How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

How to make money with affiliate marketing for beginners?

If you’ve ever wanted to make money with your blog, you’ve probably already come across the term affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is referring other people’s products and earning a commission through each sale. Basically, bloggers create content that links to the products using their unique affiliate links. And when someone clicks through and makes a purchase, they earn a commission.

Doing Affiliate Marketing The Right Way

Affiliate marketing, when done the right way, can help you grow your business, serve your audience, and build a brand that’s authentic and genuine.

But if you do it wrong, the results can be catastrophic.

It’s all too easy to choose the wrong products, promote too often or in the wrong way, and end up failing. You waste valuable time and energy, or worse, damage your reputation with your audience.

I think we’ve all experienced people who’ve done it the wrong way. And it’s why so many people think affiliate marketing has to be sleazy.

But I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Below, I have highlighted a few things to get you started to make money with affiliate marketing, the right way.

You May Also Like:

READY TO CREATE A BUSINESS AND A LIFE THAT YOU’LL LOVE?

Grab my FREE
PASSION TO PROFIT PLAYBOOK
and start turning your passion into a deeply satisfying, impactful, and profitable business.

Make Money.
Change The World.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning, at no extra cost to you, I may earn a commission when you purchase through my links. This is how I’m able to keep most of my content free and support my social missions. Thank you for supporting my blog! Please read my disclosure for more info.

Go Self-Hosted

If you’re serious in growing a business from your blog, you need to go self-hosted. Period.

Self-hosted means you are paying for a web hosting company such as SiteGround to house your blog online instead of using free blogging platforms such as Blogspot, WordPress.com, Tumblr etc.

Why Go Self-Hosted?

Look, no free blogging platforms can give you the control and freedom like having your own self-hosted website.

Plus, if you are using free blogging platforms, you will have many restrictions when it comes to making money through affiliate marketing and ads – 2 of the most common ways of making money from your blog.

So that’s why you should set up your blog with self-hosting.

I know, I know, this might sound overwhelming. I certainly felt that way when I first started. But with the right resources, you can actually launch your self-hosted blog in just minutes!

Read more about the benefits of self-hosting here.

Or, if you are ready to proceed – go ahead and follow this step-by-step tutorial to start your blog.

Choose A Niche

To become successful in affiliate marketing, you want to make sure that your blog carries a clear message.

In other words, you need to define a particular topic for your blog (in the blogging world, this is known as “niche”).

You don’t want to be talking about food one day, then beauty the next day, then car racing the day after. Because if your blog is all over the place, it will be difficult for you to build a loyal audience.

Find your niche and stick to it! Staying focus on your niche will help you make money with affiliate marketing so much easier.

SELECT THE RIGHT Affiliate Products

There are literally thousands of affiliate products out there, covering all sorts of niches.

So, how DO YOU choose the right products?

You can write the most strategic blog posts in the World, but if you‘re not promoting the right products, you’re likely not going to make the kind of income you want.

Worst, you risk losing your readers and the trust you’ve built with them if the products you promote don’t live up to their expectations or don’t make sense for them.

When it comes to what products to promote, you want to ask yourself 4 questions:

What specific problems do my audience need help with?
What products can help to solve these problems for my audience?
Are these products well-made/good quality/from trusted brands?
Have I used these products myself or have thoroughly researched them to ensure their quality and effectiveness?

You want to select trusted products that can effectively solve specific problems for your audience. Ideally, these should be products you’ve personally used and loved, or at least have thoroughly researched into and proven to be great.

These affiliate products can be physical products, online courses, audio programs, printables, software, plugins, themes, books, events, coaching programs or services.

WHERE TO FIND AFFILIATE PRODUCTS

Start with products you’ve personally used and loved. What products in your niche have you personally used and loved? Chances are that some of those companies would have affiliate program you can sign up to. Visit the company’s website and look for the word “affiliate program” or “partners” (typically at the bottom of the website) and then apply to become an affiliate partner.
Affiliate Networks. There are also many affiliate networks around. Affiliate networks are companies that connect bloggers and content creators with companies that offer affiliate opportunities. With just a single portal, you get to access affiliate opportunities for many different products and services. Popular affiliate networks include Amazon Associates, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and Rakuten Advertising.
Google. You can also search for additional ideas for affiliate products on Google. Just type in “affiliate program in XXX” (replace XXX with your niche).
See what your competitors are promoting. Take a look at what similar blogs in your niche are promoting. This should give you lots of additional ideas for your research.

