If you are on this page, then I bet that you are searching, what is Affiliate Marketing and how does it work, how to make money with Affiliate Marketing this year.
But don’t worry about anything, let me assure you that you are on the right page, as here I am going to discuss How to start your own Affiliate Marketing Business with very little investment.
In this valuable article, I am going to discuss what are the steps that you need to take in order to start Affiliate Marketing Business and after starting how you can easily manage and make money with Affiliate marketing.
When I was starting my Affiliate marketing journey, I wish that I should get such a valuable article, but in this case, you are lucky, that you have come across this page.
So let us begin…
- Best Low-cost Hosting Provider
- Affordable Domain names
- Good customer service
What is Affiliate Marketing?
In Affiliate Marketing, affiliates promote products or services of single or multiple companies and in return, he earns a commission based on the product or service he is promoting.
Mainly, there are two types of Affiliate commission that an affiliate gets, either a fixed amount of commission per sale or some percentage of the amount of sale.
My Experience in Affiliate Marketing
I have been doing Affiliate Marketing for more than a year and in this short period of time I have learned many things about affiliate marketing and I am also able to earn from it, Alhamdulillah.
I basically work on some top Affiliate Marketing Networks and earns, don’t worry, I will also make you aware of these affiliate marketing networks in this article.
How to start your own Affiliate Marketing Business?
From here the story begins, further, you will come to know each step in detail on how you can make money with Affiliate Marketing.
Step:1 Make a Website
Many people ask me how to earn money with affiliate marketing. The very first answer, I say to them, is to make a website.
A website is not only going to help you in Affiliate Marketing, but it will also help you in many ways online and when you have a website, you have multiple ways to make money online.
So, here are some steps that you need to strictly follow, in order to make a good website relevant to your affiliate program niche.
Purchase a Domain & Hosting
This is the very step that you must take, before creating a website. I hope that you all are aware of what a Domain name and Hosting is.
A Domain name is the name of a website, like our website name is Bluepreneurs.com and exactly it is its domain name.
Hosting is a space where your website is hosted, this means that all your website data and files are hosted on a web hosting.
In order to make a very fast and powerful website, you need very fast and powerful Web Hosting.
There are multiple web hosting services on the Internet, but don’t worry I will tell you one of the bests.
- Best Low-cost Hosting Provider
- Affordable Domain names
- Good customer service
So, I guess that you are a beginner and you want to start affiliate marketing, therefore you need not go with the expensive hosting, instead go with the best affordable hosting.
Here are the plans for Shared Hosting by BigRock
So, I will highly recommend you to go with this BigRock hosting as it is very affordable and along with the affordable plans.
So, in this case, your website will become very fast and can load & upload fast.
Install & Set up WordPress
So, after purchasing good hosting, your next step is to install and step up WordPress.
I hope that you may know what WordPress is?
WordPress is open-source software, where you can make a powerful and good-looking website.
Install WordPress
So, in order to make a WordPress website, you first need to install WordPress on your hosting cPanel.
Set up WordPress
WordPress is a big open-source software and it is nearly impossible for me to explain everything about WordPress.
Once you start working on WordPress, you will start learning it and in this way, you will also gain experience.
So, let me tell you some basic things about WordPress and the rest you can easily do, once you start working on it.
- On your WP website, you first need to install a theme. There are multiple WP themes, which are paid as well as Free.
- Similar to themes, you also need to install Plugins in your WP dashboard. Plugins make your website work smarter and they also help in many ways.
- You can visit the settings section, in order to do basic or advanced settings of your WordPress, like you can change your site title and tagline.
- If you want to customize your website, then for this you need to go to the Appreance>Customize section.
- In order to write blog posts and do its SEO, you can visit the posts section.
- Similarly, you can also add pages to your website by visiting the Pages section.
- You have to add some important pages on your website like About us, Privacy Policy, Affiliate Disclaimer etc.
Put Content
I always say to people that, ‘Content is King and Traffic is Subject’.
This means that if you have content then people will come to you and to your content and this way you can convert that traffic into buyers and can easily make money in Affiliate marketing.
So, if you also want to make money with an Affiliate marketing business, then you need to put more and more content on your website in the form of blog posts.
But before publishing blog posts, as a beginner, just make sure that you are working on low-competitive keywords.
If you try to work on highly competitive keywords, then it may be nearly impossible for you to rank on Google for that particular keyword.
Hence, you may lose the opportunity to earn from Affiliate marketing businesses.
As a beginner, I highly recommend you to find out some keywords that have low competition, so that you can easily work on them and can rank them on Google to gain free organic traffic.
With this, a very good question arrives: which Keyword research tool should we use?
I am using Semrush for taking out very low competitive keywords for my website, you too can go with this Magic Keyword Research Tool.
Once you start writing blog posts, make sure that you optimize it, by doing its SEO (On-Page SEO). Believe me, doing On-Page SEO of your blog post is very simple.
If you also want to rank your website on the 1st page or on the 1st position of Google, then you must read this book and believe me you will learn a lot
Besides SEO, there are multiple ways, through which we can drive traffic to your website. Don’t worry, our next step on the topic is to drive traffic.
Step:2 Become an Affiliate (Join Programs)
In order to start an affiliate marketing business, you need to join some affiliate programs, so that you can promote that particular product or service of that company and make money.
There are millions of websites on the Internet and many of these websites have their own Affiliate Program, some have on their own platform, while some have are available on Affiliate Networks.
Affiliate Networks
There are multiple Affiliate Networks, but in this article, I will share only those networks which are genuine.
Affiliate Networks like:
In these affiliate networks, there are multiple affiliate programs and you can join any of those programs in order to promote and make a commission.
Some Affiliate networks give you instant approval, while some review your application.
Individual Affiliate Programs
There are also many affiliate programs that are not on affiliate networks and they are individual like:
Some affiliate programs which are individuals also review your application before approving you in their affiliate.
But on what basis do Affiliate networks and Affiliate programs approve us?
Yes, of course, it is your website. You must need a website in order to earn from Affiliate Marketing.
Exactly this is what we are going to discuss here, how to start your own Affiliate Marketing Business by making a website.
Before making a website, you first need to decide its niche.
For example: if you want to join and promote web hosting affiliate programs, for this you need to make a website that reviews web hosting plans, services, features etc.
Doing exactly the same will benefit you.
Don’t make your website that is targeting multiple niches like hosting, health & fitness, physical product etc, this will not give a single dollar.
Instead, focus on one niche, join programs and make a website relevant to that particular niche.
Step:3 Drive Traffic to Website
This is also an important step, because if you have valuable content, but nobody comes to see your content, then in this case your content which is on your website is dead.
So, you must need a targeted audience that is interested in your content so that you can easily generate Affiliate sales and can earn money from Affiliate marketing.
There are multiple ways through which you can easily drive traffic to your website. Some methods are Paid, while some are Free.
1. SEO (Best way to drive Traffic)
If I tell you the best way to drive Free and Targeted traffic to your website, then it is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
If you will do SEO of your website, then your website is going to rank on Google and bring targeted traffic.
There are basically two types of SEO, On-Page SEO (SEO which is done on the page) and Off-Page SEO (SEO which is done off the page).
So, you have to follow both types of SEO, if you want to rank your website on Google.
On-Page SEO
In this type of SEO, you need to optimize the content which you are writing in the form of blog posts.
In a very simple language, you have to do SEO for your blog posts.
Off-Page SEO
In this type of SEO, you need to do SEO by going off the page, which means that you need to make backlinks, share your blog posts on Social Media platforms, collaborate with other websites (similar in the niche) for guest posting etc.
Doing all this will increase your Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) and thus, it helps your website to rank faster and on the higher positions on Google.
2. Share on Forum websites (Quora)
This is the most powerful method to drive free and targeted traffic to your website without doing SEO.
There are many forum websites on the Internet, but Quora is the biggest Forum website.
Quora is basically a Question & Answer website, where many questions are asked in almost every category and also there are many answers given to those questions.
To know more about Quora Marketing and Affiliate Marketing Strategy, watch this detailed video.
Answering the Questions
This is a very powerful way through which we can get free and targeted traffic.
All you need to do is find some questions relevant to your niche and then answer those questions, so in this way, you can get bulk traffic for free.
This is targeted traffic, thus it will convert into buyers and hence you are going to make money with Affiliate Marketing.
Quora space
Besides answering questions on Quora, there are multiple ways through which you can drive traffic to your website.
On Quora, you can also make your own Space. Then you have to share your content (relevant to your niche).
So, in this way, people will come to your space, and if they like your content, they will surely follow your space.
This will increase the followers of your Quora space and you can easily drive those followers to your website.
I have also worked on Quora and gained a lot of traffic to my content and this really works.
3. Social Media
Now, I hope that you all are aware of this method, through which you can get traffic to your website.
Today, there are multiple social media platforms available on the Internet.
Now, you have to use these social media to bring targeted traffic to your website.
You can make use of:
These social media platforms are enough for you to drive targeted traffic to your website.
To drive traffic from these social media platforms, you need to share content on them in the form of posts, media, links, articles etc and if you will do this, then you are going to win in Affiliate marketing, believe me.
4. Paid Advertising
Now, this is a paid method, but this will give you a good ROI (Return of Investment).
