How to start a affiliate marketing blog in 2023
"There is no time like right now to get after your blogging goals, learn how to start your own online business this new year!"
Last year was one a hell of a ride ... Let's face it 2022 has brought prices up substantially leaving many looking for side hustles to take some strain off the wallet. If you want to learn how to start a affiliate marketing blog, or just how to make money online there is not a better time to get started than right now.
It takes just one sale to be hooked
I remember the first sale I made with a blog online, a home generator I had written a review on. I'd been plugging along learning everything I could about creating a blog and affiliate marketing for some time, quite frankly I had doubts whether I was wasting my time or not.
I'm so glad I took the leap!
One morning I checked my Amazon Associates account and was FLOORED! I had made my first commission! $49.18
Now I knew it could be done!
I have progressed much since then but I will never forget that first sale, what a rush!
What we will cover in this article
A basic understanding of how affiliate marketing works via a blog, plus how to get rolling and some helpful tips!
The 4 Basic steps to earning money online
Choosing your interest
Building a website
Attracting visitors
Earning money through affiliate links
Where to get started
Is affiliate marketing a good idea in 2023?
ABSOLUTELY.
Think about it, the opportunity!.... There's BILLIONS of people online and the number is only growing.
Here's the deal .... People are online and there's a lot of money being spent, an affiliate marketing based blog allows you to promote products and earn commissions off of every sale you create.
The time to get started is NOW
Listen, if you are you serious about making money through affiliate marketing read this post, it's going to show you the basic foundation of how this business model works, specifically through blogging ... Let's get started.
What is affiliate marketing?
I'm working under the assumption you have some idea as to what affiliate marketing is. In a nutshell you are recommending other companies products and making a commission on the sale.
It's a win - win, the company has affiliates promoting their products for them, the affiliates get a piece of the sale for their efforts.
- You don't need to stock the product
- You never need to ship or handle the product
This makes affiliate marketing one of the lowest cost of entry business models available.
What's your job as an affiliate?
Your job as an affiliate is to build a website that attracts an audience, this is done through providing quality and relevant content to people.
Over time you build up your blog to gain traffic (visitors) once you begin to attract visitors you build up your audience. Once this starts rolling you promote products that will solve a problem, or just bring value to your readers.
Have a look at the circle below ....
The process at it's core is that simple. It's important to understand that it takes time and work to accomplish, however with the right training plus consistent effort it can be done!
How to start a affiliate marketing blog - 4 Steps you need to know
The actual process of earning money online is very simple at it's core, let's break down the process.
#1 Choosing an interest:
This is the first step to starting your online blogging business and earning money recommending products ... Choosing your "niche" and target audience.
"Millions of people are online at any given moment looking for products and information. The art of making money though a blog is to narrow down and attract people looking for what you can offer them."
- What do you have a true passion for?
- What do you have extensive experience in?
- Is there something you want to learn more about?
In order to make money online you need to first attract readers to your blog. This is done by narrowing down on a certain subject.
There's people looking for information on just about any subject you can dream of online. Choosing your niche and targeting people interested in it is what brings traffic to your blog.
Within your niche you begin writing helpful posts and creating other forms of content.
This content should be answering questions and providing what your target audience is looking for within the niche. This is how to create your online business!
Choosing the right niche is essential for success in blogging.
Make sure the niche you target is something you really like or want to learn more about because you will be writing A LOT of content around it and researching everything there is to know on it.
There is no right or wrong, remember there are BILLIONS of people online today! If there is a niche you are into there is definitely someone out there that is into it as well! The key is finding them and giving them the information they are looking for online.
- You need to earn trust
- Quality content creates a true business that lasts
- Helping readers should be #1 over earning money
What should your niche be?
A niche can be anything you choose, I will link my in depth article on choosing your niche below. Give it a read if you want more information on choosing the perfect niche.
In this first step to making money though a blog via affiliate marketing you will be choosing your "niche" and target audience. These are the people that will become your readers and potential customers.
Read the article below on choosing the perfect niche.
>Blog niche research tips that will make choosing your direction easy
#2 Build a website:
Affiliate marketing through blogging takes work, part of that work is creating a website.
You have picked your niche! Now it's time to build out the foundation of your business, your website or blog; this is the fun part!
Building a website years ago required coding knowledge and expertise in computers.
Today's website building platforms however allow people to build beautiful websites without needing to know the real technical stuff. Sure there are things to learn but this will come as you move through.
Literally.... You can build your website in minutes on many webhosts. My recommendation is to build your website through wealthy affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate not only provides everything you need to build a website. Hosting, website builder, Wordpress install etc. They also provide all of the training you will ever need to succeed online!
I have been a long time member at wealthy affiliate and recommend it highly, they have taught me much of what I know about making money as an affiliate today.
The awesome thing is they let you test drive the platform and get your website up and running for free before you commit to the small price for the best online business training avalable.
Everything you need is included...
