The Internet offers a wealth of opportunities to earn money right from your home. From freelance writing to translation and everything within, the options are endless. However, the affiliate marketing model stands unmatched. Anyone with a little bit of marketing knowledge can start making money within a couple of months. Plus, your earning potential has no limits. Let’s find out more about this concept.
What is affiliate marketing?
Put simply, it’s a marketing business that lets you earn money for selling a merchant’s products online. You may argue that it’s just like selling products offline. Well, that’s partly true. In the case of traditional selling, you make money for sales. The affiliate business model lets you earn for leads as well as sales.
Plus, there’s no pressure on affiliates to sell products. You can sell one item or 1,000 items, no questions asked. In the case of conventional selling, you’ve to reach specific targets. That can be highly pressing and annoying. Also, affiliate/online marketing gives you more freedom over how many products from different merchants you sell.
You sign up as an affiliate. The platform where you join is called the affiliate network. The products you market belong to merchants. For each lead or sale, you earn a commission.
How to make money with affiliate marketing?
At this point, you know the concept. Now, you’d like to monetize your marketing skills. The best part is you don’t need to invest too much. The only recurring expenses are the monthly hosting charges and a yearly domain holding expense. The total expenses could be 100 dollars (maximum) per year, provided you assume all the marketing legwork.
Choose the niche
Your business begins with the choice of the topic. Figure out niches that interest you and pick the one carefully. Do you have a knack for weight loss products? Are you interested in selling money-making eBooks? Based on these questions, come up with a profitable niche.
Now, sign up with a hosting company. Your host will provide a free website package. Choose the web design that matches the topic. Also, pick a domain name. The name should go well with the niche.
If you choose the weight loss niche, your domain name could be www.weightloss.com or www.weightlosspills.com. Someone else might have already picked your possible names. Your So, use a free naming tool to find related names. Be sure that the name is short.
Optimize the site
Okay, you picked the name, and your site is live. An ideal website should have a home page, an about us page, a products/services page, and a contact us page. Organize each page properly and put navigational links for easy browsing. Additionally, your website’s design should let you add blog posts. Posts are content pieces you regularly write (2 to 3 posts per week) based on your topic.
Now, write content centered on the niche. For instance, you may talk about the benefits of weight loss pills or tips to lose weight. After writing the content, embed suitable keywords within the post. Keywords are words users type in any search engine to find services/products.
In the above example, your keywords might be quick weight loss tips or best fat loss pills. Include the main keyword within the title of the post and the content body. Keep the keyword density to 2 percent. Don’t add too many images because they’ll slow down the site’s loading time.
Join affiliate networks
After optimizing the site for keywords, sign up with a few affiliate programs. Join programs that pay well and let you earn for leads and sales. Each program will give you a unique link. Add those links within your post. Include a call-to-action trigger within your posts to motivate readers for appropriate actions. Each time users click the link, they’ll be taken to the merchant’s website. When readers buy products or sign up for promotional emails, you earn your cut.
Promote your site
You’ve optimized your website for search engines. However, your site may or may not come up in search results, thanks to stiff competition. So, promote your site through other platforms. Send your website address to Google maps and verify it. Within a day or two, your website should rank higher in Google listings for local search results.
Additionally, get links from other sites in your niche. Comment on others’ blogs and put your site’s link. The more the links, the higher your search rankings will be. Make sure you steer links from legitimate sites, not spam websites.
Above all, market your site through social networks such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. You may capitalize on your personal profiles at each social media website and recommend your followers/subscribers to check your products (you must have thousands of followers and subscribers for better results). If your items are competitively priced and useful, you could make huge sales.
Bottom line
Affiliate marketing allows you to earn big bucks. Many marketers became millionaires and billionaires; you could be one of them. However, it’ll take enough time before you could see the desired results. Yet, with patience and determination, you can amass enough wealth through this lucrative money-making opportunity.
