An Easy Guide to Affiliate Marketing

This is an easy guide to affiliate marketing, just the basics really because a lot of people have no idea what it is. Some that do have a vague idea, think it is something dodgy. Trust me, it’s not.

So what is it?

From Wikipedia:

• Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts

Does that help or make any sense? Not really? Not surprised, I had no idea either when I began this journey.

This is not a completely extensive guide to affiliate marketing, just the basics really because a lot of people have no idea what it is.

Affiliate marketing can be a little bit like the wind. We know it exists. We understand to an extent what it does we don’t really know how to harness it or be able to use it to its best capabilities.

How I found it

I was minding my own business, running an online craft business, when my daughter said…. DRUM ROLL ……  “You should be an influencer with all the sTwitter followers you have”. Now I had not come across influencers, had maybe been vaguely aware of them but basically had no idea what they did. Said daughter’s input was… “they recommend stuff and get paid well.” I liked the sound of that, who wouldn’t?

Influencers

So my interest was piqued. I went looking. A few companies you could sign up to. Didn’t give out any information that I could find. Kept looking and eventually signed up with one. Still had no idea what I was doing.

So they ‘tested’ me. Gave me various links to tweet. I could do that, so I did. Nothing happened at all, just given more. Took me a couple of months to realise I was an idiot and advertising for them for free.

That did put me off, a lot. Forgot about it for a bit, then started looking again. I found bits and pieces of information and the word affiliate kept cropping up.

Affiliate

Yep, you guessed it! I went off at a tangent and started following that lead. The more I searched, the more it seemed to me that the two terms were the same. Or at least, that was the way it seemed to me at that time. They did seem to me to work the same way.

Affiliates recommended products, books and courses etc, then if someone bought them, they earned money. That was affiliate marketing.

Influencers recommended mainly products, expensive ones, to their followers and then got paid. I was a bit sketchy on the details but that seemed to be the way they worked. Simple right?

 Not So Simple

So I kept looking for any information on affiliate marketing. Phew, there were a lot of dodgy looking ‘systems’ out there. I am lucky that I have good intuition that held me back and stopped me being scammed. After a while I could spot the scammers a mile away.

If it sounds and looks to good to be true, then it usually is!

So eventually I came across one that looked legitimate and let me inside for free to start learning.

Simply Affiliate Marketing

So, affiliate marketing is earning commission from products you recommend. So we knew that but how do you earn the commissions?

Mainly by setting up a blog, whether that’s somewhere like blogger, which is free, or a wordpress website for which you will need to pay for hosting, is up to you. If like me when I started you knowing nothing, then you will save yourself a lot of time by learning what it entails first.

It can be as easy as setting up a blog and just writing whatever you fancy. It’s what I did with my first blog.

Check out my first blog HERE!

BUT….. yes a very BIG but…. that won’t make you money, won’t become a business!

Making blogging a business

Is that what you really want? To create a business and build it up so you can give up working that daily JOB?

A job is something that makes money for someone else and often leaves you stuck in a place you don’t want to be, living a life you aren’t happy in. Sound familiar?

I must warn you though, it is hard work and will take a big chunk of your time. You will see little or no return for months or maybe even a year or two. That depends upon how much time you have to give to it and much of yourself you are prepared to put into it. And most of all, whether you have the right mindset.

So what makes a blog a business?

YOU! So you choose a niche/topic, set up your blog/website and start writing. Sounds simple doesn’t it? It can be quite tough sitting there staring at a blank page and that’s before you know about keywords, SEO, analytics, marketing and much more.

There is a lot to learn about the best way to go about it. Especially if you want to save yourself years of effort that amounts to nothing.

There are free courses about blogging of course, they are worth trying but find recommendations to save you time sifting through them.

I recommend:

If you want a paid course that teaches you everything you need to know about blogging and Affiliate Marketing, then I suggest Wealthy Affiliate. Read more about what is offered HERE!!  

Find out more about the FREE starter Training HERE!

Conclusion

Starting a blog can be simple and easy if you start with a free platform like blogger. It is easy to set up and organise the layout, as a complete novice 9/10 years ago I managed it.

To make it successful you need to post regularly. Success equates to the amount of traffic you get. I have revived this blog early this year because it was still receiving traffic despite not being touched for a 2/3 years. So it was still showing up in google, that I call a result.

My blog on Blogger is HERE!

If you sign up for a Wealthy Affiliate Free trial you get lessons to try out and the first shows you how to set up a WordPress website step by step.

It gives a great sense of achievement when you do it. It did for me as I had avoided WordPress thinking it would be too complicated and difficult to do. WordPress gives you the ability to build a website the way you want it to be, you are able to be more creative.

It is not a get rich quick way to earn money but then neither are all the so called  “systems” out there. It takes hard work, a lot of time, the right mindset, determination and persistence.

BUT, it is satisfying, enjoyable, exciting and fun. Plus it gives the freedom to work the hours YOU want and you can work anywhere.

Did you find this An Easy Guide to Affiliate Marketing easy to follow and understand?  Let me know in the comments.