Have you ever wondered if there is any way you can make side income online? But you are too new to online marketing. Then you can try Affiliate marketing. This is your beginners guide to Affiliate marketing. Online platform is never short of ways by which you can make money. If you have the knowledge about them you can actually earn handsome amount of money. Just by sharing links you can make good money.
Guide to Affiliate Marketing
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Basically Affiliate marketing allows you to monetize your content by promoting other companies products. When somebody buys those companies products using your affiliate link you get a commission. In other words you are being a salesperson for that company without actually working actively in their company. Whenever you make a sale company pays you. The advantage of affiliate marketing over regular salesperson job is that as an affiliate marketer you can sell products of different companies while a regular salesperson can only work for a particular company.
Let’s take a look at the parties involved in affiliate marketing.
- Affiliate: This person runs a website which contains Affiliate links. Other name of affiliate can be marketer. He will receive a commission whenever a customer buys a product using his affiliate link.
- Company: Affiliate sells products of the ‘company’. This is the organization that sells products through marketing of affiliate. Sometimes there is a network also involved that provides the affiliate links. It can be third party or the company itself.
- Consumer: Customer is the person who visits the affiliate site and buys product by clicking on the affiliate links.
How does it work?
- First of all, the affiliate will publish a blog on their website. Let’s say the post is a review of a leather jacket that the company sells.
- Then in the blog he will insert the link that leads to the website of that company especially to the page where leather jacket product details are provided.
- Suppose a customer reads that blog and decide to check out the leather jacket he will click on the link which will redirect him to that page in which product details are mentioned.
- He likes the leather jacket and decides to buy it.
- If he buys it, affiliate gets a commission of the profit made by the seller on the sale of that product.
To track which affiliate is responsible for which sale the company gives a unique link to the affiliate. When someone clicks on that link a cookie file gets stored on their computer or laptop or mobile device. Using these cookie files the company can track all the sales made by the affiliates.
Steps to become an Affiliate Marketer
Here are 3 steps in this guide to Affiliate Marketing which you need to follow as a beginner to become an Affiliate marketer
➨Find suitable Affiliate niche
When you start as a new affiliate, you need to choose your niche, in other words who is your target audience, what kind of content you make and the kind of products you will promote. There are few factors you need to keep in mind before choosing your niche.
- It is important that you choose something that is your personal taste. Choose something that suits you personally. Because you are already aware of the pros and cons of that area you can make your content accordingly.
- Obviously you will look for area that is financially more promising. You need to look for those subjects that interests more people.
- Do some keyword research to find out what is trending and what keywords are driving the most traffic.
- After finding out your potential audience, try to build a connection with them. Try to understand their needs and demands. Create some Interesting content to engross your consumer. You can also make your profile on social media to promote your site more.
➨Sign up for Right Affiliate program
Now that you have niche. You need to find right affiliate program.
- When deciding that, look for the products that the company wants you to promote. It’s important to see whether those products are in line with what you wish to sell keeping the niche in your mind that you selected. Search for brands that offer what you’re target audience needs.
- Besides affiliate programs that are run solely by companies. There are some dedicated affiliate networks which have different brands and different products onboard. For instance, E-commerce giants like Amazon or eBay runs successful affiliate programs.
- Another important factor to look for when you decide your affiliate program is that which company offers you the best money. Research on various companies having affiliate programs. Choose the one that pays you the best.
- You can take advice from various affiliates who are in this field; you can ask for their experience and even get some tips on how to become a successful affiliate marketer.
➨Insert Affiliate links to your content
After you sign up for the right affiliate program, it’s time to get the main work done that is sharing affiliate links.
- Share links according to the content you create. If you are reviewing a product, add affiliate links in your blog. It would be better if you put the links at the bottom of your review.
- Try to be as honest as possible in your blogs. Writing misleading and false reviews will only make you lose your customers.
- Your audience should trust your experience. If you just praise the product unless it is 100% good it will look fake. So try to be original.
Conclusion
To conclude this guide to Affiliate Marketing, I would say that affiliate marketing is really a good way to make money. It has many plus points as well. Unlike a regular business which require a large capital it doesn’t require you to pay huge amounts of money as well as the risk is low in this field. You don’t need to go door to door to sell products like a normal salesperson. You are working at the comforts of your home. It gives you flexibility. There is no fixed schedule; you can work according to your routine. Last but not the least, there is no limit to this work.
Sky is the limit!
