What is affiliate marketing about and how can I get started? can it replace my current income and can I make a lucrative living from it?
All good questions and I can answer them with a resounding yes, but that would be too easy and besides, it would make this post extremely short; but hopefully, when you have read this, you will be in a better position to decide whether this is what you would want to get involved in. Continue reading “What is Affiliate Marketing about and How can I get Started?”
Hey, who doesn’t want to learn how to earn money online for free in the comfort of their home, whenever they want and with no boss hanging over them?
Who doesn’t want to say goodbye to that 9-5 job, and be their own boss?
That’s a dream that pretty much everybody would love to be able to do, wouldn’t you agree?
If you answered Yes to all the above, please read on
I remember when I was at a loss for something to do a few years ago, in between jobs I think it was or maybe I was looking for my next daily grind.
I used to spend hours on the Internet looking for ways to become rich or ways to become a millionaire. I listened to every training sales video going, and was thinking this can’t be difficult, can it?
I found out pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to be easy, or was it?
You see, there are literally thousands of products out there promising you wealth by many individuals who are claiming that their product is the next big thing, and it can be an absolute nightmare which I found out early on in my quest to work it all out.
Internet Marketing is a complex area that you could never master in its entirety. There are so many sub-portions or Niches within Internet Marketing that you can learn and thrive in, but which one do you get involved with?
Everybody tells a different story, and before you know it you are back to square one, and no wiser for your efforts.
I learned, well I thought I’d learned from many
so-called gurus who never give you the full picture, and it’s up to each individual to try and decipher what is being told, and this can be extremely frustrating, time-consuming and expensive.
The Internet is literally full of “Garbage” with probably something in the region of 95%+ that you should be staying away from, but when we are sometimes desperate then we will listen to pretty much anybody.
I spent quite a while trying to work it all out and managed to not get involved with any of the MLM (pyramid schemes) where you have to con people to get involved. A sure quick-fire way in how to lose friends and make enemies in the process.
I would like to think of myself has been an extremely cautious person, who researches everything before I make a decision one way or the other, well, I have certainly learned to do that through my trials and tribulations whilst researching.
You must have heard the saying,”Nothing is free in this World”?
That’s a very good question, but it doesn’t have to be like that, not if you look far enough and do your research.
If you are a newcomer to Internet Marketing, and you really want to learn how to build an online business, then you have to find a training platform and one you can trust.
Wouldn’t you agree?
There are thousands of individuals searching for that elusive magic button, or a piece of software that will do everything for you.
Unfortunately, there is nothing at all like that available!
Sadly many people looking for a way out, end up following these so-called gurus and learning absolutely nothing but losing plenty of hard-earned cash in the process.
Many don’t find the answer and end up calling it a day, with their confidence in tatters, and what you do seem to find is that through all this bad advice, you put up the shutters and don’t believe anybody, and a sure way to miss out on opportunities that you thought never existed.
Assumptions that we all make
When we are talking about creating an online business or working from home, people make a few assumptions. As the internet is so huge and billions of pounds are spent on it, people naturally think there must be a very simple way to cash in and make some easy money, and they would be right, if only they knew where to look.
Unfortunately, there are lots of things that can go wrong when we search for methods of making money online. If you have ever searched online for ways to make money then you will no doubt have run into some pretty shady looking websites that simply seemed too good to be true. And yes, if you had doubts then you were probably right.
Trust your instincts!
I’ve been making money on the Internet now for the last three years since my initial chosen career path in IT suddenly ground to an abrupt standstill.
I’m not one of those so-called gurus promising you instant wealth, with pictures of me standing next to my mansion and Ferrari; or me on the beach topping up my tan or traveling the world living the so-called Lap-top lifestyle because I am not and I don’t.
I don’t even class myself as any sort of guru. I hate that term!
I’m just a normal person who learned how to make money online, and here to give you some sort of insight and to hopefully lead you on the right path.
Making a living online isn’t easy, but when you get it right and see results it is very rewarding, and being taught by people who have and are successful is the only way to learn.
