Table of Contents
It was 11pm on a blue night in Bangkok .
It was about a week before I ’ five hundred have to flee the country due to the crackdown, and I already had to leave my apartment due to gunfire and grenades going off constantly for 48 hours. ( seriously, true report ) .
My ( now ) good friends Derek and Clay had an apartment across town that they ’ five hundred merely moved into. Despite only knowing them for a brief period of time they let me come crash for a few days while I figured out my future steps.
While all of this was happening, Chris Guillebeau was launching his latest intersection called the Empire Building Kit. Among early things, it featured an electronic mail a sidereal day for a year and was designed to help you build a business during that time .
I ’ five hundred hardly done anything during the former year to monetize Location Rebel ( then Location 180 ). But when this was released, I figured “ why not ? ” and wrote a review talking about how cool the program was .
I went down the street to grab a coffee and when I came back and refreshed my inbox it was 11:05 – 5 minutes after the sale began .
I refreshed my electronic mail equally soon as I got second, and I couldn ’ triiodothyronine believe my eyes .
There were 4 emails, each of them saying “ Sean Ogle You ’ ve Just Referred a sale ! You ’ ve earned a committee of $ 126.99. ”
In a count of 5 minutes, I ’ d made $ 500 .
I ’ vitamin d never made money like this via my web site before. But it was that moment that I sincerely understood the baron of building an audience and monetizing it through affiliate links .
In this post I ’ megabyte going to walk you through everything you need to know to start affiliate marketing on your web log, even if you ’ ve never made a penny on-line before, don ’ t have a huge hearing, or even if you haven ’ metric ton started to build your web site .
We ’ ve obviously got a lot of ferment to do, so lease ’ s get going !
How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
This is one of the most in astuteness video recording I ’ ve nip on how to start consort marketing, so tune in while you read this post :
What is Affiliate Marketing?
This is one of the most common questions we receive, and it ’ s actually quite dim-witted :
Affiliate marketing is a way for you (the affiliate) to earn a commission for recommending products or services to your friends or readers.
To simplify it, here ’ s the 5 step action for how to start consort market :
- You find a product you want to promote
- Do a search for “product name” affiliate program. If it’s on Amazon, you can also promote it
- Sign up for their affiliate program
- You get a special link that allows the merchant to track the people who clicked your link
- If they buy the product, you get a commission.
reasonably dim-witted, right ?
It can get much more promote, but in this post, we ’ re just going to start with the fundamentals and get you to the point where you ’ re cook to make your first commission .
Check out our more detailed position for a bit more about the specifics of what affiliate marketing is .
Learn How to Make Your First $ 1,000 Freelance Writing ( in 30 Days or Less )
Join over 40,000 people who have taken our 6 region freelancer writing course. Sign up below and let ’ s do this together .
By entering your e-mail address you agree to receive emails from Location Rebel. We ‘ll respect your privacy and you can unsubscribe at any time .
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
There are a distribute of different ways to track affiliates these days, but all are based on person clicking your special trailing connect .
The most coarse and basic type of tracking is via a cookie .
When an affiliate liaison is clicked, a small charge called a cookie is stored on the users calculator. then they buy a product, the merchant can see that they were referred by you .
There are besides more advanced methods based on the electronic mail used or IP savoir-faire – but we won ’ metric ton induce into those here, we ’ ll stick to the
Here’s How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog in 8 Steps:
- Step 1: Create a Website or A Blog
- Step 2: Choose an Industry, and then Niche Down
- Step 3: Research Products in Your Niche that You Can Review
- Step 4: Sign Up for the Amazon Affiliate Program
- Step 5: Find affiliate programs for the other products you want to review
- Step 6: Create content in the form of tutorials, review posts, resource pages or emails and use your affiliate link
- Step 7: Optimize the page and track your rankings in Google
- Step 8: Rinse and Repeat!
We ’ ll breed all of these steps ( and more ) in detail in this mail, but it ’ s crucial to understand the general process from the begin .