EXAMPLES

For my blog, I only handpick affiliate products that I have personally used and I know are truly helpful for my readers. Here are a few examples:

SiteGround: My ultimate favorite, not only they pay out their affiliate partners generously, but most importantly, SiteGround is the best and most reliable web hosting for bloggers.
Creative Market: I love Creative Market! This is where I bought my beautiful theme for this blog. Creative Market is an amazing marketplace to shop for beautiful themes, photos, graphics and fonts. Sign up for their newsletter to receive 6 FREE goodies each week and a coupon for 10% off your purchase.
Amazon: I am a self-proclaimed book worm and I love reading. And Amazon is my go-to place for all my physical and digital books. If you want to earn affiliate income from Amazon, this simple-to-follow eBook is super helpful. Follow this eBook and it will save you lots of time and frustration.

Keep On Learning

This blog post is only a high-level summary on some of the things you can do to make money with affiliate marketing.

To learn all there is to know about affiliate marketing and how to make money passively, I wholeheartedly recommend this eCourse by Michelle.

This is by far one of the best investment you will make in your blog. Michelle currently makes US$100,000+ per month from her blog, with US$50,000+ from affiliate marketing commissions. So be sure to learn from her!

In this course, there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons and 20 worksheets, walking you step-by-step on what you need to know and start to make money with affiliate marketing.

Alongside the info packed course, there are remarkable bonuses such as access to her Facebook Master Mind Group, a Pinterest Traffic video course, and much more! Check it out here and learn more.

Create Relevant Content

Create valuable, evergreen content that links to the affiliate programs you’re a part of.

You don’t want to hard-sell.

The key is to create high-quality content that answers questions, provides solutions, and inspires readers, dropping your affiliate links only when it makes sense.

WHAT CONTENT SHOULD You CREATE

Below are a few types of content that work particularly well for affiliate marketing:

Resource page. Having a dedicated Resource Page not only helps your readers to easily find helpful resources all in one place, but it is also a great way to display your affiliate products. On that note, do check out my Blogging Resources page for awesome tools I recommend.
Review posts. If there are products in your niche you’ve used and really love, why not create a post to share your insights (for example, “The Instant pot cooker I can’t live without”). Make the post informative and include your affiliate link where appropriate.
Comparison posts. Alternatively, you can also do comparison posts where you compare 2 or more products of similar kind in the same post. (for example, “Best instant pot cookers comparison: which instant pot cooker should you buy?”).
The Best Of List. This could be a list of products you love and recommend (for example, 13 Inspiring Books for (and by) Women Entrepreneurs.)
Step-by-Step Tutorials. One of the most effective ways to promote a product is to teach people how to actually use it. Therefore, step-by-step tutorial is a great way to promote affiliate products (for example, How to Start a Blog Step-by-Step Tutorial).
Demo Videos. If you are into making videos, demo videos could be the most effective way to promote affiliate products. Again, show people how to use the product is a great way to promote your affiliate products.

Improve Your SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a blogging strategy to get your blog posts rank higher on search engine results such that more people can see your content.

The more views you get, the more chances your readers will end up purchasing from your affiliate links and the more money you will likely make.

You see, it all connects!

Search engine algorithm changes all the time, so it’s impossible to catch on every single change here. However, there are some best time-proven tactics that remained consistent.

Read this post to find out 7 stupid simple SEO tips for bloggers so that you can attract visitors to your blog and make money with affiliate marketing.

READY TO CREATE A BUSINESS AND A LIFE THAT YOU’LL LOVE?

Grab my FREE
PASSION TO PROFIT PLAYBOOK
and start turning your passion into a deeply satisfying, impactful, and profitable business.

Make Money.
Change The World.

Blog Consistently

If you really want to make money with affiliate marketing from your blog, you have to blog consistently.

Your readers will appreciate fresh and useful content from you and Search Engines will also reward you by ranking you higher.

Find a blogging schedule you are comfortable with – whether that is 3 times a week, once a week or once every 2 weeks. And then stick with it! It’s important to stay consistent.

Blogging is FUN, but preparing high-quality content can take a lot of your time. So instead of just posting randomly, find a schedule that works for you and start blogging!

You can do this, I believe in you!

In all honesty, just start! One year from now you’d wish you have started today!

You May Also Like:

Now it’s your turn. What‘s your biggest takeaway from this post? And what action steps are you going to take in order to make money with affiliate marketing? Comment below! I’d love to hear your thoughts and will get back to you.

Millie Leung

Millie Leung helps soul-centered, heart-driven women build a profitable online business and create a life they truly love.