How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing for Beginners -The Right Way!

Looking for a genuine way to earn money online? Then, Affiliate Marketing is a great choice. But understanding how to make money with affiliate marketing for beginners can really show you the unlimited potential behind affiliate marketing.

We totally understand that there are so many conflicting messages out there and we wanted to make sure you really understand affiliate marketing, how affiliate marketing works and, more importantly how you can get started with affiliate marketing with our help and support.

What is Affiliate Marketing? And How Does it Work?

Affiliate Marketing is more widespread than you might realize, with large companies such as Amazon using it.

There are real benefits to both affiliates and the companies that use it as a way of marketing their products to a wider audience. But what exactly is affiliate marketing?

There are 3 parties involved in affiliate marketing. There is you (the affiliate), the product/service owner and the (potential) buyer.

The affiliate signs up with an affiliate program, this allows the affiliate to start promoting their products or services. If someone decides to buy the product or service you are promoting, the affiliate gets a commission. This commission is typically a percentage of the sale price and is a “thank you” for introducing a buyer.

The reason affiliate marketing benefits both the affiliate and the product owner are the fact that it is a much more cost-effective way of marketing products because they only pay out if someone buys something.

It can save a company like Amazon millions from their marketing budget, and you get the benefit of earning money for promoting products or services.

The way the company knows that you were the one that introduced the buyer is through affiliate cookies.

Affiliate Cookies

When you sign up with an affiliate program, you get to use a special link when you promote the products or services, this special link uses cookies to basically tell the company it was you who led the buyer to their marketplace.

Cookies will typically have a set amount of time, so if a buyer follows your link and buys it straight away you get the sale. But the advantage of having a longer-term cookie is that some people will not buy straightaway.

They might save it in their basket for a while but depending on the length of time might mean you still get the sale if they come back to buy it.

Can you Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?

The short answer is a huge Yes.

Often people will assume affiliate marketing is difficult because they think you need to be an expert in website design, or they don’t think they would be able to write content.

But in all honesty, most people who are currently make money from affiliate marketing were all thinking along those lines when they first started out.

I didn’t have a clue about building websites, affiliate marketing or how to write content and yet I am now helping people find the right training and getting started with affiliate marketing now.

But there are a few things that you will need to consider before deciding whether Affiliate Marketing is for you.

For starters, you don’t need to be a technical expert – we can help you get everything you need to get started.

But there are some important factors you need to be able to commit to make this work. Affiliate Marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it will take time to get to a point where you are earning money from it.

You will also need to be able to commit to putting a lot of time and effort into making this work.

Many people give up from Affiliate Marketing within a couple of months, because they believe it isn’t working. But it is simply down to the fact they have given up too soon.

We did not make any money from affiliate marketing for the first 6 months, if we had given up on month 5, we might have walked away saying affiliate marketing doesn’t work.

It does, but the timescales are not in relation to a normal job.

In a normal job you get paid for the hours you complete. But you are limited to the number of hours you can work, limiting how much you can earn.

Affiliate Marketing is truly a passive income stream, meaning that when you do start earning money from it – you do not need to be present to make the money.

But you will complete a lot of work in the initial stages that will not earn you an income.

Then, it happens.

One of your articles starts getting ranked well in the search engines, people start reading your article. They like what they read and follow your recommendation and buy the product or service you are promoting.

Then you soon realize that one article can earn you a recurring income month after month.

How Much Can You Make with Affiliate Marketing?

The honest answer is the figure is unlimited, it is only bound by how much hard work you are willing to put in at the early stages to ensure you can unlock the potential of earning money from affiliate marketing.

Many affiliate marketers are earning a full-time income from promoting products or services in a niche that they really love.

Imagine that, an online business based on something you love… You love travelling, sport, health & fitness, helping people… it really can be in any subject you want and as long as you follow the right strategy you can soon be making money with Affiliate Marketing.

How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing in 2019

We wanted to make sure we broke down the steps needed to get started with affiliate marketing. The first step you need to think about is the niche you want to get started in for your affiliate marketing business.

Choose a Niche

This is an important step and often one that many get wrong.

The main reason people get this wrong is down to them starting with a subject that is too broad. A niche is a tiny segment of a product range, if you start very narrow you will have a better chance of breaking into the target market and getting your blog ranked in the search engines and ultimately get traffic (the vital ingredient to making money).

