Introduction
Why wouldn’t people show interest in learning affiliate marketing? After all, the industry is expected to hit $8.2 billion alone in the US by 2022. Consider the global increase in expenditure, and the proposition becomes even more lucrative. Contrary to what many people think, we believe this is the prime time to start affiliate marketing. So, how can you become a successful affiliate marketer? This guide will help you cover the basics and build an affiliate marketing business in no time. So let’s jump right into the content, shall we?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is promoting other businesses’ services or products and getting paid commission for every new customer you refer to that business, using your own unique affiliate link.
The best part! – You don’t need your own product or service to sell. Here’s how affiliate marketing works:
You will have to drive traffic to your affiliate marketing website, YouTube channel, podcast, or social media page to get clicks on the affiliate link. If a person that clicked the link ends up purchasing the product, you will earn a fraction of the sale. Get more clicks, generate more sales, make more commission – that’s affiliate marketing for you!
Steps to get started with Affiliate Marketing in 2021
Now that we are well-acquainted with affiliate marketing, we can put the pedal to the metal and begin learning how to create an affiliate marketing business. Let’s get started!
1. Choose a platform to promote
You can do affiliate marketing on any online channel. Most affiliate marketers create a blog website. But, you can also build an audience and increase affiliate sales through a YouTube channel, social media page, or podcast.
We suggest you start with a blog because maintaining it is relatively easy and cheap. Affiliate marketers have the advantage of numerous online tutorials on how to build an effective blog website.
You will have to optimize the website for search engines and improve its design for a better customer experience. This will allow your blog to rank higher on search engines and get more organic traffic. You can further drive the traffic to the affiliate links and generate sales.
2. Select a profitable niche
To be frank, the affiliate marketing industry is quite competitive. The competition is fierce since the number of affiliate bloggers is more than 31 million alone in the US. So, how can you make space for your affiliate marketing business?
Don’t sweat it. The answer to the problem is simple – niche down. Choose a topic that you think can help you make the most profit. Then focus on a specific category within the topic.
For example, you can choose ‘Laptops’ as a topic and then target a niche like ‘Chromebook.’ Doing this can automatically eliminate that competition. You will only be competing with affiliate marketers that are targeting Chromebooks.
Pro tip:
If you are going to create content for the website, make sure you choose a passionate topic. This will help you stay consistent with the effort. Need Help?
3. Find affiliate programs in the niche
Next, find the right affiliate programs in your niche. In other words, you will now have to select the products that you will promote on your site. You can choose from three different types of affiliate programs:
- High-paying and low-volume: Programs that have a high payout but a limited pool of buyers. For example, the ConvertKit affiliate program.
- Low-paying and high-volume: Programs that don’t have a high payout but have a mass appeal. For example, the Amazon affiliate program.
- High-paying and high-volume: Programs that have a high payout and also have a mass appeal. For example, affiliate programs related to credit cards.
Conduct extensive research before deciding on the affiliate programs and products. After all, your profits depend on it.
4. Conduct market research
Now that you have selected a profitable product to sell through affiliate marketing, your entire attention should move to the people you will target. In other words, you should try understanding the online audience that might want to buy from you.
Find out their pain points, common problems, emotional triggers, challenges, and more. Take a note of their demands and find out how the product can help them solve their problems.
The only way you can make affiliate marketing work for you is by making your products work for the audience. You don’t want to sell a smartphone to a person looking for cat food online. So, define the different attributes of your target audience.
Not just that, focus on what your competitors are up to. Look at how they approach and influence their target audience. Note down the different tactics and practices that you find unique to them. Use the tactics on your site too!
5. Create high-quality content
The next step is to create high-quality and informative content for your target audience. Proper market research helps you develop blog post topics that your target audience might want to read.
The content should solve problems and provide indispensable information. Once you ensure that, you can start fitting in the affiliate links inside the content. Create how-tos, guides, free workshops, case studies, infographics, and other content that will generate traffic.
Go the extra mile to find out information that your audience would love to consume. This will help you establish authority and expertise. It will further make online users come back to your site to consume more content.
6. Drive traffic to your site
By now, you have created an affiliate website, selected your topic, and developed content. But, how are you going to ensure that people land on your site and consume the content published on it? Here are a few ways you can drive traffic to the site:
- Paid advertising
Run PPC ads campaigns to bring in traffic to your site. Affiliates can place these paid ads on other related websites, mobile applications, and search engines. You will be charged a certain amount whenever someone clicks on your ads.
- Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization or SEO can help you optimize your website and content to boost its chances of ranking high on search engines for specific target keywords. SEO ensures highly qualified organic traffic.
- Email marketing
Lastly, you can build an email list of people that show interest in your content. You can place a form on the blog and ask people to subscribe to your newsletter. The subscribers can then be updated about the new posts through well-drafted emails.
7. Generate clicks on your affiliate links
So, you have started driving traffic to your content. Now the challenge is to make visitors click on your unique affiliate links. You will have to take care of several things if you want people to click on the affiliate links.
First, you will have to nail the link placement. Place the links where the visitors spend the most time on your site. A quick heatmap analysis can give you enough insights to work on link placement.
Second, don’t spam the content with links. It is extremely unprofessional, and people will leave your site in an instant. Modern-day customers are smart and can see through the cheap tactics. Pay attention to the context before adding the links.
Third, use buttons, tables, boxes, and signs to grab readers’ attention. Place the affiliate links on them too! These simple tactics will help you drive more clicks and generate more sales.
8. Converting leads into sales
Lastly, you will have to ensure the clicks convert into sales. You will only earn a commission when visitors click on your affiliate link and purchase the product. In other words, there are two roadblocks to conversion.
While you can take care of the first roadblock from the above tips, you can hardly control what happens on the next one. The conversion rate heavily depends on how the merchant has designed its site.
But, you can still stack the odds to your advantage by applying for programs that convert well. Check the annual income report of these merchants. Find out how much money they make from their affiliate programs.
Also, connect with their representatives if you don’t find specific answers to your questions. Ask questions about the average conversion rates and top earners. Pay close attention to how they answer your questions. It will give you a general idea of whether or not you should promote their products.
Keep reading!
There you have it. We have shared everything you need to create your space in the already booming affiliate marketing industry. Hopefully, this guide helped you understand affiliate marketing from inside and out.
To be frank, affiliate marketing demands a lot of patience and hard work. So, don’t lose hope if things don’t work initially. Keep at it, and you will start getting results eventually.
If you are keen to explore the affiliate world and want to check out some free resources that helped me get started, feel free to subscribe to receive a free three-part business workshop video series, which reveals how affiliate marketing works in details, as well as, exploring affiliate opportunities individuals can get started with today.
Loved reading this post? Don’t forget to check out other informative posts on the blog!
All the best!
-Triston