Affiliate Marketing Mentors – For Your Success Online!
Category: Affiliate Marketing Mentor Blog
Here’s my affiliate marketing mentors blog! I’ve been an affiliate marketer since the early 2000’s and I ran into a lot of problems which, perhaps you have too?
I tried all sorts of strategies at first from building niche websites, running Google Adwords ads, blogging and using free blog platforms such as Hubpages and Blogger.com.
The struggle was pretty real but I was determined to make affiliate marketing work for me because life was so difficult in the many jobs I juggled to keep the wolf from the door!
In 2014 I found a community of online marketing mentors. I decided to start agains from scratch and “empty my cup”. It was tough and it’s hard to let go of thinking you know something when you really don’t!
I don’t consider myself an affiliate marketing mentor, although I hope that this website helps people who are learning. No, I’m still, and always will be a student, which means I can keep emptying my cup when it gets too full of the idea that I know something. The online world changes a lot and very quickly. So just when you think you are getting somewhere, everything is different and you’re starting all over again!
If you’re new to blogging, it’s a good idea to set a goal. I’ve recently set myself the goal of getting 1000 website hits to my website, in a completely organic manner. In this post I’m going to share my strategy.
Now admittedly, I haven’t hit this number yet, at least not organically. When using paid advertising, it’s much easier because you can simply pay for traffic and bam – you’ve got your traffic. But you’ve also got a large advertising bill too. If those paid ads don’t amount to an equal or greater amount in affiliate sales, you’re at a loss!
Organic traffic is different because you’re using your time instead of advertising budget. If you’re time rich rather than money rich, that’s obviously a good option to use. If you’ve no time to spare, use a marketing budget instead to generate traffic. But if you have the time, blogging is always another option..
How To Get 1000 Website Hits In One Day Without Paying For Ads
Here’s a quick glimpse of my traffic stats over the last few years.
As you can see, I’m nowhere near this number at the moment. If you divide 70k hits from 2023 by 365 (days of a year) you’ll see I only have around 200 daily hits coming to my website on average. I took a bit of a hit in 2024 too, when I stopped blogging for a few months.
But lately, I’ve been encouraged with my goal of 1000 (organic) website hits and that has motivated me to blog more regularly. It’s well worth setting yourself a goal, wherever you are in your affiliate marketing journey. A goal should motivate you and drive you forwards. I like an arbitrary goal such as traffic because I can control what I do to create it. Whereas with sales, one month is different to another and I can’t always control how many sales I make.
But with posting blogs, and sharing them to my email list, I’m in control!
How To Get 1000 Website Hits In One Day Without Paying For Ads – Set A Goal
So, step 1 is to set a goal for your blog. Blogging is one the cheapest way to attract website traffic. Once you’ve set a goal, write a blog post. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect, the main aim is to set the wheels in motion and build a habit which you can sustain.
So if you can only sustain 3 blog posts a week, then aim for that. You don’t have to set 1000 hits as your goal either, especially if it’s totally unrealistic for you. If you’re just starting out, set a more achievable goal which drives you forwards and encourages you, not one which seems out of reach and unrealistic.
Once you’ve set a goal, break it down into easily achievable steps. For me, that’s writing a blog post a day, posting it to my email list and sharing it on social media. Sometimes I will write more, but that’s the minimum bar for my daily routine.
How To Get 1000 Website Hits In One Day Without Paying For Ads – My Strategy
My strategy is to start with a single website hit. When you get a single (free) website “hit” you can simply rinse and repeat the method for many more website visitors.
Over time, I’ve made a habit out of blogging. But if you’re not in the habit, the main first step is to build that habit. Blogging takes time and effort, so if you’re not ready to write regular blog posts, this strategy probably isn’t for you.
Step 1 : Write a blog post
Step 2: Share it, promote it and make it easy for your readers to promote it.
