Updated: December 31, 2022 by Bill Burniece
Introduction:
Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and easiest ways to grow a small business online from the comfort of your own home.
Or if you like traveling, the affiliate marketing model will allow you to work from anywhere on earth as long as you have an internet connection.
Whether you want to make a few hundred bucks part-time or build a multi-million dollar online empire full-time this business model will allow you the opportunity to do it.
On this page I’ll show you how to get started today even if you have no technical skills or experience.
Table Of Contents
Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing Today
The Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Training Guide
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Course Objectives
Step 1: Your First Day As An Affiliate Marketer
Step 2: Choosing Your First Affiliate Niche Market
Step 3: Choosing Your Domain Name And Getting Your Site Online
Step 4: Getting Your Affiliate Website Set Up
Step 5: Creating Content For Your Site
Step 6: How To Start Your Own Money Making List
Step 7: How To Start Getting Traffic To Your New Website
Setting Up Your Own Systems For Affiliate Success
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing enables you to sell other peoples products and services online and collect a handsome commission for doing so.
You don’t have to buy any of the products yourself, store inventory, do fulfillment, ship merchandise or even do any customer service. The company you are selling for handles all of those tasks so all you do is just sell and collect your commissions.
Whether you want to make a few hundred bucks part-time or build a multi-million dollar online empire full-time this business model will allow you the opportunity to do it.
It takes surprisingly little money to get started with affiliate marketing and you can start profiting within a week or so if you get started today.
Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing Today
- The affiliate marketing model allows you to earn a passive income each and every month in the area of interest or expertise of your choosing. There are endless possibilities online and there is absolutely no limit on the amount of money you can earn
- You can work from the comfort and convenience of your own home or anywhere you have internet access. You are your own boss so you can work when you want and on the projects of your choosing
- As an affiliate marketer you’re earning a commission for selling someone else’s product or service. As I mentioned above, you don’t have to do any product fulfillment, customer service, billing, or product creation because the vendor does all of that for you
- The playing field on the internet is still level meaning that an affiliate marketing beginner can directly compete with, and often out-perform, large companies. You may not believe this now; but it’s true
- Once you get rolling, you can make money around the clock – even when you’re not working. The systems you’ll set up are automated to earn you money 24/7/365
- You get to pick which companies to partner with and there are a ton of affiliate networks and programs out there for you to choose from. They all offer a different product, payout, angle and experience. This gives you unbelievable flexibility in setting up and running your business
- You don’t need to have a website or start your own blog. There are other ways to make money online that use other methods
- You can outsource most of the tasks involved in affiliate marketing if you prefer to do less work yourself
- This business model is super easy to scale up. Once you find a winning market and product or service you can build your income very quickly
- Affiliate marketing automation tools exist to help expedite nearly every task involved in your online business
- The barrier to entry in the affiliate marketing game is low since it takes a surprisingly small amount of money to get started.
Affiliate marketing has a very bright outlook. Internet marketing is forecasted to grow into a $500+ billion dollar industry by the year 2025. Think about that figure. All you need to do is grab your small piece of this enormous pie to make a large income - You do not need to create your own product to make money in affiliate marketing. But if you do decide to make your own product or service you can recruit other affiliate marketers to help do the selling for you
- Affiliate marketing often leads to bigger and better business ventures. As you grow your online business, other companies and marketers will begin to notice and you will likely get invited to participate in seminars, masterminds, joint ventures, startup opportunities and more. This business model promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and this industry is made up of individual tight relationships
I could go on and on with more reasons to get started today.
But it’s time to get you started…
The Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Training Guide
This training is set up to get you started in affiliate marketing in one short week. The lessons are divided into seven easy-to-complete daily tasks that will keep you on track and motivated to follow it to completion. You don’t need any experience or technical knowledge to follow this guide successfully.
I will show you step-by-step how to get your own affiliate marketing business up and running on a shoestring budget. I recommend that you do only one lesson per day so you don’t experience any overwhelm at trying to grasp the entire picture in one glance.
Step 1 – Planning Your Online Success And Setting Up Systems To Get You There
Step 2 – Researching & Choosing Your First Niche
Step 3 – Choosing Your Domain Name & Starting Your First Website
Step 4 – Setting Up Your New Website To Get It Found
Step 5 – Creating Content For Your Site
Step 6 – How To Start Building Your Own Money-Making List
Step 7 – Getting Initial Traffic To Your Site
In the course of a week you’ll learn what market to enter, how to choose a domain name, how to build your own website, how to generate traffic to your site and how to start making money online.
If you follow my lessons, you can be making money within the first 30 days from when you get started.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Course Objectives
At the end of this week you’ll have:
- Your affiliate marketing plan in place
- Your first website on your own domain live on the internet
- The website configured and set up
- The initial content created on your site
- Your essential web pages completed (Terms of Service, Privacy, About Us, etc.)
- Your list building account setup and ready to use
- The social media profiles for your business created and live
- Your strategy for initial traffic generation in place
You can go through this free course at your own pace.
But I recommend that you complete only one step each day and don’t skip ahead. I created it in way that breaks down a week’s worth of work into easily manageable bite-size pieces.
This will simplify the process and make it easy for you to follow through without feeling overwhelmed.
Instead of skipping ahead do each day’s work as well as you possibly can. Oh, and if you miss a day you can always catch up by going back and doing yesterday’s tasks first. But hopefully you’ll do the work over seven days the way it is intended.
Let’s get started…
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 1: Your First Day
Before we get started I think it’s important to recap the reasons why you should start affiliate marketing today.
After all, it’s a sense of purpose that builds motivation and creates momentum.
- Affiliate marketing is the fastest and easiest way to make a passive income each and every month. Whether you want to make a few hundred extra bucks part-time or build a million dollar online empire full-time this business model will allow you the opportunity to do it
- You get to work from the comfort and convenience of your own home or anywhere that you have an internet connection.
