on through their website.
There are no restrictions for applying for affiliate marketing, but you need to have consistent traffic and valuable content on your website. But you might have to check for the policies in your country, for the US, and India, and many other countries there are no so many restrictions, but country to country policies might change.
Some times getting approved is a little difficult, and some other times even if you get approved making sales is difficult. This means you might have no consistent traffic or the quality of your content is not up to the mark.
Even the top ranking sites the average conversion rate is 1to3%, which means for every 100 customers who visit your website only 2 to 3 people are making a purchase.
This might vary drastically from person to person and from site to site. Conversion is the key when it comes to making money.
Unless you have really good and Quality Content and a consistent amount of traffic you can not make a good number of sales which interns won't make a good amount of affiliate income.
Now "Who" is over let's move on to another important question "What"
What can I sell with affiliate marketing on my blog/Website?
This is the question that you might have in your mind, right now. Let me tell you this, You can sell anything on your blog, that is available on the affiliate website.
For example: On amazon, You can find 1000s of products. You can place all of them, on your blog or site.
But...,
What is the problem?
Ask this to your self. Why would anyone come to your site, rather than going to the original site, in the first place?
Take this it in this way, this works well for anyone.
First, write an article on your website and place affiliate links on your site. Drive traffic to your site and then if you show the affiliate links or products in there, the reader or the customer is most likely to buy products from there.
If your confused don't worry. Follow with me to another topic that will clear all of your doubts.
Here in this step by step process, we'll start from the beginning and go on through the detailed process.
Step By Step Process of Affileating Marketing Journey.
For anyone, the journey has to start from somewhere. For you and Me the journey starts from this place, where identifying the niche.
Let's take Food as an example.
1. Identify the Niche
Defining and identifying the niche is the first important step that you need to take on this journey. You may love food, but there are millions of food blogs out there, you can not rank on the top of all the other blogs.
Instead of focussing on "Food" as a whole topic, start a Blog with the one particular food that you love the most(Ex: Mexican style Pizza) and do it with 100% with your heart, build the authority around that site, promote it.
Once you have a good amount of traffic, then spread to other types of pizzas, and build a brand identity as your site is the go-to place for "pizzas".
It is totally up to you, you can choose any blog topic. But differentiate quickly, bu focussing on one single thing and then expanding to other topics.
2. Start a Blog
Now you need to start a blog or youtube channel. These two works well but you know you and both have 24 hours. we can not make anything and everything.
If you're good at talking and showing yourself, then you should go for Youtube. or if your good at writing and don't know much about video making and other stuff, go with a Blog.
Both work well in their terms. But many are going after youtube, but recent times youtube is becoming more and more crowded.
Here is the process that I followed. First, start with a blog. Went to Google and sign up for a G-Suite account and then bought a domain and hosting on Bluehost then created the content and the website that you see right now.
Youtube doesn't cost you any money but the equipment, like "Camara", "video editing software", "Other expensive equipment" will cost you a fortune.
However, the blog on the other side is like a one-time investment, which won't cost you mich, if you go with Bluehost, you get a Domain for free for one year and the hosting charges are very less compared with any other hosting providers.
3. Understand the importance of SEO and Keyword research
Now we did set up the blog and moved on to keyword research. Remember this very well, because I made a mistake in the beginning. Keyword research is the key to get ranked on Google. Unless you rank on the top, you can not drive traffic to your site.
Keywords are like your name or your blog name.
For example, my blog is about "blogging" and making money online. My keyword is "Blogging formulae", I need to build authority on blogging and making money online.
Like that you need to build authority on your food blog keyword.
Ex: "Mexican Pizza" if anyone types in this word you need to get ranked on the top. only then you can drive traffic to your site.
SEO, Search Engine Optimisation is another important thing that revolves around your blog especially the keyword that you just have chosen.
Bothe Keyword research and the SEO helps you in ranking your site on the top of the search results.
4. Post Quality Content
Content is the king on the internet or in the real world. You and I know that very well. But are you able to write or present hi-quality content to the reader or to the audience? If you're able to present that much of quality content then one day you will be the king in that niche.
Writing quality content is not that easy this comes with time/Experience and lots of effort. So what should I do now?