The keyword must meet 2 main criteria – it’s a good fit for my affiliate products and my customer avatar, and it has ranking potential. (There’s no point in me attracting the wrong audience to my website, since I won’t likely sell anything that way!)
In some of my later posts I have done less keyword research than I used to do. However this is a good practice because it helps your SEO score and your authority in your niche with Google. In my early years as a blogger, I used to simply spend all my time writing my posts and then I expected Google to rank them! Big mistake – most of them didn’t rank and I missed many opportunities to share content online through social media accounts.
Promotion
Next step is to promote your post throughout your social media accounts. Share on Facebook, Linkedin, X.com and whatever other social media platforms you use. You should also post your newly published content to your email list.
Now at first this activity won’t make a huge difference to your traffic. Maybe one or two people will see it on social media and have a look. So don’t expect too much at first. Remember you’re building the habit here and it’s the habit which matters more than your results.
If you’ve just started building an email list, you won’t have many subscribers, if any. So this too will be a little slow. Don’t worry, remember this is a long term strategy. Just stick to the plan and keep the momentum going!
You can also get some plugins which will help you syndicate your content automatically throughout your social media platforms. See best free blog plugins for WordPress. Make sure you make it easy for your visitors to share your posts too, and you can even suggest they share in your text (go on, give this post a share!).
Blog promotion is vital so don’t skip it! Your traffic will thank you for it later!
Rinse & Repeat
In order to make this pattern a consistent habit, you’ll need to choose a topic you are going to enjoy writing about. Otherwise, this task is going to be monumental! So before you set off make sure you’ve chosen a good niche which you’re happy with. It’s miserable coming up with ideas for blog posts in a subject which you have no interest.
Since the bulk of your work is coming up with new ideas for blog posts, on an endless cycle, you’re going to want to choose a topic which motivates you!
Is it really possible to escape the rat race with affiliate marketing? Many affiliates have achieved this already and are earning a full time living through the sale of other people’s products and services online. The switch to online spending from traditional high street stores, with an estimated $730 billion a year (and growing), is a huge opportunity.
With affiliate marketing, you become the “middle man” and promote products and services online. The benefit of doing so means you never have to hold, purchase or store these products yourself. Nor do you have to deal with any customers. Once you have learned the skill of selling online, you can apply it to any product and any country. Get started here.
Escaping The Rat Race With Affiliate Marketing – Why Affiliate Marketing?
So why choose affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is just one online business model which can be used as a vehicle to escape the rat race by building an income online. Others include drop shipping, direct selling, print on demand or even selling your own products online. Affiliate marketing is a good answer because most people don’t have their own products to sell, and it’s the simplest business model. Simply join an affiliate program and get an affiliate link which identifies you as the third party seller.
You then promote this link online. When you make a sale through your link, you receive a commission based on your referral.
Other similar business models can work well too, although there may be more involved. Drop shipping, for example is a similar business model. You send products directly to the customer from the wholesalers with drop shipping, having found them online using marketing skills. With most online business models the key skill is marketing – attracting an audience who is interested in your particular product. The fastest way to learn this skill is by choosing an affiliate product to sell and setting about selling it.
Once you’ve learned the skill of selling online, you can apply it to any business. It’s a skill well worth learning, whether you intend to earn from affiliate marketing, or any other business.
How Fast Can I Escape The Rat Race With Affiliate Marketing?
If your goal is to escape the rat race with affiliate marketing, you might want to know how long it will take. This is different for everyone and depends on a number of things such as the product you promote and the marketing method you choose to promote it with. In general though you can expect it to take several months before you’re up and running with affiliate marketing, making sales. For some, it will be less and for others it will be more.
The fastest way to make money with affiliate marketing is to use a high ticket sales funnel and paid marketing. This requires an investment upfront in terms of your business model and marketing method. Cheaper ways to sell online require less upfront cost by will likely take much longer to come to fruition.