- The affiliate marketing game is still a level playing field which means that a beginner can directly compete with, and often out-perform, large companies
- It takes very little up-front money to start affiliate marketing which removes the most common barriers of entry associated with starting your own business (i.e brick and mortar costs)
- The market has a very bright future. Internet marketing is expected to grow into $7 billion dollars per year in the next five years
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 1 Objectives:
Planning Your Strategy And Setting Up Proper Systems To Help You Make Money As Quickly As Possible
I know what you’re probably thinking… is this about goal setting?
Goal-setting sucks. Right?
Don’t groan; we’re not going to focus on goals here. Instead we are going to focus on systems. I used to focus primarily on goal-setting to get to my destination until I read an article on entrepreneur.com by James Clear, who happens to be a behavioral science expert, as well as an entrepreneur and marketer.
Here’s an excerpt from that article to explain the difference between goal-setting and systems:
What’s The Difference Between Goals and Systems?
- If you’re a coach, your goal is to win a championship. Your system is what your team does at practice each day.
- If you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week.
- If you’re a runner, your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month.
- If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process.
Now for the really interesting question: If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still get results?*
The truth of the matter is that working on the internet is unlike any other job in the world. Working online exposes you to more distractions than any other line of work. You likely waste too much time on the internet now and that temptation and habit will always be a simple click away.
That’s why it’s imperative to implement systems. Systems will give you a roadmap of what you need to accomplish on a daily basis to keep you on track.
If you don’t have systems in place you’ll end up wasting valuable work time surfing the web instead. I see it happen all of the time. Internet marketing requires discipline to make sure you get your work done first each day before falling back into your site surfing routine. Separate your work time from your play time online.
The Clock Is Always Ticking
Unless you’re already wealthy you probably have only a limited amount of time to figure affiliate marketing out before you run out of cash, resources, and patience.
The easiest way to shorten the learning curve and accelerate your rate of success is to set up your systems, work toward your daily target, set ruthless deadlines, work fast, and stay on track until you get there.
How To Use Systems And The Feedback Loop
A feedback loop monitors the systems you set up using feedback that can be either positive or negative.
A system is a set of distinct parts that act together to form a more complex thing. In this context it would be your daily plan to get your online business running and then profitable. The ultimate goal of your system is to make $XXXX (what you’re aiming for) amount of money per month as an affiliate marketer.
Feedback loops give you an idea of whether or not your plan is working or not. A positive feedback loop means that your plan is functioning well and on track. A negative feedback loop means that there are problems in your system that need to be corrected.
Please note: If this feedback loop information is confusing to you please don’t worry. I’ll tie it all together for you at the end of the week. I promise.
How To Apply Systems To Affiliate Marketing:
OK, now let’s apply what we’ve learned so you can implement your own systems.
Luckily, this 7 day course is literally a system in itself so I’ve already set up the first week of your system for you. All you need to do is commit to doing one lesson each day for the next 7 consecutive days.
So here is your goal and the system that you need to get there:
You’re here now because your goal is to learn how to make money on the internet with affiliate marketing. Your system is to simply follow this 7 step system by following (only) one lesson per day for the next week.
At the end of the 7 day plan I’ll show you how to create new systems going forward in each of the areas you’ll need to work on to be successful. By then you’ll have your website created, initial content placed on your site, and your first visitors rolling in.
That’s it for today. Congratulations on completing step one. See you tomorrow. Try not to skip ahead.
I think it’s important to note that if you prefer traditional goal-setting to systems, than by all means use what works best for you. The point of focusing on systems is that many people get confused and bogged down by goal setting. But it’s your call so do what works for you.
This 7 day plan is divided into easy-to-digest bites that make it easy for you to accomplish the tasks each day without overwhelming you? That’s the entire key.
Remember, this is your first system so stick to it. Plus, nothing replaces repetition and creating momentum like doing something each day to get you a little closer to your goals.
In the next lesson you will learn how to choose your first niche market.
*excerpt 1 = entrepreneur.com
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 2: Choosing Your First Affiliate Niche Market
Choosing your first niche is an important step but certainly not a do-or-die decision. Your primary goal is to learn the process of how to pick a good affiliate marketing vertical market to enter.
If you choose the wrong niche out of the gate it’s no big deal. You just need to apply what you’ve learned and move on to the next one. If you do choose the wrong niche, you’ll want to fail as fast as possible so you can quickly move on to the next one.
In the beginning, your primary goal is to start earning a profit.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 2 Objective:
How To Choose Your First Affiliate Marketing Niche
One of the most important decisions you make out of the gate is which niche or market to go into first. For your first niche I suggest a topic that you’re either knowledgeable in or passionate about. Hopefully both.
But knowledge or interest in something doesn’t necessarily make it a lucrative market to go into online.
For example, if you’re passionate about a topic that is too narrow and doesn’t have a large enough audience than it’s probably not a good one to enter. On the other hand choosing a niche that’s too broad, such as the making money niche, will expose you to so much competition that you’ll have a real hard time gaining ground there either.
So What Niche Market Should You Choose?
When you’re just getting started you may want to choose one of the three best evergreen markets to enter online. They are as follows:
- Money
- Health
- Relationships
Now I know those are very broad topics. That’s OK, please stay with me, because we’re not done yet.
You can never go wrong if you pick a market related to one of these three topics. If you think about it they’re really the most important topics on everybody’s mind every single day. And they also seem to cause people the most problems as well (which is why they’re so damn good for us!).
People spend a lot of money and time trying to improve and iron out anything related to these three topics. That will always be the case so if you need some ideas just think about what problems people are always looking to solve. People are happy to part with some money to make life easier in these three key areas.
