Welcome to this “What is the best way to make money online from home” post.
We are all feeling the effects of this pandemic, with total lockdowns nearly upon us and for some already there. Who knows when we’ll be given the OK to get back to our normal lives.
Social distancing and now confined to our homes with plenty of time on our hands, what better time than the present to find out “What is the best way to make money online”
Now governments have tested “lockdowns” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we see more of them in the future, so now is the time to take the bull by the horns and look after #1.
What I consider to be the number 1 business model that you can learn online is Affiliate Marketing, not to be confused with Network Marketing as they are totally different, but these are the 2 main types of online businesses.
What is Online Network Marketing
(We try to be biased and in an objective manner, This section is purely based on my own and friends experiences, nothing more, nothing less)
There are typically 3 ways that you can earn a living here…
-
- Selling the companies products to others, where you would make a commission on the sale.
- You can purchase the products yourself although doing that doesn’t really make sense.
- Recruit others, which is where it can get messy because this is where you can lose a lot of friends and families.
There can be a monthly fee and the promise of training, but in many cases, this will be non-existent, as there always seems to be an enthuses on recruiting.
There can be a fine line between a Network Marketing business and a Pyramid scheme (which are illegal) and in some cases, it’s just a matter of time before they are investigated.
Business owners are aware of this and because it takes so long, what you may find is that all the money magically disappears. I was part of one and I know many who were and lost a heck of a lot of money.
It’s these unscrupulous businesses operating under the “Network Marketing” guise that give network marketing a bad name!
Many of these so-called companies operate in countries where operating bylaws are weak or non-existent. In beautiful surroundings, and it’s those surroundings they use as the hook to get you on board.
I’m not knocking Network Marketing because I’m sure there are some great ones out there, just not for me. Once bitten and all that! You aren’t really your own BOSS and not in full control.
If you are looking to go down this route just be careful and make sure you check out everything before getting involved.
What is Affiliate Marketing online?
My number one business model that is so simple to understand.
Where …
- You can operate anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection and a laptop.
- Your business is your own and you are in full control.
- No product to purchase as you will be selling other peoples.
- Order processing is taken care of for you which includes deliveries and any returns.
- You get paid a commission on the sale of the goods, whether this is a product or service.
- Repeat business
[Remember it’s not all about selling. It’s about giving people what they are looking for in the way of help and information. Forget about trying to SELL, SELL, SELL because it didn’t work then and it certainly doesn’t work now, right? Glad we sorted that out!]
The Affiliate Marketing Process Explained in brief, with MORE details coming in – EXTENDED PART
As you can see in the image above, as the Affiliate Marketer you are the middleman. In the above example, you are promoting products from Walmart, but how do we do this?
Customer – 1
The customer which is highlighted by the number 1 is searching for specific products or services on one of the major search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. There are others!
As Google takes around 85% of the search engine marketplace then we’ll assume they are using Google.
People use Google all the time which may not come as a surprise to you if I told you that there are over 80,000 keyword searches every single second and rapidly climbing.
That amounts to around 2.5 trillion Google searches in a single year. That’s a lot of searching for products, services, and information, that you can capitalize on and MAKE A TON OF MONEY FROM.
You the Affiliate – 2
This is a proper business so you would require a website or landing page, but forget about that for the moment.
A website gives you an authority online!
We will cover what is required later but to put your mind at rest, creating a website nowadays is so easy and that’s not me talking BS either. I will show you how you can create a website within 1 minute.
There are “BILLIONS” of keywords that people are searching with on GOOGLE which are stored on a database. Just look at it as a storage area, a place where anybody can access the data from.
It’s your job as the affiliate marketer to work out what people are searching for, which we call “Keyword Research” and to do that we would use a “Keyword Research Tool“.
In my case, I use a tool called Jaaxy. So simple to use that gives you only the important data that you would ever require and it’s extremely FAST!
This determines what your business, “your WEBSITE” is going to be about so a little care is required here. Remember, this website hopefully will be with you for many years to come!
OK, so we’ve analysed the GOOGLE data for our favourite INTEREST which happens to be DRONES for this example.
“It could be anything but something we might be interested in makes building our website so much more enjoyable.”
Just to show you how popular DRONES are…Check it OUT!
So we searched for the “Keyword” – “Drone cameras”
Right off the bat, we have found 3 “GREAT” keywords as indicated and this was the first keyword I thought of. Forget about the columns and figures as I will explain those later.
What do we do with these KEYWORDS?