Anybody can do this if they are serious, but it is not going to happen overnight. If you put in the time and effort and take on board what you are being taught You Will Succeed, without doubt, it’s just a matter of time.
There are some pretty good training platforms out there on the Internet, it’s just finding the right one that is the problem!
The heading of this article “Learn how to earn money online for free in the comfort of your home”, is not “BS” and it can be done if you put your mind to it.
When I research Affiliate Training Programs I always look for incentives, and an important one I always look for is the ability to have a trial run and one that I can try out until I am ready to make that commitment.
The trial or free membership has to come with me not having to enter any card details. If I have to enter my card details I stay well away from the product. Something doesn’t seem right!
I also don’t get involved if there are any upsells at all too!
Just think about it!
If there was nothing to hide and the training was first class, why wouldn’t they give out a FREE membership option?
A FREE membership here means just that!
By signing up for the FREE account here, there is absolutely no obligation to buy anything at all, and there will be no CARD details required, and there will be no UP SELL either.
You can take it for a trial run as a FREE member for as long as you want, and that doesn’t happen very often with like-minded programs, if at all.
There are two memberships as you can see from the image below, and if you are interested in seeing what this training platform is all about then why don’t you check it out for yourself?
You have nothing to lose and if you like what you see and are serious about developing a new skill in Affiliate Marketing, and learning to build a successful business from the ground up, then maybe you would like to take full advantage of becoming a Premium Member. The choice is yours!
Stop falling for all those scams and jumping from one shiny object to the next shiny object. All you will do is create more frustration and lose more money.
Who doesn’t want to learn how to start up a business on a tight budget?
That’s surely something we have all asked at some point in our lives, and probably more so today especially with advancements in technology, and of course the Internet Boom!
With around half the world population who has access to the Internet through some type of media, that’s around 3.8 billion and counting!
Google alone has a grip on around 67% of the search engine market and people are searching for anything you could think of, and with over 65,000 searches entered every second.
That’s currently over 5.6 billion searches every single day. That is some crowd don’t you think?
That’s 86 with 8 noughts stuck at the end (8,600,000,000)
Just think if you could get a small piece of that crowd. Just a minuscule amount, then the possibilities are endless!
There is absolutely no reason why this can’t be possible.
Everybody is looking for answers and hoping and wishing for the day that they are able to tell their boss that they have had enough and want to call it a day!
I know because I did just that!
The best online business model as far as I am concerned is Affiliate Marketing, and if you don’t know just what this entails you can read an article that I wrote here.
Wouldn’t you love to be able to get up in the morning at your own pace, completely chilled out, relaxed, and with a smile on your face, and actually looking forward to doing something worthwhile, and getting an enormous amount of enjoyment in doing so?
Building an online business the right way is very rewarding, enjoyable and fun.
Nowadays with the rapid advancement of technology, there is no need to have any technical skills whatsoever when it comes to building an online business.
Everything is pretty much point and click. That’s how far we have come from let’s say about 10 years ago.
The Internet was created in 1989 at Cern so that scientists could freely pass information around amongst themselves, and they saw an opportunity to expand this worldwide, exactly what Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook.
OK, Zuckerberg is an exception!
So really the Internet is in its infancy but expanding at a rapid rate.
Everything is there at the tip of your fingers and in the comfort of your home, you just need a little guidance in the right direction.
How do I Start an Online Business at Home – 4 Basic Steps
Yes, there are only four steps required to learn, in order to build an online business, and we are going to break this down into a little more detail because far too many people are under a misconception that you need to know…
How to become a Programmer
How to become a Web designer
How to become a Graphic Designer
How to become a Writer
How you need a Business Qualification, a degree of some description
This just isn’t true nowadays!
Whereas it would be great if we had all the above skills, and if we had then I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be here reading this post. Right?
OK, so now I am letting the cat out of the bag!
The 4 simple steps to success to how to start up a business
Step 1 – Choose an Interest, a Niche
If you are not sure or want some clarity on what a niche is, how to find one and a profitable one at that check out this article here.
It can be literally anything you want. Take a look at what people are searching for on Google and you could have your Niche right there!