How to Make Your First Dollar Through Affiliate Marketing
There are lots of approaches to making money with affiliate links. But if I was just beginning to learn how to become an affiliate seller, and needed to say, make a hundred bucks this workweek ? This video shows you step by step, precisely how I ’ five hundred do it :
One of the things I love about this type of monetization is that affiliate market for beginners is actually very easy to jump into ( tied without a bunch together of technical foul cognition ) .
then as your web site grows and your selling skills grow you can begin to learn more boost strategies and tactics .
How Much Money Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?
The measure you can make will vary wildly – it honestly falls somewhere between zero and millions .
Your income will be immediately related to the type of offers you promote, how much traffic you get to the site, and your grok of other on-line marketing skills like electronic mail marketing and SEO .
But in this post you ’ ll get a pretty good feel of the earning potential from different types of promotions .
How Do You Become an Affiliate Marketer?
here ’ s the thing, you can pick just about any merchandise that you can buy on-line, and there will be an affiliate course of study that will pay you a finders fee for referring a sale .
however, precisely because you can promote anything, doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate hateful you should .
The most significant thing to consider when selecting a product to marketplace is, “ is it relevant to your consultation ? ”
For case, for me to try and advertise for dumbbells on Location Rebel probably isn ’ t the smartest thing, because 99 % of my audience could care less about them .
however, for me to promote, say, WP Engine a WordPress hosting company – makes much more sense, since about every one of my readers either has or has considered starting a web site .
And precisely recently, we promoted Streak as an amazing tool for freelancers to use to monitor leads right from their inbox. once again, that ’ s something that speaks directly to the audience .
Questions to Ask Before Promoting an Affiliate Product
When I ’ molarity trying to decide what to promote I constantly ask myself the succeed questions :
- Do I use this product?
- Will the vast majority of my readers benefit from using this product?
- Is the buying process easy?
- Is there a good affiliate commission rate? (Not always necessary)
If I answer yes to each of these questions, then it ’ s credibly a dear paroxysm and worth promote .
Action Item: Make a list of products that you use that you think your blog audience would benefit from using arsenic well. Try to think of adenine many as you can .
And remember, these can include complemental products american samoa well. If you write about travel, for exemplify, you can include tons of complementary color products like baggage, headphones, backpacks, and clothe excessively .
Start Affiliate Marketing: Physical Products vs. Information Products vs. Services
Ok, you should have an idea of which products you might want to promote – now it ’ second fourth dimension to decide which of those are the best fit for you and your hearing .
There are three different types of affiliate products you can promote :
- Physical Products
- Information Products
- Services
Each of these has pros and cons, and we ’ ra going to look at those immediately .
Amazon Affiliate Marketing: How to Market Physical Products
physical products are probably the easiest thing to promote for one reason, and one reason entirely : Amazon .
Amazon has the world ’ second largest consort program, and once you sign up, you can get a yoke for any product on the site, earn a ( little ) commission on it !
Check it out using this example from my locate Breaking Eighty, a golf bag .
so you see at the very peak there I have my Amazon Associates links. What I do is type the detail into the the research box and then click on the type of connect I want ( normally textbook ) .
hera it is in action .
I type ‘ golf cup of tea ’ into the search box .
And then, once I ’ m on the page of the bulge I want to highlight in my review I click ‘ text ’ from the Get Link banish at the top .
You ’ ll see that there will be a store and tracking ID ( I ’ ve blocked these ) and then in the text box, a shorten connection that will go right to this golf bulge .
Anytime person clicks that link, their cookie is recorded in Amazon as coming from me, so when they buy something I will get a little % of commission .
Pretty cool, right ?
well, yes and no .
Commission rates on physical products are notoriously low, ascribable to all of the factors that go into selling them ( fabricate, wholesale, ship, etc ). And in 2017, they made a few changes to the rate structure .
then in April of 2020 they made even more drastic changes to commission rates .
here ’ s a look at region of the rate board nowadays. You can check this connect for a full number of the rate information .
