Training | Best Affiliate Marketing Tools

Why do Companies use Affiliate Marketing? Plus, its Benefits to an Affiliate Marketer!

November 6, 2019February 13, 2019 by John Crossley

Affiliate Marketing is an awesome online business model! Without it there would not be many genuine ways of earning money online. But why would Companies use Affiliate Marketing, why would Amazon choose to outsource its marketing to bloggers?

In this article, we will be describing exactly what the benefits are to companies like Amazon and how it totally benefits us as affiliate marketers. If you have still been looking for an answer to why Affiliate Marketing is a great starting point for beginners, I will also answer that too with how you can get started as well.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Before we crack on discussing why companies use affiliate marketing, let’s just clarify our understanding of how it really works.

Affiliate Marketing works by allowing people to promote products and services and receiving a commission on any sale made. You join an affiliate program and you get access to a company’s library of products. You write an article or record a video of that product and included in that article is a link to the company’s website and that product.

If someone visits your blog or website and like what you have put, they will follow your link to that product. If they buy it, you earn a commission for the introduction. It is a lot more widespread than you might think and is a great work from home model and it definitely benefits the company too.

In fact, Amazon started using the model and has continued to use it ever since.

Amazon Started the Ball Rolling

When Amazon first started out, it was just a small bookstore. They didn’t have the kind of budget to go out and place adverts everywhere. That would cost money, without any guaranteed sales. So, they introduced a referral program, where when someone who used Amazon introduced another person to buy a book from Amazon. They would receive a percentage of the book price as a reward.

From the user of Amazon’s point of view, they could earn money by introducing friends and others to Amazon.

From Amazon’s point of view, they only spent money from a guaranteed sale. The percentage would come out of the profit, but they were saving a fortune on marketing their products and brand.

Now, when you look at Amazon and the product range, there are a couple of things that come to mind.

One, is Amazon used this model to great affect and is still using it today!

Two, The sheer opportunity out there for Affiliate Marketers or Potential Affiliate Marketers!!

Why Do Companies use Affiliate Marketing – the Key Benefits

When we start looking at the key benefits of why companies use Affiliate Marketing the biggest one is the cost of marketing is vastly reduced. Even small companies can still benefit from getting their products promoted without having to spend money on marketing campaigns that will not necessarily work. They will only pay for a guaranteed sale.

More and more companies have adopted this form of marketing, purely down to this reason.

The other key benefit is highly related to the first one. If you think of the power of word of mouth and a recommendation from someone you know or trust, this is a powerful one.

But you might see an advert and not really understand what they are marketing. The company has paid for this ad, but they are not getting a great cut through. But what, if they started to learn a little more and want to investigate brand and/or product.

The first thing most do, is go on Google and do a search for a review or information on that product or brand.

Where do you think they end up at? Typically, a blogger who has done the research and can provide help and advice to that searcher and provided you with a helpful website, which you found on Google.

It is a whole cycle that leads that person to potentially buying that product and both all 3 parties are happy.

The customer has the product they wanted, because they understood it thoroughly (thanks to the blogger)
The Company has made a sale
The Blogger (Affiliate Marketer) has helped the customer and made a commission on the sale.

The other factor for Companies, is the ease of being able to track affiliate marketing. They allow you to sign up to an affiliate program, Amazon’s is called Amazon Associates. You can get a unique ID that is embedded in a link.

When you share a product on Amazon, there is a digital signature in that link that says, “It was you, who introduced the buyer”.

So, all Amazon needs to do is track that link and the sale and pay you on a monthly basis.

It isn’t complicated at all, and again it is saving the company millions on advertising costs.

Let’s touch on how does this benefit an Affiliate Marketer?

Why Does This Benefit an Affiliate Marketer

Whilst affiliate marketing takes a lot of hard work to get up and running, once it is starting to earn you money it is a truly passive income. You do not need to be there to monitor the sale, you do not need to deal with customer service if the product is faulty, etc.

All of this will be dealt with by the merchant. You might write a thorough review on a product available on Amazon and that one article could be getting you regular sales, whilst you are working on something else.

So the benefits of this system are that you get to benefit from promoting products and getting a slice of the profits, without much hassle.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of hard work involved to get to a truly passive income stream from affiliate marketing.

But as Amazon’s product range shows, you can literally choose an of your hobbies or interests and start a profitable online business. You will be writing, and review stuff related to something you are already interested in, which is great.

You don’t have to pick something because you think it will work. You will get bored and the opportunity will dry up.

The only way you will benefit from this model and make it work to be profitable is by picking a niche where you can truly say you are passionate about the subject matter.

It would be like me picking knitwear, I haven’t got a clue about it. Did not enjoy it at school and I don’t think I could actually write an article about knitwear. Why would I choose it?

I see affiliate marketers go for shiny objects like smart technology. Smart tech is a big growing industry and more people are researching it and starting a niche website in it. But whilst they see it as a profitable niche. They have no idea about the tech, and it shows in their articles.

People are looking for help but are coming up against a brick wall when they reach their websites.

Yet, the affiliate marketers are wondering why they are not making any money.

Seriously, pick a niche where you could talk to someone all day about it and that is a great starting point…

Why is Affiliate Marketing a Great Starting Point for Beginners?

The main reasons I say this is because, it doesn’t involve any complicated systems. You don’t need to be an expect in websites or coding, your can learn everything you need and regardless of your age, skill or knowledge of computers you can achieve great successes with it.

All you need is a willingness to learn and a drive to implement what you learn with clear expectations about timescales!

How Can you Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

There are truly benefits to both the companies that choose to use Affiliate Marketing and the Affiliate Marketers themselves. All you need to ask yourself is, when are you going to get started.

If you think you have what it takes to get started with an Affiliate Marketing business, you can learn everything you need to know with a great training platform like Wealthy Affiliate.

But I would stress at this point, that this is not an easy road and it is not for everyone. You will not start earning money straightaway from affiliate marketing and I mean it could take months to start to see a return on the time you have invested.

I know that is not what you probably want to hear. But that is because you have probably been used to an hourly rate style pay system. You complete an hour’s worth of work and get paid for an hour’s work.

But that is not how this works. Having said that, you need to look at the earning potential differently.

All of the time and effort you put in at the early stages of the business will earn you money, but not straightaway. Let’s us an example of a product review that you write for your niche website.

You will have spent time researching it, writing it and publishing it and you will have earned no money from it.

But, then a couple of months down the line it starts converting for you. That one converting review will convert again, and again. To a point where you are earning money on that review.

People are truly earning full-time income wages from affiliate marketing, but you need to play the waiting game.

If you are ready to start thinking like a business owner and putting in the time and effort now, then you will definitely see the results further down the line.

My advice at this point is do not play at it and get the right training and support. There is a lot to factor in to ensure the foundations of your online business are right. Our top recommended training program is Wealthy Affiliate.

Here is my Wealthy Affiliate Review, for you to check out and read. But their training is the reason why Gem and I run an online business from home, and it can definitely help you out.

If you feel like you are ready to start your own affiliate marketing business, then you can always try their free starter membership. No catch, and no credit card required. You will gain access to 10 free lessons and 2 free websites and you can start to realise your affiliate marketing business.

Thanks for checking out my guide on why do companies use affiliate marketing. If you have any questions then please write them in the comments below. Share your experiences or just say hello and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

All the best, John

Niche Profit Classroom Review – Does It Live Up To The Hype?

September 20, 2021February 12, 2019 by John Crossley

Niche Profit Classroom Review – Is Niche Profit Classroom a Scam?

Welcome to our Niche Profit Classroom Review!

Niche Profit Classroom claims to be an introductory course to get you started with affiliate marketing. But with all the hype included in this program, I can totally understand why you might also be thinking it might be a scam.

First off, it’s great to see that you’re doing your research before buying into any “seemingly good” product.

That is how you avoid scams and find only legitimate ways to make money online!

To be completely transparent with you, we’re not associated with Niche Profit Classroom in any form. We’re not here to pitch or sell you anything.

Instead, we’re here to reveal to you what makes this training course so hyped up, and why I wouldn’t recommend it to you…

How to Earn Money Working from Home – Get Started Today!

November 6, 2019February 11, 2019 by John Crossley

Have you been searching for ways to earn money working from home? I bet you have found loads that are actually just jobs or ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes that all turn out to be scams and you might be getting frustrated and getting to the point where you think it isn’t possible to earn any money working from home.

But I want to assure you there are genuine opportunities for you to earn money and it can actually be quite fun too.

The reason I say it can be fun is the fact that I will be showing you how you can start your own online business in a subject that you enjoy, with none of your own products. Regardless of your experience or computer knowledge, you can start your own online business with Affiliate Marketing.

There are other ways to earn money working from home, but there are advantages to someone with little knowledge online to starting an affiliate marketing. It can also mean you get to choose what you actually start your online business in. Affiliate marketing is easy to get started, requires little money to get started and there is some awesome support and training on offer.

In this post, I will describe in detail what Affiliate Marketing is, how you can choose any niche (interest) you have and turn it into a profitable online business with Affiliate Marketing with awesome training and support too.

All you need to ensure it is successful is promise me two things:

Be prepared to invest a lot of time into your business and start thinking like an entrepreneur otherwise it often will end up in failure.

Why Most Fail at Affiliate Marketing?

The reason I say this is this is not a quick thing, you will not make money overnight or even within a couple of weeks with affiliate marketing. There are people out there that are earning 6-figures out of an affiliate marketing business, but they all started in the same place – putting in a lot of time and effort and not getting anything in return straightaway.

So, if you are looking for a quicker way to earning money, then this is not it.

But I would like to add that most products out there that claim to earn you quick money are scams, or you need a lot of money to invest in paid ads to make it work.

I presume, if you are here you are looking for a genuine opportunity to learn and earn online – Affiliate Marketing can offer that, but again know you will need to put the time and effort in and be realistic with the timescales. I didn’t make anything for 6 months, if I had given up at month 5 – I would have said Affiliate Marketing didn’t work, when it was actually my expectations that were wrong.

So, if you are ready to invest in your future and earn the goals you have set, with realistic goals we can carry on with what exactly is affiliate marketing?

What Exactly is Affiliate Marketing?

The premise behind affiliate marketing is actually quite simple, it is the timescales that is the often reason why people are put off.

Affiliate Marketing is where you (an affiliate) promote a product or service and receive a commission if someone goes and buys it.

It is a great way for companies to get their products promoted without having to spend millions of dollars in a marketing campaign. It is the model that Amazon used when it first launched as just an online book store and they still use it today. They would give their members a percentage of the price for introducing a new buyer of their books.

Now, when you think of how large Amazon is today and the different products they have on offer in their marketplace, you can start to understand the scope that affiliate marketing allows.

That is why this business model can be fun, as you can start affiliate marketing in any interest, hobby or passion you have as there will be both a customer and an affiliate program available for you to cater for.

Let me give you an example, to make it easier for us to continue. Let’s say your hobby is golf. I know not everyone will be interested in golf, but the premise will work whatever your interests or hobbies are.

When I go onto Amazon and just type golf, there are 300,000 products that are available in that category on which we could promote via an affiliate marketing business just on Amazon. That doesn’t include any other affiliate programs out there. But you notice that I will start with Amazon, as a big factor to this business working is trust. Amazon is trusted the world over, so it is a great starting place for affiliate marketers.

But when starting out with an affiliate marketing business, the biggest obstacle we need to get over is getting trusted by the search engines, this takes time but there are things we can do to help, and the first thing is when you are picking a Niche is not start too broad. The narrow you can get, the better you have of building up traffic and trust sooner.

Picking a Niche

SO, whilst Golf is the example we are using, Golf in general is way too broad. So the next stage would be to narrow that down. Let’s go back to the categories and seeing how we can narrow it down to find our niche and a target audience.

Let’s look into Golf Accessories, this opens up another set of categories in Amazon.

Now, when I think about if my Uncle is a keen golfer. He takes it very seriously and researches heavily before investing in any new item for his golf. That is something else you need to know about your target audience, ready for your new affiliate marketing business.

SO, now I have gone into Golf GPS Units on Amazon. There are 303 items in this niche. That is 303 items I can research on for creating content for a niche affiliate marketing website.

That is what you need to do. Become the Authority in Golf GPS Units. One you have become the authority in that niche, you will be making money via affiliate marketing. It will also allow you to expand in other categories within Golf in general.

At this stage, you will have great traffic coming to your website to understand Golf GPS Units and as you have them regularly coming to your website to find out about these devices – think about this, you will have an audience is very engaged in Golf too. So, at that point if you started branching out into other items in the broader golf accessory category, you can start offering help and advice in other products – such as Range Finders, Scorers, Shoe bag, etc.

That is the scale and the opportunity that a well-executed affiliate marketing business can achieve.

Will you achieve this overnight, no. Will you achieve in this a month, no. You need to plan for the long term.

Things to Consider with Affiliate Marketing

There are a few things to consider when starting out with affiliate marketing, and the most important one is that you need to help the reader and not sell to the reader.

Imagine if we started that Golf GPS Unit niche website and all we did was include 303 reviews of the 303 devices and that was all that was on the website? Then imagine if you landed on that site, and all the reviews were “buy this it is great?” “Don’t buy this one, buy this one instead”

Now imagine, that same website with helpful guides about picking the right Golf GPS Units, what to look out for, how to care for your devices, some interesting posts about golf in general and then some well-executed reviews with helpful insightful information about the devices including pros and cons about them…

Now, which website would you rather land on before making a purchasing decision?

That is the difference between helping people and not selling, you will convert a lot more when you are helping people come to a decision then selling them.

The Customer Purchase Lifecycle

Think about the last time when you searched for something online (when it was a product) were you in a position to make a purchase? Or were you just browsing.

Now, when we are in a store we are not always looking to buy. Where would that be any different online?

You will have people reach your website at different points along the customer purchase lifecycle. Some will just be researching, and some will be in a buying mood. You need to have a collection of posts, videos, etc on your website to cater for whenever they are there. That is how you build up an authority in your niche. Once you have this, you will start building up your trust. Once you have the trust, they will follow your advice more easily and that is when you start converting.

Is Affiliate Marketing Hard Work?

I will be totally honest with you, it can seem like hard work at times. But it is often because we lose sight of our goals because it hasn’t reached our targets yet. That is often because we have unrealistic timescales.

A big factor is time with any online business, the more you can put into it the more we can do to achieve our goals.

If you can put 40 hours into a business a week, you would logically say that would be more successful than someone who can only put 10 hours in right?

But there are other factors to consider, if you are new, most of those 40 hours will be spent learning how to actually do some of the basics, whilst an experienced marketer like myself could get loads done in 10 hours.

Some will only have a couple of hours a week to invest, and this will mean that their expectations and timescales should move accordingly.

I am not telling you this to put you off, I am trying to give you insight into what you can expect if you decide to choose Affiliate Marketing. I also want to tell you this, so you can also choose non-financial goals too.

If we solely focused on the money made with affiliate marketing, in the first year I would have said it was a failure and not worth doing.

But when we start to explore, the amount of skills I have learned through starting an affiliate marketing business and learning from our recommended training platform. You can start to see actually, the first year was awesome.

I learned:

How to Build Website (a service I could offer to others)
Keyword Research (Essential for online business)
Affiliate Programs (how to help others with affiliate marketing and programs)
Search Engine Optimisation (How to be Google Friendly)
Social Media Marketing
Writing Content (a service I could offer out as a freelancer)

Those are just a few that you could learn along this journey, and as a freelancer you could make money whilst your website is building up that authority you need.

The golden nugget for that is when you are number one in Google for a keyword. If you can get there, with the right converting posts you will be at a point where you can say you are making money from affiliate marketing and be able to work from home.

You just need the right training for affiliate marketing.

The Right Training and Support for Affiliate Marketing – Wealthy Affiliate

If you seriously want to be successful at affiliate marketing and reach your goal of how to earn from working from home, then you need to understand the first step is to get the right training.

First off, don’t think of it as going back to school. Think of it as an investment of time into your future business. The most successful affiliate marketers will tell you, that if you do not keep learning and adapting to the ever-changing playing field you are destined to fail.

I know affiliate marketers who have built $100k businesses and they still log in and follow the live training every week.

Some will disagree with me, but you need a website to build an affiliate marketing business. Imagine putting all your hard work into one social media channel and then that social media channel goes through problems, or your target audience isn’t engaging into that social media channel. You are stuck. Go back to the golf example, I wouldn’t search social media for Golf GPS units, I would search on Google.

Google owns 2/3 of the search traffic, that is where you need to target.

Our recommended training platform offers valuable training in affiliate marketing and it also offers WordPress web hosting all in one platform.

Wealthy Affiliate is a comprehensive training platform for affiliate marketers, regardless of your experience or your computer knowledge – in the first ten lesson, you will have built your own WordPress website in your chosen niche, you will fully understand the potential behind affiliate marketing and how to start building up your traffic to make this a reality.

All of this is included in a free starter membership, there is a premium membership but for now, the free starter membership will give you a full insight into this awesome platform that Gem, and I used to build this website and Gem’s wedding stationary business.

Whatever your niche, whatever your time allowance is – if you follow this training and invest the time you will see that it can work for you too.

I will always be honest with you, and I would recommend you read my Wealthy Affiliate review just to understand fully what is available and the successes WA has brought for many of its members.

But if you want to explore the platform for free, check out the free starter membership and go through the ten free lessons.

You will surely see that this is a platform that cares for its members, you will even get coaching from the owners Kyle & Carson and if you decide to accept my invitation you will get personal coaching from me too.

Final Word

Affiliate Marketing is a great option when you want to build an online business in something that you are actually interested in… we chose golf as an example, but that same search could be done in healthcare, gym fitness, football, computer games, making money online, cooking, toys, jewellery, cars, etc.

You name it there is a target audience within a niche, that you could build an authority website in and enjoy the rewards. Like I said, it is a slow burner. But if you could be in the position where in a year’s time you have an authority website in a niche that is earning you a good return, and you continue to scale that business think where you could be in ten years’ time?

Affiliate Marketing is constantly growing, and the opportunities are bigger than you think…

But you need to invest in learning everything Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, and actually putting into practice everything they teach you.

Otherwise, you will fall into the high percentage of people who failed at affiliate marketing and claim it doesn’t work.

You can earn money working from home, but you need to commit to it. Set yourself daily, weekly and monthly goals and, borrowing a term from an affiliate friend HUSTLE! Go and get it!

Thanks for reading my post. If you have any questions or comments about, we have talked about, then please write them in the comments below and I will definitely come back to you as soon as.

Thanks, John

Is it Possible to Make Money with Wealthy Affiliate? Yes!

November 6, 2019February 7, 2019 by John Crossley

If you have been thinking of joining Wealthy Affiliate or have recently joined and still wonder how is it possible to make money with Wealthy Affiliate? I am here to help you answer those questions… the Main purpose of becoming a Wealthy Affiliate member is to make money and their training is top notch, but how exactly do you make money???

In this post I will share with you the ways you can earn money from following their training and from outside sources. But also, how you can actually make money within their platform too. (Yes, you can make money within WA too!)

I have been a member since 2016 and know my way around the platform really well, and in total there are 8 different ways to make money with Wealthy Affiliate.

Like I said there are 2 main ways to earn money from Wealthy Affiliate, within the platform and from following their training. We will be focusing on the external sources of income first.

Ways to Earn Money from Wealthy Affiliate’s Training

Their training is perfect for people first stepping out of their comfort zone and looking to earn money online. The training focuses on building up an online business foundation, giving you all the tips and experience that Kyle and Carson (the owners) have built up over the years.

You will not meet a nicer couple of guys who really focus on paying-it-forward. The training is upfront and takes you step-by-step through the process needed to make a business that is built for the long run.

Going through building a website, creating content, building up traffic and ultimately monetising that website. You are truly in great hands with Wealthy Affiliate’s training.

Let’s get back to how you will make money from this training.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate Marketing is the primary focus and the way many WA members are earning money from following the training.

Affiliate programs are set up by companies who pay people commissions for promoting their products and making sales.

Most retailers are utilising this method as it is a much cheaper way to promote then multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns. Amazon, the world’s largest marketplace actually uses an affiliate program and is a common partner to many affiliate marketers across the world.

How it Works – you promote a product available on amazon via a blog, someone visits your blog and decides to buy that product, they get taken to amazon and buy the product. You have just earned commission.

Example – You create a health and fitness blog, and join an affiliate program like Webvitamins and promote a number of their products. You could always join Amazon too and promote relevant products on your blog. Any time someone completes a purchase, that is how you will be making your money.

There are literally tons of affiliate programs out there in any niche, meaning you can choose any of your interests or hobbies to earn from affiliate marketing.

As a rule of thumb, it is best to diversify your earning potential. Don’t just stick with promoting one product from one affiliate program. You want to ensure that if one product does disappear, you will not be affected as you will just rely on the other products whilst constantly looking for new opportunities.

Awesome for Beginners – Affiliate Marketing is a great way to get started in the online world, it is the starting point for many online marketers who can the progress into other ways of marketing. It is low cost and simple to implement (with the right training).
Low Cost – You do not need a lot of money to get started with affiliate marketing, you can even get started for free with Wealthy Affiliate. WA will provide you with a free website and some free training to get going. You will need to invest some money at some point, but that is only to realise the potential of affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs are typically free to join too.
The Premise is Simple – There is a lot of time and hard work to affiliate marketing, but it is a really simple premise to get your head around. Promote other people’s products and earn money from it. You just need the right training to ensure it works out for you

Advertising (Google Ads, MediaVine, Monumetric, etc.)

Once you are starting to get traffic through, you can start to see your affiliate marketing campaigns starting to take off. It also gives you another opportunity to earn money through having ads on your website.

The usual starting point is Google Ads, but when you reach a certain traffic point you can start using better higher-paying options like MediaVine and Monumetric.

But Google Ads is popular as you don’t particularly need a high level of traffic to add it to your website.

With Google Adsense, they ask you to insert a code into your website header and the ads will be displayed automatically.

The key to success with affiliate marketing and ads is to not saturate your website with ads, otherwise your affiliate campaigns might get lost in the mix. But this doesn’t mean ads aren’t good for your website.

The fact is, not everyone will visit your website and click on your affiliate links. They might be having second thoughts or are not ready to make a purchase yet. You can still earn from ads being on your website. But again, if your blog is written well and is engaging your audience, you shouldn’t have to worry about ads distracting from your affiliate promotions.

CPA Offers

Cost Per Action offers are also an opportunity to monetise your website. Whilst they are not going to earn you a high amount, they can still be quite lucrative. Small amounts can easily mount up and CPA offers are something that you should consider once you have traffic coming to your website built with WA.

CPA offers pay you when someone completes an action, not necessarily needing to buy something. They just need to complete an action, such as:

Sign up for an email list
Register an account
Sign up for a free trial
Use a comparison site

They are normally easy to monetise, as they are normally free for the people to do. But they do not pay as much as affiliate marketing opportunities typically do.

Ecommerce

There isn’t as much focus on ecommerce within WA, but you can still find member created training on ways to do it. If you have your own product or want to consider drop shipping, the training and the tools they offer are still relevant for you.

