You've probably heard more than once from someone who works on the internet and travels the world. Or you may have come across one of those articles titled"how I managed to get so many euros in passive income and a few steps", « How to make money from home without doing anything» or « Earn easy money» that always include a photo of the author smiling on the beach.
This type of article is very attractive, but... will it be true what they say?
At lastoftrick, we like to tell you things as they are because our goal is for your online business to go like silk. And so today we come with good news (very good, in fact), and one that may not be so idyllic.
Let's start with the second one: passive income on the internet is not as passive as you usually think and, while it's true that they may not require the effort of a full-time job, for your profits to be remarkable you'll have to invest some time and patience. That's it. Fast and painless, isn't it?
Let's go now with the news that we are all waiting for: all these stories about living off your online "passive" income are nothing unattainable. With minimal (but reasonable) effort, anyone can make money on the internet! It's already sounding a lot better, isn't it?
Whether you want a part-time online job with which to generate extra revenue, whether you're a marketing expert, a student, or simply because you're looking for a profitable way to hang out online: you can always create online content (such as a video on YouTube or a personal blog) and monetize it through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing or affiliate marketing is a form of marketing that rewards online content creators for promoting a product or service. And depending on the membership program you join, you can earn money, free services, or whatever the company decides to offer you.
Each affiliation comes with a unique affiliate link, which will be the one you'll have to share with your audience so the company knows where the traffic got by you is coming from.
Simple, don't you think? In today's post, we will explain how to get you started in affiliate marketing in 5 simple steps. Notes!
Step 1: Find your niche
If you have your own niche, it means you are recognized as an expert within a specific field. And when you're an expert on a particular topic, your fans will trust you and invest their money in whatever you recommend. This is the first step to earning money as an affiliate.
Your niche can be anything you like: from dance to video games. But look, because these two concepts are very broad. When we talk about u n niche market, the smaller it is, the better. So, better than dance, you can focus your efforts on contemporary dancing and create your own vlog on your team's evolution and training.
Look, for example, at Girlfriend Reviews. Instead of talking about video games itself, Shelby talks about what it's like to live with someone like her boyfriend Matt: a true digital gaming fan.
They focus on a very specific niche and given their number of subscribers and visitors, they haven't had so much specialization!
Once you find a niche to develop in, it's important to ask yourself a few questions before you jump into affiliate marketing.
Is it possible to make money on the internet with this niche?
Whether you're creating your own videos or writing on your blog: with affiliate marketing, your plans go through monetizing your content. A common way to do this is to use pay-per-click advertising on your website. But, if you're just getting started, you may not have enough traffic to monetize these types of ads.
And speaking of advertising, have you thought about Facebook ads?
So you must look for something to sell to your niche. And it's not worth trying to sell them anything: you have to offer them something that interests them, that they're willing to buy. Your own custom merchandising can be a good idea to get started.
You can use an on-demand product supplier like clickbank so you don't have to take care of inventories or shipments.
It's important to look for the best channel to sell your merchandise for. You can choose some eCommerce platform or, depending on your niche look for a more specific channel. For example, within the world of video games is Streamlabs, where users can not only upload their streams but also allow them to sell their own merchandising.
Streamlab also has an affiliate program, so if you're a content creator promoting the service, you can earn money every time one of your followers registers through your affiliate link.
As you can see, you can sell your products through different channels to reach an even larger audience.
Is it a topic where you can create a good amount of content?
Posting a couple of articles on your blog, while it's a good start, isn't enough to make you an expert on your niche. It's very important to generate the volume of content, both for SEO reasons and for your audience to see you as an expert.
And, believe me, while you can easily write about very general topics, you're interested in the topics you write about to be as specific as possible: the more unique the topic you write about, the less competition you'll have and the more your followers will trust you. And the more reliable your content is, the more people will want to hear from you: that's the primary goal of affiliate marketing.
If Instagram is your thing, don't forget to use the right hashtags to reach your entire target audience!
For example, influencer Jimena Reno (or Dinosaur) usually includes some other affiliate links in her videos. She has more than half a million followers on her YouTube channel, so affiliate links are a safe bet for both her and the companies she collaborates with.
Jimena probably didn't have as big a range as she is now when she started. I probably couldn't make a lot of money online either. But to get here, she's done something you can also easily do: periodically post content you enjoy creating. It's as simple as that.
And remember that if you want to be a fashion influencer in Spain, you are just a few steps away from your dream!
Is your niche or target audience big enough?
When you start in the world of affiliate marketing, it's crucial that someone watches your videos or reads your articles. And to reach a wide audience, it's best to make keyword research.
This type of research also allows you to know the most common search terms within your niche which are ideal to know all your interests and concerns! A good tool for this is Ahrefs. Here are the results when you're looking for, for example, how to save.
The first thing we find is the difficulty of the keyword difficulty. This section tells us how much competition there is for that keyword, and how difficult it would be to appear among Google's first results for that set of words.
As a general rule, try to go for keywords with a difficulty of between 1 and 25 so you don't have trouble getting well positioned.
The second column shows us the monthly search volume: the larger the number, the more popular that term is.
Try to find a keyword with a search volume of between 1 and 10K per month. It's a good popularity range: it has an interesting number of searches, without making it too competitive.
Other tools that may help you in your search term ubersuggest, Google keyword planner, or Google trends.