There is a ton of competition in these three niches but there’s also a ton of money being made as well. Competition in your niche is good since it proves that money is already being made in that niche. And you’re not going to be competing with all of them. Only a segment.
Should You Be A Big Fish In A Little Pond? Or A Little Fish In A Big Pond?
It’s your choice. Here are the two different schools of thought on niche selection.
Big Pond, Little Fish: Many marketers prefer to get into a huge online marketplace and carve out their little piece of the pie. Examples of these markets include the making more money niche or mental health solutions market
Little Pond, Big Fish: Others marketers like the idea of choosing a small segment of a large market and becoming the top dog in that segment. Examples of these markets (as smaller segments of the above examples) would be smart money management for seniors niche or the social anxiety in children market
See the difference?
Neither strategy is wrong. You just have to pick which one make the most sense to you. I happen to prefer the little pond, big fish strategy since I always enter a new market with the intent of being in it for the long haul so I know that if I start small I can always add other elements of that niche as I expand my reach and influence.
My Methodology For Niche Selection
I believe that once you choose a market you should look for untapped opportunities within the niche you’re exploring. Drill down into sub-niches of your target market to find aspects of it that are unexplored or barely touched. Think specialization and focus on becoming the expert on a particular issue or topic. Your goal should be to become the go-to marketer in a particular segment within that niche.
That’s what I did with the site you’re on now. While researching the affiliate marketing niche I noticed that nobody had really focused exclusively on the high-end of the market so that’s where I made my start. I learned as much as I could about this particular segment of the market until I could comfortably write and enlighten people about it. Before I knew it I was ranking high in the search engines on my keywords and had people coming to me for advice on high end affiliate programs and selling to the affluent.
mental health > anxiety disorders > social anxiety > panic attacks > panic attacks in children
If your chosen niche is extremely competitive you may need to drill down so far that the market segment may be too small for you to make decent money. That’s OK since you can start branching upward again once you start making your mark in your niche. Eventually through expansion you’ll have the market share you need.
Tips For Finding Lucrative Niches:
- As I stated earlier, start with your own passions, interests, hobbies, or any area you have expertise or interest in. It’s smart to make a short list of these to see which one has the most potential
- Look for competitors. Competition is good since it means others are already making money in that niche
- The three most evergreen niche categories in affiliate marketing include money, health, and relationships. These are things that are on everyone’s mind thus people will spend money on improving each of them. These hot categories will always provide good money-making opportunities for you
- Listen to other people. Have you ever spoken to someone at work or in a social atmosphere and been blown away by their passion for a particular topic? Genuine passion is unmistakable and it is often a great indicator of a potential niche market for you to explore
- Go and find the nearest magazine rack or stand. If you really think about it, magazines exist to cater to specific niche markets. If that niche market isn’t lucrative enough to pull in profitable advertising dollars, it will fail. So your research has been done for you! If there is a magazine for sale on a topic, there is money being made in it
- Search Google. Are people paying for ads for keywords on your topic or niche? If so, there is money being made in that space
- Check Google Keyword Planner to see how many searches per month are happening for keywords in your niche. This is a valuable free tool that will help you understand market size and actual search terms
- Go visit the bookstores before they’re all gone. Barnes and Noble is still around (I think). Take a look at the number of books on a specific topic. Also take note of the labels on the shelves and the categorization of broad topics. There is a ton of data looking right back at you. Plus, you can find plenty of magazines here too
- If you’re targeting the affluent market look for unique, exclusive, and hard-to-find products and services. Like the 1000+ affiliate programs you’ll find here on my site
- If you’re targeting the low end of the market look for solutions to problems instead of vanity products. The key is to look for things that people have to buy rather than want to buy. (i.e. anti-anxiety, weight loss, diabetes control, phobias, fears, etc). Look for a topic that gets people emotionally charged with either a pain, a passion, or a frustration
- Pay attention to TV commercials. Television is a trend-driven medium. Notice not only what they’re selling to you but the angle their taking to get your attention and act on your impulses. There is a lot to be learned here because companies spend a ton of money on television ads to get it right
- Drill down into your market for sub-niches. Go an inch wide and a mile deep. Are there opportunities to expand your market once you pick a topic? Are there multiple products and services for sale in this niche?
- Go to ebay.com and amazon.com to see what’s hot over there. Amazon has simple tools that allow you to browse by subject, popularity, sales, and even analyze trends with their “Movers and Shakers” feature. It’s been awhile since I was on eBay but I believe they have similar features to help you scoop up valuable niche data
- Focus on one niche to start with and become a go-to person in that niche or topic. Don’t be a “jack of all trades – master of none”. If your first niche doesn’t work out quickly find a new one. If you’re going to fail then try fail fast and keep moving
- Go to clickbank.com which is the holy grail of digital information products. I say that because they really are the largest and most profitable digital retailer in the world. Their marketplace is loaded with tens of thousands of products that you can sort by market, popularity, price, longevity, etc. If you’re not making money on clickbank right now you need to get started… now
- Follow the money. Do a little digging around on Google for what people are spending money on right now. Go where the money is flowing and set up shop
- Think about the future. For example, I know for a fact that driverless cars are the next HUGE market. So I jumped on and purchased several domains in that space for future sites. I did the same thing with the drone market. You should too
- Is the market or niche sustainable? Following trends is good for some quick cash but will that money flow last in the long run? Think about what happened to Beanie Babies. People that invested thousands of dollars in them were left with boxes full of useless, worthless, and ugly-ass dolls
- Think about specialized information i.e How to tie flies for fly fishing. Or how to add 20 yards to your golf drive. It’s little niches like these that people are extremely passionate about and will always be willing to spend money on
- Take a stroll over to magazines.com. This website is a wonderful resource for finding a ton of niche markets. The magazines are even broken down into categories and ranked by popularity. This is a goldmine folks!
- Listen to what people are bitching about. People like to yap about all the problems they have in life. It’s annoying yes, but it can also clue you in to what problems people are looking to solve to help simplify their lives. If one person has a problem, it’s likely that many other people share that problem. Think of it this way, wherever there is a problem, there is an opportunity. Solve it for them and make money. Then hang around to see what they will bitch about next!
- Think! Use your intuition, brainpower, and powers of observation to solve problems. Some of the best ideas ever thought of were results from initial mistakes or applications of other ideas applied way outside the box.
- So start digging into the possibilities and choose your first niche.
That’s it for today. Congratulations on completing day two. See you tomorrow. Try not to skip ahead.
I think it’s important to note that if you prefer traditional goal-setting to systems, than by all means use what works best for you. The point of focusing on systems is that many people get confused and bogged down by goal setting. But it’s your call so do what works for you.
This 7 day plan is divided into easy-to-digest bites that make it easy for you to accomplish the tasks each day without overwhelming you? That’s the entire key.
Remember, this is your first system so stick to it. Plus, nothing replaces repetition and creating momentum like doing something each day to get you a little closer to your goals.
In the next lesson you will learn how to choose your first domain name and get your affiliate marketing website started.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 3: Choosing Your Domain Name And Getting Your Site Online
Today I’ll provide you some tips to help you choose your first domain name.
This is where your business comes alive.
Next I will show you step-by-step how to secure your domain name and get your first website up and running. Getting your first affiliate marketing website up and running is so easy a child can do it so please don’t worry about being inexperienced.
Before I get to the tips let me say a few things about domains.
First, domain names are very important to your success. Luckily, they’re still extremely cheap to buy so if you pick the wrong domain name early on it’s not going to become one of those budget-busting mistakes that can kill your business. Just pick another domain name and keep moving.
Secondly, the days of finding simple, short, and concise domain names are long gone but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find that perfect domain name that can help you make big bucks online as an internet marketer. So don’t get discouraged initially when you find that all one-word domains and most two-word domains are already taken or for sale. You’ll find a good domain name that will work just fine.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 3 Objective:
Pick Your Niche Domain Name And Start Your Website
This is where the fun starts and where you affiliate marketing business starts to take shape. Domain names are important but like choosing your niche, if you make a mistake its not the end of the world. Domain names are cheap so don’t get stuck on this step trying to come up with the perfect domain name.
Here are some tips:
How To Choose A Good Domain Name For Your Affiliate Site
1. Research Actual Search Terms And Phrases Being Used Now In Your Market
Use Google Keyword Planner (which has replaced the Google Keyword Tool) or another service to determine what phrases and keywords people are searching for now to locate your niche products and services. Write down 5-7 keywords and phrases being used in your chosen niche that can help you pick your domain name. Take note which version of your words get more searches – singular or plural (i.e. boat vs. boats).
2. Try To Include Niche Keywords In Your Domain Name
Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) like keywords in the domain name to let searchers know at a glance what the site’s content is about. There is much debate about whether its better to have keywords at the beginning of the domain name instead of at the end (i.e dogtrainingexperts.com vs. bestdogtraining.com) but I have yet to see enough evidence to convince me either way. Just make sure they’re in there somewhere.
3. Choose A dot.com Name If At All Possible 
Dot.com is still the place to be. People automatically type in “whatever keyword they’re looking for”.com out of habit and only look elsewhere if they cannot find it there. It will take more work to find a good .com name but they’re still out there. More on this later.
4. Keep The Domain Name As Short As You Can
I know. That’s rich coming from a dude using the very, very short domain name highpayingaffiliateprograms.com right? There are exceptions. In my case, my domain name tells visitors exactly what they’ll find here. But as a general rule a shorter domain name is better. Which leads me to this…
5. Narrow And Specific Words Are Better Than Broad And General
Choose a name that narrows down your topic to your sub-niche if possible. For example, if you plan to sell affiliate products such as furniture targeting women buyers don’t choose a broad domain name such as bestfurnituredeals.com. Instead select something like furnitureforwomen.com. Lame example I know but I think you get the point.
6. Avoid Hyphens, Numbers, Or Any Other Funky Characters In Your Domain
Not necessarily because they don’t rank well but because people have trouble including them when they’re looking for your site. Make it as easy as possible for people to find you and your site.
7. Choose A Domain That’s Easy To Spell
If your chosen niche is selling xylophones then I guess you’re shit out of luck. Other than that make sure people can spell it right the first time. When you tell someone what your domain name is they should be able to type it in right the very first time.
8. Be Very Careful Not To Violate Copyrighted Names Or Brands
Be very careful if you plan on using a brand name of an affiliate product or service. Most companies will not allow this and in fact can be illegal. When in doubt contact the company first and ask them if you can use it. Or search the uspto.gov trademark name database yourself here. It’s free to use.
9. Don’t Follow The Latest Domain Name Trends. Trends come and go and your goal should be to make your website relevant and timeless. One trendy example I can remember is when everyone was buying domains such as best”insert-your-market-or-product-here”.com sites. That trend worked well in the search engines for awhile until Google sniffed it out and put an end to it just like they will the next trend.
Follow the simple tips above and don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. In fact, one of the best strategies online is to do the exact opposite of what the herd is doing. This makes you stand out and you may find other people copying your strategy after a while. But that’s another topic for another day.
Getting Your Domain And Affiliate Website Live
Below is a step-by-step tutorial that will show you how to buy your new domain and get your new affiliate marketing website online in minutes.
If you’re technically challenged like I am, please don’t be intimidated by the task of getting your website created. It’s a lot easier than it sounds so please trust me and allow me to show you how it’s done. I’ve personally built dozens of websites from scratch using this method with absolutely zero prior experience. And so will you.