These keywords we would use on our website as the “INITIAL HEADING or TITLE” when we write our articles and reviews to attract prospective customers.
Writing… Oh NO, shock horror another reason to jump ship, but wait and hear me out. This will become clear later on!
Company and Product – 3
This could be any company like Amazon, Target, eBay, or Trek to name a few…
In this case, we are using Walmart but any company who as an Affiliate Program and there are thousands to choose from and I’ve never come across one that you had to pay for. I’m sure they may be some but they are pretty much ALL free.
After all, it’s us as the affiliate who is driving customers to their products, so a win-win situation for both, right?
Let’s stay with DRONES as our example.
We could use products from both Amazon and Walmart and others besides, as there are no restrictions! Anyone who has an affiliate program.
Check it out. Just type in Drones affiliate programs straight into the Google search bar or click the shortcut link here. A ton of affiliate programs for you to choose from. All with various commission rates!
There are literally thousands of affiliate programs to choose from.
To Reiterate what has happened in this process, Steps 1-3
The customer searches for “drone cameras” as in our example and finds an article regarding this TOPIC on our website.
The prospective customer reads our article regarding this TOPIC. They like what they see (bags of advice) are interested and they decide to purchase a product by clicking on our affiliate link.
This affiliate link goes straight to the Walmart Software System and orders the product for the customer and they deliver the product through their delivery service.
If there are any returns or queries they are handled by Walmart.
In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it…STRAIGHT FORWARD ENOUGH except for the getting paid part which is next!
You Get Paid – 4
This is by way of a commission and can be anywhere from 1% right the way up to 85% or maybe more. The higher the cost of the product the more commission you will get.
Before we carry on, let’s take a look at Amazon because I have something that may be of interest to you.
We all know Amazon and we all should know Jeff Bezos, the richest guy in the world, any way that’s enough of him.
But…
If you decided to use Amazon as your point of sale. In other words, you joined their affiliate program and sold their products.
Something pretty much amazing can happen if a person clicks on your DRONE affiliate link.
Providing they stay on Amazon through your affiliate link, any other purchases they make within 24 hours you will get a percentage of the sales.
You might ask why does this matter?
Just think about it…How many times do you check out a product on Amazon, purchase what you are looking for and buy other things besides? I know I do!
A GREAT INCENTIVE TO USE AMAZON, RIGHT?
EXTENDED PART -It starts with an interest, a niche or sub-niche
OK, so let’s get more into just what a niche is.
Not many people enjoy what they do for a living 
and what better way than to make a living out of something they love doing. A hobby or interest!
It can be anything at all but you need to make sure the “Niche” or “Sub-niche” is not too broad a term. Like our example earlier with DRONES, which is a sub-niche of Toys and games on Amazon
What do I mean by that?
Broad terms are what the major corporations are handling, such as Amazon, Walmart, to mention a few.
- Sport
- Fashion
- Health and Wellness
- Electrical and Electronics
- Toys and Games
What I mean for example is “Sport”. That is a “Broad Term” and covers everything related to it, such as tennis, football, cycling, running, fishing…You get the picture!
They have bags of money to throw at their marketing requirements, and we don’t, but something extremely important here is we won’t be paying for marketing, because we will be using SEO (Search engine optimization)
What you need to do is ensure your niche or sub-niche is lower down in the pecking order. Not too low as you have to find the right balance.
This is where a Keyword Research Tool like Jaaxy comes into its own. We can use this tool to determine which niche or sub-niche we are going to use by the amount of interest there is. Without interest, we don’t have a business. Makes sense right?
A good place to show you what I mean is to look at Amazon and how you can drill down into a niche or click on the image if it is not too clear.
You can find plenty of ideas on Amazon.
Here we selected Electronics and you can see down the left column how you can really drill down into this niche.
To showcase our new business we need a Website
This is what gives you that online presence. 
This is what sets you apart and gives you your own private piece of the internet because hopefully, this will be with you for a long time and passed down to your kids. What better way than to pass on an already successful business.
A business that can be there for years to come. No stocks to hold and no over-heads and remember this can be done anywhere in the world and whenever you want.
Creating a website for many is where the buck stops and they run a mile, but don’t switch off just yet.
Nowadays technology has moved on and what might have taken you a few weeks can now be done in minutes. Coming from a software development background I can attest to this. I don’t use those skills anymore!
I mentioned earlier that your website can be created within 1 minute, well actually I think its 30 seconds so check it out here.
Now we have created our website we need to get it in front of our prospective customers. You know, the billions of potential customers searching on Google.
