Affiliate Marketing: What is it and How you can earn from it?

Do you want to make money online but don't have any skills or products that you can sell or any knowledge about how to get started? If that's the case with you then you don't have to worry anymore, because I'm about to tell you the simplest way you can earn online by selling other people's products and getting a commission for each sale. This is how Affiliate marketing works. But first, let me tell you what affiliate marketing actually is.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the process where you promote other people's products and services and get a commission on the sales that you generate. It can either be a fixed amount or a percentage of the sales price.

Typically, the commission you get is for a sale but some companies can reward you for free trial sign-ups, downloads, leads, or even clicks. 

Why you should do Affiliate Marketing?

The reason you should start affiliate marketing is that it's low-risk and low-cost. And all you need is a website to start it. 

Another advantage of affiliate marketing is that it's easy to scale because a typical salesperson can only sell products from one company while you as an affiliate marketer can promote many products from different companies and can make a commission from all of them.

How Affiliate Marketing works?

Affiliate Marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a website, blog, social media platform, or youtube channel. The advertiser gives a unique link to the affiliate marketer and they share that link on their website or blog or wherever they want and each time someone makes a purchase through that link, they earn a commission. It's that simple.

Another important thing in affiliate marketing is a Cookie. Imagine that a person is visiting your website and they click on one of your affiliate links, leading them to a product that you are promoting but they decide against buying the product at that time. But, after some time they see that product again and decide to purchase it you'll earn your commission on that product because when they clicked on your link earlier a small file called cookie got stored in their device. A cookie also has an expiry date, some cookies expire within 24 hours and others in 90 days. You can get detail about that from the advertiser whose product you are promoting.

How to start Affiliate Marketing?

Now, the most important question How you can start Affiliate marketing? Here are a few simple steps that you can follow to start your Affiliate Marketing business today.

1. Choose a Platform:

You can choose any platform to start affiliate marketing but the easiest way you can do it is by making a website. So, the first thing you need to do is to create your website. You can simply do that by using Bluehost web hosting server. After creating your website you have to find a domain for it and You can get a really cheap domain for yourself by simply going to Namecheap. 

After your site is up, you have to optimize it for search engines so that you have a higher chance of ranking up. From there you are free to add affiliate links to your website.

2. Pick a Niche:

Let's be honest here, If you are starting a new website today you are going to face huge competition as there are millions and millions of content creators out there. So, to stand out you have to pick a specific niche.

for example, If you are creating a topic about "pets" make it more specific like "a Persian Cat". Creating specific topics can help you build a focused audience and potentially help you rank higher in search engines.

3. Find Affiliate Programs to join:

To generate revenue as an Affiliate marketer, You need to promote Affiliate programs that your audience genuinely wants. Your audience needs to connect with what you are saying. If you get this wrong you won't be able to run your business successfully.

For example, you can't write a topic about Digital marketing and start promoting Cat food on it.

You have to find the Affiliate programs that best suit your Niche. Try finding programs that are high-paying high-volume or look for programs with Cost per Click policy for easier earning.

4. Drive traffic to your Website:

After choosing your preferred Affiliate programs, you need traffic to promote your programs. There are 3 simple ways by which you can get high traffic to your website.

Paid Traffic:

This is where you pay for traffic to your site.

The advantage of paid traffic is that you start paying, you get traffic.

however, there are some downsides.

First, running the ads will dig into your profits. It's quite normal for advertisers to lose money before they even make it.

You need to be realistic about how long it takes to optimize a paid traffic campaign.

Secondly, once you stop paying for ads your traffic will stop.

Generally speaking, paid ads are a great strategy if you are a part of high-paying affiliate program and can make numbers work.

But If you are completely new to paid marketing and have no marketing budget then it might not be such a great idea.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO):

SEO is the practice of optimizing pages to rank high in search engines like Google.

For as long as you can rank high in the search engines for your target keywords, you’ll get consistent and passive traffic.

On the most basic level, SEO is about:

• Understanding what your target customers are searching for.
• Creating content around those topics (blog posts, product pages, etc.).
• Taking care of the “technical” stuff to push these pages higher in the search engines (which includes link building).

Build an Email List:

Email lists allow you to communicate with your readers anytime.

Use them to tell fans about new content and keep them coming back to your site for more. This leads to more affiliate clicks and sales.

After Following all these steps, you just simply relax and start counting your earnings.

Final Thoughts

You can't build a successful online business overnight. You have to be dedicated and focused to grow your business. Set minor goals like making your first affiliate sale. As your site grows, setup new goals and eventually you'll start to generate a decent income.

If you have any questions regarding Affiliate marketing, comment down below and I'll answer you as soon as possible.