I’ve made this simple by including screen shots of each step. But since the website linked below does not belong to me, there’s always the possibility that these steps/screenshots will be updated. If the screenshots are out of date they should still follow the basic flow. If not, please let me know so I can update them.
Start Your Affiliate Marketing Website:
3 Simple Steps:
- Get Your Own Domain Name And Hosting
- Install WordPress
- Start Making It Your Own
Click here: Bluehost to get your hosting account. Bluehost is great since it’s simple to use, even without any technical knowledge or experience.
My link will lead you to a special new customer discount page that I’ve arranged with Bluehost for you. After clicking through my link, click on the big green button seen below. (This will open Bluehost in a new tab so you can click back on this tab to continue the step-by-step instructions):
Next, you’ll land on a page with your plan selections. Since you’re just starting out I recommend the Starter plan since it is the cheapest and you can always upgrade later. Your Starter plan will include everything that you need including:
- Hosting
- Domain Name
- Email Account For Your New Site
Please note the starter plan is usually billed annually but it will also save you some money instead of paying monthly.
Once you hit the green Select button you’ll end up on the domain name page. This is where the fun begins.
In part one of this lesson you should have chosen a good, short, easy-to-spell and relevant domain name for your business.
Oh, and if you already have a domain registered elsewhere, you can have the domain transferred to Bluehost for free and receive an additional year of registration added on to the end of your current term. Cool.
If the domain name you choose is already taken, you’ll be instructed to choose a different one. After you select your domain name and hit the NEXT button you’ll go to the account info page here:
You’ll have some optional services to select from but you don’t have to choose these now. These options include:
- Domain Privacy Protection
- Site Backup Pro
- Search Engine Jumpstart
- SiteLock Security
Pay for your selected package and you’ll be directed to choose your password:
Congratulations; you are all done with Step 1.
Step #2) Setting Up WordPress:
Next select either Business or Personal for your website designation:
Now simply click the blue Launch button:
Next give your new website a title and description. For example, Title: Funniest Cat Videos. Description: A collection of the funniest cat videos in the world.
Finally, log in to your new website:
That’s it. There’s a final third step, which is setting up your website and making it yours. But that’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.
In the next lesson you will learn how to start customizing your website.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 4: Getting Your Affiliate Website Set Up
Welcome to step 4. You’re already halfway done so congratulations on your progress so.
You’re well on your way to making money online with affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 4 Objective:
Setting Up & Personalizing Your New Affiliate Website
Today you will breathe life into your new affiliate website and make it your own. I think you’ll really like how easy it is to create your own site. WordPress makes it simple to create something wonderful from nothing. Below I’ve uploaded a ten part video on everything you need to know about WordPress. The videos loop one after another or you can skip forward or backwards if you would like.
Here is what you’ll learn:
WordPress Walkthrough Video Series:
- Video 1: Overview Of WordPress & Installation 3:51
- Video 2: Navigating The Login & Admin Area 4:54
- Video 3: How To Create Pages 8:52
- Video 4: How To Make Blog Pages 6:37
- Video 5: How To Use Categories And Tags 4:21
- Video 6: Installing And Using Plugins 7:18
- Video 7: Customizing Your Theme 7:25
- Video 8: Using The Menus & Widgets 5:15
- Video 9: How To Create & Manage Users 3:16
- Video 10: How To Market Your New Website 3:54
Here you go:
Which Website Theme Should You Use?
It’s purely up to you and the one you select should obviously be a good match for your topic. You can start with one of many free themes you’ll find at wordpress.org. Or if you want a high-quality theme with more flexibility of design, like the one used on this site, you’ll find a link to find my exact paid theme below this section.
Theme Elements To Look For
- Choose a WordPress theme that best fits your content and is most appealing to your target audience. Nearly all themes are customizable by color, number of columns, widgets, and other key features so you’ll have plenty of creative space to make it your own and make it stand out. If you find the perfect theme but don’t like the images it comes with you can switch them out on most themes.
- It’s vital now (in 2016 and beyond) to choose a theme that is responsive. Responsive themes automatically adjust the appearance of your content to fit smaller browsers to ensure your website looks right to each visitor. The theme description should designate if it’s responsive or not.
- All WordPress sites on wordpress.org come with user reviews, number of downloads, and theme updates. This info will appear on the right hand side of your screen. Make sure to consider all of these factors when choosing your theme. Pick one that is popular, well liked, and updated frequently to help you shorten your learning curve.
To check out Elegant Themes click the banner below now:
4 Profitable Affiliate Site Models To Choose From
Now that you have both your niche and domain name it’s time to decide your approach to getting your message to your target audience. There are several time-tested affiliate marketing models for you to choose from. Here are four good ones:
1. Your Own Personal Affiliate Blog
Personal affiliate sites focus primarily on you and your area of expertise or knowledge. It allows you to demonstrate your knowledge and build personal trust that will allow you to promote affiliate products from your site visitors.
If you choose this model you’ll have the best results if you post high-quality content daily and interact with your audience through social media, questions and answers, and email. Expect to be very personally involved with your audience since this model demands the most from you. Further, it takes some time to build both your reputation and your audience so have some patience using this approach.
One of my favorite personal affiliate blogs is: https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/. Matthew always posts killer content, is a professional, and loves interacting with his audience. This is how you should model your own blog.
2. A Product Review Site
The product review website model is great since many shoppers use the internet to save time researching their potential purchases. If you choose this website type be prepared to face alot of competition. Since there are so many review sites out there you must find an approach or ‘hook’ that is unique to set your site apart. It’s best to drill down into a small segment of your niche and expand from there instead of casting a large net over an entire market.
It’s important to choose a niche that you either know a lot about or are passionate about. If you come across as inexperienced or unknowledgable your visitors will likely go somewhere else – fast! An example of a product review site is consumerreports.org. This is also a good example of how NOT to start your own review site. Start by focusing only on a small portion of your market and not the entire enchilada or you’re going to be invisible to your prospects.