Writing articles and reviews
Before you say it, “I’m NO GOOD at writing” See I’ve said it for you!
I can’t remember before I started my business when I actually wrote a letter, but now I have really got into it, and you will too.
We all write emails and send text messages, we all research products and we are always looking for information, right? There, you already have the credentials to start a business like this. Take it from me, it’s not difficult.
How and what are we going to write about?
Let’s check out our JAAXY Keyword Tool with our previous results and expand on where we left off.
- “best drones cameras”
- “cheap drones cameras”
- “rc drones cameras”
The above keywords are ideal for us to use as the title of our next 3 posts or reviews.
How would we go about writing our posts and reviews?
Information is everywhere and the internet is a magnet for it. We are always saying, JUST GOOGLE IT and the information instantly is there in front of us like magic.
Just go ahead and type into Google, “best drones cameras”
There you are, all the information you would require on the 1st page of Google that you can use for your articles and reviews.
So what do you think, Interested?
[I know in the UK many workers have been sent home with the promise of 80% of their wages paid by the government. Really, well that’s not 100% is it and many require this amount to get by.
I can imagine this being a nightmare, having to sign forms etc and not to mention just how long it will take to receive a payment if anything at all.
I think what we are seeing here is just scratching the surface and expect further lockdowns in the future.]
Everything I have shown you in this post is within everybody’s grasp with various experiences but especially BEGINNERS which this training platform was designed around.
You would have me right there to guide and help you. Not only that but you would have a community full of experience, ready and willing to help you in any way they can.
Check it out for free and see what you think, If you don’t like then just call it a day and you have lost absolutely nothing. Can’t be fairer than that!
Feedback, Follow and Subscribe
I really enjoyed writing this post and hope that it came across the way it was meant to do and that it was easy to understand as it was my intention to do so.
Not sure just where all this will lead?
You’ll never know until you have tried.
Thanks for being patient and if you are here then I have accomplished my task, but if you haven’t taken my invitation to join, then that’s OK too.
Any questions whatsoever, no matter how trivial you may think they are, just stick them down in the comments field below. I check back pretty regular and answer all comments.
Cheers, and have a nice day!
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I really enjoyed this post as you’ve provided so much useful information for those starting out. I found writing hard at first, but following the training you recommend I’ve gained a more confidence. I agree there’s a lot of dodgy mlm companies out there, and even the better ones can’t guarantee success. What better time to start your own business than now, and with the government just announcing it could take 6 months before things return to normal, that’s enough time to start seeing results!
Hey Kathy, it’s all about finding the right training and having confidence or in most cases getting that confidence back, especially as we pretty much carry a lot of baggage with bad experiences that we’ve had. At Wealthy Affiliate, there is no training like it anywhere on the internet and so easy to follow.
The platform was designed with the beginner in mind and anybody can follow the training, and the beauty about it is that you can join for FREE and check all the training out before making a full commitment or stay as a FREE member.
It took me maybe 2 hours to decide that this was the place for me and paid for a years subscription.
I mean where can you get all the training and security anywhere on the internet for less than $1 a day? You simply can’t!
Thanks for your comment.
Hi Mick,
Great article. Easy to follow and hits the nail on the head with respect to the key success factors in affiliate marketing.
We are likewise on the same wavelength with respect to considering affiliate marketing being the number one business model for online business. It is quite easy to learn and once set-up, you can run it from anywhere in the world.
The other thing going for us with respect to affiliate marketing is the fact that you do not actually have to sell personally – something that is really not in our comfort zone. Speaking from experience, while it may take some time and effort for the revenue stream to ramp up, there are a lot of tools and accelerators in the market that can be leveraged – one just has to choose the right one.
Thank you for this very informative and insightful article.
All the best.
You are absolutely right, affiliate marketing is a very basic and simple concept, but there is so much to learn that many just don’t get it.
I guess I was one of those that thought to make money online was going to be easy and there was some sort of magic button, like so many others. It doesn’t help when the information online can be very misleading at best of times and finding the right training can be a nightmare.
Thanks for your support, much appreciated.
After reading this, I can feel completely confident in signing up- knowing that I have made a well-informed decision. You explain everything in a way that anyone can understand, and you share your examples.
I feel that I have the knowledge to begin this amazing journey, and I am looking forward to starting!
