How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

You can make passive income through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing refers to getting paid by an online retailer for referrals you make to them which result in sales. All you have to do is recommend a given product or service to your followers and you will earn a commission any time they make a purchase using your affiliate link. Here are 7 tips on how to make passive income through affiliate marketing;

1. Choose a niche to focus on

Unlike being a jack of all trades, choosing a particular niche helps you to create quality targeted campaigns for the product you are promoting. Find a niche is usually the hardest part of affiliate marketing as there are so many of them.

However, it isn’t that difficult if you know what you are passionate about and knowledgeable in. it is also important to consider if the niche is big enough for regular SEO posts or you’ll start struggling to create content after a while. See how many affiliate marketers are already in that niche or there’s space for one more marketer to make money off it. It is better to start off a less popular niche and build your way up than struggle with competition against already established marketers.

2. Have a responsive website and blog

A good website and blog is the next step after settling on a given niche. The blog is the most important part of the website as it is where your followers will interact with the product, though you should also pay attention to the About, Contact, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Terms of Service and Ads pages. Have clear policies prevents confusion and builds trust.

The website should be responsive as that also helps with search engine optimization.

3. Consistently create quality content

Some affiliate programs have a requirement for a minimum number of organic website traffic before they can onboard you as an affiliate marketer. Organic traffic can only be built through consistent quality content. Take your time and research on how to create quality SEO content for your audience.

4. Grow your mailing list

Emails are an underrated affiliate marketing channel. If used right, email marketing can take your affiliate marketing to the next level. Just take caution not to spam subscribers’ inboxes or else the rate of unsubscriptions will shock you. Think through your email marketing campaign.

5. Choosing which products to promote

This should be easy if you have already settled on a niche as you only have to find products related to the niche. It is recommendable to promote products you are using yourself as you can write honest reviews about them. You can also do products that fill a certain need in the market. Audiences will be willing to pay for it if it solves their problem. Sometimes though, it is good to just listen to your audience’s interests.

6. Find an affiliate marketing network

Through an affiliate marketing network, you can find products from retailers to sell. Some of the most popular networks include Amazon Associates, ShareaSale, CJ Affiliate and ClickBank. You can also start your own affiliate marketing network. There are plugins that you can use on your website to track clicks, outbound links, sales and payments from your network.

It is also important to track the results of your affiliate products to see how they are performing. This will help you know where to improve.