5 Steps to Start Making Money Online As an Affiliate Marketer

There are several methods to make money online, but the most effective way Learn Affiliate Marketing to build passive income online is through affiliate marketing and having your own website registered on your own domain name. To be successful, you need three things: a website, top notch education and expert help whenever you need it. There’s an old saying that knowledge is power and this is true when building an online business. If you have a quality internet marketing education, you are going to be very successful.

Don’t try to do this on your own!

There’s a lot of people out there teaching misleading information that can negatively affect your business. The majority of marketers fail because they didn’t start with these fundamentals. Without further due, I will be discussing what is affiliate marketing, how to choose a niche topic, ,where to register a cheap domain name, how to easily build a website, go over some free traffic generation strategies, and recommended affiliate programs to join so you can get started.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is when an affiliate, which acts like a salesman promotes, markets, and sells products or services for a specified commission per sale. It’s a full-scale business that requires time, effort, and knowledge to understand how it works. It is possible to be successful in affiliate marketing by self-educating yourself online through trial and error, but like I said before, I don’t recommend this.

How to Start Making Money Online as an Affiliate Marketer

Step 1: Choose a niche

Choosing a niche is important because you will be doing everything related to your subject including posting in forums and writing abundant content on your own website. That is why it’s so important that you choose a niche that you have a passion for or are interested in learning about. You don’t have to be an expert in any niche as you will be researching your topic and writing articles. The three most profitable niches are making money online, dating, and weight loss. These are also highly competitive niches, but the secret is proper keyword research that I will cover later.

Step 2: Registering a domain name

You can register a domain for about $8/year at Namecheap or GoDaddy. GoDaddy is cheaper in the long run. Your domain name can be completely brand-able or it could be a keyword rich domain. Avoid using dashes and numbers as they have lower perceived value, the shorter it is, the better. Set up your name servers that point your domain to your hosting while your purchasing the domain. You can go this route that will require an investment or you can create two free websites found in Wealthy Affiliate and with a small annual investment in the premium membership, get everything you need to get started in affiliate marketing.

Step 3: Create Your Website

Gone are the days when you need to know HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Using WordPress Express found in Wealthy Affiliate, you can install your website within 60 seconds, get free hosting and receive all the top notch training, tools and support that you need to make your online business a success.

Here I have outline what to do after you install WordPress. including important and recommended plugins and how to adjust your settings.

It is recommended to add a Privacy Policy and an About Me page within a menu. Adding a privacy policy page will help you later on if you want to promote your website through Google AdWords and it protects you legally. Adding an About Me page allows you to connect with your visitors and create trust.

Pages VS Posts

Want to know the difference between pages and posts? Watch this video to find out.

Your website must have rich substantive content and entertaining attention grabbers on all of your articles, with the majority of them targeting keywords that have at least 50 searches a month and less than 300 competing pages. The more searches and the least amount of competition, the better.

To quickly get started filling your website with content, login to Google’s keyword planner and search for at least five keywords that meet the criteria as stated above. Then type it in Google’s search bar with quotes around it and click to the last page of the results so you can determine the exact competition. Each keyword is going to form an article on your site and it should be sprinkled naturally around your article a few times. Often times, you can get your article to rank just by using your keyword on your headline and in the first sentence.

Step 4: FREE Traffic generation strategies to your website

The key is to just choose one of these methods and master it. Then you can try something else.

1. Article marketing– It’s important to put content on your website first and then you can submit some articles to Street Articles, Examiner, Technorati, Ehow, Squidoo. Article marketing is a very effective way to gain quality backlinks from high PR article directories that will help increase your websites rankings in the search engines.
2. Search Engine Optimization– This is the Internet Marketingprocess of ranking your site highly in the search engines and it’s the preferred method for traffic because it’s complete free traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. “All in One SEO” WordPress plugin which will give you the power to control this information for each post and page of your site via the Meta Title and Description. Add keyword rich content to your site and in the title, sprinkled throughout your article, in the Alt and Meta Tags, and by using anchor text in your keywords. Mention your keyword when you need to and don’t spam with keyword stuffing. Use internal linking and build back-links to your site. Internal linking is having links within your site from one post to another and back-links are links to your site from external sites.
3. Adding more content– Fresh content is food to the search engines. Keep your blog updated by posting at least two to three times a week.
4. Video Marketing– My favorite program Screencast-O-Matic for all you shy people out there who prefer not to be seen on the camera. Submit your video to YouTube and Vimeo.
5. Blog Commenting-Provide thought provoking comments on related blogs and add your websites URL.
6. Forum commenting-Find related forums by typing in your main keyword or niche and the word forum after it. Help other people out and make sure to follow the forums rules.
7. Guerrila Marketing- Guerrilla marketing is simply low cost ways of marketing your site. Slap your websites name on an automobile decal, on pens, business cars, t-shirts, bookmarks, flyers, and business cards.
8. Social Media and Bookmarking Sites– Share your blog posts on your social networks especially Google Plus and bookmark your posts to social bookmarking sites like Reddit and StumbleUpon.

Recommended Affiliate Programs

Now that we have traffic to our site, we are now qualified to sign up with some affiliate programs. Some are easier to get approve than others. Here I have listed some affiliate programs, but there are thousands! Start with one or two and then you can join some more.

1. Amazon

2. ClickBank

3. Commission Junction

4. Shareasale

5. LinkShare

6. PeerFly

7. AvantLink

conclusion about “How to make money online with affiliate marketing”

In conclusion, this is how marketers start a successful online business. It takes time for your website to rank and time and effort on your part, but it’s the strong foundation you need to have to create passive income. Start to earn money with affiliate marketing by building a website with high quality content, promote high quality products and services, and drive traffic to it by writing high quality content on blogs, forums, article directories, and social media sites. Work on establishing your brand and build trust and credibility. The internet is constantly evolving and you can’t go at this alone, that’s why I recommend you to join Wealthy Affiliate and try it out for free! You will get two free websites, training, 20 lessons of their Affiliate Boot Camp and Online Entrepreneur Certification Course all help from the experts whenever you need it.

I hope you found this article helpful and if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will get back to you in 24 hours or less. 🙂

To Your Success,