If you have a subject in mind, think to yourself is it too broad and can you narrow it down?

I like to use Amazon’s category list to do this. You will notice that you can narrow down your search via Amazon to many sub-categories, you need to do the same with your niche selection.

As you grow your authority in that niche, you will naturally expand out into the broader category. But starting very niche is important. If you start too broad, you will find you will have a lot of competition which will be hard to compete with as a new brand.

If you ever need help to narrow down your niche, we are here to help – write your questions in the comments below and we will help you as much as you can to get to your niche.

Create a Website

Anyone who tells you “you don’t need a website” for affiliate marketing is typically wrong.

I know that is a strong statement but relying on one source of social media is not a great strategy.

I have found social media networks are not typically a great when it comes to promoting affiliate links. Some links will get blocked, and people are typically turning a blink eye to certain posts.

You have to put your links in front of the right person on social media to make it work. Building your own website, creating the right content will attract the right audience to your website and that is a much better strategy to earning affiliate commissions than hoping people see your stuff on social media.

I am not saying, don’t use social media.

What I am saying is, by building a website you can use all the channels available to you.

You don’t want to stick to Instagram and find that no one ends up clicking your links.

If you have chosen your niche and feel ready to build your own affiliate marketing business, you can build a free website using the tool below. See if your domain name is free in the box below:

Sign up with an Affiliate Program

We have already mentioned Amazon; they have their own affiliate program called Amazon Associates.

You will also find that there are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there. Using your search engine, you will find by typing “product + affiliate program” or “niche + affiliate program” you will find tons of them you can use on your new website.

Be wary if an affiliate program is charging you. Most will not charge you, as they are benefiting from your promotions. A couple do charge a little fee to join up, but this is simply to prove you are a real person. If they are charging a percentage or a monthly fee, I would look elsewhere.

You will find a lot of brands are using affiliate marketing nowadays, scroll down to the bottom of their website and you will normally see an affiliate program there. If they are not displaying that, don’t worry they might be using one of the affiliate networks. This host a huge selection of products for you to promote. We have listed the most popular affiliate programs or networks below:

• Amazon Associates
• Awin
• Shareasale
• ClickBank
• CJ by Conversant
• eBay Partners

Write Content that Helps

If you can nail this step, you are definitely going to be able to earn money from affiliate marketing… People do not want to be sold to, they want help with their purchase decisions.

Before buying stuff online people want to research before, they actually buy. If you can help them with these decisions, that is where you can really benefit people.

This also means people start to trust you and your brand, do that and you will be earning money online from affiliate marketing.

You need to write high-quality content that means the search engines display your content at the top of the search results. That is where you start to get traffic. But the search engines are constantly improving their systems to ensure they are displaying high-quality content that helps people.

Don’t follow any training that states you should write content to impress the search engines for rankings, write it for normal people who are looking for help and that is all that matters.

There is an element of keyword research, which you can read more about that here. But the important stuff is around the quality of the content and its ability to help people.

You Need Traffic

This step is where your patience comes in. If you can do effective keyword research, write high-quality content and help people you are definitely on your way to a profitable affiliate marketing business.

But an audience will not come straightaway.

Depending on your niche and how much time and effort you put in, you might make your first dollar after 3 months, maybe 6 months, maybe longer.

The key is to keep creating content regularly. Search engines are used to affiliate marketers starting out and then giving up after 3 months. So, they don’t entirely trust new websites until you can prove you are someone in it for the long run. If you can break through that 3-month mark and keep going with high-quality content, you will soon see that the search engines start trusting your website and rewarding you with higher rankings.

Your ultimate goal is to get to page one of Google. Google has 2/3 of the overall online search volume. SO that is a very important spot to make yours!!

Keep Learning & Improving

You need to keep learning – I am still learning new things every day. You also need to keep improving yourself, your blog and going back and improving stuff that might need improving.

Nothing stays the same for very long, if you start to get complacent you will find that your rankings will dip.

I have seen affiliate marketers start to see sales come in and they are able to give up their job. They then decide to go on holiday for a bit and do not touch their blog. They then come back and soon realize their rankings have dropped and they soon realize that they are losing money.

You need to keep your rankings to keep your traffic.