- Website builder
- Web hosting
- Training
- Keyword research
- A large community of great people that are helping each other succeed
- TONS MORE :)
This gives you the chance to decide if this "blogging thing" is really for you before investing any money into the endeavor.
Read my honest review of Wealthy Affiliate >HERE<
Learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business today !
Start a forever free account today, I'll see you around the platform!
Building a website isn't hard yet many people shy away from starting their online business simply because they feel like they need to be a "techie" Wealthy Affiliate eliminates your doubts through the best training avalable!
As you read more of my blog I will be covering everything you need to know about blogging and making cash online. I will guide you along, plus if you sign up for the free Wealthy Affiliate test drive I will even contact you inside of the platform to guide you along ... Talk about putting my money where my mouth is!
In the meantime check out some of my awesome blog building tips below.
>5 Blog design ideas to keep in mind when building your blog
>7 Essential blogging and SEO Tips
>Things to know BEFORE starting a online business
We have covered choosing a niche and building your website, (essentially your business.)
The next step?
#3 Attract visitors:
It doesn't matter if you open a physical store or start a affiliate marketing business blogging ... You need customers, in the case of an affiliate marketing blog you need traffic.
After you have your niche decided and your base website built it's time to generate traffic to your blog, frankly you won't make a dime without it.
How do you get traffic to your blog?
There are a few different ways to generate traffic online, however the first thing to focus on above all else is creating optimized useful content that gets "ranked" in search engines.
Search engines such as Google and Bing are in the business of providing their users with the best content available for whatever they are searching for online. This is indeed their business and they use very complex algorithms to scan web content and rank it at a certain position for certain search terms.
This is why quality is so important, you can't fool Google with crap posts that are 100 words long and don't provide anything useful to the reader.
SEO or search engine optimization is the process of targeting search terms or "keywords that people are looking for online.
Let's regroup, we have our niche and our blog started. For this example our niche is "Brewing Beer At Home"
OK cool so now what?
Now we need to find keywords ie search terms that people are looking for in Google in our niche. The way to get started is by using Google itself, have you noticed when you begin typing a term into Google it "autofills" the rest of the term?
This is an awesome way to see what people are looking for in your niche, in this case it's brewing beer at home.
Google uses immense data to auto fill those suggestions and is basically giving you what people want on a silver platter:)
Let's do some quick keyword research together
Below is a screen shot of Google auto suggesting what people are searching when I start with the term "Brewing beer"
Each one of these terms is getting searched enough for Google to think it's filling in the exact term you are about to type in and search.
We have 10 Blog post ideas already! Can you see the potential here?
Let's say you have been brewing beer at home for years and you know exactly how to brew beer with coffee, the last on our list.
Guess what? someone wants to know how!
Write a great blog post on your new beer brewing blog covering exactly how to brew beer with coffee, target that term and revolve the article around it (then send me some beer:)
Eventually Google will index your blog and start ranking your pages as your authority on the subject grows and you prove yourself.
Depending on the search volume of a keyword, getting on the first page of search engines can send massive traffic to your blog, remember there are BILLIONS of people online!
Wealthy Affiliate has the tools you need!
Of course there is more to learn and research to be done on this subject but this post is covering the bases so you can come in strong. Joining Wealthy Affiliate will open the doors to knowledge that will progress and grow with your business.
I highly recommend taking WA for a test drive!
Learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business today !
Start your dream business online! Take Wealthy Affiliate for a test drive today, I'll see you around the platform!
The alphabet soup technique
Alphabet soup is a great way to find ideas for articles within your niche, here is an example of some of the awesome training found within Wealthy affiliate.
#4 Earning money!
OK so this is by far the favorite, acually earning money with your affiliate marketing blog. We have our niche and blog setup, through Google and some keyword research using wealthy affilate we are writing some great articles and creating some other great content.
Now what?
Once you start to see your hard work bring in traffic it's time to monitize your business. This is where affiliate networks come into play.
Some popular affiliate networks
What is an affiliate network?
Affiliate networks are the connection between companies that want affiliates to promote their products and the affiliates (me and you.)
Almost every company worth it's weight has an affiliate program, you can simply search your target product and add affiliate program next to it in Google to find what you are looking for.
So how do you use these to make money with our blog?
When you sign up for these programs you are assigned an affiliate ID, as you find products you want to promote you are given a link to the product with your "tracking ID" assigned.
This is how the companies know which affiliate sent the buyer to the product. In essence people land on your blog looking for answers and suggestions.
Your reader sees a product that can help them or solve a problem within your content, if they click on your link and purchase this product from the company you are working with you get a percentage for making the sale!
That's in essence how an affiliate blog works, you are directing people to awesome products within your niche.
Wrapping it up
I hope this article gives you a much deeper understanding of how to start a affiliate marketing blog. All of these steps will lead you to sucess if you follow them and get started today.
The best place to get started is within Wealthy Affiliate, there you will find everything you need under one roof, sign up and I will see you there!
Learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business today !
Start a forever free account today, I'll see you around the platform!
Thanks for reading, comment and subscribe for more awesome profitable blogging tips!
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