Welcome to Day 2!

In todays lesson I am going to be going over how I make money online with affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest methods of making money online to get started with. So that is where I want to get started with you.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is the process of connecting products to buyers on the internet.

Here’s how it works

When someone is interested in buying something online, they typically do a search for what they are looking for in a search engines like; Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

Then hopefully, the search engine gives the shopper some websites that offer the product that they were looking for.

For example, if someone is searching for a soft fluffy chair to put into their child’s bedroom, they might type in ‘fluffy chairs for kids’ in the search engine.

Do you think if you had a website with a page called ‘fluffy chairs for kids’ people searching for that would visit it? You bet they would!

The best part is you don’t actually have to own or stock any of these ‘fluffy chairs’. You just need to have pictures and text about the product, and link to a website that carries the product (like Amazon for example).

That is how affiliate marketing works. Helping buyers find the products that they are looking for and earning commission for your efforts!

The affiliate marketing process

Step 1: Choosing your niche and Keyword research

In regards to affiliate marketing, the term ‘niche’ refers to the product or service that you are going to target with your website. Remember the ‘fluffy chairs for kids’ example from earlier? That is an example of a very specific niche. Need help choosing a niche? Check this out.

Once you decide on a niche, its time to research and find words that are getting searched for in high volume. Choose keywords that don’t have a ton of competition. The less competition your keywords have, the more likely visitors are going to come to your website and not your competitors. Use the free keyword tool inside Wealthy Affiliate to help with your keyword research.

Step 2: Find an affiliate program

This is how you will make your money. You need to find a trusted company that offers an affiliate program. There are literally thousands of companies that are looking for people like you to help them make sales. I promoted Amazon products with my first website. Amazon is a good place to start because they have millions of products to promote. If you need some more ideas finding a affiliate program, it is covered in detail in the WA Level 1 Certification Course.

Step 3: Build a website

If you have never built a website before, don’t worry its as easy as can be. In fact you can do it in about 30 seconds with Wealthy Affiliates website builder. Also if you didn’t already know, your free WA membership includes 2 FREE websites for you to build and create.

Step 4: Add content to your website

Content on your website is going to help visitors make a decision on whether to buy the product that you are promoting. The more helpful and informative that your content is, the more likely you are going to make sales. Check out this excellent post  about creating quality content for your website.

Step 5: Expand and promote your website

Okay, now that you have your website up and running its time to kick back and relax right? Well, no. Even the greatest website in the world is totally useless if it doesn’t generate any visitors (traffic) to it.

Its time to start getting your website’s name out there. Building trust with search engines is a huge way to increase your websites visibility, which will in turn increase your traffic. To build trust with search engines, you should be adding new content to your website frequently. When I start a new website, I try to add new content to it daily for the first few months. Remember to utilize the keyword tool inside WA to help you write content that pertains to your niche.

Step 6: Repeat the process

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can build as many different niche websites as you want. Each one having the potential to become another income stream for you. To be honest, my first few niche websites weren’t that great. It was a learning process for me. But guess what? I continued to improve on those websites as my skills evolved, and they are still earning me income today.

Day 2 Tasks:

Task 1: Make a short list of some of your hobbies or interests. A great place to start with your first website is to build it around a niche that you are already knowledgable or passionate about. Its much easier to write content on a topic that you are well versed in. Here are a few basic examples of common interests that you could build a niche website around:

• Gardening equipment
• Scuba diving gear
• Art supplies
• Sporting Equipment
• Fitness programs

Task 2: Watch this video about finding a niche.

Thats it for today.

Look out for Day 3 in your mailbox tomorrow. We are going to discuss SCAMS and why they are so effective at duping people out of their money. I am very familiar with the tactics used by scam companies, and I am going to show you what to look out for and how to avoid them.