Every one of those daily 8.6 billion Google searches has the potential to become a niche
We all have interests and hobbies, don’t we?
These can be your Niche!
A niche is a focused, targetable part of a market. You are an authority providing a product or service that focuses on specific client group’s needs, which cannot or are not addressed in such detail by mainstream providers.
However, it is important to understand that there is a difference between your niche and your target market.
Your target market is the specific group of people you work for e.g. dog owners, dog groomers, smart tv purchasers, collectors of artworks, book collectors, make money online etc etc
Your niche is the service you specialize in offering to your target market.
For example, finding paintings or antique furniture for a collector of artworks. Someone could offer paintings and someone could offer antique furniture.
It is the combination of a target market and specific service that creates a niche market.
In a nutshell, you offer a service or a solution to a problem!
It really is that simple!
Step 2 – Build a Website
Around 5-10 years ago building a website was considered a specialized skill, and that you required skills in in a particular area, and that you were required to learn programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML, DHTML, CSS. web-design, but nowadays you could not be further from the truth.
Believe me, when I say that it literally can take you between 1 – 2 minutes to create a professional looking website, in fact, I have seen it done in the training in less than 1 minute, seriously.
You can take a look here and see just how easy it is.
Step 3 – Get Traffic coming to your site
You can have the most professional website in the world, but if you don’t have traffic then all your efforts will be in vain!
There are 2 ways to get traffic. Paid Traffic and Free traffic.
There are arguments to be made here on both fronts.
Use Paid or Free or a combination of both. I know which method I would go for every time!
Both methods are taught but the main method of traffic taught is the FREE method which is SEO (search engine optimization).
Nowadays with the changes in the Google algorithm is not as difficult as you may think, in fact, done right and you can be ranking high in Google very quickly, and saving thousands in PPC(Pay per click) fees.
Step 4 – Earn revenue / commissions
All your hard work has paid off and you have managed to rank well in Google, and you have a good stream of traffic coming to your website.
Now it is time to earn some revenue from affiliate marketing, in the way of commissions, through the vast amount of affiliate programs, such as Amazon Associates, Clickbank, Ebay, just to mention a few, but the list is endless.
Some commissions are extremely high, as much as 75% and some you can find much more.
How to start up a business: Interested and want to know more?
Those are the 4 building blocks to building a successful online business!
What really brought my attention to Wealthy Affiliate was the fact that there are no hidden costs. What you see is what you get and an important factor in why I chose this training platform over others was simple!
There are only 2 memberships, a Free and a Premium Membership, and they DO NOT ask for your CARD DETAILS.
The FREE membership comes with restrictions which is what we’d expect right?
If you’re serious about creating an online business that will be around for years to come, then you need to take that leap of faith.
I would always advise anybody who is interested to join the free membership first, and check out the training for yourself and see what you think.
I’m not going to say I think you’ll be surprised because I think you will be amazed, I really do, but I’ll leave that for you to decide!
Nothing to lose, but so much to gain, take it from me!
Check out the FREE Membership below.
Comparison of the FREE and Premium Memberships
If you are serious about learning how to build an online business, from the very best, who will be there for you all the way, then this could will be the best decision that you ever make.
Take it for a test drive and see for yourself. You won’t regret it!
If this has given you food for thought, and you want to check out my full review of the Wealth Affiliate Training Platform, then feel free to click on the link below!
Hopefully, I have given you food for thought but please don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself.
If you decide to give it a whirl, I will have your back every step of the way and will help you as much as I can.
It’s great that you stopped by and checked out this article and hope it has opened your mind a little to the possibilities that are out there.
Nobody said it would be easy. Building a business takes time!
I know it’s hard to believe anything that you are told on the Internet nowadays with all the “BS” and scam artists that there is, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down either, but every now and then you will come across genuine people who are there to help and guide you on the right path.
Leave any comments you have below and look forward to reading them.
Both negative and positive are welcome, along with any ideas you may have.
I will get back to you at my earliest convenience and answer them as best I can.