High ticket products pay more because they offer more value. Training courses, for example, which offer software and personal coaching, will cost more than a small, low value physical product. There’s also high value physical products you can promote too.
How Much Can I Make With Affiliate Marketing?
With a regular job, your earnings are always capped because there’s only so many hours in the day. So even in a high paying job, you can only trade so many hours. But with affiliate marketing you can sell products online to earn money. This has huge benefits once you have learned how to do it. The Digital Payments market worldwide is projected to grow by 9.52% (2024-2028) resulting in a market volume of US $16.62 trillion in 2028.
Once you can sell online, you have learned a different way to make money which isn’t tied to trading your time for it. You can therefore make multiple transactions per day without having to be physically present through the use of automation. Websites, email marketing services and advertising campaigns can run automatically around the clock and you can sell products worldwide online.
The first step for an affiliate is to learn how to sell your first product online. Once you have done it once, you can do it over and over using the knowledge you have learned.
How Do I Get Started With Affiliate Marketing?
You can get started by joining a step by step program which gives you all the tools you need. Once you have set up your website, and sales funnel, by following the steps, you can learn a marketing method around your existing commitments.
You will learn the basics of selling online; the number one skill you’ll need to become a successful affiliate. Then, follow the step by step course to set up your online presence – website, sales funnel and email follow up. This is pre-populated so there’s very little technical experience needed in order to do this. Website setup can be done through following a simple setup procedure.
Most website traffic doesn’t equate to sales so if you’re wondering how to turn website traffic into sales, this post is for you. Remember that the internet is an information gathering tool, and not a shopping mall. So when someone visits a website their intent is usually to find out some information.
Problem solving content will often help people out with specific problems, such as how to unblock a sink, for example. But that content won’t lead to many sales because that information can be used without having to make a purchase.
So the large proportion of content online leads to nothing other than website hits, not sales. But certain content will lead to more sales than others. That’s the kind of content you want to be creating if you’re an affiliate selling products.
How To Turn Website Traffic Into Sales – Creating Content Which Attracts Buyers
So what content attracts buyers? Well reviews are a good place to start. With a review, someone is actively seeking information regarding a specific product. If you answer their questions satisfactorily, and lead them to the product (via your affiliate link), they are highly likely to buy that or some similar product which you have recommended.
Price comparison sites are a good option for affiliates too. With a price comparison website, consumers are looking for the best deals. When they find the cheapest deal, they buy something – ideally through your affiliate link.
Martin Lewis’s website moneysavingexpert.com is a price comparison site which attracts people looking to save money on their bills. It is also an affiliate website which makes money through its referrals.
How To Turn Website Traffic Into Sales -Giving Away Information
“How to” guides work well too if you lead website visitors to products which add extra value. For example, I have an affiliate guide for beginners here which you can grab a free copy of.
To turn website traffic into sales with a free guide, you can use a downloadable ebook in conjunction with an email list. Many website owners also use free courses, video tutorials and other methods to encourage website visitors to sign up to their email list.
If you don’t have an email list, (get one here), and you’re trying to make money from a website with content alone, it’s highly recommended you get one. An email list can make a huge difference to your bottom line as an affiliate marketer.
How To Turn Website Traffic Into Sales – Build An Email List From Your Website
Using a free giveaway product of some kind (a legitimate bribe) encourages website visitors to opt in to your email list. From the email list, you can send subscribers information and keep in touch with them over a longer period of time.
Studies have shown that most online consumers will need 6-8 touch points with a certain product or website before they make a decision to buy. On a website, you only have a few minutes for someone to make a purchase. But once you get them on your email list, this period of time is vastly extended.
I’ve recently sold an affiliate product to someone who joined my email list 5 years previously! This just wouldn’t be possible from a website because once someone leaves your website most will never return.
You can also build trust with your email subscribers by offering value driven email messages. Over time, your subscribers should come to know like and trust you, if you’re offering genuine value. If this happens they are much more likely to buy from you if your products match their needs.