We used a lot of the training to launch Gem’s wedding stationary business which uses a combination of our own products, affiliate marketing and drop shipping all in one.

The website you create on the WA platform is run by WordPress, so all you would need to do install a plugin like Woocommerce, which again is covered in the training available on WA to allow you to sell products directly and process the payments.

Whilst most who join WA do not have products to sell and are more interested in affiliate marketing, we still get asked questions about whether you can, and the answer is always Yes!

You can definitely make good money using ecommerce, but there are complications with it in a way that you wouldn’t find with affiliate marketing.

The main is you are dealing with the customers direct, so you need to be great at customer service for a start. Affiliate Marketing, they deal with the seller and not you.

Ways to Earn Money Within Wealthy Affiliate itself!

There are also ways to earn money within Wealthy Affiliate, and we will share these options below.

WA Affiliate Program

WA has an awesome affiliate program, which many members like the look of if you want to promote Wealthy Affiliate itself.

Whilst it is available to members straightaway, it is honestly better to wait and promote it once you have already found some success within another niche, purely as it will help you have some proof it works before promoting it.

But having said, that it is one of the best paying affiliate programs out there and even free starter members can benefit from it.

Any member will earn a recurring payment for every new member they introduce that goes premium. If they stay premium, you will earn money each month they stay a premium member. There is also a recurring payment if they go annual too.

Even free starter membership can benefit from referring new members, whilst the commission rates are lower many use it to pay for their premium membership. They also run an incentive program for those that achieve 300 premium referrals in a calendar year. They fly you out to Las Vegas to meet with Kyle, Carson and other Super Affiliates to learn how you can better scale your business.

Earning Cash Credits & Affiliate Credits

Inside WA there are two types of credit, you can earn. These are called Cash Credits & Affiliate Credits. These come from actions taken from members inside WA, once they are already members.

These credits can be redeemed for real money deposited into a PayPal account, or can be used for the benefit of your website. For example, you can use these credits to request comments, buy domains, get feedback, etc. A recent change has also meant you can use these credits to pay for your premium membership with Wealthy Affiliate.

These are not just a currency within WA, each credit is worth $0.50 and can be cashed out for real cash.

Earn from Writing Comments

One of the best features of the website tools that WA provide is the Site Comments platform. If you are unsure of how important comments are on your website, let me tell you that they are so important to help build trust with the search engines and your audience. But a new website doesn’t have comments, and readers can be a little unsure of a blog without any interaction.

The site comments platform allows you to use these credits you earn to get high-quality comments from Wealthy Affiliate members. This is a great way of using your credits, but it also an opportunity to earn money from giving comments.

A change last year made it that once you had given 50 comments within a 30-day period, you started earning cash credits. You already earn credits for giving out comments, but this was another way of earning money within WA.

Earn from Creating Training

Member created training is something that is encouraged within WA, as there are all types of people with experience in different elements and sharing that experience with a well-written training is rewarded with cash credit.

The core training is built by Kyle (the co-owner of WA) and Jay does a live training video every week, but the majority of the other training has been created by members of WA.

If you are experience in social media marketing, or wordpress you can create a relevant training video that will benefit other members and earn these cash credits.

You can add video tutorials, written guides, etc. and depending on the interaction with your training will determine how many credits you can earn.

Please note – you need to have been a Premium Member for 3 months to be able to create training.

Domain Registrations

Wealthy Affiliate is also a domain registrar, much like GoDaddy is. This means that you can buy domains (websites) directly through WA. There are a lot of benefits to hosting a website on WA’s servers. You are getting a premium hosting service included in your membership, which would normally cost about $250/month.

The cash credits come in useful as you can use these to buy your domains and renew your domains.

But you also earn whenever one of your referrals buys a domain. You will earn 2 cash credits for this, valued at a $1.

There is not much you can do to earn this, but whenever your referrals do buy a domain, you will earn from this. This way of earning goes along nicely with the WA Affiliate Program.

Account Setup Credits

Whenever you introduce a new member to WA, there is a step that makes sure they are a real person. This is a stage where you add an image and create a description for your WA profile.

When they complete this step, you again earn 2 cash credits, valued at a $1.

This stage is all about making sure they are happy interacted with the platform and will definitely receive more support from us within WA.

Kyle & Carson are always looking at ways to improve the platform, and like the change with the Site Comments platform there may become other ways to earn money through WA in the future.

Making Money within the Platform vs Off the Platform

Let’s just clarify the ways you can earn from Wealthy Affiliate.

Here are the ways you can earn within WA:

WA Affiliate Program
Creating Training
Writing Comments
Domain Registration
Account Setup

Here are the ways you can earn from going through their training:

Other Affiliate Programs
Advertising (Google Ads, etc.)
CPA Offers
Ecommerce

What is the Best Way to Earn?

So, at this point you might be thinking which is the best way to earn online? Which path should you be focusing on? My advice would be to focus on Affiliate Marketing first. Most affiliates, including us are earning most of our money from affiliate marketing.

Without traffic, you will not earn anything from ads or CPA offers.

Affiliate Marketing will help you gain the traffic to earn from these additional sources of income.

The main focus of the training at Wealthy Affiliate is on Affiliate Marketing and ads, so you are in a prime place to be able to earn well from these 2 sources in the future.

Another key point of affiliate marketing is the fact that this is an easier path to explore than other forms of marketing and are a really good source of income too.

Pro Tips to Earn with Wealthy Affiliate!

I also want to share with you 3 tips to ensure you do earn from Wealthy Affiliate:

No.1 – Avoid the Shiny Objects and Stick to the Training! The training is set out in the perfect way to get you started on the right foot. If you gloss over things or miss something out you will feel the pain from it. It is so easy to try something that isn’t in the training because you think it will speed up the process, but it ends up being a waste of your time.

Follow the training to the letter!

No.2 – Choose a Niche You Actually Like: If you focus solely on earning money, you will normally find that it doesn’t end up working. Choosing a niche that you actually like will pay dividends in the long run.

If you go and choose a niche, solely because you think it is lucrative means you can end up being burned out and bored of the subject before you even make any money with it.

I have made this mistake and ran out of stuff to write about and wasn’t inclined to write anymore. This meant I had to start again from scratch.

No.3 Patience is So Important! You have to be so patient for this to work. Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way to earn money from something that you love, but it will not be a quick thing.

There is no other way around it, Wealthy Affiliates offers great training to achieve success with Affiliate Marketing, but do not expect it to pay back after a couple of weeks.

The concept of earning from an online business is different to a normal job. In a normal job you complete an hour work and get paid for that hour’s work. An entrepreneur will work for no return, but in the long run it will pay back 10x. A single article could and does earn affiliate marketer’s money for years. But it takes time to get to that stage.

If you would like to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate, you check out my full Wealthy Affiliate Review.

If you feel you are ready to join Wealthy Affiliate, create your free starter membership account here (no credit card required).

If you have any questions or comments, then please write them below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. All the best, John

How to Deal with Empty Nest Syndrome -Tips to Get Out the Other End!

November 6, 2019February 4, 2019 by John Crossley

For some, it is such an empty feeling when the children have flown the nest and you are not too sure what to do with yourself. It is a perfectly natural feeling and is more widespread than you might realise and is commonly known as the empty nest syndrome.

If you feel like you are feeling overwhelmed and deeply saddened by your children moving out of home, and are experiencing empty nest syndrome there are ways to help overcome that feeling and get a purpose back for yourselves.

We want to help you get out the other side, but first let’s just tackle the typical symptoms of Empty Nest Syndrome.

What is the Empty Nest Syndrome?

Simply put, it is the feeling of emptiness when your children have flown the nest, where before your days were filled with activities, you find that you are not too sure what to do with yourselves.

I know that I felt a little like that when my son starting going to school. Where before I would have a day with Will, I was now dropping him to school and had to find something else to do in that day and I felt like I was just waiting until it was time to pick him up from school.