Something that many people would like to know and that’s how to start an online business on a budget, which is what we are going to cover in this article and break it down into individual steps that should make the process a lot clearer and to get rid of any misconceptions that you may have.
Starting any business is not something to be taken lightly, and it won’t happen overnight as there is a lot of work involved.
One of the most searched for terms in Google would be money related, and with around half the world population, which is around 4.75 billion who have access to the Internet then why not take advantage and make the Internet work for you.
Just think about all the people who are searching in Google, Bing, and Yahoo
for anything you could ever imagine, and why not take a piece of the action?
If you take a quick look at Google search statistics, it states that Google processes well over 60,000 search queries every second, which amounts to well over 3.5 billion searches every single day. Check it out!
This is also known as “Traffic” and as you can see there is more than enough traffic to go around.
Having your own online business is a great way to eventually escape the 5-day working week, and give you back your precious time to do whatever you desire.
Just think about how your life would change and it wouldn’t be a small change either.
No more Boss to answer to, and no more “BS”.
Start your working day when you want.
No more travelling those long distances to work and back.
Work anywhere you want. All you need is a laptop and an Internet connection.
Spend that precious time with your family and friends.
Holidays when you want.
All this is within everybody’s reach, it really is.
Anyway back to the main topic in question, how to start an online business
There are plenty of ways to make money on the Internet but one I researched a few years ago and decided to learn was Affiliate Marketing.
You don’t have to own a product or have to buy any stock, not like the normal type of business where products of some description will either be purchased or manufactured by you to sell.
You wouldn’t need to have premises because everything can be done from home.
That means you don’t need to spend money on purchasing or manufacturing.
All you are is the middleman or woman, who executes certain marketing techniques to get visitors to your site. Give them a lot of great content regarding the product(s) and once they purchase from you, that’s when you make a commission.
It’s as simple as that, but how do we get to that position?
If you were knowledgeable and knew what you were doing then you could create your website and a bunch of other stuff and be on your way to making a lucrative income.
Or
You could find a Mentor and a Training Platform with a great community and learn the whole process step by step, which is what I did.
You don’t require any prerequisite skills to succeed and build your online business.
This will all be taught, and all you have to bring to the table is the right mindset, motivation and the will to succeed, and of course “Hard Work”.
Any business, no matter what, takes time to build, and it needs to be done in the correct manner.
It is not going to happen overnight that is for sure but given the time and a lot of effort you will get there because you want this business around for years to come, and something that you could pass down to the kids and be proud of.
I eventually found a Mentor and Training Platform, and after thorough research, I decided to join Wealthy Affiliate.
OK, let’s get right to the step by step guide, what you need to know to create your online business.
Step 1 – Choose Your Niche
A Niche can be many things.
Just take a look at all the people who are searching for things like
Products –
“Smart TV under $1000”
“Best drones with a fitted camera”
Training programs –
“The best training for affiliate marketing”
“How to play better golf”
Debt management –
“How can I get out of debt”
“What happens if I declare bankruptcy”
Make money –
“How to make money on the Internet”
“How you can win the lottery”
The list is endless and remember, I mentioned earlier that Google processes over 60,000 search queries every second.
Each one of those above search queries is a potential Niche.
What people tend to do is choose something that interests them, maybe a hobby, a problem that needs addressing, etc
It also helps if you are passionate about your Niche, that way developing your website won’t become so much of a chore when you are doing your research.
It could be that at the moment you don’t feel a passion, but that could come at a later date especially when you see a return on your investment.
When choosing your niche there are few parameters that you need to take into consideration which I explain in my review on what a niche is and how to find a profitable one.
If you think about it, it wouldn’t make sense to spend all your precious time developing your website where there were no visitors searching for things relating to your Niche, would they?
That’s where it all gets interesting in Step 3, Keyword Research.
It’s imperative that you choose a Niche where you know there will be plenty of visitors (traffic) coming to your website.
Once you have decided on a niche, then you need to focus on building your website.
Step 2 – Build Your Website
You have your Niche and now you are ready to go.
First off you need to decide who is going to host your website. There are many and I have listed the top 5 in my opinion.