How To Turn Website Traffic Into Sales – Understand Your Audience
Your perfect customer (aka the customer avatar) is the type of person who will buy all your products and become a life long fan! Once you get clear on who it is your want to attract to your affiliate offers, you can craft content which matches their needs much better.
Whereas if you’re randomly throwing out content without thought, you’ll attract a lot of people who don’t match the customer avatar criteria. If you want your content to convert, you must get to know your customer avatar and write content with them in mind. Ask yourself “what information do they seek?”, and provide it through your content marketing strategy.
By understanding your target audience (customer avatar) and writing with their needs in mind, your content will become more targeted towards those people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
How To Turn Website Traffic Into Sales – Use Pop Ups
We all know just how annoying popups are. But website owners continue to use them because they work at getting their visitors onto their email lists. Once you have built a large list of subscribers through your blog, you are in a much better position to sell an affiliate product because you’re in control of your traffic with a list.
If you’re just attracting visitors to your website, who leave and never return, you are expending huge effort for that traffic (creating more and more content).Likewise if you don’t get them to opt in to your email list, you have potentially lost a future customer who might buy something down the line. Popups, drop downs, ebook giveaways and video courses are all simple ways to give your website visitors more value in exchange for their email address.
If you use multiple options for them to opt in to your email list, you’re more likely to convert more visitors into subscribers. See also my post on how to increase sales conversion rate.
Re-engage Visitors Who Have Left Your Website
Most website visitors to your website will leave without having taken any action and only a small percentage will usually buy from your links or opt in to your email list.
This will of course depend on your content. On a review website, where you review specific products, there will likely be a larger number of sales per visitor due to the intent of your visitors. But if you have an information website, only a small percentage will likely opt in to your list.
However, there’s other ways of bringing back old visitors to your website who have previously seen your content. You can offer a web push notifications using Push Engage. This is a plugin which offers your visitors the ability to opt in to notifications for any newly published content you have to offer.
Whenever you publish a new post on your website, they will automatically receive a notification about it. This encourages a lot of your old visitors to come back to your website for newly published content. A returning visitor is also more likely to join your list and be more engaged.
Use Retargeting – Bring Back Your “Old” Traffic
Retargeting is a similar method as the web push notifications plugin. With retargeting, you use an advertising platform such as Google Adwords to “re-target” visitors who have left your website. By placing some code on your website, Google knows who has visited it already and you can “follow” them around the internet, advertising directly to them whenever they find a website which allows it.
Retargeting is a great and very cheap way to bring back old visitors to your website. You can send them to a specific page on your website too, such as an email capture page/landing page to encourage them to join your email list.
Meet The Needs Of Your Audience
If you’re spending a lot of time creating content on a website, to drive traffic to your affiliate offers, you need to make sure they are a good match. Use a high value offer which meets the needs of your website visitors/customer avatar.
Having a bad match between your content and your offer is going to result in your not selling many products. So no matter how hard you work at generating website traffic, if your audience doesn’t want or need what you’re offering, you’ll struggle to sell anything.
So before you create any content, ask yourself whether that content is something your customer avatar would want to read/watch. If not, create something more aligned with their interests and needs. You also want to find a product which offers huge value and that your audience can afford!
Communicate The Value Of Your Products
With certain products, especially digital training products, the value to the customer is often less tangible than a physical product. With a physical product, what you see is what you get.
But with certain digital products, such as training courses and software products, the value is more arbitrary. Unless you communicate the value of your products in your content, and lead your visitors to them, they won’t buy from you!
Communicating value and leading your visitors to your products can be done through various ways:
There’s likely more than 10 reasons why you’re failing to earn online. But these will probably highlight a cause for you. Once you discover the reasons why you’re failing to earn online, you can more easily succeed!
Failure gives you the ability to start again, only more intelligently – Henry Ford.
