In this article, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to start affiliate marketing on your blog, even if you’ve never made a cent online before, don’t know what affiliate marketing is, or haven’t even started to build your blog.
We’ve obviously got a lot of work to do but let’s start with the basic. And so let’s get going!
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Simply put, affiliate marketing is a way for you (the affiliate) to earn a commission for recommending products or services to your friends or readers.
TO SIMPLIFY IT, HERE’S THE 4 STEP PROCESS FOR HOW IT WORKS:
1. You find a product you want to promote
2. You sign up for their affiliate program
3. You get a special link that allows the merchant to track the people who clicked your link
4. If they buy the product, you get a commission.
Pretty simple, right? It can get much more advanced, but in this post we’re just going to start with the fundamentals and get you to the point where you’re ready to make your first commission.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
There are a lot of different ways to track affiliates these days, but all are based off someone clicking your special tracking link. The most common and basic type of tracking is via a cookie.
When the link is clicked, a small file called a cookie is stored on their computer letting the merchant know that if a sale is made, it came from you. There are also more advanced methods based on the email used or IP address – but we won’t get into those here, we’ll stick to the basics.
WHY AFFILIATE MARKETING IS BETTER THAN OTHER TYPES OF BLOG MONETIZATION
Most new bloggers assume that advertising or banner ads are the best way to monetize your site. You couldn’t be more wrong. They often get started with AdSense because it’s easy. To be honest I can’t remember the last time I saw an AdSense advertisement – thank you AdBlock! But seriously, not only will these make your site hideous, you have to have obscene amounts of traffic to actually make any real income. Selling ad space to sponsors is almost as bad. A good rule of thumb I’ve always used for how much you could sell ad space.
Daily visitors divided by 10 is the dollar amount you can make per month on an ad. If you follow along with the few strategies I’ve, you’ll be making affiliate sales in no time off of your blog.
WRAPPING UP
I know that was a lot of information, I think, but if you’ve been struggling with figuring out how to start monetizing your blog, the strategies above are a fantastic starting point. It’s how I made my first dollars online, and it has the potential to create a win/win for both you and your readers!
Want to take your online business and affiliate marketing more seriously? Be interested and study more about it!