I assume most of you came across my website looking to make money online, right? Well, essentially there are two ways to do it.

Sell your own product.
Sell someone else’s product.

The second one is known as affiliate marketing. What’s affiliate marketing? You might have heard of the term before but what exactly is it? Simply put, you promote other company’s products and get paid for doing so. If you promote a vacuum cleaner sold at BestBuy, for example, it’s like you are working on behalf of their salesperson, right? (And Yes, BestBuy has an affiliate program) Instead of being hired as their salesperson, you register as an “affiliate” with BestBuy and promote their products. And, when you make a sale, you get rewarded with a certain percentage of the commission. Simple, isn’t it.

 

Affiliate marketing is the simplest and quickest way to start making money online because you don’t need to pay to start out as an affiliate member. Companies do not charge you to become their affiliate. Why not? Because it is way cheaper for them to have you (affiliate member) advertise their products through their program rather than hiring a real salesperson or creating a TV commercial. Makes sense huh? It’s a win-win scenario. 🙂

Most of the major companies have an affiliate program nowadays, and there are practically millions of products/services you can promote online. You simply need to decide what you want to promote and know how affiliate marketing works. I am going to share it right here.

 

5 steps of Making Money In Affiliate Marketing

1. You have a blog/website (Build it free)
2. You pick a product to promote
3. You sign up for the affiliate program
4. You market (write about) the product
5. A visitor purchase through your blog/website and you earn a commission

1. You Have a Blog/Website

It is essential that you have a blog or website if you want to succeed making money online as an affiliate. Sure, you can promote a product using social media such as Facebook or Twitter. But then you will have to market toward your friends and family members… Do you want to spam them with your affiliate link? I don’t think so. Besides, having your own site is a more promising method in the long run. Hence, your own blog or website is a must for affiliate marketing.

I know, I know. Creating a website itself sounds daunting right? I can totally relate to you as I used to feel the same way. But in fact, it is not that bad when you use the right tool. I explained all about it in the post “How to Build a Website Free.” You will have your first website free, in one minute, without knowing about “hosting” or “WordPress” or anything. Give it a try. You will be pleasantly surprised.

 

2. You Pick a Product to Promote

Finding a product to promote is quite simple. Just Google search by typing in “[product] + affiliate program.” For instance, you are a mother raising a toddler and have lots to talk about anything related to a baby. Baby food, baby clothes, baby toys, etc. You google search with the keyword “baby products affiliate program.” The result will give you a long list of programs that you can choose from.

 

The key here is to choose the products that you can confidently recommend to people. If you have actually used a product and liked it as a customer, that’s the best one to promote. You will be able to talk a lot of positive aspects of the product from your personal experience. Check if the company of your favorite stuff has an affiliate program. If not, you can always check Amazon if they sell the product. Amazon, the world’s biggest online shop, of course, has an affiliate program called “Amazon Associates.”

 

3. Sign-Up for the Affiliate Program

Once you pick a company, you can sign up for their affiliate program. You will fill out an online registration form and wait for their response. It usually takes 2-3 days at most for approval. Even if you didn’t get approved by one company, do not feel discouraged. There are many other companies that you can register. Once your registration is completed, you will have a unique “affiliate link” connected to your account, which tells the company how many sales were made through you.

4. You Market the Product

Now it’s time for you to “market” the product. For instance, you love this baby formula maker that you have been using everyday for your baby, so you want to promote it. How do you do it? You blog about it on your website. You write about its size, price, how it works, how you can clean it, why you like it, and basically share all the Pros and Cons of the product. The key here is to write for the readers. Provide as much useful information as possible, so that you can help those people who are looking for a good baby formula maker. And you attach your unique affiliate link somewhere within the content or the banner. When you do this, it automatically becomes clickable for the readers.

5. A Visitor Purchase and You Earn Commission

A visitor reads your blog post about the baby formula maker and really liked it. So she clicked the link you inserted within your post. It took her to the company’s website (or Amazon.com, or Walmart.com, of BestBuy.com, etc.). She decided to purchase the formula maker and completed her order. The company can see that this new customer came through your affiliate link. So you just earned a commission by referring this customer to their business. Most companies pay their affiliate members either weekly or monthly. It could be by check, PayPal, or direct deposit to your bank account. Some companies use gift cards to their businesses to pay out commission.

You Can Start Out Free

The most simple and effective way to monetize your website is through affiliate marketing. You write about things that you have knowledge of (such as taking care of a toddler) and promotes products relevant to your contents. I recommend you to google search affiliate programs of the products you may be interested in promoting. This will give you an idea what direction you want to take off to. Then, build a website free, join an affiliate program free, and start your path as an online entrepreneur. If you don’t know what you want to promote, you may want to join one of the affiliate networks and browse through all the companies in the network. It may give you an idea as to what affiliate program you want to be part of.

If you have any questions or comments, or if you want to share your experience with affiliate marketing, let’s hear them below. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! 🙂

Yuko