A Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing: Step by Step

Want to make money online with affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and easiest ways to make money online.

Unfortunately, many website owners are still afraid to try. It shouldn’t be this way.

In this ultimate affiliate marketing guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about affiliate marketing, best practices, referral tools, and more.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a referral program where you get paid for recommending products. If a user buys a product through your referral, you will earn a commission. The commission amount will vary depending on the product or service you promote.

Unlike other advertising types that pay based on clicks or views, affiliate marketing is billed on a CPA (cost per acquisition) or CPL (cost per lead) basis. This means you only get paid when a user takes an action, such as buying a product or signing up for a free trial.

Once you select a product, you can get an affiliate/referral link and promote the product on your website through that link.

Who is affiliate marketing best suited for?

Whether you’re a complete beginner or a six-figure blogger, affiliate marketing is the best monetization strategy for you.

The best thing about affiliate marketing, unlike advertising, is that you can start monetizing your website from day one. Since affiliate links are naturally integrated into your content, your website won’t look amateurish.

Plus, you can still earn decent revenue even if your website doesn’t have a lot of traffic. However, you need to make sure that your website is attracting the right kind of traffic that actually wants to read your product recommendations.

How does affiliate marketing work?

Let’s take a detailed look at how affiliate marketing works, step by step.

Step 1: Create an affiliate marketing website

In order to make money online with affiliate marketing, you first need to build a website.

To build a website, you must have a domain name and a web hosting account.

When you first start using WordPress, purchasing a domain name and a hosting account may seem expensive. Therefore, we recommend Bluehost , an excellent WordPress hosting provider.

For a detailed guide, you can check out how to build a website from scratch .

Step 2: Find the right products to promote

Next, identify the best products and services that are relevant and useful to your visitors. For example, if your blog discusses web design, promote products or services related to that, rather than beauty or fashion-related products or services.

On the other hand, if you have a blog dedicated to jewelry, you can promote popular jewelers or gold and diamond brands in your posts and turn your website into a jewelry business.

The easiest way to find the right products to promote on your website is to join an affiliate network.

An affiliate network is a third-party service that acts as an intermediary between marketers (people who promote products) and merchants (people who promote their products). Affiliate networks are a win-win for marketers and merchants.

Merchants can find qualified affiliate marketers to promote their products. If you are a merchant, you can list all your products on their website for marketers to promote. You can also track and manage your affiliate marketers and make payments.

As a marketer, you can easily find products to promote on your website. You can also track your promotions to understand the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing and track your earnings.

Here is a list of popular affiliate networks you might want to check out.

Step 3: Create content to promote affiliate products

One of the best ways to earn long-term affiliate income is to write detailed, long-form content and make your affiliates an integral part of that content.

However, if your goal is to transform your WordPress blog into a fully functional affiliate website, here are a few tips:

3.1 Create a review site

A review site is a type of content site designed to generate affiliate revenue by publishing product reviews in a specific but broad category, such as mobile phones or video games.

To create a review site, you need to choose a specific niche, post product reviews, and recommend affiliate products in that niche. You get paid every time someone buys a product through your referral link.

3.2 Create an Amazon Affiliate Store

Amazon, the world’s largest online store, has an affiliate system that allows you to recommend Amazon products to your site’s audience and earn affiliate commissions.

You can even create an affiliate store, which is basically an e-commerce store built specifically for selling Amazon products.

For more details, check out How to Create an Amazon Affiliate Store .

Step 4: Integrate affiliate links with your content

Now that you’ve joined an affiliate network, found some products to promote, and created some content on your website, the next step is to integrate your affiliate links into your content.

Once you join an affiliate network, you will be given an affiliate link for each product. When a user clicks on this link and purchases an item on the merchant website you promote, the affiliate network can track it as your referral.

Affiliate Management Tools and Plugins

Here are some tools and plugins that can simplify your marketing and management work.

1.Pretty Links

Pretty Links is an affiliate management plugin that helps you manage all your affiliate links in a single place in your WordPress dashboard.

Pretty Links helps you cloak the affiliate links you promote on your website.

