Affiliate marketing helps you earn money online by promoting other people’s products and services. It is a great way to generate passive income after the initial effort of getting people to see your affiliate offers.
I know from experience that beginners find it difficult to understand how to make money from affiliate marketing. There are so many resources on the Internet about the topic and people making all types of claims (how to make money while you sleep with affiliate marketing – is a popular one), which creates a big confusion.
But, it doesn’t have to be this way. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online and it’s for real provided that you follow the right strategy.
In this post, I’ll give you the exact steps to follow to succeed with affiliate marketing and start making money. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme and it won’t happen overnight but for sure it’s the best approach and it works. 30% of the income generated from this blog is coming from affiliate marketing revenue and is increasing steadily year by year.
1. Create a Content-Rich Website
With affiliate marketing , you make money by referring people to the products they need.
Some affiliates use their social media profiles or YouTube channels to share products with potential buyers. However, the most common (and effective) way to get people in front of your affiliate products is to have your own website.
With a website, you can publish high-quality content that attracts visitors and motivates them to continue to the product’s website to complete their purchase.
The key to getting results from your content is to produce a mix of both informational and promotional material.
If all you do is promote one affiliate offer after another, your audience will be less likely to take your recommendations seriously and you minimize your chances of getting the attention of Google and Google traffic, which is needed for long-term success.
Instead, you want to focus more of your efforts on providing value to your readers. Over time, this will help you build trust and a connection with your audience. It will also allow you to position yourself as an expert in your industry.
As your reputation grows, new and returning visitors will head to your site when they have a question or need guidance related to the topics that you cover.
2. Get Targeted Traffic From Google
As you enrich your website with high-quality content, you’ll need to devise a strategy for driving people to your site to click your affiliate links and ultimately make purchases.
There are several ways to get visitors to your site. The best of these traffic sources is search traffic from Google and other search engines.
The reason traffic from Google is so valuable, is that it allows you to focus on a highly targeted group of people.
You ultimately need people to make purchases if you want to earn any money so you don’t want random or uninterested people on your site.
With Google Search, you know exactly what someone is looking for, and can create content that targets the people that are interested in your products.
Keep in mind, that not all keywords are the same. While you want to target search terms with high search volume, you also want to ensure that the keywords have purchase intent and are not just general queries.
For example, someone who makes a simple search for “what is a web hosting platform” is likely seeking information and is not ready to make a purchase.
The keywords you want to focus on are those with commercial and transactional intent.
3. Promote Products That People Are Actively Searching To Buy
After you’ve honed in on good keyword targets, your next focus is to choose the products you want to promote.
There are several key qualities to look for, which we’ll go through in the next few steps of our guide on how to make money as an affiliate marketing .
The first is to promote affiliate products with consistent demand. The thought behind this is simple. You need to promote products that people are actually searching for if you hope to generate sales from your marketing efforts.
When you are creating your plan to get targeted traffic, you will naturally get an idea of the types of products people are searching for. The process will also expose you to specific solutions and brands so that you know the top options in your niche.
While looking for products with an active interest, keep an eye on the level of competition in the niche. The more competitive the keywords are for certain types of products, the harder it will be for you to rank and drive traffic to your site.
The ideal balance is products with strong demand and a manageable amount of competition.
One way to understand the demand for a particular niche is to use Google Trends. With the platform, you can see how interest in specific keywords and topics is changing over time.
This way, you can ensure that any products you are considering have consistent interest and are more than a fleeting trend.
4. Promote Products That Sell
In addition to marketing actively searched products, it is vital that you promote products that sell. By this, I mean promoting products with a high conversion rate.
Conversion rate is a metric that measures the percentage of people that complete a purchase after seeing your products.
A high conversion rate means you are drawing maximum value from your web traffic.
When searching for high-converting products, start by identifying the best solutions in your market. High-quality products from trustworthy brands will naturally perform better than those that aren’t as good.
Price is another important factor that you’ll need to consider. Generally, lower-priced products convert at a higher rate than more expensive ones.
The nature of a product will also affect how well it converts. If you promote commodity items you can expect higher conversion rates. On the other hand, if you promote high-consideration products that buyers want to thoroughly evaluate before making a decision, you may experience lower conversions.
5. Optimize Your Affiliate Links To Get More Clicks
Affiliate links are how you earn money for sales. When a customer buys an affiliate product after clicking your link, the affiliate merchant will credit you with the sale and pay you the appropriate commission as agreed upon in the program details.
So, the best products won’t do much good if no one clicks your affiliate links. This is why it is important to optimize your link placements to maximize the number of people that click them.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should throw links anywhere and everywhere throughout your content. You only want to add links where they are appropriate and shouldn’t include them when they don’t fit into your content.
Adding too many links can negatively impact the user experience which in turn can lead to lost sales.
As a general rule, you want to place your links early in your content. Many people won’t make it to the end of your posts and others might skim over the details along the way. By adding your links to the beginning of your content, you increase the chances that more people see them.