Just start a Blog and pour your thoughts into it one at a time and do in-depth research as well as detailed article, if anyone layman comes to that topic he/she should learn everything about that in one shot.
Click on this link to know "How to write a blog post in less time"
I know without any experience nothing is possible. Everything comes with time and experience. So just give it a shot and continue your journey by writing one article every month.
One day or the other you will master writing quality content and no one will stop you from there.
writing Quality and interesting articles is one thing. But at the same time, you need to promote your self and your blog, only then you can get traffic to your blog.
5. Promote and Build Consistent Traffic
Having world-class content is something, at the same time promoting that content is another important task. Without promoting it no one knows what you do.
I know this takes time as well. But you need to showcase your work to the public only then the world knows what you're and what you can do.
Traffic is the key to rank on google and to be found by the public right. At the same time building that consistent traffic is not as easy as it looks like. If you take youtube it is harder than ever due to high completion.
On the other hand updating content on a blog is much easier than re-doing a total youtube video. So what should you do? Start a Blog, Master the content, and then go after youtube. Then you can build two fronts.
6. Signup for the affiliate Programs.
Once you do all the important stuff, now comes the money part. You and I know how important the affiliate programs are and how easy to make consistent money with it. right.
After you build the authority over the topics then you need to signup for an Affiliate program and then post those links on your blog.
Here are the top affiliate programs that I found.
List of Top Affiliate Programs:
These are the some which I did try and some I dint. But these are the most popular on the internet.
1. Amazon Affiliates: World's top most used affiliate program. The Commission is around 10%.2. ebay and Flipkart: E-commerce platforms with commission rates vary from 6 to 7% from country to country.3. Share a Sale: Interesting and easy to use platform out there. It is similar to CJ affiliates.4. CJ Affiliate: I personally use CJ Affiliate, as you can manage multiple affiliate links in one place.5. Clickbank: Another interesting platform where there are top most conversable platforms are available.6. Impact: Top loved platform for tech bloggers, especially in the case of Uber, Airbnb, Squarespace, and more than 100+ top platforms. I do use this platform, where it is easy to operate.7. Bluehost: $60 to $125+ based on each sale. If you make more in one month you get more.8. Siteground: $55 to $150+ per sale. You can make more initially.9. A2 Hosting: Starting at $55 and may go up to $200+ per sale.10. WP engine: $150 to $200 Per sales. May vary from region to region.11. Theme Forest: 30% of the sale value.12. Astra Theme: best in theme and best in commission rates. You can negotiate aswell.13. Elegant Theme: 50% and may vary if you make more sales.14. Constant Contact: An Email platform, that pays around $100+ on sale and $15+ Per lead.15. SEMrush: My best choice. Wapping 40% of the value.16. WP Rocket: 20% of the over all sale value.17. Wordpress.com: With 20% of the commission rate. But not the best choice for the Buyer.18. Optimonster: On average 20% of the sale value.19. Elemontor: Based on the purchase value, it may vary in between $15+ to $100+ per sale20. Udemy: Udemy pays nearly 20% of the sale that you can make via Affiliate link.21. Grammarly: I'm not Shakespeare, i do need assistance so grammarly. It pays around $20 per premium registration.22. LongTail Pro: 30% of the total sale value.
Suggestion: Don't go with all this at once. just start with one program and build one after the other. If you go for all at once everything will be messed up.
This is what I can say, Go with the amazon affiliate program first, build consistent traffic then you won't leave it.
7. Different Types of Programs
For the first time, we had no knowledge of how this works. But now we know what is happening around the affiliate programs and what are the top programs out there. Here are some of the types of programs.
These are the ways you get paid as affiliate marketing:
a. Pay Per Click (PPC):
An affiliate gets paid for all the valid clicks generated regardless of whether these clicks resulted in sales or leads. You might have heard this in our previous topic "How to make money with Banner ads".
b.Pay Per Lead (PPL):
Companies pay a fixed commission for every qualified action a click generated. This action might include things like Form submission, Free trial sign-up, or completion of a short survey.
c.Pay Per Sale (PPS):
Companies pay a percentage of all qualified sales. This is the most profitable process. This percentage is agreed upon by the company and its affiliate. Among the most common PPS programs is Amazon Associates, where a publisher can earn up to 15 to 18% depending on the products sold. And this commission rates may vary from country to country.