Affiliate links are usually long, ugly URLs that look like this:

http://example.com/products/?product_id=123&affiliate_id

Pretty Links helps you cloak such affiliate links and make them shorter and cleaner:

2. ThirstyAffiliates

ThirstyAffiliates is another affiliate management plugin that allows you to easily find, replace, and manage your affiliate links. Like Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates can also easily hide ugly URLs into beautiful links.

3.MonsterInsights

With MonsterInsights, you can easily track your affiliate links and see which products convert better on your website. It runs on top of Google Analytics and allows you to see your affiliate marketing performance right within your WordPress dashboard.

Check out MonsterInsights review here .

Also, read how to track affiliate links in Google Analytics .

4. AdSanity

AdSanity allows you to quickly and easily create ads and affiliate banners on your website.

This plugin also allows you to insert ads in WordPress posts, pages, sidebars, and widgets. You may also be interested in learning about the best AdSense alternatives .

5. SeedProd

Create a unique landing page for your affiliate marketing products. You can also create a profile page link for Instagram and other social media platforms.

6. AGE

AIOSEO is a powerful SEO plugin that helps you drive traffic to your website from search engine results. It is easy to use and allows you to optimize each product page, blog post, and other content before publishing it. With all its SEO features, you can improve your ranking on search engines.

Affiliate Marketing FAQs

What is affiliate marketing?

It is a way to earn income by promoting other companies' products and earning commissions on sales. It is a passive income, however, many entrepreneurs do it as a full-time job. For some businesses, affiliate marketing supplements their online presence by diversifying their income streams.

How to build a successful affiliate marketing strategy?

Understand your target audience, create quality content, and choose the right affiliate program. To be successful in affiliate marketing, it’s best to be transparent, provide honest reviews, and only promote products you truly believe in.

How to choose the best affiliate program?

The relevance of the product, the commission rate, and the reputation of the affiliate program need to be considered.

Is an email list important in affiliate marketing?

Of course it is! Email marketing can help you connect with your audience and promote your products more effectively.

What are typical commission rates for affiliate marketing?

Commission rates vary, but are usually between 1% and 3% for physical products and higher, such as 10% to 30%, for digital products.

Can I use influencer marketing for affiliate marketing?

Yes, working with influencers can improve your affiliate marketing results. Just be sure to choose relevant influencers based on the type of product you are marketing.

How do commissions work in affiliate marketing programs?

Commissions are earned on sales and are usually paid weekly or monthly via bank direct deposit, etc. Some plans offer recurring commissions for ongoing sales or subscriptions.

Can I promote affiliate products on YouTube?

Yes, many content creators promote affiliates on their YouTube channels. However, it is important that you review the affiliate's rules and guidelines for promoting their products.

What are the low-cost channels for affiliate marketing?

You can create social media accounts such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can also create a YouTube channel and build your own affiliate marketing website. These are all highly effective and low-cost channels for affiliate marketing products and services.

Is affiliate marketing suitable for beginners?

Yes, anyone can start affiliate marketing. It is easy to learn and sign up for courses. There are many affiliate marketing tips and tutorials online. Pat Flynn is a successful affiliate marketer known for sharing valuable insights and strategies.

Can I sign up with more than one affiliate partner?

Yes, most affiliate programs allow you to sign up with other affiliate programs. There are usually no clear rules for doing multiple partnerships to expand your reach and attract new audiences.

How Does Amazon Affiliate Program Help Marketers?

The Amazon Affiliate Program allows marketers to earn commissions by promoting Amazon products.

What are the specific strategies of affiliate marketing?

Create valuable content that users actually find useful and are willing to respond to. This helps build trust with your audience. To do this, follow content marketing best practices.
Make sure to provide an in-depth review to show them that you’ve personally used the product.
Create targeted marketing campaigns such as pop-ups, floating bars, and coupon wheels to increase conversion rates
Content marketing helps you create valuable content that resonates with your audience and promotes your affiliate products.
Rely on marketing tools like analytics, social media schedulers, and SEO plugins to streamline and optimize your affiliate marketing.

That’s all. I hope you found this ultimate guide to affiliate marketing useful.

You may also want to check out these other useful beginner’s guides:

These posts will help you promote your affiliate marketing business.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this article contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through to visit us, at no extra cost to you. See how SidelinePlay is funded, why it’s important, and how you can support us.

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