It is a weird feeling.

Let’s explore the typical symptoms of Empty Nest Syndrome.

A Lack of Purpose

Your days were once filled with ferrying your kids around to school, college, football practice, birthday parties, etc. Now, you find that the hustle and bustle has gone, and you might not be too sure of what to do with yourself.

Despite having friends, family, work and other activities to keep yourself busy with, your days still feel empty.

Despite, this feeling being quite typical for parenst whose children have moved out, the things that defined you as a parent are no longer something to focus on.

There will be a time when you realise that you haven’t really lost your purpose, you just need to redefine what your purpose is. There are a number of ways to do this, and we will get into that shortly.

Don’t feel like you cannot feel like this, but defining a new purpose will definitely help.

Frustration Over a Lack of Control

Some feel like they have lost a level of control. For years you had the majority of control over the scheduling of your children’s lives and this is not the case anymore. Typically, you will not know what your children are up to now (although, remembering my time as a teenager, this can also happen when we live at home).

The lack of control over when your child is attending class, going to work, going out on a date or hanging out with friends can be frustrating.

You might also feel like you are left out, as you are not aware of what they are up to now.

The tip here is to not try and force yourself into their schedule, and don’t use the guilt trip route as this will push them further away. Instead focus on coping with some of our tips further down the post.

Emotional Distress

If you ever feeling like you are crying over nothing, don’t get freaked it. Your life is extremely emotional right now, and whenever that is the case, it just means typically normal events become a big deal.

The Empty Nest Syndrome can stir up all kinds of emotions, and you can start reflecting on what you could have done differently.

Whatever you are feeling, this is perfectly ok. Trying to deny it or surpress it will not make it go away. In fact, allowing yourself to feel these emotions will definitely help.

Marital Stress

There are times when raising your children, you find that you have put your marriage or relationship on hold. You also find that all of your schedules revolved around the kids. If you find you have been neglecting your relationsip, you might find it needs some work now that the kids have gone.

You might also find that you haven’t been doing couples activities for a while, as all of your time was around ferrying the kids around their activities.

There can also be a little tension if one parent is fairing better with the empty nest, than the other.

Make it a goal to reacquaint with each other, get yourselves used to being a twosome again.

Still Having Anxiety About Your Children

Whether you child has gone off to college or university, or simply moved out – It is perfectly normal to feel worried about how they are getting on.

But what is not normal, is feeling constantly anxious about how they are getting on.

Checking on them multiple times a day or stalking their social media accounts will not help you in the slightest either.

Remember, this is the time where your children have the opportunity to spread their wings and start their adult life.

Try to balance your desire to check in with them. Remember they will need a level of privacy, as do you. Create a plan on how you will stay connected. It is much easier nowadays with technology being like it is. Arrange a weekly call, or use email.

But this is about you experiencing your time too.

Ways to Deal with Empty Nest Syndrome

There are a number of ways to deal with Empty Nest Syndrome, I want to also present you with an opportunity too…

Think about your Role in Life

What will your role be in your life without the children? Will that be you pursuing your career or starting a new career. The first stage is getting another purpose into your life again. Whether you become a volunteer for a charity, or learn a new skill. There are plenty of ways of finding new purpose.

Get in Touch with Friends

This is an important one, when we have kids our lives revolve around them and we end up not meeting up with our friends as much. Find some time to meet up and have a coffee, arrange for them to come round and have dinner. You never know, if they have kids too they could totally relate with how you are feeling and the catch up with have benefits for you both.

Do not Isolate Yourself

Locking yourself away at home and not connecting with anyone is the easiest thing to do when you are feeling this way, but it is the worst thing you can do. Get out and about, go for a walk or rekindle a passion you had.

Rekindle a Passion or Interest

When you really think about it, how much did you give up when the kids came first. I love Will to pieces, but there are things I have had to stop doing to make sure he gets the attention he needs. So it might be time for you to get back into what you were interested in before.

It is a great way of keeping yourself busy, keeping yourself busy will mean you haven’t got time to focus on the empty nest syndrome.

It could be anything you had an interest in, go and get back into it. Find local or online groups you can engage in and reacquaint yourself with your passion. That leads me to an opportunity that might be something for you to engage in and stop feeling that empty nest syndrome.

Turn a Passion into an Online Business

If the kids have flown the nest and the thought of getting a job is giving you the same kind of feelings as the empty nest syndrome, there is a way where you could turn your passion or interest into an online business.

Trust me, if you do decide this is the way for you – you will not have time to worry about the empty nest syndrome.

Now the thought of an online business, might be putting you off at this stage and that is ok. It is not for everyone. But for those that want to learn new skills, engage with a community of like-minded people and earn money online it can be a great investment of your time and mean that you do not necessarily need to go and get another job and means that you still get time to meet up with friends, but more importantly means you are not isolating yourself as you will be part of a community that is awesome. Think of these as ways to get out the other side of the empty nest syndrome.

Whatever your passion or interest, it can be turned into a way of earning money through a type of marketing called Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is the act of promoting products and services and earning a commission if someone goes and buys the item. Hopefully, you will know Amazon and they are the ones that first used Affiliate Marketing when they first started out as an online book store before they became the giant they are now.

They did not have a huge marketing budget when they first started and offered their users a deal. If they introduced a new buyer to their service who bought a book, they would reward them with a percentage commission of the book price.

They still use the same model today. If you are researching for a product to buy, go to someone’s blog and read a review and go and buy that product off of Amazon, they will have received a percentage as a commission.

How does that help you? Any passion or interest can be turned into an affiliate marketing business. Whatever you are interested in, you can start your own online business and start using affiliate marketing to earn money.

Now, it is not a quick road and will require time and effort to get it working right. But it would also mean you haven’t got time to worry about the empty nest syndrome.

You will have plenty to learn, and plenty of work to do, but with the right help and support and a community behind you, you will feel totally support at every step of the way and feel like you have achieved a lot in such a small time.

If you want to learn more about how affiliate marketing works, please read my helpful guide here.

Thanks for reading this post, hopefully you have found it useful and now know what to look out for with regards the empty nest syndrome and how to tackle it? If you have any questions or comments to add, please write them in the comments below.

All the best, John

Yoonla Review – Scam or Can You Really Make Money?

September 20, 2021February 3, 2019 by John Crossley

Welcome to our Yoonla Review!

Yoonla is promoted as a mostly “done for you” way to make money online, but is it really a way to make money online or is it a scam? In my Yoonla review, we will delve into this training platform and share all the details we found out.

First off, it’s great to see that you’re doing your research before buying into any “seemingly good” product.

That is how you avoid scams and find only legitimate ways to make money online!

I must stress at this point, I am not an affiliate of Yoonla, and my review is unbiased. I want to ensure you see both sides of Yoonla, to help you make a decision going forward.

So, Is Yoonla a Scam?

Let’s get into the details and find out…

How Can I Do Affiliate Marketing? With Help & Support!

November 6, 2019February 2, 2019 by John Crossley

A question that often comes up when people are first researching into starting affiliate marketing, is “How Can I Do Affiliate Marketing?” Many new affiliate marketers end up failing and it is down to a number of factors, including not getting the right training and support from the start.

Gem and I want to help you get started with affiliate marketing, help keep you motivated during the hard work needed to make it successful and ensure you get the best training that there is to become an authority on affiliate marketing.

Let us start by ensuring you understand what Affiliate Marketing is and how it works. We will also share with you what to look out for to avoid scams out there that are disguised as affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing? & How to Spot the Scams!

There are tons of programs out there that claim they are affiliate marketing, but really, they are MLM schemes designed to just keep getting you to spend more money so the owners are the ones that benefit.

Affiliate Marketing is a very simple premise – you create a blog on a chosen niche. You sign up with an affiliate program such as Amazon and promote products in your given niche. If someone follows your suggestion and follows your affiliate link to go to Amazon and makes a purchase, you have just earned a commission.