95% of affiliates will simply quit instead, but if you’re reading this, you’re one of the ones who will succeed – because you don’t give up! So here’s my list of 10 reasons why you’re failing to earn online with affiliate marketing.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #1 You’re Not Serving Enough People
The money you make online (or otherwise) is a direct reflection of the number of people you serve (with your affiliate products). So, unless you can find customers for your products in big enough numbers, you’ll fail to earn a real income online.
This might sound obvious but when I started out online I had a totally unrealistic idea of what was possible. I imagined myself posting blogs online and making tens of thousands relatively easily. But if you’re a blogger, you will know the amount of work involved in only attaining a single sale.
Why is that? With blogging, you can only get your blog in front of a certain amount of people organically. So even if you write with SEO in mind, target long tail keywords and get ranked on Google, your traffic will still be limited. It’s also a big “if” whether you rank or not for your keywords.
If you’re paying for advertising, but don’t have a large budget, that’s also a limiting factor. So what’s the answer? Well if you’re marketing organically, expect it to take longer. If you’re running ads, you must find a way to recoup your budget early on, such as with an entry level product within a product range. This offsets your costs and allows you to cheaply acquire customers.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #2 – You’re Attracting The Wrong Audience
Your audience must be aligned with your product and your marketing efforts need to lead them to it. For a long time I didn’t understand this concept and in my early days as an affiliate, I simply thought everyone would want my product because I knew how good it was! I was sadly mistaken. In fact, the large proportion of the internet doesn’t want your product, whatever it is!
You must keep this in mind whenever you’re crafting an advert, specifying who it will show to or creating some content. If your content isn’t a good match for your product (to attract the right kind of person), you’re better off creating something else. You can spend a huge amount of time creating content. But if it doesn’t attract the right audience, you’ll seldom make any sales.
A good example is that of a product review. Sales can come easily from a product review because it attracts a very specific person to your website. It attracts that person who is looking to buy a specific product (your affiliate product). But some generic “how to” guide won’t attract the same buying customer. So if you’re spending all your time on generic content which attracts visitors not buyers, you’re going to be spending a lot of time which is unrewarded by affiliate sales.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #3 – You’re “Tinkering” With It and Not Treating It Seriously
If you are really serious about building a serious income online, you would give it the seriousness that it deserves. After all, it can replace your existing income and you can be completely financially independent, and have financial freedom. There’s no limit to the number of affiliate products you can sell online with access to the global economy! An online business can give you complete geographical freedom too, and you can choose where to live anywhere globally once you’re running at a profit.
So ask yourself, are you taking it seriously? Do you really want it, or, are you just “playing at it” without really believing that it will work.
Perhaps you don’t really need the income, so you can justify not taking the actions which are uncomfortable to take?
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #4 – You Are Repeating The Same Actions Expecting A Different Result
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein
Are you continuing to do the same things over and over again, such as posting your blogs on social media? Do you expect your results to change?
While some content marketing strategies do take a bit of time, there’s also other actions you can perform which can magnify your results. Blogging and building a YouTube channel are examples of longer term strategies. You can’t expect to suddenly have a booming affiliate business overnight after a few blog posts, or having uploaded only a few videos.
These tactics can and do work, but they are longer term strategies which require a lot of work initially and often for very little return.
If you’ve been doing this for some time, it might be worth considering using some paid marketing, or using automated syndication tools to help you gain more traction, for example.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #5 – You’re Caught Up In The Minutia Of Your Business
Here’s other possible reason why you’re failing to earn online. You’re caught up doing the small, tiny things which don’t really matter to your business – the minutia, small things which don’t count! This could be things such as:
Watching endless training videos without taking any action
Designing your logo or website to make it perfect, but without driving any traffic
Creating lots of content, but not promoting it and therefore not getting any traffic
Constant re-evaluation of your marketing tactic, procrastination and non-action
Overthinking your business without acting in your business
Working in your business in small useless actions and avoiding the important meaningful actions
Working “in” your business has many potential actions many of which don’t count for much. The large meaningful actions which move the needle on your income are the actions you should be focusing on, not the small meaningless innocuous ones!