Hi Elise, I’m glad you found the post informative and gave you the confidence sometimes we all need. We all could do with some at times, especially in these times of need. Learning anything new takes time, hard work and dedication. I believe, more to the point “know” that you will enjoy, not only the excellent training but the amazing community. You will quickly find there is nothing like it on the internet and a place I will be for years to come. Thanks for your support, oh and the great comments.
fantastic post it give a step by step breakdown of how to make money Affliate marketing and it explains how easy it is to get started and how all the tools work
Thanks, Paul and glad you liked the post. Thanks for your support and great comments. Stay safe.
Very informative post! If I wasn’t a member of Wealthy Affiliate I’d definitely sign up! I really like articles that doesn’t just market something for the sake of marketing, I like it more when there’s an intention to help people be productive.
Great article, thanks for sharing!
Hey Marvin, glad you liked it and thanks for your comments.
I must agree with you even though so many people get into network marketing I find the majority of them are rude and pushy, and I am not that type of person so network marketing is not for me. I have been earning a steady income for years with affiliate marketing, and I do recommend this to be your best choice of marketing to get into.
Very honest and sincere post, Mick
Jeff
Hey Jeff, unfortunately for me I started down the network marketing route which did nothing for my confidence, although I didn’t lose a ton of money I did spend a lot of time banging my head against the wall, and it can take some time to get it back.
I remember looking into Wealthy Affiliate a few times and thinking they must just be the same as all the rest. It was only by chance that I clicked on a link which was to do with SiteRubix that I signed up by mistake. I’m glad I did check them out because it took me maybe 2 hours to decide that this was the place I needed to be.
Thank you for the comment, much appreciated
I’ve been reading a lot about affiliate marketing recently and it certainly looks like an enticing business model but I’ve heard it saturated, that there’s simply too much competition these days. And that you can’t compete with sites with tons of backlinks etc. Is this true?
If it’s in fact still possible to succeed with affiliate marketing, what kind of investment are we talking about here, both money and time wise? I mean if I can create a business that pays me full-time income on automation with any reasonable investment, I’m definitely interested. Like if I work several hours every night for a year, or even two, is that enough? How much does it cost to run this kind of business per year? $5k? $10k? I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on this so I have a realistic expectation what I’m getting myself into.
Hey Chuck, thanks for stopping by and let’s see if I can answer the questions for you.
Backlinks were important a few years back but Google cottoned onto the fact that people were “faking backlinks” and businesses just out there for a to create backlinks for you, things started to change and Google made some drastic changes to their algorithm.
Many businesses who relied on back-links, all of a sudden found their sites dropping down the pecking order, and even to this day many will stress that “you” still need backlinks. Old school eh?
Quality content, keywords, engagement and of course the user experience when they visit your site are the main factors.
Affiliate marketing is vast with coming close to 4.5 billion users with access to the internet. Google alone, people are keying into the search engine over 80,ooo keywords every single second and this will only continue to grow so NO affiliate marketing isn’t saturated.
Obviously building a site and getting authority takes time so the more effort you put in the quicker the rewards.
Google likes to see that you are continually adding great content.
Everybody, is different and everybody works at a different pace so getting there can take a few months or even years to see some real results. The more content you create means the more potential customers will see your work and remember people are looking for advice. Nobody wants to be constantly sold to. It might have worked many years ago when the internet was in its infancy but not now.
In terms of how much it would cost to run this type of business. It all depends on what you feel you need.
A yearly wealthy affiliate membership, if you pay upfront, will cost you less than $1, of course, you can join for free and stay as a free member but to reap the full benefits you really need to become a premium membership.
A conservative amount would be around $400-$600 a year
Feel free to check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate here if you like?
Thanks for stopping by and asking some great questions that are so important for people who are thinking of taking this step.
Hi Mick
Great article! I particularly love Jaaxy – what an amazing tool!
Thank you for sharing this information, especially during these times of uncertainty. I cannot help believing that this time of COVID-19 is definitely going to change the way life and business is done forever. We just need to hold on tight whilst we get through these turbulent times – building an online business now is perfect timing.
Wishing you every success.
Blessings
Louise
You are so right Louise, but whether things will get back to normal I guess that may never happen. With many just sitting around bored there is no better time than now to start building an online business. If only people would just take the initiative and check it out for “free” just what Wealthy Affiliate as to offer, they would soon realize just what an amazing training platform it really is. Thank you for your support, much appreciated.