So you can earn a 4 % commission on a set of stuff, a high as 10 % on luxury and fashion, and equally abject as 1 % on video recording games .
evening if you ’ re selling thousands of items a calendar month, you ’ re still making less than a 10 % commission. Because of this, I know a long ton of people who make a little piece of money off of Amazon affiliate websites, but few who make thousands .
Average Physical Product Commissions: 1-10 %. Anything over 10 % is very good .
How to Sign Up for Amazon’s Partner Program
Signing up for Amazon ’ randomness affiliate program is an excellent originate point .
Why ?
Because the chances are effective you already use Amazon, are familiar with it, and your readers are besides .
You can sign up and get links immediately from the Amazon Affiliate program right here .
If you want to find affiliate programs for specific companies, I would start with Flex Offers .
many of the largest companies work with them ( for exemplify many of the golf companies I work with ), and building a relationship with a larger affiliate network can lead to more opportunities that you might not have found otherwise .
We did a unharmed mail on Amazon affiliate commercialize if you want to learn more about how to get started. precisely keep in mind, this was shot before the most holocene rate decrease .
If you ’ re serious about Amazon affiliate marketing ? I ’ d recommend you check out “ The Affiliate Marketing Video Course ” it ’ s a humble investment, and the dandy behind it is the smartest consort seller I know. I can ’ metric ton recommend the path highly adequate .
Quick Tip on Promoting Physical Products
If you want to promote physical products, there ’ second probably a better set to do it than Amazon over the long term if your recess is reasonably specify .
Amazon is rugged because they have a 24 hour cookie. That means that if person clicks your link, and then buys anything, anytime within the following 24 hours you get the commission .
This is an highly curtly period of time. Compare it to some other affiliate programs where the clock time frame can be it 90 days or more .
For case, when I ’ molarity promoting golf products for Breaking Eighty, I ’ ll normally earn a 6.5 % perpetration based on how many items I refer on average each calendar month .
I could join the Golf Galaxy consort course of study, which pays out 6-8 %, but it has a 45 day cookie. so if person clicks the connect and then buys anything over the future 45 days – I get a commission .
This makes it a lot easier to make sales .
Action Item: If you know your niche and want to promote a physical product do a immediate google search for “ product name consort program ” or “ your niche consort program ” to get an estimate of what other options are out there .
Affiliate Marketing for Information Products
The adjacent type of product you can promote is an information product .
This is normally something created by a blogger, seller or author that teaches you how to do something .
Chris ’ Empire Building Kit is a great exercise of an data product. As is Location Rebel Academy .
There are a bunch of reasons that information products are so capital to promote :
- Often they are higher priced, which means higher commissions
- They can have a personality behind them, which builds trust and makes them easier to sell
- There are often full marketing funnels behind them aiding in sales
- They solve a problem or provide a solution that your readers are looking for
broadly, it can be a short bit more work to become an affiliate for these products because frequently the godhead is a bit more protective of who they let market the products .
There ’ s besides no central place you can go to join like you could with Amazon. normally, you ’ ll motivation to talk to the generator directly or look for an “ affiliates ” page on their merchandise web site .
How to Select What Information Products to Promote
I ’ meter pretty selective about the products I personally promote, but each class I make tens of thousands of dollars marketing information products .
The commissions are much higher than physical products which is why I like promoting them so much .
Information product commissions usually range from 30-50% – because the costs of production are so much smaller.
When I promote information products I normally look for eminent priced products created by people who are good at market. Why ?
Because I send traffic to their funnel, and they convert the sale. My influence is relatively minimal .
To give you an estimate of the oscilloscope of this and what ’ s possible, over the last 2 years I ’ ve made over $ 20k in consort commissions from one intersection entirely. This includes an occasional citation in a web log stake, 2 webinars, and a handful of give emails. That ’ s it .
To make things even better, I ’ ve seen the results people have had from the broadcast, and they ’ ve been noteworthy .
thus if you have a path or intersection that you ’ ve personally used and seen a set of success from, check and see if there ’ s an affiliate program – because if you ’ re going to recommend it anyhow, you might american samoa well get paid for it !
Affiliate Marketing for Service Products
The third type of product you can promote is a service. This is another bad one for me, because of the nature of what I write about here .