Paid Advertising is also one of the best methods to drive a targeted audience to your website.
There are many platforms, where you can easily run an Ad campaign and gain good traffic.
You can make use of the following platforms to run your niche campaign:
- Quora Ads
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- Pinterest Ads
So, all you need to do is pick one platform from above and then you have to run an Ad campaign relevant to your niche and you also need to target those audiences that are interested in your Ad.
For example: If you want to promote hosting affiliate programs, then you first need to put similar content on your website and then you have to run an Ad by targeting those audiences, who are interested in buying hosting.
In this way, you are going to get many Affiliate sales and a good ROI.
5. Collect Emails (Email Marketing)
You should not skip this method, as it is a gold mine for Affiliate marketers like us.
You first need to collect targeted emails and then you have to do Email Marketing by sending bulk emails to the email list which you have.
How to collect Emails?
On your website, you need to add some pop-up or section, through which you can collect emails of those users who are coming on your website.
This will give you an email list of the targeted audience (relevant to your website niche).
After making an email list you need to do Email Marketing by sending bulk emails to all the users whose emails are there inside that email list.
How to send Bulk Emails?
After making an email list, you need an Email Marketing software or service through which you can send bulk emails.
There are many Email marketing services available on the Internet:
- Sendinblue
- Mailchimp
- GetResponse
- Constant Contact
- AWeber
- Active Campaign
- Convert Kit
- Hubspot
- Drib
Besides these services, there are many more email marketing services, but these are enough for you to do email marketing and start your own Affiliate Marketing Business.
To send bulk emails with the help of these softwares, you first need to design an email campaign, in which you need to add your email list, design your email content and schedule your timing of sending the email.
How much money do you need to start Affiliate marketing?
This is a very good question, which many people ask.
The cost of starting an affiliating marketing business depends on the marketing plans and tools you are going to use.
Here are some things on which you need to spend:
1. Hosting
Firstly, you have you pay for a Domain and Hosting to make a website.
Your web hosting service should be good and fast enough so that it can load and upload fast as it is going to help in the ranking of the website.
For an affordable web hosting service, my recommendation will be BigRock, as it provides you with very affordable hosting.
2. Traffic
To earn from Affiliate marketing, you need content and then targeted Traffic on that content.
Suppose you have made content and then you are looking for traffic.
Now for this, if you are using SEO, that is great, but it takes time for your website to rank on Google.
You can also spend some money to generate traffic on your content.
As mentioned above, you can make use of some platforms for running Ad campaigns and driving traffic.
This investment in Affiliate marketing is going to give a good ROI.
You must have at least $200-$300 for running a good campaign relevant to your niche.
3. Sales Page/Landing Page Builder
Along with the websites, you must also use some Sales Page/Landing Page builder to get more Affiliate sales.
As the templates provided by the landing page builder are just amazing and this is going to help you get more sales in Affiliate marketing.
There are many good Landing Page builders:
If you want to make a landing page for Free, then you can make use of Google Sites.
You can go with any of the Landing Page builders, which are mentioned above and choose one according to your budget.
4. Email Marketing Tools
This is the real investment that you should do If you really want to start affiliate marketing business.
As an affiliate marketer, you should have an email list of those audiences who are interested in your content.
Then you need to send bulk emails to them promoting your Affiliate program and this is called Email Marketing.
To do Email Marketing in a better way, you should need an email marketing service that allows you to send a large number of emails every day.
So, in this case, my recommendation will be GetResponse.
Usually, an email marketing service starts from $15/month and it goes on increase based on the features.
5. Tracking Tools
This is also a good investment.
If you have team members working on one Affiliate program, then in this case you can make use of some Tracking tools, to track sales from each member.
Believe me, it is going to be very helpful when you start working with your Team.
CPA Affiliate Marketing
CPA Affiliate Marketing is the easiest way to earn quickly from Affiliate marketing.
What is CPA Marketing?
CPA Marketing is a part of Affiliate Marketing.
CPA Marketing means cost per action marketing, in this, an affiliate gets a commission on each action made through his affiliate link.
This action can be a lead or click.
Usually, CPA marketing refers to the cost per lead action, in which an affiliate gets paid for giving a qualifying lead to that particular company.
For example: If you follow my affiliate link and land on another website and if you sign up on that website, which means you only submit email, so for this sign up (lead), I will get some amount of commission.
This amount of commission can be $1, $2, $3…..$10 or even more than this.
This commission can vary according to the Affiliate programs.
Sometimes, this lead can refer to as a Trial.
There are many Affiliate programs that give you a commission for Trial, which a user takes following affiliate link and this also comes in CPA Marketing.
Believe me, it is the easiest way for a beginner to start affiliate marketing and make money with it.
