Clearly I love affiliate marketing – hence spending time developing this website! I’d like to share why I like it and what it actually is so you can also give it a go.

Definition of Affiliate Marketing:  Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make. (directly off Google)

You can compare it to your local hardware store – they don’t manufacture, produce or brand the products they have on show and sell, the do so on behalf of the manufacturers and take a cut of the sale price of products sold.

So as a website displays a banner or an ‘ad’ for a product they have an affiliate link attached to – as the customer clicks the banner ad they are taken to the merchants website or sales page

Example: this website is talking about kids shoes and has an affiliate ad/ banner that is for Umi Shoes.

When the customer clicks the umi ad they are sent direction to the  umi website:

Umi produces the shoes and sells them direct, however the affiliate who promoted the link and got the customer to umi will get a commission on anything the customer buys.  Hence I love affiliate marketing.

You do not have to create ideas, create a product, spend money on production or fulfil any orders – very simple.

So Who Provides The Ads/ Banners?

Good question – the affiliate links and banners are created and provided by the vendor or the product producer – even more simple! You can place these banner ads anywhere on your website.

Or you can simply write about a product and add a link to your article – no need for a banner ad or any graphics.

As an example you’ll hear me talking about Wealthy Affiliate as a sensational learning platform that will provide you with step by step instructions on how to build an online business – and it will even provide you with 2 free websites!

Now in this paragraph above you’ll see the different colour text – for Wealthy  Affiliate and 2 free websites – these words or phrases have links embedded in them that are clickable and take you to a page appropriate to what I’m talking about – again very simple!

In the same way you can write your content on a topic (or have content written for you) and then link to a product that would be useful to the reader. If the link is an affiliate link (provided to you by the primary producer) then you will receive a commission should the customer purchase.

I will write another article on How To Find Affiliate Programs soon, so check back!

Why become an Affiliate?

• Low Start Up Costs: as opposed to an offline business, starting a website or blog and adding affiliate links is going to cost you next to nothing. Check out How to Get A Domain & Website.

• No Product Creation: you simply promote other people’s products that they already have on the market! I can be as simple as an ebook or a high paying course or product – basically if there is a product generally it will have an affiliate link so you can promote it.

• Minimal Training To Get Started: You don’t need to do an apprenticeship – you will need some training, but seriously you can find all the information on how to do this on this current website or if you want some hand holding and guidance, simply do a free course with Wealthy Affiliate.

• Earn Passive Income: Passive income simply means you put in the effort initially on ad campaigns and promoting a product, but once you have an audience, you do minimal work and you still get paid the same when someone purchases… then you just scale!!

• Laptop Lifestyle: Now that does not mean you will be sitting on a beach with a cocktail in hand and no work to do – this is a business, and you will work some decent hours, however you can work your own hours and around your lifestyle. Being your own boss takes responsibility – but it is seriously amazing!

Did I mention I love affiliate marketing?

Is There Money To Be Made?

I get asked this all the time and all I can say is, yes.  You will not become a millionaire overnight.

It depends on how much time and effort you put into your business.  I work hard at my business and get great results, but I don’t sit in front of the TV all day or play on facebook – I actually get my tasks done to keep my websites ticking over and happy.

So lets have a look at this closer.  You can get products from Clickbank to promote – now lets say you decide to promote Doggy Dans Dog Obedience product:

If you set up even a simple website promoting dog breeds, dog products or anything doggy and promoted Doggy Dans Online Training, should someone go through to his sales page and purchase the training – you get paid $69.34.

If you make 1 sale per day you would make $485.38 for one week – that’s an extra $25,200 per year – now if you set up a couple of these sites or even promoted more than just one product on your dog site…. Well…you can work it out from there.

That kind of extra money goes a long way!

Can You Sell Without A Website or Blog?

Yep! I tend to have websites, but if there is a particular product you just want to promote without tending to a website, absolutely affiliate marketing is good for this too.

Take the example below:

You can just set up the one page sales page and attach your affiliate link that will go through to the producers webpage and again if any customers that went through your affiliate link purchase – you get paid.

The other reason I love affiliate marketing is that it gives consumers choices and it really doesn’t affect the price they pay – you don’t put a mark-up on anything, they are still just paying the same as they would if they went through the producer themselves.

So How To Get Consumers To Your Site?

This is the big one – this is why producers want as many affiliates promoting their products as possible (in an ethical way of course).

This is where we talk about ‘traffic’ – the amount of people who actually visit your website – otherwise you’re like a sign for water in dessert – if no one goes there, you may have the best product in the world, but no one will see you or purchase from you.

You need to get in front of a buying audience.

I have a number of articles on this and only be adding more. Initially go to How to Get Traffic To Your Website.

There are free ways to drive traffic, but eventually you will be looking at some paid traffic advertising (PPC).

If all this seems a little overwhelming… it needn’t be – again the best (Free) course I can suggest is Wealthy Affiliate where you get a step by step course to get you started, with a fantastic support system in place for questions.

The big thing with starting an affiliate website is consistency and determination.  I get up every day and love the work I do – I love the topics I write on and I only promote products I truly believe in – so my days are happy (and prosperous).

I know I harp on about taking responsibility all the time, but it is my bug bare – anyone can make this successful if you take full responsibility for your own business.  We all have exactly the same resources available, we all have excuses, just some of us have stronger reasons to make it work than others – I hope your reasons are strong to see this through and make the income you desire!

Must Watch: How A 28-yr- Old Got Fired &Then Built A $500k-A-Month Business ⇒ 

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