My occupation doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate affair without hosting, a root, e-mail software etc .
So it can be easy to make a sale on services because if I personally love and use them, there ’ s a adept opportunity you will excessively .
One of the cool things about services, for case, is that much there are recurring commissions. For exemplify, I make roughly 20 % a calendar month every prison term I refer person to Sumo or Visual Website Optimizer – which are both services that I use scrupulously .
Over prison term that can add up to be a decent extra bite of income each calendar month .
Think about which services you use and if it makes smell to promote them on your site. You can usually expect commissions between 15-30% on service products – sometimes higher or lower depending on what it is .
My Favorite Affiliate Programs for Online Services
If you have a web site related to online selling, blogging, or business, there are fortunately a bunch of actually solid affiliate programs out there for unlike services .
I wanted to plowshare a few of my favorites so that you can get a sense of what an affiliate program entails, and start to get a feel for what might work on your locate .
- BeRush – This is the affiliate program for the SEO research tool SEMrush. I use this religiously on Location Rebel, and their affiliate program gives you all the resources you need and pays a recurring fee of 40%! Good luck finding anything that compares with that. Here’s a review of the service.
- Bluehost – On top of being my favorite web host for brand new bloggers, Bluehost starts out paying generous affiliate fees of $65 for every new sign up you refer. Their affiliate managers are fantastic, and I’ve had great results with their service.
- Sumo – I use Sumo to help grow my email list, and they’ve offered some of the best affiliate promos I’ve ever seen. Karol their affiliate manager is as good as it gets, and always responds right away. Here’s my review of the service.
Why Choose Affiliate Marketing Over Other Types of Blog Monetization
Most new bloggers assume that advertise or streamer ads are the best way to monetize your web site .
improving until a match of years ago, I ’ d say you couldn ’ t be more wrong .
Why ?
Because you needed a short ton of traffic in ordain to make a significant measure of money, and the ads themselves would devalue your site and make it look atrocious .
These days, this international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine precisely true .
If you get to the orient where you have 50k views a month, you ’ re able to qualify for certain ad networks ( I like Mediavine ) that actually pay pretty well for display ads .
They ’ re still surly, but you can make some good money as your traffic grows .
If you ’ rhenium curious about how to make passive income through display ads, then watch this video recording :
But this mail is about affiliate market .
so why would I choose consort marketing as a primary gross current over display ads ?
A set of reasons, but a few of them are :
- They won’t clutter up your site and ruin the aesthetics
- You can get started even if you don’t have a ton of traffic
- When done the right way, affiliate links can help build trust with your audience, rather than detract from it
- You can get paid for products you already use and love
- Over time you can get free products to review
These are just a handful of the reasons affiliate market is such a good way to monetize your locate, but they surely aren ’ t the only ones .
And keep in mind, the two aren ’ triiodothyronine mutually exclusive. You can have display ads and affiliate links. fair be certain you ’ ra not trying to hard to make money that you ’ re losing confidence in the summons .
Best Affiliate Products for Beginners
As you ’ re getting going, there are three specific types of products I recommend starting to market. These are ones that will give you the best chance of achiever in growing your business and actually making commissions early on .
How to Promote an Affiliate Offer
Ok, nowadays the most crucial part .
By now you should have a good sense of what consort market is, have an idea of what products you want to promote and know how to get your affiliate links for them .
But if you don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate know how to properly promote them, it doesn ’ t actually matter now, does it ? Nope .
In this section, we ’ rhenium going to look at some of the easiest and most successful ways to promote an consort offer .
Affiliate Marketing With a Resource Page
This is credibly the easiest thing you can do right now to bring in a few sales over the advent weeks : create a resource page .
regardless of what your business is, there are tools, products, and services that you use to run your web log or business. By putting together a page of all of your tools and resources, you ’ re creating something that ’ s shareable, equally well as utilitarian .
My resources page is called “ 60+ essential Tools for the Location Independent Entrepreneur ” .
Taking the same concept and going a mistreat beyond is my bible Location Rebel Arsenal. 