d. Sitewide commissions:
Here in this process, you can make a commission on all the purchases that they make. Which means that you'll get paid for any purchase made by their referrals throughout the site.
e. Recurring commission:
It is similar to Subscription services. Where you as an affiliated get commission based on the renewal that buyer made. The best example is SEMrush. Where you'll be paid based on the renewals made by the buyer. So, the affiliates get paid as long as their referral is signed up.
f. Increased pay:
Here in this type if you are able to make certain sales and after that particular sales, you will be based on the sales. Ex: Siteground. If you make 25+ sales you'll get more commission, Increased pay, which is also called customer pay.
g. Cookies:
The best example is Amazon, where when the user clicks on the link there will be a cooky that is installed and tracked, if the users end up buying then you'll be paid. This time span starts as little as 24 hours to 60 days.
8. Start with Amazon or "any other E-commerce giant in your country
Amazon is the world's largest affiliate program out there. It has more than 1+Million registered Affiliate users. Itself accounts for +15% of overall sales via affiliate links.
Here there are no complications, it is as easy as adding a Widget or adding a small piece of code or link to the website.
Anyone can start off with amazon, there are no pre-requisites, so if have an amazon account scroll down till the end, you will find Affiliate Program, click on that and it will take you to the affiliate page you need to add few more details, then your set to go.
But you need to remember this. Your affiliate program can be revoked at any given time if you try to mislead or deviate from the policies set by the amazon.
Suggestion: "Always Focus on the Niche". If you're in the field of Cooking then place-related products, to that particular item. If you place a car wash spray in your food blog, no one will buy.
If Amazon is not available in your location, then opt for e-commerce in your region. If you take India, "Flipkart" is the second biggest e-commerce company. You can apply for both Amazon and for Flipkart at the same time. Check both Amazon and Flipkart commission rates.
Amazon Commission Rates
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Fixed Advertising Rates for Specific Product Categories
| Product Category | Advertising Rates |
|---|---|
| Apparel & Accessories | Luggage & Bags | Watches | Shoes | 9% |
| Toys & Baby Products | Home | Kitchen Appliances | Kitchen & Housewares | 9% |
| Sports, Fitness & Outdoors | DIY & Tools | 9% |
| Books | Grocery & Gourmet | Pantry | Office & Stationery | 8% |
| Health, Beauty & Personal care | Personal Care Appliances | 8% |
| Jewellery (Excluding silver & Gold coins) | Car, Motorbike, Industrial & Scientific Products | Musical Instruments | 8% |
| Large Appliances | Movies | Music | Software | Video Games | 5% |
| Televisions | Computers |Consumer Electronics & Accessories (excl. Data Storage Devices) | Mobile Accessories | 4% |
| Mobile Phones* | Bicycles & Heavy Gym Equipment | Tyres & Rims | 2.5% |
| Data Storage Devices | 2% |
| Gold & Silver Coins | 0.2% |
| All Other Categories (Furniture| Kindle devices & E-books| Fire TV stick & other Amazon devices | Others) | 10% |
Personally, I always start with Amazon, because it is user friendly and it is the king in the E-commerce field in the world.
9. Focus on Fresh Stuff
"Todays NEWS paper tomorrows wast paper"
we often heard this Quote when we're young. This is true in real life as well. Yes, Old Stuff is really necessary. But the creaze and the liking will always be on NEW stuff.
If you're cook, then you might have known this very well. IF you have a child, they definitely ask you "what is the new dish today". Right.
New stuff is 60% more likely to attract more people than the old but important stuff. This is true everywhere.
If you have a really revolutionary idea or the topic that wasn't written on the internet then post it and don't forget to add links to the old articles and affiliate links as well.
According to Neal, follow 3+1 Formulae, if you're a blogger. This means you need to post 2or3 new articles and 1 Old article in your blog every month. This way you don't have to get strained too much.
10. Always Check, Monitor, and Manage all affiliate links in one place
This another mistake made in my early days. What I did was I signed up for all the affiliate programs which are necessary and then I forget them.
You shouldn't do that mistake. I learned this in a Heard way. Yes, I can say you'll make very little or no money in your first year, but once you progress and once the traffic increases, then you can make money. This comes with time.
Don't try to push products/Affiliate links.
