Getting Started – First Step

Do You Want to Sell or Promote a Product?

Okay, you’ve decided to give affiliate marketing a try…what next?

Promoting someone else’s product and earning a commission from that is probably the quickest way to get started in affiliate marketing.

Product Promotion Made Easy

The easiest way to do this is by creating your own blog about the use of the product or service. Figuring out what product or service you want to deal with can also be described as determining the “niche” you want to be involved with.

Contrary to popular belief, writing a blog doesn’t have to be difficult or frustrating.  Writing a blog is simply talking about “WHATEVER!” Your “whatever” is your niche.  Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Pick a subject that you are interested in, like a new hobby, that you want to know more about.  Start a blog, talking about “your journey” into the new hobby. Think about the tools and information you needed to get started and where you got those things from.  Almost every product or service to be purchased can be associated with affiliate marketing in some manner.

Keeping in mind where you got your necessary items to start your new hobby, research whether or not that company, or other similar companies, have an affiliate program you can join to promote the very items you bought, as well as any other items involved with your niche.  What’s good about this is that it makes it easy for you to use your blog to review different products.  Review sites are a great avenue for affiliate marketing because you can, for example, review 3 different products, providing links for purchase to whichever the reader decides, and because you’re are an affiliate for each product separately, you make money no matter which product the reader feels is best for them.  That’s why affiliate marketing is so great!

Once you determine there are several companies offering an affiliate program for several products or services within your niche, you can be fairly comfortable in deciding to start a blog about that niche.

Finding Affiliate Programs

It’s really quite easy to find affiliate programs.  Go to any search engine, like Google, and type in: “Affiliate program + “Your Niche”, with “your niche” being a subject like “magic.”  For example if you type in “Affiliate program + magic” the results would show you a list of companies associated with magic, who offer joinable affiliate programs that allow you to make money by promoting what they have. This can of course be done with any subject.

Also, most affiliate programs are free to join, so be wary if an affiliate program asks for a fee to join.

You would then want to determine which companies have products worth promoting.  By that I mean, are the products priced high enough that it would be worthwhile promoting, to get a piece of the action?  If the products retail for $1-$5, I wouldn’t feel it would be worth my time to get 5% of $5.00 , or .25.  Even though it would be free to join the program, do I think I could push enough people to the site, to make it worth my time.

Once you sign up with an affiliate program, they would provide you with a “link” that you put on your site for a consumer to click, which would bring them to the retailer’s site.  This link is specifically associated with you and once the consumer makes a purchase, after linking from your site, you will be paid a commission on that sale.  That is the simplicity and appeal of affiliate marketing.

 

How to Start a Blog

A blog is basically a website that uses written content to express an opinion.  They are usually written from personal perspectives, which is why bloggers can develop large followings.  A blog can become such a personal thing and the way someone “speaks” in written word, connects with other individuals. Though many think this is what makes blogging difficult, it should be looked at as what makes blogging easy.  A blog is your personal reflection on a particular subject.

The frightening thing for most, is the thought that you will be judged by others.  However, that should be the appeal, that you want, to provoke thought and conversation between people.  Your feelings or opinions are your own, and with a blog, you’re putting them out there to connect with others and perhaps learn to look at something in a different perspective.

If you use your blog as a product review site, you shouldn’t have people judging you personally.  They’ll hopefully be talking about the products, not you, which should relieve the pressure of writing your blog content.

Once you decide on your niche, you want to choose a blog domain, sign-up with a host, pick a platform and start adding posts and pages, and learn to monetize your site.

Sounds daunting, but there are many online companies and sites that can show you how this is done.  It’s not really hard at all and I suggest looking at Wealthy Affiliates as a place to start.  They will show you step by step how to develop your own monetized website in a matter of minutes.  What is great about them is that they do it absolutely for free.

Make Money with Your Blog

Okay, you’ve started writing your blog, how do you make money with it?  This is where the affiliate marketing comes in.  As mentioned earlier, the idea is to have “links” to different retailers, that your reader can click and go directly to that retailer’s site and purchase the product you’re talking about.  That’s it in a nutshell.

Blogging is the easiest way to get into affiliate marketing and making money online because creating a blog website is very simple. Creating interesting content, promoting your website to increase traffic, and creating proper links are the nuts and bolts of monetizing a blog for profit.

Following are additional categories of income streams for bloggers.

Display Ads: These are images or graphics, like ads in a magazine.  You usually see them as sidebars, headers, or footers within posts.  Banner ads are considered display ads.

They will generally look attractive, with relevant information, in hopes that a visitor will click on it and be sent to the advertisers site to purchase the product or service, and provide you, the blogger, a commission in return.

For first time bloggers, Google AdSense is most popular  in terms of using display ads, because it is very easy to set up.

Private Ads:  Like display ads, they are usually found as a graphic in sidebars.  The blogger creates a direct relationship with a business to promote a product. There is no middle man, like an ad network, that you would have sometimes with display ads. It’s important that both parties are clear about all expectations of the relationship.

Giveaways & Reviews:  When your blog is setup as a product review site, sometimes companies will provide you with products to try and review, plus give away.  Some bloggers will charge to run giveaways, while receiving free product to keep for themselves.

The bottom line is, making money as a blogger can be simple, with many streams of income workable from it.

Affiliate Marketing Made Simple

There are many sites online that will show you how it is done. I’m going to make it easy for you and cut your research time down drastically…

Start with a blog.  Start with Wealthy Affiliate if you’re afraid you can’t do it and would prefer a step by step guide to show you how to do it.

Millions of people can’t be wrong.  This is the one platform that you must have if you plan on learning affiliate marketing, because you can get all the tools, training, coaching and interactive support you need to create and grow an affiliate marketing based business.

Affiliate marketing has become a popular money-maker because it is easy to do.  Anybody can do it, let’s get started together!