Because here you don’t need to sell anything, all you need to do is join Affiliate programs and promote it and earn a commission for just getting leads.
There are many CPA Affiliate programs, but here are some best of those:
- Semrush
- Sendinblue
- Skillshare
- Constant Contact
- Similarweb
- Freshbooks
- Quickbooks
- PinnacleCart
- Bigcommerce
- Shift4Shop (3dCart)
- Pluralsight
- Treehouse
- Linkedin Learning
How to turn Traffic into Buyers?
This is also an important part that you must know if you are a beginner in the affiliate marketing business.
There is bulk traffic coming to your website, but if that traffic is not purchasing anything from your affiliate links, then in this case this bulk traffic is useless.
This happens when your content is not strong enough to convert that visitor into a buyer.
So, to convert traffic into buyers, you first need to make your content powerful and engaging enough.
For example: If you are promoting web hosting, then instead of just telling the features of that web hosting, try to tell what is the use of those features in that visitor’s life, and how those features can change his website’s performance.
This will shape the visitor’s mind and he will buy that particular hosting which you are promoting and in this way you can easily make money in the affiliate marketing business.
In simple language, you need to describe the use of that particular service or product in that visitor’s life.
How to earn your 1st $100 in Affiliate Marketing Business?
So, to earn from Affiliate marketing, all you need is traffic on your content.
- If you are doing SEO to drive traffic, that’s great, but it will take time for your website to rank on Google.
- You can use Paid Advertising to drive traffic, but some of you may be out of budget so that you can’t run an Ad campaign.
But if you really want to earn your 1st $100 in Affiliate marketing quickly, then let me tell you that you must go with Quora.
You have to do Quora marketing, to gain traffic and generate affiliate sales.
If you do this, then you can easily earn your 1st $100 in Affiliate marketing.
Now, Quora Marketing includes Answering the Questions, making and growing a Quora space, so you need to do this and this will surely give you results before SEO.
But after all, SEO is the best way, as it can give you affiliates sales lifetime.
Affiliate Marketing with YouTube
As you all know, YouTube is the biggest video-sharing platform.
There are many people who are generating revenue in thousands of dollars from YouTube.
But all these revenues are not only from Google AdSense. It is also from Affiliate Marketing.
Yes, this is true, there are many people, who Affiliate Marketing with YouTube and earn a good amount of commission.
I am also a YouTuber and I also do Affiliate Marketing with YouTube and I am happy to say that I have also earned commission by doing this, Alhamdulillah.
Starting a YouTube channel costs Zero, but your 5 minutes, which you can easily take out.
The only thing, which you need to do is to put video content on YouTube (relevant to your niche), and then slowly your channel will grow.
In this way, you can easily make money online in Affiliate Marketing with the help of a YouTube channel.
FAQs on ‘How to start your own Affiliate Marketing Business’
1. Do we have to pay for affiliate marketing?
To start Affiliate Marketing, you first need to become an Affiliate partner by joining Affiliate programs.
So, you don’t need a single dollar to join Affiliate networks or Affiliate programs.
All you need is a website, with valuable content and some traffic on it.
2. How much money can you make in Affiliate Marketing?
Well, this is the most asked question, which almost all beginners ask.
Let me make you aware of the reality that is not a fixed answer to this question.
How much you can earn in Affiliate marketing totally depends on your work and on your website.
The more traffic you have on your website the more you earn.
so, you only need to work for driving targeted traffic to your website.
3. Which is the Best Affiliate Networks for Beginners
There are many Affiliate networks available in this world.
But if you really want to know some best Affiliate networks for beginners also, then look below.
Some best Affiliate networks:
1. ShareASale
2. Impact Radius
3. FlexOffers
4. Commission Junction
5. Awin
6. Maxbounty
4. How do I start my own affiliate marketing business?
Well, tell me that this article is based on this topic only.
To start an Affiliate marketing business, you need to follow these steps.
1. Become an Affiliate
2. Make a website
3. Drive Traffic
4. Do Email Marketing
5. How to start affiliate marketing with no money
Well, it is not a good idea.
But If you really want to start Affiliate marketing without money then in this case I recommend YouTube.
All you need is to start a YouTube channel, which costs no money to start and then start putting content relevant to your affiliate programs.
Believe me, if you are consistent, then you are going to make a good amount of commission in Affiliate marketing.
Final Words (Conclusion)
Well here comes to the end of this valuable article.
But wait, after reading the whole content, don’t just close this tab, bookmark this tab as it will help you when you will start your own.
Besides these steps, you also need to follow some strategies in Affiliate marketing that will help you to make money fast.
I hope that you have understood everything about How to start your own Affiliate Marketing Business and will start soon.