Affiliate marketing for beginners
The path to success in affiliate marketing is paved with gold, at least that is what the advertising gurus would have you believe. Many people have the dream to create an income that can provide a lifestyle of freedom and adventure.
For most beginning affiliate marketers, it takes many trials and lost money before the skills are learned to create a reliable income stream. Some may get lucky but many don't. I love my fishing and there are a couple of sayings in fishing that also apply to the affiliate marketing niche, the first is that 10% of the fishermen catch 90% of the fish, and of the 10%, 5% catch 90% of the fish. If you talked to the fisherman in the 5% of the 10% you would find that these people are the ones who learned from their mistakes and continuously refined there craft until they achieved the results wanted. Affiliate marketing is no different do the work.
If you are ready to do the work then let's begin by breaking down the components of affiliate marketing, then the parts where the rubber meets the road, and either succeed or learn what doesn't work for you.
At its most basic Affiliate marketing is sending your site visitors to a product or service that is aligned with the content of your website, youtube channel, Facebook group[, or following on Instagram or Tik Tok.
There are many ways for you to build a list of raving fans that buy every product you recommend, many people have used social media platforms to create freedom for themselves and I say well done to them. But here is the crux of why I do not recommend beginner affiliate marketers build a social media following first.
The big reason it is better for beginner marketers to build their own website around a topic familiar to the beginner is RISK. Why do I say RISK? Any following you build on someone else's platform is at risk of being shut down and you are left with nothing, but starting again. An algorithm change can have you out the door without you even knowing why.
The way you reduce the risk of you losing your dream is to build a website around a subject you know about, that you own. This means you bought the domain name, you are paying for the hosting, and most importantly are able to back up your website to a secure location to enable you to reload your website if some untoward occurred. You are not able to do this on any social media platforms.
When using websites instead of social media sites to build your dream, you are looking to attract people who search google to come to your page. You do this by learning what the search engines are looking for to list your site in the top ten of your topic. This is called search engine optimization or SEO which is a continually evolving subject. The rewards from learning this skill and apply to your website can be dramatic.
Applying SEO principles to the content of your website is one of the most important tasks that need to be done to drive traffic to your site, but that is not the only way. You also have the option to buy advertising or create social media content that draws social media people to your site by the content you post on social media sites.
You're still with me awesome. So we have touched on a few key elements that beginner affiliate marketers need to understand and apply. To help you further I wanted to offer you a simple list of considerations when getting started.
- You must have a niche to produce content about
- The niche needs to be popular. If no one is advertising in that niche then it is likely not profitable. Do more research you may need to change the niche
- Which platform will you host your site on
- Will you build it yourself or outsource it. Do you know how to build a website and do you know where to go to learn the right way to build an affiliate website? Youtube is not always your friend.
- We talked about SEO do you know how to apply that to your website?
- Do you know how to monetize your content?
- Have you considered and applied copywriter rules?
- Do you know where to find affiliate partners?
These 8 things are the tip of the iceberg with layers within each of these that need to be understood to enable you to begin to develop an asset that provides for you and your family for years to come. As said earlier you must do the work otherwise you will be one of the 90% fishing and not catching.
Good Luck
All the best
Recent Comments
2
This is a excellent blog about affiliate marketing the reason I say this because it is useful for newbies and also teach that you should choose a niche that has advertising or it may not be profitable, thanks for the read.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Liked your fisherman facts. They apply so well to affiliate marketing. It takes training, study and time to make it ones own, learning from mistakes and determination to succeed and most of all a passion for ones niche and the desire to help others with it.
We wish you well on your online business journey.