It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. See the graphic below:

If you have been checking out any other programs stating that they are offering you a ‘Done for You’ way to succeed at Affiliate Marketing, it is typically a scam and will not benefit you.

Why I say that is down to them normally employing duplicate content – which will never work out for you.

Do your research and you will definitely only find genuine products out there.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

SO, we know that affiliate marketing works by promoting products that include your affiliate link and if someone buys it you earn a commission. It sounds simple, but why do many affiliate marketers fail.

That is because of one thing – a Lack of Patience.

Whenever you search the internet for ways to make money online, you will always find people stating they earned thousands overnight or a system that will earn you money on autopilot.

So, it is natural to assume that you can earn money quickly. But they are all lies!

I know, you might be thinking that is a strong statement John!

But it is true. Affiliate Marketing is not a quick way of earning money online, you cannot just spend 20 minutes a day on it and hope for it to earn you money straightaway.

So to go back and answer the question “Can I Do Affiliate Marketing?”:

Yes, but you need to understand you will need to invest time and effort into this business model to make it work! You cannot play at this!

Yes, but you will not be earning money from it straightaway!

Yes, but you need to follow the right strategies!

You Need to Commit to Achieving this.

I didn’t earn anything from affiliate marketing for 6-months. I could have walked away after 5 months and thought affiliate marketing doesn’t work.

That is why there are so many people who fail at Affiliate Marketing, because they walked away after 3 months. They kept the employee mindset, that I have worked for an hour – I should get paid for an hour’s work.

It doesn’t work like this. That post that I earned my first commission from was a post that was 5 months old. It had crept up the google rankings and is a post that is still earning me commission now. That is the true meaning of affiliate marketing being a passive income.

How to Become Successful at Affiliate Marketing!

There are two things that you need to get your head around to be successful with affiliate marketing, other than the few above.

The Entrepreneur Mindset

Affiliate Marketing is a business model, it isn’t like completing surveys online and earning a few quid. You can earn some serious money with affiliate marketing if you do it right.

The first thing is becoming an entrepreneur. Living and breathing your business until it starts earning you money, and then scaling it so it grows, and you can start hiring writers for your business.

Understanding that you will not earn an hourly rate from this business model but understanding that this is all about the long game.

When I first started, I had a full-time job and a family to consider too. So, my spare time was limited. I needed to be practical in my planning and ensuring that the hour I put away into my business I spent it well. Whether that be learning a specific element, researching a product to review or writing an article. I needed to be productive.

That is what I mean, those are all traits of a successful entrepreneur who becomes a successful affiliate marketer!

Learning the Right Way

Something I have noticed about successful affiliate marketers is that they are constantly keeping themselves up-to-date with their niche, affiliate marketing, etc.

They are constantly learning. I myself, regularly check out webinars in Wealthy Affiliate to see if there is something I can learn and often I can. There may be a small detail that could help rankings or help conversions that I hadn’t considered or tried. You need to constantly learn.

If you are just starting out with Affiliate Marketing or are struggling to get it working for you, it might be because the training or advice you have been given was incorrect.

I would like to recommend you check out our recommended training platform for Affiliate Marketing, Wealthy Affiliate. Their training is designed for anyone, of any skill level to build an affiliate marketing business.

You will benefit from the training into exploring the right niche for you, building your own website within the platform, getting it ranked within the search engines, building traffic and writing content that converts.

This the same platform that I have used for almost 3 years now, and I would not be where I am today, without their training and help and support that comes with it.

Kyle and Carson are the co-founders and owners of Wealthy Affiliate. They have poured so much time and effort into making this the best platform it can be, they also offer their help and advice to new affiliate marketers to ensure they get started with a business that will mean, you can start saying “I Can Do Affiliate Marketing”

Let’s Get You Expert Help & Support

Another feature I love with Wealthy Affiliate, other than the training and the website tools is the community you become a part of.

Imagine being part of a community that is over 1 million users in size, where you gain access to chat with other affiliatemarketers who can help answer your questions at any time of the day. You also get a personal coach, if you follow my invitation to Wealthy Affiliate that would be Me. Anytime you feel like you need a motivation pep talk, the community and me will be there to help you.

Not sure of what niche to choose, ask me.

Not sure how you could improve your website, ask me.

That is the help and support you get within Wealthy Affiliate, and I would not have been able to say Affiliate Marketing worked with it.

Kyle and Carson are very keen that anyone who checks them out can do it without any pressure, and it is a great mentality to have. So, here you will find a link to my Wealthy Affiliate review, so you can check out more detail. But if you want to check them out yourselves, here is a link to get you started with a free starter membership (no credit card required). Explore the platform and see what you think.

Final Conclusion

The main reason why people fail at affiliate marketing is purely down to a lack of patience or following the wrong training. They give up too soon, or they are not entirely sure how to get started and that is why we fully endorse Wealthy Affiliate if you are looking for a training platform that has everything you need, including expert help and support, for getting started with affiliate marketing.

Then you will be able to say, “I Can Do Affiliate Marketing!”.

Thanks for reading our post, if you have any questions or comments to add please put them below. We will come back to you as soon as we can. Thanks John & Gem

Why Affiliate Marketing Does Not Work & What to Do About It

November 6, 2019January 29, 2019 by John Crossley

If you are here, you might be considering whether affiliate marketing really works? There are plenty of reasons why affiliate marketing might not be working for you and you are looking for help to turn the corner and make it work. But let me answer that first question – does affiliate marketing work? Yes, totally but there are some factors to consider when thinking about why it might not be working for you.

First off, there is no big secret as to how it works and a lot of it comes down to one factor – Patience.

The Biggest Factor to Achieving with Affiliate Marketing is Patience

One of the biggest mindsets you need to get out of when starting any online business, including affiliate marketing is that you will not immediately earn a return for the time you invest. People sink a lot of time and effort into an affiliate marketing business and will see no return after 3 or even 6 months and walk away from it stating “Affiliate Marketing Does Not Work”, when really 6 months is the point where your website is starting to earn the traction it needs with the search engines to turn your articles into a money-pot.

The main thing I see with struggling affiliate marketers is they are drawn into these training platforms that are not telling you the truth about the need for patience.

Think about it, unless you find a genuine training platform like Wealthy Affiliate that is honest and realistic about the timescales needed to make this successful – Most affiliate marketing (or programs advertising themselves as affiliate marketing) state that you can be earning money really soon after starting…

Whether it is an e-book, a training course or learning from a guru they all lull you in with false promises of a passive income stream that can happen overnight.

In reality, the biggest thing you need to get over is that this is not a reality. I did not earn anything from affiliate marketing for 6 months and if I had stopped at the 6-month mark I might have been in the same place you are and questioning whether Affiliate Marketing works.

That 6-month point is really important in your affiliate marketing business. The market is being flooded with people wanting to do affiliate marketing, but as most give up on the 3 or 6-month Google consider this when deciding on where to rank your content. If a website is still alive after 6-months and is offering high-quality content, that is a great sign for your rankings and will mean that you will start to get good traffic. Traffic is what you need to make money with affiliate marketing.

Another key reason as to why affiliate marketing does not work for some is because they do not know how to do it properly.

Affiliate Marketing Does Not Work Because People Do Not Know How to Do It the Right Way

Another big reason as to why affiliate marketing does not work for most marketers is because they are learning from scammers. There are thousands of products out there claiming to be the best affiliate marketing training, but in reality, have been put there by fraudsters to get your money or personal information and leaves those that fall for the trap believing affiliate marketing does not work.

They give away enough information to get you to buy the product, but not enough information for you to find any success with their tactics.