Hosting
Bluehost
iPage
Godaddy
HostGator
But before you decide and dive into one of the above, Wealthy Affiliate has their own hosting and therefore why not take advantage, that’s if you become a member that is.
The overall “Yearly” cost, by far outweighs all the top hosting sites.
Not only that but take a look at what you get.
Full support and management
Daily backups
Mirroring – If your site goes down no problem
Website monitoring
Faster site speed
The most secure, cost-effective affordable hosting there is on the Internet
WordPress optimized
24/7/365
25 Your own domains as a paid member
25 Free site Rubix domains as a paid member
That’s 50 domains in total. Do you think that would be enough?
I’m sure you’ll agree that nobody comes near when it comes to hosting at Wealthy Affiliate.
Now you have decided on who’s going to do your hosting, now it’s time to think about your domain.
This is going to be the name of your Website, which can also be registered through Wealthy Affiliate.
This is where it can be a little tricky because you are now going to sit down with a pen and paper and write down a bunch of names for your Niche, and what you will find is once you have decided on a name that somebody else is using that name.
Try to think of a good name for your website and one that relates to your Niche.
Remember this is going to be your brand, and I think people don’t spend enough time on this decision and just jump in and select the first one they can think off.
This name is going to be with you for years to come, so a little time and patience.
If you are serious about building an online business then you really need your own domain (Website) name!
If you just wanted to give the Training Platform a trial run then there are 2 Free Domains that you can use to get a feel for whether this is really for you or not.
That is exactly what I did but decided within 2 hours that this training platform was for me!
Everything you would ever need is there for you at Wealthy Affiliate and makes everything so straightforward.
Are you thinking?
“This isn’t for me, I don’t have any technical skills and just wouldn’t have a clue about how to create a website”. Right?
Wrong!
The guys at Wealthy Affiliate make developing a website so very straightforward, and no techie stuff at all is required. Anybody can do this.
Your website is ready to go, now all you have to do is write Niche related content, but before you get to that, you need to research just what people are searching for regarding your Niche in Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Step 3 – Keyword Research
This is where you would use a Keyword Tool and there are many out there.
Some good and some bad along with cost issues.
Just recently at Wealthy Affiliate major changes have been made to integrate the Jaaxy Keyword Tool and make it all part of the training platform.
What they have done is replace the FREE cutdown version of Jaaxy with the new Jaaxy membership, which has many more features you can take advantage of. The FREE membership still as restrictions though!
The 4 memberships are
Jaaxy Starter – Part of the free membership with restrictions
Jaaxy Lite – Now part of the Premium Membership
Jaaxy Pro – As before
Jaaxy Enterprise – As before
What this means for anybody who is serious about building a successful online business is, that if you decide to upgrade to Premium then the Jaaxy Keyword Tool comes as part of that membership.
A big saving and how cool is that?
This is very easy to learn and extremely accurate and gives you just what you need in order to accelerate your research. No complexity at all and designed I would say for the newbie.
I use the Jaaxy Pro version and I would say one if not the best Keyword Research Tool on the Internet today.
You may say I am biased and maybe I am but I have tried a number of Keyword Tools in the past and Jaaxy leaves them standing.
If you want to know more about Jaaxy along with Keyword research that is covered then you can read my review of Jaaxy here.
In essence, what you are trying to do when researching keywords is to look for what we call “Long Tail Keywords”
These are keywords that fewer marketers will be using. The longer the keyword the less competition you will find, or that is the theory behind it.
There are 2 types of keywords
Broad Keyword
Long Tail Keyword
The broad keyword would be – “Make Money”
Another but not so broad would be – “Make Money Online”
A long-tail keyword would be – “Make Money Online as an Affiliate Marketer”
You need to stay away from Broad Keywords
Although the traffic for a broad keyword will be high these are the keywords that “The Big Companies” will be ranking in Google for.
They have an unlimited supply of money and we just can’t compete at that level, but expanding the keyword can still reap rewards for you.
It just means that the traffic will not be so great.
As a guide, you need to be looking for a keyword that as…
An average monthly search of 100+
QSR less than 50 ( this is the number of websites using that same keyword)
The idea is to find those Long Tail Keywords and use them as the “Title” of your “Post” and build your content around.
