Ever thought about earning without investing much in the web? We know most of us have and that is why the term “Affiliate Marketing” has become so popular these days. Basically, it is an effective way of making money online by promoting products or services. Let me explain the concept with an easy example.
Suppose, you are an affiliate for the website www.getsuited.com. It is an online store for readymade suits and fabrics. Now, you decide to post attractive pictures of the suits in your blog with the website link.
A friend of yours read the blog and instantly fell in love with the suit fabrics. If he buys something from getsuited.com, you will get a cut from it. The customer got what he wanted, the site earned their revenue and you earned easy money just by connecting the person to that store.
Everyone wins in this process. The coolest way to income ever! Isn’t it?
But… hey hold on right there! If you are new to it, you aren’t prepared yet to busk in the money ocean. Affiliate marketing might seem very remunerative, yet there are 7 major things that you need to know to master the art. Let's have a look at those affiliate marketing hacks!
- Choose a Profitable Niche for You
- Research Target Audience
- Select a Reputed Affiliate Program
- Build a Website for Your Affiliate Marketing
- Create Content: Bring Life to Your Site
- Give Your Links a Professional Look
- Make Solid Plans for Customer Acquisition
Note: Since Affiliate Marketing is a vast topic, so we have published two blogs to cover everything about Affiliate Marketing. This is the first blog, where we will lay the groundwork for affiliate marketing. At the end of this blog, we will provide a link to our second blog, which covers more advanced strategies and in-depth insights. So, don't forget to check that!
1. Choose a Profitable Niche for You
As a beginner, before becoming an affiliate for a company, you might consider your targets first. Identifying the right niche for you will start your success lobby. Two things to look carefully while selecting your niche –
a) Are you passionate about it?
b) Does it bring money for you?
Asking these two questions to yourself shall give you a fruitful decision. If you are passionate about fashionable suits, you can build your blog around it.
It will help you to promote premium suits and rich fabrics more meaningfully to your audience. Without real passion for the products that you are promoting, you can’t reach to the target audience for the product.
There also has to be a decent demand for the products in the market. If there aren’t then the money source is quite narrow.
So, a sector that you are passionate about also needs customers who are passionate about buying too! It is a three-way business, but here the duel is between you and the customers.
2. Research Target Audience
When starting in affiliate marketing, it's important to research your target audience. This means getting to know the people you want to reach with your affiliate promotions. Find out who they are, what they like, what challenges they face, and how they make purchasing decisions.
Here are some quick steps to research your audience:
- Create buyer personas: Imagine your ideal audience members and create profiles for them, including details like age, interests, and problems they need solutions for.
- Conduct surveys and interviews: Talk to your audience or potential customers to learn more about their preferences and motivations.
- Check online communities: Explore forums and social media groups where your target audience hangs out. See what they're talking about and what questions they have.
- Use keyword research: Find popular search queries and topics related to your niche. This helps you understand what people are looking for.
- Watch your competitors: Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing to target the same audience. Learn from their strategies and content.
By researching your target audience, you can tailor your affiliate marketing approach to connect with them on a deeper level. This will help you create content that resonates and drives better results.
3. Select a Reputed Affiliate Program
After you have found out the answers to the previous question, start looking for a solid marketplace. Clickbank, Amazon, Flexoffers, ShareaSale, CJ Affiliate, Avantlink are some of the options you can with.
After selecting your marketplace, the first thing to do is that, look for the availability of affiliate programs for your niche. Without having an affiliate program for your niche, you simply can’t start anything.
However, don’t worry! The enlisted marketplace above has more than hundreds of affiliate programs. Picking the right affiliate program might be tricky because you need to consider a few crucial things.
For example the cost of registration, compatibility with your promotional medium, commission scheme, and a few other things.
4. Build a Website for Your Affiliate Marketing
The paperwork is done for the moment as you proceed to this stage. YES! Your very own website. There are certain things you have to do step by step to create a constructive website.
The first & foremost thing to do is purchase a domain. It does not cost much. But make sure the domain name is not too long and it sounds relevant and catchy.
Don't be hesitant to buy a web host. It comes with lots of benefits like reliable maintenance, consistent bandwidth, domain flexibility, support, and so on.
In the future, if you want to monetize your website through Google ads, having your own hosting is a must for you. And now it is very easy to migrate to another hosting. So you do not need to worry about that as well.
