In this article, I am going to teach you the basics of affiliate marketing so that you can begin to understand how to make money online with this form of marketing.With the emergence of search engines in the mid-1990's, the internet grew into a massive information and e-commerce center.
Businesses realized they had an opportunity to market their products and services to consumers through the millions of websites they visit every day. Early forms of online advertising, such as CPM or fixed placement began experiencing competition from other emerging and cost effective forms of online advertising, such as affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing has grown rapidly since its inception in 1989. According to a recent report published by Forrester Consulting, the total affiliate marketing sales are expected to exceed $4 Billion in 2016.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is an online marketing technique where a merchant pays a commission to publishers or affiliates, for referring new customers to their website.
Affiliate marketing is performance based, meaning that affiliates are only paid when their promotional efforts result in an actual transaction. At its core, affiliate marketing is a relationship between three parties: the merchant, affiliate and the consumer.
The merchant, also known as the vendor, creator, seller or brand, is the party that creates the products. The merchant is ready to pay other people to help with selling and promoting their products or services.
The affiliate or publisher(you) is the individual or company that agrees to promote the merchant’s product in exchange of earning a commission.
The consumer is the person who sees the ad and then performs an action by clicking link and purchasing, or submitting their info via an online form. The consumer completes the affiliate relationship triangle.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
You (the affiliate) must sign up for an advertiser’s affiliate program and choose the products you want to sell.
The seller or merchant will provide you with a unique affiliate link that you will use to refer traffic to their site.
Affiliate links have tracking in them to ensure that you are credited for every sale you make. When a consumer clicks your affiliate link, then the seller will know it is you who sent the customer.Affiliate programs are run and managed via various affiliate networks. Some programs are consolidated on a single network while others work on multiple networks.
Cookies are used in the network to track the progress of a customer from the affiliate's website, through the shopping cart of the seller.
The network then automatically pays commission to the affiliate based on the rules laid out by the seller.
In most cases, commissions for all sales of the previous month are paid out on a monthly basis. However, this may vary depending on the merchant’s payment policy.
How Do You Get Started in Affiliate Marketing?
To succeed in affiliate marketing, you must take a number of important steps.
The good news is that you can certainly succeed if you are willing to commit the time and efforts that it takes .
So, how do you get started in affiliate marketing?
Step 1: Choose a Niche.
Before you even build your first site, you must choose a niche you are going to target.
To choose the right niche, consider the topics you are already passionate about. For example, if you have passion about bicycles, select a niche that is bicycle related.While following your passion is definitely recommendable, ensure there is money, enough demand for products and affiliate programs in your chosen niche.
Do consider the competition in the niche and whether or not you are going to be able to get your website into the first page of Google search. This is a major factor in determine the success of your niche. The best way to determine the difficulty in ranking on Google is with a keyword research tool like Long Tail Pro.
Step 2: Find a Good Affiliate Program.
Once you have decided on a niche, you can then research the best affiliate programs.Before choosing an affiliate program, consider the type of sellers who use the program and the commission you are likely to make from the products.Remember to check the kind of customer support you expect from the network once you have signed up. All this will help to gauge the likelihood of success with a particular program.
Step 3: Build Your Own Website.
The first two steps are all about research and determining what is possible and profitable. Now, it is time to put your research into action. If you do not have a website, this will be your next step. If you are new to building sites, the quickest way to set up a site is by using WordPress. To have your site up and running, follow these few steps:
Buy a domain
Buy and set up hosting
Install WordPress
Install an attractive WordPress theme
Also try out sites like wix.com
Step 4: Create High Quality Content.
Now that you have set up your website, you need to create interesting and engaging content for it. Each article or post should be focused on one keyword phrase. Again, I can't stress enough the importance of proper keyword research. The more product reviews, articles, visitor feedback and information you publish on your site, the higher the chances of attracting visitors to the website.Giving away free informational products such as mini-courses, email series and e-books is a popular tactic many affiliate marketers use to build an email list and increase traffic to their site.
Remember your content must be 100 percent unique and relevant to your niche.
Step 5: Build an Audience for the Site.
If you produce excellent content, you will have an easy time building an audience for your website.
An interesting audience will not only attract visitors to your site, but will also lead to consistent sales and of course, higher profits.Some proven tactics of building audience for a new site include promoting content via social media, investing in paid advertising, using basic SEO tactics among other methods.
Step 6: Promote Affiliate Offers.
After publishing relevant content on your site and building a reliable audience, the last step is to continue adding value by promoting products.You can promote offers in many ways. It all depends on what you are selling and type of site you have built.
Some popular ways of promoting affiliate offers include writing honest product reviews, using in-text content links, email promotions as well as offering good discounts and giveaways.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn monthly income from your website, while providing valuable content to your visitors.