Remember you can change the keyword to suit your requirements.
Add words to the beginning and the end to give it a more meaningful name.
Over time, you will write many posts relating to your Niche and each post will attract a certain amount of traffic to your website, and if you get all this right, then Google will rank your posts high, and we are aiming for pages 1 or 2.
The more posts with those great keywords the more traffic that will come to your website and the more sales you will make.
A piece of cake, right?
Step 4 – Writing Content
Great readable content unless you are already an established writer comes with time and the more you write the better you will get.
Something we do all the time on the Internet and that is some form of research?
Looking for a new TV, a new wireless audio player, a new car, and we are always reading reviews to find out what other people say about the product, right?
All you are doing as an affiliate marketer is what you would do on a daily basis, the difference is that you will be writing posts and reviews relating to your Niche.
That’s it!
Step 5 – Promoting Your Website and getting traffic to it
We have mentioned great long-tail keywords that you will use for your posts and what you are trying to achieve is to get traffic to your website without paying for it.
This is also called organic traffic and a term that you may have heard of as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
This is where we target long-tail keywords that people are using in Google to get our Free Traffic.
Free Organic Traffic takes time but eventually when done in the right manner will save you a lot of money.
Paid traffic is quick, but you have to know what you are doing because there are a lot of traffic sites promoting that their site is the best, but beware ‘cause there are some unscrupulous people out there.
This is where you can lose a lot of money if you don’t know what you are doing.
If you need to pay for traffic use Bing Ads (which is reasonably priced) or Google Adwords (Not so reasonably priced) but trustworthy sites all the same.
You can promote on a site called Buffer. Here they allow you to schedule your posts on the social media networks.
Facebook
Twitter
Google +
Instagram
Linkedin
Step 6 – Monetizing
There are many ways to monetize your website through the many Affiliate Programs out there and these are where you will get your products from for your marketing campaigns.
You have affiliate networks like Clickbank for promoting digital products and some come with commissions as high as 75% and some much higher.
The beauty about Amazon is that once a visitor goes to Amazon through your website link, any purchases they make without exiting your link means you will be paid commissions on everything the visitor buys.
Google Adsense is another way but I have reservations about using it as advertisements keep popping up on your posts that don’t relate to your topic, and I find it annoying and spoils the customer experience.
Let’s face it who likes popups because I certainly don’t?
One thing to take on board is that pretty much all the Affiliate Programs are Free to join.
There are many, many more, you’ll just have to do your research.
Step 7 – Reaping the rewards after all your hard work
This Step you don’t have to do anything because if you have followed the above steps 1-6 to the letter then this step comes naturally.
This is where we see that all our hard work has paid off.
You have been building your website by adding Niche related content, and over time each post you create will attract a certain amount of traffic, in other words, visitors, and provided you have given your visitors the right information then they will purchase from your website.
That is when you receive commissions from the likes of Amazon, Clickbank etc
Final Analysis
I’m sure you will agree that we have covered quite a lot here with regards to building an online business, and broken it down into clear concise steps that hopefully you have been able to understand.
I sincerely hope I have achieved what I set out to do and given you a clear path to becoming a success online.
Learning to build an online business in the affiliate marketing world is by far the best path to take in my opinion, and I hope this step by step approach as answered many questions and given you a clear understanding of just what is required.
To learn all this and more, much, much more, then I would highly recommend joining as a Free Member and seeing what is all about.
Try Wealthy Affiliate and see what you think, because there is nothing, in my opinion, that comes close, but that is a decision only you can make.
All I am here to do is relay the information and it is you that has to take that initial step.
Remember one thing if you join you will have me on your side to give guidance whenever you need it.
I would like to thank you for stopping by and reading this article and I welcome all comments and will surely get back to you at my earliest convenience and will be more than happy to answer all questions.
Any ideas feel free to share
All the best on your journey and hopefully I will see you on the inside
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What is affiliate marketing about and how can I get started? can it replace my current income and can I make a lucrative living from it?