And obviously, we would highly recommend you to build your site with WordPress. Reason? There are plenty. But just keep these two things in mind that the WordPress platform was built in SEO friendly way. It guarantees higher chances of netizens finding your website. Secondly, most of the affiliate marketing tools can be easily integrated with a WordPress site.
5. Create Content: Bring Life to Your Site
No, we are not saying your website is a zombie or something dark. Your website is the structure, just like a human body. Human bodies work because they have souls. Now, what is the soul of your website? CONTENTS! The soul of your website.
Content creation is the only way you can bring your website in 100% action. Designing content is much more important for an affiliate than creating original content from scratch. Your website should contain certain things that might help your visitors move across the website very comfortably. Blog posts, reviews, tips, product details, etc. matter so much to a customer.
Your job is to present these features on your website in a way that visitors can know everything they want to know just from your content. If they have to google things to get the details of your products, then your content is not accurate and complete.
Also, your content has to be optimized for the search engine. Because it matters a lot when people are searching for similar kinds of things on the web.
6. Give Your Links a Professional Look
Yes, how your links appear on the browser URL path matters. And it matters more when it comes to affiliate links. Gibberish links create a sense of distrust among visitors. That is why you should resort to link cloaking to make the links look neat.
For example:
http://www.getsuited.com/products/?product_id=791&getsuited=78214.
This link is hard to remember, isn't it? But you can turn the link into something like this –
http://www.getsuited.com/products/twilightsuit.
This looks more branded and easy to remember. Keep these affiliate marketing hacks in mind when you start using promotional links on your website.
7. Make Solid Plans for Customer Acquisition
What if you walk into a running movie show and see the whole gallery is empty with no audience? This means either the movie or the theatre is bad or there were no tickets sold for the movie. Now compare these two to your website.
The theatre is your own website and the movie is your content.
Even if you manage to produce them both marvelously you need visitors to raise traffic on your website. To attract the audience with your website content, you have to bring them to your website anyhow.
The most used social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the shark tank of your business. These are the platforms where you will find the visitors to your site.
Creating pages for your website or online store on these platforms will increase your presence among people. Redirecting them from these platforms to your website will increase your web traffic day and night.
You have to keep in mind that your content has to be displayed on these social media platforms. Just like a movie trailer!
Most Common FAQs on Affiliate Marketing Hacks
01. What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model where individuals promote products or services for a company and earn a commission for each sale or lead they generate.
02. What are secret affiliate marketing hacks?
The secrets of affiliate marketing lie in a combination of factors, including selecting the right niche, understanding your target audience, building trust and credibility, creating valuable content, optimizing conversions, and continuously learning and adapting to industry trends.
It's a dynamic field that requires dedication, perseverance, and staying up-to-date with the latest strategies and techniques to achieve success.
03. How to start affiliate marketing from scratch?
To start affiliate marketing from scratch, follow these steps:
- Choose a niche that aligns with your interests and has market demand.
- Research and select reputable affiliate programs or networks.
- Create a website or blog to establish your online presence.
- Produce valuable content that attracts your target audience.
- Promote affiliate products or services through your content and track your performance to optimize results.
04. How to promote affiliate marketing links?
Promote affiliate marketing links by:
- Incorporating them naturally within relevant content on your website or blog.
- Sharing them on social media platforms where your target audience is active.
- Including them in your email newsletters or marketing campaigns.
- Collaborating with influencers or running paid advertising campaigns to reach a wider audience.
Note: As we promised earlier to share our another blog on affiliate marketing, here is that blog exceptionally planned on how to start affiliate marketing . Read to know the ways to start your own affiliate marketing business like a pro!
Pitfall Pitfall Go Away!
There are some pitfalls for every beginner as an affiliate. Don’t feel low about these pitfalls. If you take preventive measures, these won’t bother you on your way to becoming a successful affiliate. We often face research immobility during the beginning stage and we give up.
To avoid this consider your first attempt not to be 100% successful and test yourself with it. In the process sometimes we get distracted by new products and strategies. The right thing to do here is to stick to one method, move forward, and see how it goes.
Affiliates sometimes attempt to manage multiple websites at the same time. At the very beginning, it is more important to improve your website continuously. The results will follow.
Since you are here at the final paragraph, let me assume you are really into this affiliate marketing thing. So, why don't you give our affiliate program a try? You can sign up for free and earn as much as you can.