If you’ve been doing action after action for some time without any change in your outcome, it’s probably time to reinvest in your education. Here’s a program which helped me.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #5 – You’re Not Investing In Your Education/Growing Yourself
Here’s another reason why you’re not moving forwards with your affiliate business. You’re not investing in your education. When I found this course, I had already spent several years struggling as an affiliate marketer. I had some knowledge, but it was flawed. My understanding of marketing had many holes in it. But you don’t know what you don’t know. Reinvesting in your knowledge is a good place to begin, even if you’re an experienced affiliate.
Your business cannot grow beyond the thinking of its owner. So if you’re not investing in growing your knowledge and understanding, your business can only grow to where you currently are.
The thinking you bring to your affiliate business is the “glass ceiling” which stops it from growing. By expanding your thinking beyond where it is today, you can change the way you approach your business and approach it from a better vantage point. Access a training resource here.
Your business is a tool so that you can live more fully, and ideally help others on the journey. So if you’re not seeing your future as bright and abundant, you could be cutting off your potential with your lack of vision or false assumptions.
Be honest about how you feel about your affiliate business. Are you inspired to promote someone else’s products and services?Are you inspired for the financial abundance which is possible for an affiliate? What does inspire you about your affiliate business?
How do you see your life when everything is working how you want it to with your affiliate business? There may be a subconscious blockage holding you back from the success you desire. This is especially true if you can’t foresee your future success with affiliate marketing. Perhaps there’s something else you want to do instead?
Do you believe in what you’re doing as an affiliate? If you somehow doubt yourself or hold some negativity towards what you’re doing or where you are heading, you’ll sabotage yourself on the path. Checkout my ebook on money mindset for more on this topic.
10 Reasons Why You’re Failing To Earn Online #7 – You’re Not “Failing” Enough
There’s an expression in affiliate marketing known as “failing forwards”. Without these “failures” you can’t learn from your own experience.
Have you yet tried writing 100 blog posts, running 50 adverts, creating 100 YouTube videos or attending several training courses? If the answer is no, you probably haven’t “failed” enough!
Long term affiliates have tried a lot of strategies and failed at most of them! So if you’ve only just joined the affiliate marketing path, expect to fail some more before you find a strategy which works for you.
As the saying goes : “The expert has failed more times than the beginner has even tried”
Not only must you “fail forwards” to learn affiliate marketing, but you must also do it enough to find a winning strategy. Once you do, you’ll know which path to take.
#8 – You’ve Chosen A Product Which Doesn’t Sell
Bad products don’t sell unfortunately so it’s definitely worth doing your homework before choosing a product to sell. Even with all the marketing in the world, if you’ve chosen a product which doesn’t sell well, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Before I found good products to sell I joined Clickbank and promoted a lot of products that I didn’t know anything about (neither did I care to). But it’s a mistake to promote products you have no connection to and haven’t invested in yourself.
That’s exactly what I did when I started out as an affiliate. I just wanted to sell and make money. I thought I could rush through the process of doing that, and skipped over a lot of necessary detail – such as choosing a hugely valuable product which sells like hotcakes! Choose necessary and important products which are in demand and needed. For example, one of the products I promote is Aweber autoresponder – a product which is vital for running an online business. You can access it free here.
#9 – You Haven’t Spent Long Enough On Your Marketing Method Yet
All marketing methods have a different timeline. For example, some of my latest blog posts have been on the topic of blogging. See how to make blogging pay.
With blogging, you are going to need to create a lot of content and over a long period of time. It can take months or even years to break through with blogging and even then you must align your topic with the right products. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time if you want to get paid!
Paid marketing methods can work much, much faster than blogging. But there’s still a period of experimentation where you’re learning. Unless you’re prepared to fail many times with your marketing method, while learning, you’re probably not going to break through and start making those sales.