Want to grab the LR Arsenal and check it out for yourself ? Click here .
I took the like estimate, created a well-designed e-mail, and then gave it to people after they joined the concern list for Location Rebel Academy .
This does double duty in making consort sales, equally well as growing my e-mail list .
Affiliate Marketing with Product Reviews
If you ’ ve built up a lot of trust with your consultation, intersection reviews are a fantastic way to generate some sales. This works for all three types of products you can promote, and I ’ ve personally seen success with each .
They key to a successful product review is honesty .
I ’ d generally only review things you like, but if there are drawbacks or little things that bother you – be upfront about them. Most people know that no intersection is perfect, sol if you set expectations and are open with them, there ’ s a good probability they ’ ll buy it anyhow .
Make sure you include the take after items in any product revue :
- Clear headline featuring your desired keyword (“product name review” for instance)
- Clear links for where to buy at both the top and bottom of the page
- A clear recommendation
- A personal story about how you use the product or why you recommend it
I ’ ve done this with a draw of achiever on my golf site .
here ’ s a review a golf product that makes up to a few twelve sales a month. I said why I like it, I discussed the downfalls, and then made it gain why I ’ m oklahoma with them. 
here ’ s another review I did for Sumo, one of my favorite marketing tools. And another I did on Bluffworks, an amazing change of location pant that I love for trips .
This post goes into way more detail about how to make money affiliate market through product reviews .
Affiliate Marketing with Tutorials
Tutorials are easily one of the most effective strategies for driving affiliate sales. They can take a long time to put together, but it ’ s besides wholly worth it .
sol what is a tutorial precisely ?
simple, you create a mail that shows people how to accomplish something step by footprint – you then make a product or service one of the key components to success .
I ’ ve done a couple of these .
With my How to Build a Niche Site post, I talk about all the steps you need to take to get a niche locate up and running. So that includes some of the tools I know and love like Sumo and ConvertKit .
Check out the video: How to Create a Niche Site that Brings in $ 500+/Month
I have another post, How to Set Up a Blog, that brings people step by footfall through the summons using Bluehost. That ’ s another intersection I know and use. Readers can go through that post with no web site at all and by the end have a unsheathed bones WordPress locate astir and running .
You can besides do it via video recording. here ’ s an affiliate position I did walking you through how to do keyword research using SEMrush .
I make hundreds of dollars a month off of both of these posts but I know they are besides truly valuable to readers and we make certain to update them frequently .
here ’ randomness besides another television shows you how to well start a blog .
Affiliate Marketing with Comparison Posts
These can be another very effective strategy for making affiliate sales .
It works well when there are either two products that are very like and people are thinking about one or the other .
A great example would be comparing the PlayStation 4 vs the Xbox One .
If people are looking for a newfangled game console, it ’ second credibly going to be one of the two. That said, I don ’ thymine recommend you choose these because due to the consuming amount of information about both – it ’ five hundred be hard to rank well in the search engines for any terms related to them .
A personal exercise is a post I merely did about two competing golf technologies Game Golf and Arccos Golf. They both do variations of the same thing, but no one had played as many rounds with both systems as I had. sol I created a authoritative post which has sent a lot of traffic, and a few sales, my way over the concluding couple weeks .
Another type of comparison post that works well is when there are a short ton of options, and people don ’ triiodothyronine know what to choose. Web host is a great recess for this .
recently, I created an in-depth stake that compared and contrasted all of the unlike options for hosting – and helped the drug user to select the best option for them. It didn ’ t truly matter which one they chose because I ’ five hundred get a commission no topic what .
Using an Email Series to Start Affiliate Marketing
This is credibly the most effective ( and most advanced ) method we ’ ll lecture about for making affiliate sales : your e-mail list .
If you ’ re getting to the point where you have a ample list, you could create a series of emails to promote a product. This works best if it ’ s an information product with relatively high gear commissions .
