Affiliate Marketing – A Great Way for Beginners to Get Their Start

Affiliate marketing is something I’ve been involved in since 2015 and have a lot of experience with. I make most of my income online doing this and know a lot of other people who do the same, making a full-time income and then some.

This is how many online marketers get their start, and for good reason.

Affiliate marketing is what you could call “beginner friendly”. This is why so many people start out doing this… it’s a good choice.

But, like all ways of making money online, a lot of people fail. This has to do with many factors, such as going about it the wrong way, giving up too early, and so on. There are different ways to go about doing it, ways that work and ways that aren’t exactly very good choices, and in this article I’ll be going over what exactly it is, why it’s a good way to make money online, and how to go about doing so and actually be successful.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote products online and earn commissions when you help make sales.

You can promote just about any product you can think of and earn money doing this. There is plenty of opportunity.

Example: Like cats? You could promote a cat toy on Amazon and earn a commission when someone purchases it.

• You promote a product via an affiliate link
• Someone clicks on your link and is directed to an online store (Amazon, Walmart, Nike.com, etc)
• They purchase the product on the online store (Amazon, Walmart, Nike.com, etc)
• You get paid a commission

With this business model there are many upsides, such as…

• You are your own boss. You get paid by companies by working “with” them not “for” them. You are considered an independent contractor.
• You can set your own schedule… no boss breathing down your neck.
• Of course you have the freedom to do this wherever you please since it is online work.
• And there are the upsides I’ll go over below, which make it beginner friendly.

2 Reasons That Make It Very “Beginner Friendly”

Reason #1 – All You Do Is Promote

Affiliate marketing is a very simple business model. I’m not saying that it is “easy” to make money this way, but it is rather simple compared to other methods.

Literally all you do is promote products. You don’t have to deal with the hassle of creating your own product, processing payments, dealing with unhappy customers or any of that. You simply refer people to buy products that already exist and that are already proven sellers.

I know most people looking to get started making money online probably don’t have anything to sell, which is why this is an excellent choice.

Reason #2 – Low Startup Cost

There is also very low startup cost involved here. The actual cost depends on how you go about doing it, but generally speaking it can cost you little to nothing at all.

Online business in general requires very little startup cost when compared to the traditional brick and mortar businesses, and affiliate marketing is extremely low in cost even when compared to other online business methods, such as ecommerce.

I know a lot of people out there were like I was when I started out. They don’t have a bunch of money laying around that they can throw into something, so they need a way that doesn’t require money upfront. This is a great choice.

Income Potential

There is tons of income potential here. This is definitely not a limiting factor.

HOWEVER, income potential varies a lot.

It all depends on the products you are promoting.

Of course you aren’t going to be making very high commissions promoting pencils (I don’t know why you’d promote pencils, but you could), but you could make some pretty massive commissions promoting refrigerators.

You can promote just about anything…. very low cost products and very high cost products. Products that earn you little commissions and products that earn you large commissions.

Low Commissions Doesn’t Always Mean Low Pay

Things aren’t quite always as you may thing though. Sometimes you can make more money with lower commission items than higher commission items. Of course you have to think about how many you will be able to help sell.

How Much Can You Make Monthly?

I know quite a few people that are making over $10,000 a month doing this, and some that are even making double that.

Then again, I know people who are hardly making anything and not nearly enough to live off of.

There are many variables at play here. It depends not only on the products that you promote, but how you go about promoting them…

Different Ways to Go About It

There are so many ways you can do affiliate marketing, some that are super easy and don’t work out very well and others that require a bit more work but can lead to a nice steady stream of income.

The easiest ways to do affiliate marketing would be to simply promote products on social media, on forums, question sites, etc. You could do this for free and with very little work involved.

BUT… These “Easy” Methods Aren’t Going to Work Well for Most People

Unless you have some massive social media following, which you probably don’t, then you likely won’t be very successful this way.

Think about it… if you promote some product on your Facebook page how many people are really going to be interested?

And besides this, social media and many forums out there don’t care too much for people promoting products. It’s not uncommon to get accounts locked, posts deleted and so on.

Also, before promoting products you first have to get accepted into whatever affiliate program it is that you choose. This is free to do but many programs require that you have your own website, which in my opinion is by far the best way to go about it.

Affiliate Marketing With Your Own Website… Doing It The Right Way

Nowadays you pretty much need a website to be successful with this. Not only do you need a website to get accepted into many affiliate programs in the first place, but this also can really increase your chances of earning good money.

And don’t worry, this isn’t too difficult. I’ll show you how you can do this in a second.

Your website is… well… yours. You don’t have to worry about getting banned, blocked or having a post taken down on some social media outlet or forum. It is your own little hub where you can promote whatever you want.

With a website there is much more income potential and a greater ability to create a sustainable income stream. And if you still want to use social media or forums, you still can. What you can then do is use them to drive traffic to your website.

What I Recommend If Looking to Get Started

If you want to get started you have 2 basic options. You can go out and figure everything out on your own, or you can get training that guides you through the process. If you are completely new to this then obviously I’m going to recommend training.

There is a really good training program called Wealthy Affiliate that teaches all of this. They teach you…

• How to decide what to promote
• How to build a website
• How to drive traffic to your website (for free)
• Making money with your website
• Optimization
• And more…

This program is actually where I got my start back in 2015 when I was just beginning. So I know that it works from real experience.

Since then they have went through some big updates and the program is better than ever. When you join you get not only the training, but also the tools needed to get started, such as a free website, website hosting and more.

Also, they have a free Starter Membership where you can join for free and get access to the beginner training. This is a great risk-free way to test everything out and see how you like it.

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You can read my full review of Wealthy Affiliate here for more information.