If a customer/reader gets annoyed with so many links and ads then he/she won't come back. Which is really bad for the business.
You need to monitor all the affiliate links at least once a month. I do the same thing. At the end of the month ill sure open my affiliate links and check for the performance and the earnings that I made during the month.
You may see your balance would be "0" for some time, but don't lose hope. One day or the other you can make a decent amount via affiliate links.
I've seen this, many bloggers and YouTubers quit too soon because they are unable to get the desired traffic or the desired revenue from the Blog. Which is very bad. Do you believe this!. My goal was to wrote 100 articles and get at least 300+ daily views within one year. Only them I thought of monetizing.
If you have multiple affiliate partner programs signed up then try to manage them in one place. Because it is in one place and all the reports are easy to monitor and manage.
11. Identify and Monetize.
If you have 100+ articles in your blog, all may not rank on the top of the search results. So what should you do? I can bet hand full of articles might be ranking on the top for sure. Pick those articles and promote your old but worthy articles.
You need to Identify the top ranking article on your site and place "affiliate links" or link back to the affiliate pages or promote your older posts.
This will help you to build more consistent traffic and improves ranking.
On the other hand, if you have an article that is on the top of the search results then you need to place relevant and highly convertible affiliate links in that post. This kind of small change will drastically increase affiliate revenue.
12. The First impression is the last, so pitch your first pitch with the utmost care.
Identifying worthy readers/customers is very hard. But retaining the existing customers/Readers is a much bigger task. Because there are so many options available out there. So if you identify the reader make sure you impress him/her at any cost. If necessary give coupon codes or freebies.
It is like going on your prom/Date.
Do not mess around.
If you do Mess, then you'll be loos the party forever.
Just like that, you'll lose the customer forever. So what are the best ways that I can attract and retain the reader?
One thing is if you're blog has too many ads and unnecessary popups then you need to change the approach.
Provide more information and add fewer affiliate links in the beginning but highly convertible links.
13. Promote Links via "Social Media".
Social media is the single most important and free tool to promote your blog or any other stuff. The reason is all most all the millennials are using social media. Not one on average millennials uses 4 to 5 social media platforms. and spends 3 to 4 hours daily.
There is a serious scope for marketing.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest will be the initial traffic sources for your blog. So make sure you add links in all these platforms as well.
Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest are the most conversable platforms. But others like Facebook and Twitter are becoming outdated.
Focus on social platforms all the time. Don't forget about email marketing as well.
14. Include Detail Affiliate Disclaimer, privacy policy.
By this point i can guarantee that you're totally into the affiliate program, you made up your mind this is the best way to make money online right. Let's look into some other important documents that you need to prepare before adding any affiliate links to your blog.
Things like "Disclaimer" and "Privacy Policy" are the two most important things that need to be showed on your website. this will help you to protect your self in case of any faults or any other misunderstanding between the buyer and you.
Make sure you explain the reason and policies relate to Affiliate links as well. There are cases where the buyer sues the blog owner for misleading or you know other kinds of stuff. You need to be protected from those things.
15. Share your Success story
If you're new to the Niche, then you need to build a community around your self. Otherwise, you can not survive in the long run.
I know there is a Huge completion in each and every field out there. Whichever relates to the Internet will have some sort of completion. So if you need to survive you need to have a community. Otherwise, you know it will be very hard to survive and make money as well.
The best way to build community is by sharing your "success story"/ Failures with the readers. By doing this they will for sure believe you and they're willing to buy something from your blog.
I know "success" is just 7 letter words but if you want to be successful you need to work hard, really heard.
Conclusion
There are many ways you can make money online. Among all the other ways, Affiliate Marketing and Banner ads are the most loved way of making money online. Now you know How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing. Placing affiliate links in your blog is completely up to you. If you have good traffic to your site, then you should try this for sure.
Now you got the gist of affiliate marketing and how this works. By this point, you would have definitely made up your mind to go all-in with affiliate marketing, as this doesn't require any sort of pre-requisites or any kind of coding skills.
Affiliate marketing is the goto platform for anyone. Because this is easy money in less time if you have good traffic. I personally like this, because of the simplicity and money that can be made.
Now it's your Turn
So what are your thoughts on Affiliate Marketing and are you planning to make money out of it? Let me know your reaction to this post below.
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