Get started as an affiliate – Step by Step Guide
Getting started
If I was coming into the industry as a newbie today, here is how I would do and I wouldn’t need to have technical skills or even a website. This is how to become an affiliate using simple blogging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
An affiliate is, to reiterate, someone or company like you may become. They/You will get visitors looking for your blog and coming to your blog because you are writing about a subject that is interesting or has some relevance to what your potential visitor is searching for. Once you get visitors to your own blog then you, the affiliate, should promote relevant/complimentary service and or product a product and or service that you will endorse and promote. For example, if you were to write a blog article about skinny jeans, then it would be ideal to promote an advertiser who sells skinny jeans. If you were writing about football, then a complimentary advertiser/merchant could be sporting events ticket agents who have their own affiliate program. An affiliate/publisher is usually someone/company that does not have a shopping basket on their website, is not e-commerce enabled, does not sell directly to their own visitors, rather they refer their own visitors to another website that sells a service and/or product. So if you went to all the trouble and effort to get a visitor why would you want to send them off to a merchant/advertisers website to buy anything? If your visitor clicks on one of your advertiser/merchant affiliate text link or affiliate banner link then goes to the advertiser’s site and makes a purchase, you the affiliate gets a percentage of your referred visitors purchase. (Note: text links work better than banners.
How to Begin
Find a subject that interests you, no point in choosing something you are going to get bored with easily, this is why some affiliates go by the way side. I wonder how many websites/blogs have been started but never finished. Be inspired, get creative, and get those thinking caps on. The great thing about affiliate marketing is you can write about anything and you will nearly always find an Advertiser/Merchant with an affiliate program that is selling a relevant product or service. Tip: go for the long tail! What do I mean by the long tail? Let’s use the subject of Fashion as an example. Let’s say I wanted to write about fashion; fashion is the generic key word, to find long tail search terms look below.
Fashion – Generic term
Mens Fashion
Mens Ties
Mens Stripe tie (long tail)
Mens Stripe Bow tie (long tail)
Womens Fashion
Womens Skirt
Womens Mini Skirt (long tail)
Womens Pink Mini Skirts (long tail)
Childrens fashion
Childrens Tops
Chidrens Jumper (long tail)
Childrens red jumper (long tail)
Every generic word has a long tail, Cheese > Blue Cheese > Blue Stilton Cheese > English Blue Stilton Cheese > English Blue Stilton Cheese delivered > English Blue Stilton Soft Cheese delivery.
Each phrase is a search term that someone is typing this into a search engine, someone is looking for these search terms, I know I just looked 🙂
You could register the domain names for long tail search terms, these should rank you at No.1 The search engine result for the domain name, is also a real search query by people. Example: womenspinkskirt.com was available as of today 18th December 09. How many people are searching for it? According to Google Results, there are 1 – 10 of about 12,100,000 listings for this search term. If I were starting as an affiliate, I would register the domain name womenspinkskirt.com and write a blog all about what? (I’m just checking if you are still awake) Women’s pink skirts of course!
For those who are not technical and don’t know how to make a website, don’t worry, if you can write then you can get by with a blog. In my personal experience, I have found blogs to yield better conversions then a standard website simply because a lot of end users are researching products before they buy them.
Here is a list of blogging tools you can use. My advice for newbies would be to use www.blogger.com. It is one of the easiest to use in my personal opinion and you can get started immediately; all you need to be able to do is research and write your own unique content.
Another popular blogging tool is www.wordpress.com
Where do you find affiliate programs?
So you have the content or idea for your first blog article, how do you go about finding a suitable affiliate program to join? There are a number of ways and the most popular is via an affiliate network.
Popular UK Affiliate Networks
Popular European Affiliate Networks
Popular Canadian Affiliate Networks
Popular US Affiliate Networks
http://www.amwso.com/usnetworks.php
(Thanks to Chris Sanderson for letting me link to his comprehensive US affiliate network list)
People who bought the guide said…
“Really clearly written and covering all the fundamentals. Takes away the mystery and tells you exactly what you have to do. Also provides a host of resources and essential links. This is everything you need to know to get started – I thoroughly recommend it.”
“I just wish I had read this when I first started my first niche site. A must have for anyone looking to make some money from online marketting.”
The guide costs $8.73 buy it direct from Lulu.com publishing http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment