Firstly, what is affiliate marketing? It is the process where you market products that you do not own and still earn a commission. The following diagram sums up the process in an easy-to-understand 4-step process.
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Step 1 – You chose an interest that usually is about a topic you are passionate or knowledgeable about.
Step 2 – You build a website where you write valuable content on the products in your niche.
Step 3 – You attract visitors who read your content and decide to make a purchase with the vendor.
Step 4 – You earn a commission that is paid to you by the vendor who tracks the sale through the unique affiliate link they give you.
It really is that simple. However, well-meaning people in the affiliate marketing industry tend to complicate things for many reasons. One nefarious reason often is they use this complication to sell you costly training modules using fear and greed tactics.
I am really happy for you that somehow you found this website that will simplify the business of affiliate marketing for you. No costly products. No upsells. Just sheer value that you will learn about on this website.
There are concepts and processes you will need to learn. And develop new skills that you must put into action.
That is what the purpose of this website is all about.
Key Terms Used In Affiliate Marketing
So let’s have a look at key terminology in affiliate marketing, … then I am going to be jumping directly into the process of how it works. And how you can get started TODAY (no joke), with your own business online.
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 anyone else.
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, and Amazon (and 10,000’s 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 percentage 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.
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How Affiliate Marketing Works
The following diagram show in straightforward terms how affiliate marketing works. More importantly, how you get paid!
A customer (1) is searching for information on a product or service on Google or any other search engine. They land on your website’s niche content(2). Your article helps them to evaluate the product and they decide to buy it. When they click your affiliate link, they land on the vendor’s website (3) and make a purchase. The company pays you a commission (4).
The 4-Step Process In More Detail
Now that you have seen the basics of how affiliate marketing works, let’s revisit the 4 step process in more detail to build out the summary I showed you at the beginning. I will also be helping you to understand how you can accomplish these steps.
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Step 1: Choose an Idea, Passion, or Interest (your niche)
The first thing you must do before you start the build-out of any business is come up with an idea for your business. What do you wish to accomplish?
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 dog to football sports betting to video gaming, etc. There are literally millions of potential directions that you can head with your business. This is the exciting part.
I recommend you choose a passion/interest as your 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. Members of Wealthy Affiliate have direct video classes walking them through the niche selection process along with direct help from the community (and Kyle) who can give you feedback on your niche.
Step 2: Build a Website (your foundation)
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.
The main objective is to help your audience solve a problem or meet a need using the products and/or services in your chosen niche.
If you don’t have a website, you don’t stand a chance 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 Traffic (attract your 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 using 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 great opportunities.
Once you have your website up and running attracting traffic is your next focus. 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.
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What Do You Think?
Do these ideas resonate with you? Is it going to be worth your time to explore how you can make money online through affiliate marketing?
By far, the best platform you can learn how to do affiliate marketing the proper way is Wealthy Affiliate. You can read a review here: My Top Recommendation
When you decide to join Wealthy Affiliate, know that not only will I be there to assist you, but also Kyle and all the other members too.
I hope I have provided you with sufficient information to decide to try out affiliate marketing. You can join the Wealthy Affiliate community for free to get started.