There are many factors to consider making sure affiliate marketing works for you, but you also need a training platform that is honest, can be trusted and ensures you are put on the right track from this point onwards. We highly recommend the training and tools available at Wealthy Affiliate. They are the training platform we used when we first started out with Affiliate Marketing and without the support from the team, I might not have stayed the course and saw that first sale after 6 months.

With clear training on choosing a niche, creating a website, writing content that converts and SEO and other marketing methods they are a highly recommended and up-to-date training. Learn more about what they offer and their success stories within my Wealthy Affiliate Review.

Many Affiliate Marketers are using Outdated Tactics

Another factor as to why affiliate marketing does not work is people using outdated techniques. One Example is using duplicate content. Some products out there claim that their system will generate you content for your website without you needing to do any work? How? They steal another person’s work and display it on your website.

But the search engines are actively looking for duplicate content and using duplicate content will lead only one way – your website and content not getting ranked at all.

What the search engines and people searching via those search engines are looking for is high-quality content that provides value and helps people with their query.

In days gone by, some affiliate marketers used tactics including just writing a 20-page website, and sending unnatural links to it by spamming blogs, comment sections, etc. This would benefit the website for about 3 months, before Google found out and would penalise the site. This technique stopped being effective since a change in Google’s algorithms in 2011. But I have still seen training material showing affiliate marketers this tactic, even though it will not work at all.

If you can provide high-quality content that helps people and provides value, you have the key ingredient to making affiliate marketing work. You just need to remain consistent posting this high-quality content regularly to see it turn into a successful affiliate marketing business.

Affiliate Marketers Not Treating It Like a Business

It is possible for anyone to launch a website and start affiliate marketing nowadays. You can get a free website really easily and little or no financial barrier to getting started. This brings with it the idea of testing the water with affiliate marketing, with little commitment needed.

This leads some to not get into the right tracks that this is a business model. It also means they do not have a business plan for their affiliate marketing business.

Think about your current goals, if they are just to make money – then this could be a factor into why it is not working. Even if you start with small goals, like I am going to write 3-4 articles a week that is a better goal to start with.

We all have a financial goal, and that is normally the main reason why we have chosen affiliate marketing as a way to achieve that. But a normal bricks and mortar business will not expect to turn a profit in its first year. Now, an online business doesn’t have the outlay a normal business does, but why does that mean you can immediately expect it to turn a profit straightaway.

Set yourself daily, weekly and monthly goals that are not about earning money. It could be creating articles, spending an hour doing proper keyword research, researching your niche and engaging with others in your niche, learning how to get started in video marketing.

There are tons of things that you can set yourself up with, and the beauty is if you are constantly working on your business and creating excellent value – guess what you will start converting this into sales.

Not Getting into the Mindset of an Entrepreneur!

One of the things that I notice about people who say affiliate marketing does not work, they think it works in the same way as working in your day job!

Think about a job that pays by the hour for a moment, you do an hour’s work and you get paid an hourly rate.

Affiliate Marketing does not work in the same way. A true entrepreneur plays the long game. I know affiliate marketers who are earning money from articles they wrote years ago, and they are still converting. The article might need a little update every now and then as things do change, but in essence it is the true way a passive income works through affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is in definition about playing the long game. Write a high-quality article that helps, is based on a low-hanging fruit keyword and offers value to the person who reads it. Once you have posted it to your website and shared it on social media. You start researching into your next article. Don’t get hung up on Google Analytics, it can work against you as you will not see a great deal of traffic and that can be demotivating.

Just focus on writing articles, regularly and keep that going for 6 months, then plan for your next 6 months.

I know it is hard to hear, but with effective training and support, it doesn’t need to a journey you travel on your own.

Get the Right Training & Support You Need to Succeed!

One of the things about those early stages of an affiliate marketing business is it can feel kind of lonely. If no one is interacting with your website, it can seem like you are writing content for no one and it can be something that leads you to believe that affiliate marketing does not work. But that is why I love the guys at Wealthy Affiliate.

You do not need to do this alone, you can join a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who can help in ways you may not fully understand at this point.

First off, you will gain access to high-quality training that will ensure you are following the right path for your affiliate marketing business. this includes:

Picking the Right Niche – some people start too broad, and end up not being competitive enough and failing
Doing Effective Keyword Research – without keyword research you have no chance of ranking your content
Writing Quality Content – It is the key ingredient Google is looking for, they want to offer value to their users in the same way you need to with your content
Social Media Marketing – this is essential for your business, but you will be surprised how many do not know how to utilise this effectively.

One of the key things that Wealthy Affiliate offer that I have heavily used in my time with them is the ability to learn from some of the Super Affiliate’s that are on their platform. To be able to learn from them and to ask them questions at any point was really motivating in those early stages before I started earning money from Affiliate Marketing. With a free starter membership, you can truly experience the platform with no commitments and see how it differs to any training you have experienced in the past and also see the opportunities that lie within. It is really empowering to live chat with some of these affiliate marketers and learn new techniques that work, with proof. Read some success stories and try to incorporate it into your online business and learn from some techniques that haven’t worked too.

Conclusion

Let’s just clarify the key points of this post.

You need to have a lot of patience with affiliate marketing. This is not an overnight success route. If you can only post once a week, it will take a lot longer to get the search engines trust and the rankings that this means to get traffic.
If you feel you have not had the best training, you need to go back to basics and learn it from the best training platform out there – Wealthy Affiliate.
The only tactic you need to concentrate on is doing the right keyword research and posting high-quality content that provides value and helps the reader
This is an online business model – if you are currently playing at it, what will it take for you to commit?
Think like an entrepreneur! Don’t work to get paid, work to build a future for yourself and your family.
Get the Right Training and Support – Read my Wealthy Affiliate Review and see how this amazing platform can help your affiliate marketing business

I know you might be currently thinking that Affiliate Marketing does not work and you might be thinking that it will never work. But I want to assure you, it can and does work! I would not be where I am today without it and I love the fact I found Wealthy Affiliate when I did. I had been caught out by an online scam and could have given up on my desire to make money online. At one point, I did not think it was possible. That was the point I saw a review for Wealthy Affiliate and found out about affiliate marketing.

It is a proven route to make money online, but it is so easy to fall for a fake affiliate marketing training out there. I want to guarantee anyone who reads my Wealthy Affiliate review, they are totally genuine and are a really supportive platform. They are all about you making up your own mind about them and offer the free starter membership as a way for you to make your own decisions. A truly great bunch of guys.

If you ever feel like you are struggling, just reach out. We have all been there and thought the same. But that does not mean affiliate marketing doesn’t work, we just need to keep believing and learning.

Thanks for reading this, if you have any questions or want to add any experiences with affiliate marketing, I would love to hear from you. I will respond as soon as I can. thanks

The Six Figure Mentors Review – Don’t Join, Until You Have Read This Review!

November 28, 2020January 28, 2019 by John Crossley

Welcome to our Six Figure Mentors Review!

I am guessing, that someone has just introduced you to a program that will “allegedly” help you earn tons of money and you want to see if it is the real deal, right?

First off, it is great to see that you are doing some research before buying into a “seemingly good” product or scheme.

Research is the best way to avoid online scams and only find legitimate ways to make money online!

To be completely transparent with you, we are not affiliated with the Six Figure Mentor program in any way, so relax we are not here to pitch or sell anything. We just want to help you get all the facts you need to know before you decide on what the best course of action for you is.

The Six Figure Program has many claims about being able to help you achieve a 6-figure income. But there are also a number of reports that this is a total scam! We wanted to find out what the truth really is, a scam, a proven money-maker or something inbetween.

Let’s get started with a quick product overview…

What is Affiliate Marketing for Dummies? Road to Passive Income

September 20, 2021January 14, 2019 by John Crossley

If you are looking for a guide that will explain affiliate marketing for dummies, you have come to the right place. We try our best to keep things simple and ensure you go away fully understanding a subject and also go aware with a clear path on how you can get started, if you so wish.

Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way of earning money online. But I often find that people try to overcomplicate the process and that is when we start to feel lost, when really it is really quite a simple premise. Let’s make sure you fully understand how Affiliate Marketing works?

How Does Affiliate Marketing Really Work?

There are 3 parties that are involved in affiliate marketing. The first party is you as an affiliate marketer. The second party is the seller of the product or service. The third party is the buyer of that product.

Let us use an example to break this down. Let’s say an affiliate marketer has a blog that is focused on a niche which is in the realms of fitness, let’s say losing belly fat. We will get into the need for a niche later.

So, this affiliate marketer has a blog that focuses on helping people lose belly fat. They have a ton of hints and tips, they also promote products or services that are relevant to that niche. It might be a kitchen gadget that makes preparing a particular recipe easier. That is where the affiliate bit comes in. The affiliate marketer links their blog post about that gadget to a marketplace such as Amazon through an affiliate link.

The readers of that blog read that particular blog post and decide they want that gadget as it makes preparing that particular (health shake) recipe easier to do and so they follow that link to Amazon and buy the product.

The blog owner has just earned a commission through affiliate marketing.

That is the simple premise behind affiliate marketing. You promote products and services and receive a reward or commission for introducing a buyer.

It is a method that benefits both the buyer and the seller as it reduces the costs of marketing which can be an expensive business and Amazon actually launched in this way. When Amazon first launched it was a small online book store and rather than spending money on advertising, they reached out to their buyers to promote their books to others with the reward of a percentage of the sale price.

Now Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the world and still follow that same model but cover a whole lot more than just books.

How Do They Track Your Sales?

This is the point where people can overcomplicate affiliate marketing. You see it involves tracking cookies and if you do not know what a cookie is, this is where it can seem like it is an alien language.

Let’s describe how a cookie works, and then we can explain how they track your sales.

A computer cookie is a small file sent from a web page to your computer to be stored in your web browser. The main purpose of this file is to help the web page keep track of your visits and activity. That doesn’t always mean a bad thing. Think about if you do your online shopping online, a cookie will help keep track of the items in your shopping basket. Without cookies, this couldn’t happen.

If you stay logged on your social media, cookies also help keep you logged in.

So, how does that work with affiliate marketing. Well, when you sign up with an affiliate network or Amazon, you are given a special link that you use when you are promoting these products and services.

When that reader read that article and decided to buy that kitchen gadget we were discussing earlier. The blog post would have had a link that went straight to the sales page on Amazon. That link would have had a signature in it that identified that it was you who introduced this buyer to Amazon.

You might be asking how cookies came into this. That buyer might not buy that product you recommended but explored Amazon a bit and bought a similar one. The cookies would have meant you still get the commission for the sale. Amazon offers 90-day links, so if they go through your link. Have a look at the product and decide they will look later, as long as they do actually buy it you can get the sale.

Let’s Explain A Niche

So, affiliate marketing works by you introducing someone to a product or service and receiving a commission for doing so, but you will notice earlier I mentioned that you would need a niche.

Whilst the premise of Affiliate Marketing is really that simple, it isn’t enough to just sign up with Amazon and creating a blog website and promoting a load of products…

If you start too broad, you will find it much harder to get started and find any success. You need to target a specific niche, that is very focused and will give you the better edge to get started with Affiliate Marketing.

What Is a Niche?

A niche is a narrow segment of the market with which to target. What the hell does that actually mean??

The best way to pick a niche and actually understand what a niche market is by going onto Amazon. Picking a category and then see what the sub-categories were and click on one, then keeping doing that until you cannot go any further. That is how narrow you need to go to start a niche.

If I picked Men’s Grooming, there are six sub-categories:

Shaving
Skin Care
Body Care
Hair Care
Dental Care
Kits & Gift Sets

But those are still too broad for a niche. Let’s pick Shaving and then this brings to the following sub-categories:

o Manual Shavers
o Electric Shavers
o Groomers & Trimmers
o Pre-Treatments
o Aftershaves
o Accessories

In that category, those would be my starting points. But honestly, we could go narrow if we wanted to and you could target disposable shavers for example.

When thinking about your niche, you want to target something you already have an interest in and then target as narrow a niche as you can. You will expand later on into the broader market, but the first stage of your business will be getting your name out there. That is why we need to target a niche.

Always start with a tiny segment of the market to improve your chances of getting it working right and then you can start getting broader as you have built up your authority.

Become an Authority in Your Niche

This is an important one to making Affiliate Marketing work for you. Think about it, would you buy something if you didn’t trust the seller, the promoter, the marketplace??

The first stages of an affiliate marketing business are showcasing yourself as an authority or expert in your chosen Niche.

Why am I going to trust you and follow your suggestions… that is because you are trustworthy and know your stuff.

That is the place you want to get yourself to after choosing your Niche.

That is also why we suggest you pick a niche that you actually know a lot about or are willing to learn a lot about and it is much easier if you like the niche too.

Imagine if I started a blog on women’s fashion… Yeah, I struggle with men’s fashion let alone making people believe I know anything about women’s fashion.

Let’s Confirm your Understanding

You start off by selecting a niche, a tiny segment of the market. It is based on an interest or passion you already have with that topic and can show some knowledge about it to others. You are willing to learn more about that topic and will start on your journey to becoming an authority (expert) in that niche to help people who want to understand that niche too.

You don’t need to be an expert writer, as the art of affiliate marketing through a blog is that it is a conversational type article. If you can explain it to one of your friends, then you can definitely succeed within affiliate marketing.

What Next…?

People get put off the idea of affiliate marketing when they learn they need to learn how to create a website or start blogging or anything technical as they are not that great on the laptop or computer. This is where I can come in and help.

Before I started my first blog, I didn’t have a clue on how to do anything like create a website. I didn’t even know what Affiliate Marketing was. But I was looking for a way to earn money from home.

I stumbled onto the topic of Affiliate Marketing and had a number of the worries that you may be thinking right now…

But I found something that made it simple and easy to understand, I could learn everything I needed.

All I needed to put in was TIME & EFFORT.

It doesn’t matter what your skill level is with a computer or that you are not that great at writing or social media. Because I got expert help and support from day one.

If you are willing to put in the time and effort, like I did and spend time learning and following the steps that are involved, you will shortly have the following:

Your Own Affiliate Marketing Website

What I am offering is a training platform that can help anyone of any skill level create their own affiliate marketing business that will earn them money online. You will gain access to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs that will be on hand to help you at any step to ensure you understand what to do and how to do it. You will also gain access to my help and support at any time.

The only thing that will stop you succeeding at Affiliate Marketing is you telling yourself you cannot do it.

I know plenty of affiliate marketers who are earning full-time wages from their businesses and some of them didn’t know how to go on Facebook before they started.

What Am I Offering?

I am offering you access to a training platform that has transformed the lives of thousands of wannabe Affiliate Marketers. It offers World Class Training, Access to Websites & Expert Help and Support and what is more you get to join for FREE.

A Starter Membership is absolutely free, with no catch. It allows you to fully explore the platform and start your affiliate marketing business.

Think about it, by the end of lesson 4 you could have your own affiliate marketing website in your chosen niche. It will be fully optimised to be found by the search engines and all you would need to add from that point is content.

Everything involved with an Affiliate Marketing business can be taught and learned and Wealthy Affiliate will be there to help you at every step of the way.

3 years ago, I didn’t even know what Affiliate Marketing was and now I am sharing my knowledge to help others find genuine opportunities within Affiliate Marketing.

If you want to start your own affiliate marketing business with expert help and support, then I highly recommend you sign up for free below. Just click on the banner below and start your own affiliate marketing business for free.

If you still have any questions or want to learn a little more before committing anything, I totally understand. But I ask that rather than worrying about it ask me any questions in the comments below and I will definitely respond to you with an answer.

Good Luck with Your Journey within Affiliate Marketing, whichever direction you decide to go.