Review site monetization comes from affiliate sales, referrals, and promotions.
3. An Authority Website
The authority website model is the model I chose for the site you’re on now: highpayingaffiliateprograms.com. An authority website is a very high quality website that is respected by knowledgeable people in that niche or industry. It’s usually a large website that is deep in content and covers all topics related to that particular market. It becomes the go-to source for that specific segment.
Please note that in making this site I focused not on the broad topic of internet marketing as whole but primarily on the higher-end segment of affiliate marketing. That is how I suggest you start your website regardless of the model you choose.
Authority websites take years to develop so if you choose this model make sure you have other income streams coming in while you build it out. The monetization options for authority sites are only limited by your imagination. Advertising, straight affiliate marketing, 2nd-tier models, paid reviews, JV’s, are just a few examples of how to make income from authority sites.
4. A Price Comparison Website
Price comparison sites differ from product review sites in that they compare several companies instead of individual products. For now they’re mainly found in large markets such as appliances, cars, travel, electronics, and insurance. This leaves lots of opportunity for you in smaller niche markets where there is plenty of money to be made.
These sites allow consumers to find the best price prior to being sent to the retailer’s site where you’ll get the referral fee or share of the commission depending upon the comp model you choose.
A good example of a price comparison site is pricegrabber.com. But again, you’ll want to start small and not try to compete directly with a behemoth like this one.
In the next lesson you’ll start adding content to your new affiliate site.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 5: Creating Content For Your Site
hey’ve always said that content is king in the online marketing world and I think that still holds true today. If you don’t have good content that compels your site visitors to stick around, they will go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 5 Objectives:
Creating Content For Your Site
Not everyone is born a good writer. Fortunately, in internet marketing, you don’t have to have world-class writing skills to make money from your site. You just have to be able to effectively communicate your message to your audience. And most importantly your content is much more important than your writing style.
Now if even simple writing is out of your comfort zone you can outsource this task and find someone to write it for you. It’s very inexpensive to find PLR content or ghost writers to help you. If you do go this route make sure you make it sound like its coming from you so you don’t miss out on that critical personal connection.
Give your readers the information that they want and they’ll reward you with links, social shares, referrals, comments, buzz, and most importantly – sales. If you’re not sure what information they want ask them by using free surveys such as Surveymonkey to find out.
Your ultimate goal should be to become the go-to-person in your niche. Your mission is to find the most relevant, timely, and compelling information about your topic that you can and write about it. And you must provide it on a consistent basis to keep your readers coming back again and again for more.
Three Content Strategies
If you’re worried about finding time to write your content I completely understand. We’re all busy. And its possible that you’re getting started with affiliate marketing in your spare time while you work another full time job to pay the bills. It’s often challenging to find time to run your online business, along with any other job you may have, and still come up with ideas for original content to share with your readers on your topic. The good news is not only do you not have to, but your audience doesn’t expect you to either.
The answer is through OPC (other peoples content) and there are two primary ways to do that. Content curation and aggregation are two marketing strategies that often get confused with one another.
Strategy 1: Content Curation
Curation is the process when you manually search the internet for select content that is relative to your niche and share it with them. Articles, case studies, reports, and training that your audience finds informative, interesting, and valuable.
Strategy 2: Content Aggregation:
Aggregation is content curation that’s done using automated methods. It allow you to syndicate other marketers content feeds or streams usually targeted by keywords relevant to your niche or topic.
If you don’t have enough time to create your own unique content the next best thing, in my opinion, is content curation. If you decide to go this route, make sure to add your own analysis, opinion, critique, or insight to the content that will appeal to your audience. This is the biggest difference between content curation and content aggregation.
You don’t have to come up with all of the original ideas in your marketplace. You can become known as an authority by just getting good at finding the best content out there and including your own unique spin on it.
Spend the time necessary to find only the best content to share. You can do this by following other people in your niche on all of the social media platforms and setting up keyword alerts in the search engines. Then take time to read through it and present your own take on the content and be sure to demonstrate your expertise on the topics. Do that and you will begin to attract your own following who will in turn share your content and bring you and your site more traffic along the way.
Strategy 3: Your Own Original Content
Creating your own unique content is by far the best approach but also requires the most work. Creating your own quality content not only allows you to demonstrate your expertise but to gain trust and get people to like you.
Now if you would like to create more than one post today please go for it. See you tomorrow.
In the next lesson you will learn how to start your own private list of fans, prospects and customers.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 6: How To Start Your Own Money Making List
One of the most important decisions you make out of the gate is which niche or market to go into first. For your first niche I suggest a topic that you’re either knowledgeable in or passionate about. Hopefully both.
One of the most important decisions you make out of the gate is which niche or market to go into first. For your first niche I suggest a topic that you’re either knowledgeable in or passionate about. Hopefully both.
But knowledge or interest in something doesn’t necessarily make it a lucrative market to go into online.
For example, if you’re passionate about a topic that is too narrow and doesn’t have a large enough audience than it’s probably not a good one to enter. On the other hand choosing a niche that’s too broad, such as the making money niche, will expose you to so much competition that you’ll have a real hard time gaining ground there either.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 6 Objectives:
Set Up Your Listbuilding Automation
Because, as an affiliate marketer, that’s where the real money is made. The money really IS in your list.
Equally important to the money is the fact that your email list is one of the few elements of your online business that you’ll have 100% control over. Marketing to your own private list of customers, fans, and followers will always be under your control. That’s not necessarily true with traffic generation methods, affiliate offers, social media platforms, and SEO.
Your list is the best way to communicate with and engage your audience with information, news, and tutorials. They’ll subscribe to your list because they’re interested in what you have to say. They’re your fans; they like you.