Hi Mick, nice post. Great advice and tips for beginners. I’m doing affiliate marketing for some time, and I have been more than satisfied. Although I’m familiar with the process i still like to read all posts and articles related to affiliate marketing. One thing I can say for sure is that the program that you are promoting is 100% legit. The courses at WA are more than helpful, there is no need for any prior knowledge and the price is more than affordable. I encourage anyone interested in AM to start with this program. It is amazing how far one can go in just a few months.
A man of my heart and I see you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate. Great choice of training platforms and hope you are enjoying your time as I’m sure you are. Thanks for your support.
Hi Mick,
Great article, I love your honesty. The information was very clear and I understand you. I learned a lot during this short time of reading the article. I am very happy that I got the opportunity to read this. It was very informative. I will definitely check it out, That is nice of you to offer the training for free, which you don’t get these days.
Thank you!! much appreciated.
Hi Rosemarie, everybody likes free but in many cases, you never seem to get any value. When you are offering training for free people always think there’s a catch, and they are probably right, but in the case of Wealthy Affiliate that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact that nobody asks for your credit card details should tell you something and even as a free member you can learn so much. By checking out the training platform for free should tell you just how incredible this training platform really is, and if/when you are ready to take it to the next level, then go ahead. For less than $1 a day for all the training and support you get should be a no-brainer. Thank you for your support.
Mick,
I really enjoyed reading your article. I found it very informative. Since joining myself back in Feb. I have learned a ton of useful things.
I love the Jaaxy tool and I to believe that the way the world is going, there is going to be alot of changes occuring in the way people function and do business in society.
I was leary when I frst came across this after dealing with several MLM companies. I really liked how you explained the difference between the two.
Hey Annette, how many of us have been down that road. MLM’s or network marketing. An experience (normally bad) to really deter anyone from wanting to continue their online education. I see you use the keyword tool Jaaxy. Great tool and so easy to use that gives you only the information that is required for your research, not like some of the ones out there which are so complex to use. Thanks for the comments.
Hey Mick!! great article my friend. Especially the way you have laid out the steps of affiliate marketing and where to begin. I am fairly new to online marketing and I appreciate the fact that you happened to mention Network Marketing and the pitfalls that a person could encounter when pursuing this direction.
Very informative article in that you have provided a well planned out series of steps and resources that can be applied in an affiliate based online business.
Hey Rick, Network marketing for many is a tough one to crack, but all the same a viable business to partake in providing you have the right mind-set. So many parameters to get right but if anyone should go down this route ensure you do your homework first and it’s essential that you are thorough.
Affiliate marketing for me is a much better business model and coming from both types of businesses allows me to say this.
As an affiliate marketer, you are pretty much in full control, but finding the right training is imperative if you want to succeed here, and there is no better training company out there on the internet other than Wealthy Affiliate.
It may seem I am biased but I have looked at many training platforms out there and nothing compares.
You can check out a review of Wealthy Affiliate here, or why not just jump in and join for free, that way you really can get a feel of what is on offer. Yes, you heard that right, free and nobody is going to ask you for your credit card details either. I have you covered if you do want a helping hand! Thanks for your support, much appreciated.
Hey, thank you or your article it is great. Very helpful and everyone can understand exactly what Affiliate Marketing is. I heard a lot of people who said that they can not understand how it works or how can they promote the affiliate links in an effective manner. Noe I thinks that I will show them this post and I am sure that they will fully understand what it exactly is.
Codrut.
Hey Lupea, glad you liked the article and that it helped.
Affiliate marketing is a very basic business model for anyone to learn.
The principle are simple but there is a lot to learn, make no mistake about that otherwise, everybody would be doing it.
It helps that there are training platforms out there to make it so much easier and at Wealthy Affiliate, they do just that. Thank you for your comments.
What a great article Mick. I agree completely “Remember it’s not all about selling. It’s about giving people what they are looking for in the way of help and information.” Solve their problem”.
Joining Wealthy Affiliate was one of the best decisions I have ever made. As a beginner, I knew nothing and now 8 months later I have a profiting website. I like how you explain the Jaaxy tool you have made it simple and easy to understand. I know understanding keywords can be a challenge in the beginning.
Thanks so much, I will be looking forward to your other posts.
Thank you Kay, for those nice choices of words. I see many operating in the affiliate marketing arena doing just that, the selling approach.
I guess what is happening here is that they get too impatient and try to move things along a little quicker. Bad mistake.
I see you are already a member of Wealthy Affiliate, so I don’t have to recommend them to you. I can tell by the way you have responded to this post that you are having a great time.
That’s great and hope it continues to bigger things. I will say bye and hope to see you on the inside. Once again thanks for your support.