Affiliate Marketing - My Journey so Far
Since retiring, I have been looking at other things to do with my time, partly because I would like to replace the income I had before I retired and partly to still feel productive while doing something I enjoy.
Online marketing seemed an obvious place to look and in particular, affiliate marketing, where you don't even need any of your own products to be able to make money.
It was clear from the start that the key was to find a method of marketing I was comfortable or happy to do and a gap in the market that makes me a 'go to' for other people with the same interests i.e., my niche.
That's great if you can identify a niche, but I didn’t have a clue when I started. My first thought was, "I don't have anything I could talk about that other people could possibly be interested in!" This was followed by, "Even if I could think of something, how on earth would I monetise it?"
Trial and error
There seem to be as many ways to make money online as there are people looking for ways to make money online. By this, I mean the variety of methods and things you can sell is almost infinite. This makes it SO confusing in deciding where to start and if you are like me, you may make a few false starts before you come across something that works for you.
How to Make Money Online Instantly!
How many training courses have you seen advertised, all promising that if you follow their simple training, you will be making thousands in no time?
"Sign up today for a discounted price and get your free bonuses!"
Hands up, I've signed up for several - and paid a lot of money - and
......... got nowhere, other than more confused than when I started!
Well, that's not strictly true. What I did find out what I didn't want to do!
Specifically, I didn't want to ......
- have to put regular posts on multiple social media sites.
- post videos of myself
- offer 'free samples' to entice people to sign up to my mailing list
- sign up to multiple platforms that allowed me in a complicated and convoluted manner to capture people's email addresses and then contact them on an irritatingly regular basis (for both me and them) about my products
- copy and paste other people's material into a blog post
- run adverts on Google that took traffic away from the official sites and then get them to pay me for diverting it back to them through an affiliate link (yes - I found this particular training course completely unethical and eventually persuaded them to give me my money back!)
There were a whole heap of other things I also found I didn't want to do. Even more frustrating, at the end of all this, I was several thousand pounds poorer and still wasn't even clear what affiliate marketing was or how I could make it work for me. I don't think of myself as a stupid person, but having followed several 'step by step courses that are so simple we have proven even a 90-year old can follow them’' I still just didn't get it!
Signing up to Wealthy Affiliate
My website wouldn't have got started in the first place if I hadn't stumbled across Wealthy Affiliate by accident while trying to make sense of another, very expensive, affiliate marketing training programme.
Out of curiosity, I decided to sign up, as it was free and I had nothing to lose. I started the Level 1 Training. By the time I had completed it, I knew more about affiliate marketing than from completing the other three expensive training courses put together and I already had a website up and running!
This gave me enough confidence in the platform to upgrade to Premium membership, which I am loving!
Through Wealthy Affiliate, I have found lots of things I do like about affiliate marketing.
I like:
- The easy to follow step by step training videos
- The sense of community and support from fellow marketeers, all going on the same journey
- The easily accessible online Technical Support for when you have a problem with your website
- The 'pay it forward' strategy, of earning credits reviewing and commenting on other people's websites that you can use to get feedback on your own efforts
- The emphasis of adding value for visitors to your site
- The great technical infrastructure, allowing you to carry out Google keyword research, access millions of free images and optimise your SEO
I love the challenge of being tasked to write new articles at every stage of the training and through this gentle persuasion, I'm hopefully starting to find my voice and my niche.
Next Steps
I haven't made any money yet, but I didn't expect to have done. The way the programme is structured encourages you to develop your writing style and build out strong foundations for your website before learning how to monetise it
I know my site, nevertoolateinlife.com isn't perfect yet, but hopefully, for a 60-year-old newby, if you were to visit it, you wouldn’t think it too shoddy!
Monetisation is the next training topic, so I'll let you know how that goes!
Recent Comments
1
Your blog is great! Really like your thought progression and you points of emphasis. It is refreshing to read what someone relatively new says.
I did have to take a peak at your website. How pleasant! It was a breathe of fresh air. Very well dome. It was very inviting and non intrusive with good important things to know.
We look forward to hearing of your continued progress.
Here's to your continued learning and success.