List building is vital because it dramatically increases your chances of making a sale to your visitors. Trying to sell something to people upon their first visit to your website is NOT. That only gives you one shot at a sale and the percentages of a first-visit cold-sale are very poor.
Your only goal should be to get that first time visitor to sign up for your list. I’ll get into how to do just that further down this page.
Most list building experts believe that on each subscriber on your list is worth around $1 per month in income. Now I don’t have any quantitative data to support this assertion but that figure is very close to what I earn monthly from my own lists.
List Building Is Easy
Just like getting your first website started, list building is simple. All lists, regardless of size, were created one email address at at time. One of the best ways to learn list building is to select a few affiliate marketers that you know and like and simply subscribe to their lists. You’ll quickly grasp what its all about.
List building is easier than you may think. List building software tools automate the entire process for you once you get it set up and getting started is simple.
There are many list building software products to choose from but in my opinion the gold standard is still AWeber. I’ve used it for all of my list building for a decade now and still love it.
AWeber Is An Autoresponder Email System
What is an autoresponder? It’s a program that automatically generates messages sent to each person on your email address.
Click Here: AWeber
Besides your domain and hosting account that you’ve already set up, an AWeber account is the only other vital expense you’ll need to get going the right away. There are alternatives out there but I believe AWeber is second to none when it comes to email automation reliability. So get your account and go to step 2.
Now that you have your email software system in place you’re ready for the next phase – the ethical bribe. An ‘ethical bribe’ is simply something of value that you’ll exchange for the email addresses of the subscribers you want to attract. The ethical bribe is especially important now since people are becoming increasingly concerned about their online privacy. You’ll need a strong valuable freebie to get them to part with their email address.
“Match Bait To Critter. If you want a yard full of deer, do not put a 50-pound block of cheddar cheese outside. Put out a big salt block.” – Dan Kennedy
The ethical bribe is not only intended to build your email list but also your credibility too. It’s your opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge in your niche and connect with your audience on a personal level. For this site I use my Super Affiliate Handbook.
Types Of Ethical Bribes:
- ebooks
- audio interviews
- resource lists
- free reports
- software
- template
- tutorial
- mini-courses
- videos
- quick-start guides
- access to private site area or forum
Where To Get Your Ethical Bribe:
The best way is to create your own. After all, if you don’t know enough about your topic to share some valuable insight about your topic perhaps you better choose another one right? You can do a simple one-page report or a more robust ebook.
If this is outside of your comfort zone or you would rather outsource this task that’s OK too. Fiverr.com is a great place to find help fast with your ethical bribe and probably for only five bucks! Another option for buying an ethical bribe is to look on a PLR (private label rights) catalog site like this one for rebrandable ebooks, articles, videos, and more.
Whether you know it or not you’re getting bombarded by ethical bribes every day. You get ethical bribes in the mail all the time including coupons, limited time discounts (sales), buy one get one free deals, bonus products when you buy, free trials, etc. People respond to these types of offers and always will.
Just remember that the key to your giveaway is that it needs to not only be something of value but something relevant to your target market. Remember Dan Kennedy’s quote above? The more relevant and valuable your bribe is the higher your response rate will be, the larger your list will become, and the more money you will make.
Delivery Of Your Ethical Bribe
I believe there is a tutorial on various delivery methods you can use on the AWeber site. If not let me know and I’ll put together a tutorial here.
Now that you have your list building software and ethical bribe selected it’s time to set up the email capture forms on your website. Don’t worry it’s easy! In fact, AWeber supplies WordPress-ready tools for you to use.
The web form is one of the most important components of any email marketing campaign. Without a way to sign up to your list, you’ll have a hard time finding anyone to send email to. That being the case, you want to make sure that your web forms are getting people to sign up. Your ethical bribe should be clearly stated front and center and your opt-in form needs to be placed where it will get their attention. You can see mine on the homepage of this site as an example.
When it comes to opt-in templates you’ll find dozens to choose from on AWeber and every one of them is customizable to fit your site’s color theme. Plus the AWeber opt-in designer, as well as their other tools, are super easy and fast to use.
Simply pick the template you like, make any minor edits needed, and place it on your site. There are step-by-step tutorials available to walk you through the process effortlessly even if you’re a non-tech newbie.
Where To Place Your Opt-In Forms:
You’ll want to place your opt-in form on the home page (near the top above the fold) and a few other strategically-placed areas on your site. Here are some good places for your opt-in forms:
- Home page (of course)
- Top of sidebar
- Footer area
- On your About You page
- At the bottom of a post on your site
Personally I avoid pop-up boxes since they upset so many people and they’re also so 1990. I believe you never want to start your relationship with your subscribers by pissing them off. But if you disagree you’re welcome to test pop-ups on your site if you like to. Speaking of testing, I highly recommend you test several different opt-in forms on your site and keep track of which one converts at the highest rate. The AWeber dashboard will help you do just that, and there are tutorials on setting up split-testing opt-in forms there too.
Before you can turn on your new automated list-building machine that will work for you 24/7 you have one more task to complete. And it’s important too because it will become the first impression you make to your new subscribers so you want to make sure you come across the way you want to be perceived.
As you’ve learned by now the best part of auto-responder software like AWeber is that your messages are delivered to your subscribers automatically, and in the proper order, as they join your list. To make this magic happen you’re going to have to write an initial welcome email and perhaps at least a few follow up messages.
How Many Follow Up Emails Do You Need?
So how many messages do you need to write before sending people into your list funnel? That’s a great question and one without a definitive answer. It depends upon how much work you want to do up front and how timely and relevant you want your messages to be.
