You may have overheard that affiliate marketing is the most lucrative way to make money online.
There are two reasons.
- The barrier to entry is low. Unlike other online earning methods, you can start affiliate marketing as a beginner with absolutely no money.
- You Can Take Control of Your Business. As Affiliate, no one forces you to do what you dislike.
In fact, the affiliate marketing industry is expected to reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.
If you yearn to become an affiliate marketer but don’t know how and where to start? Then this is the guide we made, especially for you!
How to be an affiliate marketer in 2020?
Do you think this might be of interest to you?
In short, the steps you need to take are described in detail.
1. Select the platform you want to use.
It is an important step in creating or breaking your affiliate marketing ambitions.
We recommend as many platforms as you can choose to build your business. Start a blog. Or buy one.
Yes. When it comes to affiliate business, your website works as a commodity.
You can use social media as a platform to promote your offers.
When you start a website, you can get it in several ways. Here are some examples:
- Control what, when, and where you can see what’s on your blog.
- You don’t have to worry that one day you’ll wake up and everything will be gone. By the way, it is a real story. As long as you keep working, your income is constant.
- It’s a lot easier to start a website than it was a year ago.
When your blog starts, optimize it so that you can find it on search engines like Google. In this way, you can rank free organic traffic.
2. Go ahead and choose a niche.
We recognize the hard work involved in choosing a niche. However, there are some points to reflect, so don’t worry.
- Pick a niche you are passionate about. Affiliate marketing as opposed to other money-making ventures walking on roses. Someday you will feel like quitting. And when that happens, passion will keep you going because you insist on what you don’t like.
- When ranking on search engines, you need a niche with keywords that have enough search volume so that you get decent traffic.
- Entering a niche market with little or no competition.
- You need a niche with products that solve people’s problems. Don’t promote your product to make money.
- Don’t narrow your niche too much. You’ll find yourself stranded if the niche is too narrow, the subject idea goes away too quickly.
The last point is very important. Find a gap in the right depth.
3. Find the product.
It is much easier to start as an affiliate because you are skipping the parts of ‘having an idea’ and ‘creating idea’ and becoming a creator of a product you then have to distribute.
The primarily thing you ought to do is see that other affiliates are also promoting the same product you have chosen and adding special value to the product that they (your competition) do not yet have.
You should always have the main product that allows you to generate sales on your frontend, and then all additional products related to the niche you have chosen on your backend.
Affiliate marketing today is the most profitable because you can relate to the product, rather than simply promoting something that could generate a large amount of money.
4. Choose an affiliate marketing program.
Immediately, you can classify your affiliate programs into three categories.
1. It is a small program but pays a high fee.
These programs pay the price, so competition is fierce. And since you started, it might not be a good program to sign up for, as you’ll be heading to head with an experienced and deep pocket marketer.
2. It is a high volume program, but the payout is low.
These programs pay less, but they attract a huge customer base. A fine illustration is the gaming industry, which is very popular. PS4 games cost at least $50 or more. However, you usually pay peanuts for a fee between $2 and $4 per sale. To use these programs, you need to generate a lot of traffic.
3. High-volume, paying programs.
These programs are in high demand and have a high commission rate.
A good example is a credit card. Almost everyone needs a credit card. And businesses are willing to pay the highest cost to get new customers.
Despite its attractive properties, such programs have significant drawbacks. It attracts affiliate marketing ‘whales.’
These are marketers with the financial backing and a great deal of experience. And these marketers can also make a sale by practicing ‘dirty’ in most cases.
So now that you understand what an affiliate program is, you have to pick which one to focus solely on.
How to know which program to go with?
Which program to choose depends not only on your niche but also on your expertise.
If your niche targets consumers, it makes more sense to sign up for the second model (high sales volume and fewer defects).
Or, if you’re dealing with the B2B sector, high payouts and low volume are the right models.
Meanwhile, a quick Google search gives you tons of results that you can easily sort.
For example, you can search for affiliate marketing programs that pay high fees. Then filter the results according to your niche.
As a result, it can be helpful to see what your competitors are promoting. If they have been successful, you can be successful as well.
5. Write your content and drive targeted traffic.
Wondering how to do that?
Don’t wink if you’re writing review content for a specific product. Instead, buy the product and experience it for yourself.
And when it’s time to write a review, you can get more useful information.
This strategy alone cannot fully tell you how to breakthrough affiliate marketing.
However, if you don’t have enough cash to buy all the products you’re promoting, there’s a way out.
Start by reviewing a product already in use or an interview with a better best friend who owns and uses such a product. Then compile the view into a video or post. Make sure to include affiliate links in your content.
How to generate traffic with affiliate content?
If your audience is not consuming your content, there will be no commission check.
So how do you view the content?
There are two valid traffic sources to choose from, but take advantage of them all.
1. Paid traffic.
It is where you pay a little to drive traffic through your ads. For example, we use social media ads and pay per click (PPC) ads.
Paid traffic can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Let us explain.
- Blessed because you can get your target traffic the moment you pay.
- The curse of the moment, the traffic stops, you bankroll or stop paying. Besides, it is eating your profits.
So, as an affiliate marketing beginner, it’s a good idea to avoid paid traffic. Use it only when you have a budget. Otherwise, stick with the following traffic sources.
2. Free organic traffic from search engines.
Thanks to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you can get free traffic through search engines.
It is where you optimize your content with keywords users use when researching their niche.
With this traffic source, you can get as many consistent readers as you like rankings for your chosen keywords.
Basically, what you need to do:
- Research and seek information for what your potential customers are looking for.
- Build your content around that topic.
- Attend technical content to help you rank and maintain.
- Getting traffic to your content takes a bit of effort, but it’s worth it.
6. Optimize your content and blog for conversion.
The presence of mouth-watering content does not guarantee sales. That said, people don’t just click on a link for no apparent reason.
So you are intentional about how to place affiliate links.
Here’s how:
- It’s not a good idea to place links at the bottom of the page that your readers are likely to click. You know where and when to include affiliate links (context).
- Use comparison tables, lists, and bold text to highlight important parts of your content. That way, you can get the skimmer’s attention.
When a customer visits your content, two things happen.
- Click on the link to the webpage of the product.
- Buy the product.
The truth is, you can only control the first action-the click. And using the tactics above, you can increase the likelihood of that.
7. Study analysis and learn from mistakes.
Of course, you will make a lot of mistakes along the way, no doubt. The problem only arises when you make the same mistake over and over again.
Data analysis is the only sure way to avoid pits. Luckily, you can access your affiliate marketing site dashboard.
Here you can find comprehensive information showing the performance of your affiliate campaign. All that’s left for you is to sort them out, find what interests you, and use it to make future decisions.
If you run multiple affiliate marketing campaigns for different products, you can generate reports on the best performing products based on conversion rates.
Then get that information and adjust your affiliate marketing strategy for that product.
Conclusion.
Even if you are an absolute beginner, there is no doubt that affiliate marketing will work. The only problem is rushing, thinking that you will be rich overnight.
Affiliate marketing, like any other business, requires patience, consistency, and learning from mistakes.
Follow the steps shown here, and you will earn your first affiliate commission.
Focus on building a loyal customer base because this is the pillar of business. And your future sales will come from them.
To know more, click here.
