What Is Affiliate Marketing
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What Is Affiliate Marketing & Why Do I Recommend It For Beginners?

If you have been looking for ways to make money online, even for a short period of time, you have likely come across something called affiliate marketing.

Maybe you have heard that it is a scam and that you can't make any substantial money with it or maybe you heard that is a good way to make money online but you aren't sure how to get started.

For all those concerned that it might be a scam, I assure you that it is not. I have been making money via affiliate marketing online since 2015 and have been able to turn it into a full-time income, currently making me over $6000 a month.

Not only have I found it to be a legitimate and sustainable way to make money online, but I think it is a good way for beginners to get started for several reasons that I will discuss here.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

In a nutshell...


Affiliate marketing is when you promote products online for companies and earn commissions when you help make sales.


There are all sorts of companies out there willing to pay people to promote their products… Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Best Buy, ClickBank, Dollar Shave Club, etc. Pretty much every company that is keeping up with technology and the Internet has in affiliate program that you can make money with by promoting their products.


How to Go About Doing It

There are a variety of ways to go about affiliate marketing, some that work and some that don't. For example, you could start posting affiliate links all over the place on social media and forms, but this is not effective although it seems easy. If it were this easy than everyone would be doing it.


Nowadays you pretty much need your own website unless you are some Internet celebrity and have some massive social media following. 


This is how I do it… By having my own websites that is.


I promote various products on my websites via affiliate links and earn commissions by doing so. Just about all of my website traffic comes from Google, which is completely free and one of the best and most sustainable ways to get visitors to your website.


A diagram I threw together of this process is as shown…

Recap: 
  • I create small niche websites
  • I promote products related to my website
  • I bring in traffic from Google and other search engines for free
  • I get paid commissions when people click on my affiliate links and purchase the products I am promoting
  • I am then very happy when I help make sales 🙂

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities

As I mentioned earlier, there are so many different affiliate marketing programs out there and plenty of opportunity in this industry.


The reason affiliate marketing programs are everywhere is because it is a win/win situation for both parties… You and the company. Just think about it… You are bringing more sales into them which in turn makes them more money. And then of course you make money… Win/win.


Any type of product you can think of you are able to promote as an affiliate and earn money… Jewelry, plants, food, workout equipment, computers, picture frames, paintings, Barbie dolls, shoes, video games, etc., etc., etc.


Below are two very good examples of big affiliate programs that you can find many different products to promote on…


Example 1: Amazon 

We all know Amazon… The e-commerce giant that is taking over the world. They have the largest affiliate program in the world and it is no wonder with there being hundreds of millions of products to promote in such a widespread popularity.


You can find just about any product imaginable to promote within the Amazon affiliate program (called Amazon Associates) alone. And this is just one company… One of many affiliate programs that exist on the Internet.

Example 2: Clickbank

Another good example of a rather large affiliate program that is popular is ClickBank. ClickBank is not as popular as Amazon, but it is definitely growing. And for those of you who don't know, ClickBank is a marketplace for digital products, such as e-books, online programs/systems, software, etc.


There are so many products that you can promote within the ClickBank affiliate program in a variety of different categories. In one thing that is nice is that you can find some pretty darn high paying offers here.


For example, you can see within the Health & Fitness category the first two offers that come up allow you to earn an average of $33.55 and $27.58 per sale, with the ability to earn as high as 90% commissions…

High commissions or common when it comes to digital product affiliate programs like this because they have so much profit margin.

Good for Beginners, But Why?

Not only is affiliate marketing a legitimate and sustainable business model, that many large trusted brands rely on to help drive in sales, but it is also something that I and many others consider to be great for beginners.


But why? Why is it good for beginners?  Why do so many top-level online marketers start out as simple affiliate marketers? Here are a few reasons…


#1 - It Requires Little to No Start-up Cost

First off it is extremely affordable. When it comes to online business in general, startup costs are already significantly lower than traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. However, there are many different forms of online business and ways to make money online and affiliate marketing is by far one of the most affordable.


You don't need much to be an affiliate marketer. It are the cost anything to have your own website… All you need is a domain and hosting which are more affordable than ever. Of course you are going to want a good training program as well, but you can actually get started with affiliate marketing training for free as I will show you shortly. And… You don't need to have your own products, which brings me to my next point…

#2 - You Don't Need Your Own Products

Think about how it works for a second… All you do is promote products for companies. There is no need for you to have your own product to sell. You simply pick some good products that are already proven to sell and promote them.


Product creation is a daunting task and can be extremely difficult, especially when starting out. Most online marketers, that do sell their own products, have created digital products such as e-books, educational material, and other information products because this is much more simple than dealing with the hassle of creating a physical product.


But you don't have to worry about any of that with affiliate marketing. It doesn't matter whether you are promoting a physical product or a digital product, all you do is promote

Other Upsides

And there are many other upsides to affiliate marketing, which aren't specifically good for beginners, but are good for anyone involved in affiliate marketing regardless of their skill level.


When upside that is a pretty big deal is how you can change the products you're promoting very easily. For example, if you're promoting some light up dog collar and the product gets discontinued, you can easily change your promotion to some other relevant dog collar. In other words, you are not chained directly to anyone business or product and have the flexibility to change what you are promoting simply by changing the link you are using.


It's also nice how you do not have to deal with customers when you are affiliate marketing. Remember, you are just promoting products and directing people to other websites. When you promote a product on Amazon and someone clicks on your affiliate link, they are directed to the Amazon website to purchase the product. You don't actually have to deal with the customer, deal with returns, complaints, etc.


And there are lots of other upsides that I'm not going to get into here.

But It's No Walk In The Park

Sounds pretty awesome right?


It is awesome, but one thing everyone must understand is that affiliate marketing is no walk in the park. As I mentioned earlier, if it were super easy than everyone would be doing it. But… Unfortunately it isn't.


You can just go out and start posting affiliate links everywhere thinking that you are going to strike it rich. These misguided approaches to affiliate marketing simply do not work. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scam training programs out there that lure people in by giving them the idea that they can make easy money doing this, and then provide them with some outdated crappy training that is never going to work.


I've been in this business for a while and reviewed plenty of affiliate marketing training program scams out there. So you just have to be careful with how you get started. Of course you need training, unless you want to spend years trying to figure out everything for yourself and likely wasting years of time in the process, but I'm guessing most people would rather follow a proven training program that works, which is what I want to talk about below…

Recommendation for Starting Out

There is by no means just one way to get started affiliate marketing. HOWEVER, there is only one recommendation I'm going to give and this is because know it works based on my experience.


You see back in 2015 when I first started out I didn't really know where to begin. I came across a lot of different methods/programs and wasted a bit of time trying to find something that works. Then I found it… The program I am talking about is called Wealthy Affiliate.


Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate marketing training program and, in my opinion, the best one out there. In this program your provided with everything you need to do what I do, which includes:


  • Step-by-step training with plenty of video tutorials making things easy to follow
  • The tools necessary to get started (including 2 free websites + hosting and more)
  • Access to the community forum where you can interact with thousands of like minded individuals, including veterans like myself that make a living doing this
  • And a lot more I'm not going to get into


I know the program works because it took me from $0 to making over $6000 a month consistently online


If you are interested then I suggest you check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate here.


Please leave any questions or comments down below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can 🙂

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