I’ve opted in to lists that have anywhere from one to sixty messages already completed, queued, and ready to deliver. If you’re more hands-off you may want to write as many messages as you can up front to minimize your work on the back end. If you’re more involved in your business on a daily basis you may want to consider writing only one or two autoresponder messages and the rest live and delivered as a broadcast message. A broadcast message is one that’s sent immediately and not pre-scheduled.
I learned list building from the legendary marketer Frank Kern (you’re welcome Frank). Frank prefers to write and queue only one initial welcome message and the rest he delivers live as a broadcast message. This does take more work but keeps your messages timely, relevant, and news-worthy. Ultimately it’s up to you on how to implement your list strategy.
How Often Should You Email Your List?
This too is discretionary since frequency is really your decision. Plus every niche is different. Many guru’s believe you should email you list every single day. For me personally I think this is a little overkill simply because when I send a message to my list I want it to be something very good so I tend to be selective in what I send instead of looking for ‘something’ to send my list every day just on principal. In my experience people get tired of being bombarded by too many messages that are thin on content or 99% promotional. You need to give before you can get.
Great job. Look at how much you’ve gotten done already.
Tomorrow we’ll start looking at traffic generation techniques. See you then.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Step 7: How To Start Getting Traffic To Your Affiliate Marketing Website
Welcome to day 7. Start by reviewing your goals and plans. Hopefully after today you’ll continue to do this every single day. Not just to keep on track but to make adjustments to keep your goals relevant.
Affiliate Marketing Course Day 7 Objective:
Getting Traffic To Your Website
Now that you have your website up and running you need to start generating traffic to your site since obviously nothing happens without it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes time so don’t expect to see your website listed in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) right away. It will get there but for now you need to focus your efforts on other traffic generation methods.
Oh, and don’t worry too much about not getting loads of traffic right away. Your website doesn’t have enough content yet to keep them on it and it’s too early to try to monetize that traffic. What you should focus on is making friends and letting people know you exist. More on that below.
The Reality Of Traffic Getting To Your Affiliate Marketing Site
The reality is, that at this point, nobody knows your website exists. It’s your job to start getting the word out. But before you do that you need to set up a way to know where your traffic is coming from first. Luckily there is a simple, free way to do just that.
Go to both Google Analytics And Google Webmaster Tools and set up a free account. These valuable free tools will provide critical intel on how people are getting to your site and what they do when they get there.
Google Analytics will show you the amount, type, and source of your traffic on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. It will also show you visitor behavior such as click-through path, bounce rate, conversion rates, and time on your site.
Google Webmaster Tools will provide you data on how your site is seen (or not seen) by the search engines. It will alert you to problems on your website such as coding errors, broken links, and dreaded malware. Further, you’ll get valuable data on top search queries, search results, and linking structure.
Understanding your traffic data is vital to the success of your website and will help you make well-informed decisions on which traffic sources to focus on and other ones to avoid.
Don’t worry if all of this data looks foreign to you at first; because it will. You’ll figure it out over time as you build both your website and your traffic.
Initial Traffic Sources:
One of the fastest ways to get your initial traffic is through social media channels. As I mentioned above, you should be focusing on making friends and letting people know you exist and social media is the right place to do that.
Social Media
Start with Facebook and Twitter. You’ll find many video tutorials on Youtube that will help you set up your profiles and accounts. Once you setup your accounts start ‘liking’ and ‘following’ other marketers and people who are in your niche. Take note of what type of content they’re posting and sharing. Start sharing your own content when it’s posted on your site. Other good sites are LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, and Instagram. Pay attention to what kind of people frequent each social media channel. Are they your targeted visitor? If not, where do they hang out?
Content Marketing
One of the quickest ways to get your site found is to post content on a daily basis. The search engines love fresh content and if you regularly post it your site will get indexed faster and have regular visits by their automated ‘robots’ to find more.
Produce and share only high quality, relevant information. The better your content the more it will be linked to and shared by others. You don’t have to be a pulitzer prize winning author to post good content. Just be yourself.
Link Building
Link building has evolved over the years but is still considered an essential part of getting your site ‘found’. The best link strategy is writing and sharing great content that others will link to without you even asking. Think of it as a positive ‘vote’ for your site.
You can also leave comments on other websites and blogs with your url linking back to your site.
Paid Ads
I highly suggest that you avoid paying for ads right out of the gate. Unless you know what you’re doing it’s the fastest way to lose all of your money. Focus on free traffic methods for now. When it comes time for paid ads you’ll find some valuable credits in your Bluehost account.
So What Should You Do Next?
Remember on day one when we talking about setting up systems? We’ll you just completed your first system which is this 7 day tutorial. By doing so you accomplished the goal of getting your internet business started. Now it’s time for you to set up some new systems going forward.
Setting Up Your Own Systems For Affiliate Success:
Determine how much time per week you have to work on your online business. Are you only able to work a few hours per day while you work somewhere else or are you going in full-time?
Create a daily plan (or system) that works well with your schedule. Don’t worry about perfection here since this plan is flexible using the feedback loop method explained on Day 1.
Tasks to work into your daily schedule:
- Content creation. Try to work on adding content and improving your site every day
- Build your email list and your audience
- Share other people’s content and engage on social media channels
- Learn basic SEO techniques to further enhance your site’s visibility
- Make a list of affiliate products that tie nicely into your niche
Plan your system and begin working your plan. Make adjustments to keep yourself on track and keep learning.
I have a ton of free articles and resources here on my website to help you accomplish all of your daily tasks.
But first, click the green button below to go grab this free guide on what’s working in affiliate marketing in 2023:
The truth is that in affiliate marketing it takes the same amount of time & energy to promote a product or service that pays you $500.00 than it does to promote a product that only pays you $29.00. Doesn’t it make sense to get paid more money for doing the same amount of work? Let me teach you how to sell high ticket products and services for high paying commissions.
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If you have any questions please make sure to contact me: bill@highpayingaffiliateprograms.com