Work Hard, Learn Something Every day and constantly improve yourself and your blog and you are onto a great strategy!

Do You Need More Help? Check Out our Best Step-by-Step Affiliate Marketing Training for Beginners…

Whilst the idea behind affiliate marketing is as simple as the process below, there are many aspects to it that require training.

If you are serious about wanting to get started and build your own affiliate marketing business, we would like to help you get started with some excellent training.

Follow their step-by-step training like we did, and you will definitely be on your way to your own profitable affiliate marketing business.

Unlike many other training programs out there, Wealthy Affiliate comes with a solid training framework to follow with support on hand at any point along the way. You will also benefit from the owners helping you with your online business, we will also help you too. Get taught how to:

• Picking the Right Niche for You
• Build Your Own Website
• Everything to do with Search Engines – Making sure you website is search engine friendly and can get ranked
• Creating Content that Helps (& Converts)
• Signing up for Affiliate Programs
• Monetizing your website

There are literally hundreds of training videos available on the Wealthy Affiliate Platform, you will also gain access to their fantastic keyword research tool, website hosting and website engagement tools.

Don’t take our word for it alone! Unlike many other training platforms, Wealthy Affiliate offers a free starter membership that does not require a credit card.

You can see what they have to offer and see the training for yourself.

If you would like to read a little more about Wealthy Affiliate, here is our full Wealthy Affiliate review.

Our Top 3 Affiliate Marketing Tips

We have thought really hard about 3 tips we could offer to help you get to the point where you can make money with affiliate marketing for beginners

Set Yourself Goals

I am not just talking about setting yourself financial goals, as that is an obvious one. But set yourself non-financial goals – why do you want to be able to work from home? Mine was to spend more time with my family, but whatever your goal is – set it. This will help you stay motivated until you are earning money from affiliate marketing

Another thing with setting goals, is the tasks needed within your business. It could be you set yourself goals like, “I am going to write 3 articles this week” and make sure you keep to them. The smarter you work, the more likely this will work for you.

Ask for Help

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, we love the live chat and questions function within Wealthy Affiliate where you can get immediate responses to any questions you may have.

You will have a lot to learn, but that doesn’t mean you have to struggle to learn them. Whenever you need help, you need to ask for it. When I first started out I was regularly asking questions and Wealthy Affiliate is a safe environment to do it.
We are also here to help you, if you are ever stuck and need some help.

Don’t Give Up

This is the big one, you can’t give up. Do not work hard for 3 months and then think it’s not working, as you were probably at that point where the traffic would have kicked in.

There have been time when people have got in touch to say, “this isn’t working! I need to give up”

You then start to talk to them about why, and get into the detail and it is simply down to the fact their expectations are a bit unrealistic. I ask them how long they have been going and they turn around and say a month or two.

I then turn around and say, I didn’t earn anything for 6 months… they then start to understand they need to keep going.

After the 6-month mark, they often turn around and say “You were right John!”

That is a great feeling for Gem and I and we want to emphasis to you, it is possible to earn money with affiliate marketing. But you have to work hard and never give up!
This is a difficult road if you choose to do it alone, that is why we offer our help and the guys at Wealthy Affiliate are experts that help people and with the right training and understanding about timescale, you will soon realize it is a matter of WHEN it happens and not IF it happens.

Final Words – You Can Make Money with Affiliate Marketing

You do not need to an expert in web design or anything to do with search engines, etc. All you need is the determination to build a better life for yourself.

Motivation is a key part of getting this right and keep determined and in a year’s time you could easily be earning money from affiliate marketing with a business around something you love.

But that is the key, you need to work hard and be willing to put time and effort into it. No one will hand this to you on a plate, and any platform that tells you that is lying to you.

We have a reviewed a lot of products that claim you can earn money on auto-pilot or with little effort and they are all scams or low-quality products leading you to a sales funnel.

We recommend Wealthy Affiliate because it works, it has worked for us and it has worked for thousands of other members too. The reason it works is that the owners care, share their knowledge openly and we all work together to support each other.

The thing that we all have in common is that we work hard. We work hard at learning and putting everything into action.

Are you ready to come and join us and get started on your own affiliate marketing journey???

If you have any questions around affiliate marketing or anything we can help you with, please write them in the comments below and we will respond to you as soon as we can