For this to work well you should have the watch :
- A list of at least 1,000 people
- A product you’ve either used and had success with, or have a very good story/reason for promoting
- A product that converts well (talk to the creator about this)
I ’ ve found a 3 electronic mail series normally works well for this, but don ’ metric ton begin going this direction until you ’ ve had some know with either electronic mail commercialize or the other affiliate strategies we ’ ve talked about .
5 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes You Never Want to Make
Over the years, I ’ ve made a draw of consort market mistakes, so check out that post and make sure you don ’ thymine fall into some of the same trap I did as you ’ re getting started with your affiliate promotions !
Or if video is more your thing ? Watch this :
A Few Last Affiliate Marketing Tips
If you follow along with the strategies above, you ’ ll be making affiliate sales in no time off of your web log .
To improve your chances even more, I ’ ve got a couple more tips for you .
Use Pretty Link
Affiliate links are by and large pretty surly. They ’ re long links, that often go to a secondary coil domain, and are pretty open that they ’ re an affiliate. Download the plugin Pretty Link to make your links look much more friendly .
Better so far ? Use Lasso .
Develop a Good Relationship with an Affiliate Manager
Most major affiliate programs for physical products or services will have an consort director, whose sole occupation is to help you generate more sales .
You ’ ll motivation to prove to them that you have some potential, but do your best to get them on the earphone before you start doing any major promotions. They ’ ll be able to give you a good feel of what works, what doesn ’ thyroxine, and potentially evening give you a hike in commissions .
One earphone address closely doubled my commissions for one hosting company in especial .
Some More Advice I’ve Learned from Years of Affiliate Marketing
so this post gives you a short ton of information on getting started with affiliate market. But, I ’ ve written a bunch more about this topic on the web log — and shared some of my best advice .
here ’ s a collection of those posts that I think you ’ ll find helpful when it comes to choosing a recess, getting your site up and running, and some bad mistakes to avoid :
Affiliate Marketing Alternatives: 4 Other Online Businesses to Supplement Your Affiliate Marketing Business
- Freelance Writing – The easiest way to start a business online, start building some skills, and building confidence in your ability to successfully do something like affiliate marketing.
- Niche Sites – Once you get the basics of affiliate marketing down, you can really hone in on repeating the process and creating niche sites on all sorts of different topics.
- Blogging – A huge component of every good affiliate marketing site is the blog, take that skill set and translate it into another business.
- Physical Products – Want to make a physical product that ties into your niche and then sell it online? If you want to work at it, there’s a ton of opportunity here.
What I Recommend You Do to Start Affiliate Marketing NOW
For years, I ’ ve thought about creating a superintendent in-depth guide to affiliate marketing. We surely cover it some in the Academy, and quite a sting more in Hobby Hacking – but those aren ’ metric ton entirely devoted to learning the ins and outs of getting started .
My friend Matt Giovanisci is credibly the best affiliate seller I know. He makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with his affiliate sites .
recently he released a course called “ The Affiliate Marketing Video Course ” ( real apt appoint, Matt ) .
To put it plainly, it ’ s the best, most user-friendly course on affiliate commercialize that I know of .
indeed if you ’ re serious ? Invest in the course, and you ’ ll be off to the races .
If after all of this, you think freelancing may be a better fit ? then snag our spare 6-day course that walks you through all the basics of getting started .
This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link and buy one of the products on this page, I may receive a commission ( at no supernumerary cost to you ! ) This doesn ’ t affect our opinions or our reviews. Everything we do is to benefit you as the reader, so all of our reviews are as honest and indifferent as possible .
Sean Ogle
Sean Ogle is the Founder of Location Rebel where he has spent the last 12+ years teaching people how to build on-line businesses that give them the exemption to do more of the things they like to do in life. When he ‘s not in the chocolate shops of Portland, or the beaches of Bali, he ‘s probably sneaking into some early high-class establishment where he most surely does n’t belong.
Learn How to Make Your First $ 1,000 Freelance Writing ( in 30 Days or Less )
Join over 40,000 people who have taken our 6 part mercenary writing course. Sign up below and let ’ s do this together .
By entering your e-mail address you agree to receive emails from Location Rebel. We ‘ll respect your privacy and you can unsubscribe at any meter .