Step 2: Find and join affiliate programs
Be sure to join only affiliate programs that interest your niche. This step is vital if you want to monetize your content.
When looking for the best affiliate program for you, ask yourself these questions:
- Commission percentage: how long will you take for each sale made?
- Recurrence: Can you earn money for customers who use your link more than once?
- Where does the company operate: Is it the same place where your audience is located? Some programs have terms and conditions that vary from country to country.
- How will you receive your payments: Through PayPal (one of the most common tools) or through another method such as cash, through your bank account, or with credit to use in the company store?
- How often you'll receive your rewards: weekly, once a month...
- Company reputation: Does your audience trust this company?
- Competition: Are there other content creators working with this company?
- Promotional materials: what materials does the company offer you to promote its products or services?
Let's look at a Clickbank affiliate program. It's easy to start creating content and sharing ClickBank affiliate products and services with your niche.
Registering is completely free, and Clickbank countless promotional materials for you to use on your website. Also, you get over 70% commission on all sales using your affiliate link.
This affiliate program also offers marketing materials such as coupons and promotional banners, as well as other benefits such as its global presence, its wide variety of products, and a 5% sales commission.
Each affiliate program will offer you different benefits, so get researched and find the one that best suits your needs and tastes!
Step 3: Create your website
If you already have a program to join, the exciting part comes: it's time to make your own website and present your knowledge to the world! Here are the steps to follow:
- Create your own website: You can do it from scratch if you know how to program. Or you can use a web editor like WordPress or Wix to mount a web page with a default theme.
- Now, buy a web domain and hire your hosting. SiteGround, for example, offers very affordable annual plans. Connect your domain with WordPress or Wix and your website will be ready to go out into the world! But remember to renew your domain once it expires so you don't lose all your work!
- You may also want to create a professional email account and write an information page about yourself and your blog so that your followers can contact you in case of doubt.
Your website doesn't have to be perfect from the start, but it must look complete and professional. It's better to do something you can present to your audience quickly and proudly than to spend a lot of time on details that a lot of people probably won't notice.
Step 4: Create interesting content
Your audience is looking forward to reading, seeing, hearing what you have to say. So give them something fresh and interesting. If you're starting out in the world of affiliate marketing, here are some suggestions:
Any Clickbank affiliate may create content with its own opinion about the company, its products, and/or services.
Reviews are a great help to your customers when making the decision to buy or not to buy online. So don't be shy and share every detail that has caught your eye about the product. And don't forget to share your affiliate link in the review so that when you manage to convince your customers that that product is right for them, you take a small commission for their purchase.
It is important to notify us that there is an affiliation link on your website. But don't break your head, an "this article/video includes affiliate links" is more than enough.
- Answer frequently asked questions, comments, and concerns from your customers
This may take some time and effort because to get it right you'll need to thoroughly research the product or service you want to talk about. A very common and effective way to do this is to compare two similar services or products or create a usage guide for your product.
If you want to know what people are asking about a product, but you think the frequently asked questions on the company's website are not enough, you can always stop by Quora. This website is the ideal place to ask (and answer) about virtually any topic (but do not promote your quora affiliate link, as this goes against its terms of service).
For example, if your niche's interest is focused on gardening, quora can address the concerns of plant fans:
In this example, you can see how someone looking for advice on plants to grow on their terrace received a detailed response about it. It is precise because of the dedication that Quora members put in writing their answers that this website is also an essential resource to search for information for your new content.
And, if you're looking to create something valid in the long run, the type of content we explain below may be perfect for you.
These are generally content with no expiration date. For example, going back to the theme of plants, think of topics such as the best plants for indoors or how to grow tomatoes at home.
The most important thing when you want to create content that lasts in time is to do a thorough keyword investigation and optimize your posts for search engines (what comes to be working on the SEO of your website, basically). Keep in mind that these types of topics are very competitive, as they are usually quite broad and therefore there can be a lot of people talking about them on the internet. But if your research is good and your content has a unique touch, you won't have to worry!
Step 5: Promote your content and offers
The time has come to take the step that will really make your money on the internet. You already have your content and you're part of an affiliate program, so it's up to you to take action and show your work (and offers) to your audience.
There are several ways to promote your content (ENG) among your followers:
This is probably the easiest way to promote your offers. Include a link within your article or in your video description (but don't forget to mention it during recording). Be sure to change the anchor text to something short and easy to read (and if it includes your keywords, better!).
Here's an example of what it might look like in a newsletter:
As you can see, the first link in the email is the affiliate offer, and the author has entered it into its text very easily.
Another way to enter your affiliate links on your website is through banners. ClickBank's affiliate dashboard has different promotional materials and banners that you can download.
Another good option may be to use a special discount code that you can share with your audience. So, they can save you some money while you get an income. But remember: with these types of offers, it's important for your customers to know that they can only access the discount using your code.
You can also promote discounts that your affiliate program is offering. For example, if you're a Clickbank affiliate, you can promote one of our campaigns like Free Scan Week.
Start promoting as an affiliate and start generating revenue!
Thousands of affiliate programs are available on the internet. Jump into it and find one that fits the personality and interests of your niche!
I hope this article was the inspiration you needed to get started in the world of affiliate marketing. Of course, you can start your adventure by joining the Clickbank affiliate program. And if you have any questions or would like to share some advice with other readers, leave us a comment!
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