It’s at the beginning point here where most people will quit. But it’s past the “frustration” mark where success is to be found – after you’ve wanted to throw your laptop through the window many times!
Are you expecting too much from too little effort? I certainly was when I began as an affiliate. Remember there’s 600 million blogs out there and more than 114 million active YouTube channels competing for attention online. What you get paid as an affiliate is a direct result of the number of people you serve with your affiliate products.
#10 – You Haven’t Found A Product/Niche Which Is Heart Aligned
This one’s a bit touchy feely perhaps but none the less I believe this to be one of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing. If you’re dedicated to a particular topic or niche, and in helping people overcome a certain problem perhaps, you’re much more likely to succeed than if you’re merely seeking to earn a bit of extra cash.
A passion project will continue much longer than a “get rich quick scheme” simply because of the integrity behind the intent of the work involved. When you’re heart aligned, you do the work because you are passionate about it, not because you might earn some money. This is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is what keeps someone going long after everyone else has quit. If you only want the reward, you’ll quit much earlier.
The man who likes walkinggoes further than the man who likes the destination.
Find a project you can be intrinsically passionate about and you’ll go much further than anyone else. Find a product which aligns with your passion and you’ve found your passion affiliate direction!
If you’re frustrated with blogging here’s a post on how to make blogging pay. Blogging can be a slow burn and if you’re just getting started with a blog, don’t worry if the results aren’t forth coming just yet. It can take some time before your traffic starts growing. So don’t be put off if you don’t see much traction.
In the beginning it’s far better to make daily habits out of your blog posting and focus on that. When you look for results too quickly, the result is disappointment. This leads to inaction, and inaction leads to, well, nothing much happening. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy that a blog will fail when you don’t work on it continually.
So first, light up your enthusiasm with a passion project you want to work on. Choose your topic carefully and ask yourself whether you’re going to enjoy the process of coming up with new blog ideas for several months at a minimum.
A blog you love working on is going to last much longer than one where you’re only interested in the outcome. So choose a niche you love, and get blogging!
That all said, to make blogging pay you also need to do two things really well:
Find a great affiliate product you can offer to your visitors
Find visitors who will benefit/want that product
How To Make Blogging Pay – Choosing A Great Product
You might think that’s obvious! But attracting an audience with your content is going to be more lucrative if you find a product which is of high quality and of huge benefit to your audience. Consider what you’ll be writing about and the kinds of people that will attract. If you choose a product which is misaligned with your topic, you’re going to be wasting a lot of time!
The easiest way to align a good product with your topic is to choose one which you personally endorse and have benefitted from. For example, I promote Aweber’s email marketing software from my blog. I use it myself and haven’t used anything else for my email marketing. It’s a great product and absolutely essential for building a profitable online business. You can also use it for free through this link.
So why wouldn’t I promote such a beneficial product?:
It aligns with my content
I personally use it and recommend it
It’s helpful and necessary for online success (through building an online business)
It’s therefore a total no-brainer that I would promote this product from my blog. Bloggers can use the product to collect emails from their blogs, and promote their affiliate products through it to an ever-growing audience. My audience includes bloggers who are often trying to build an income online on a shoestring budget. Hence again, the free version of this software is a total no brainer to get – you get up to 500 subscribers without having to pay!
Still, if your blog is about something else, such as cabinet making, for example, you’ll want a different product which aligns with your topic and the interests of your audience.
How To Make Blogging Pay – Aligning Your Content With Your Product
If you’re writing content on one particular subject, but promoting a product in another niche, you’re going to get a mix-match. Your audience won’t be interested in what you have to sell.
So no matter how many blog posts you write, your audience is only interested in that particular topic. For example, if your blog attracts people who have no money, it’s going to be difficult encouraging them to buy a particular product, especially if it’s well out of their budget.
So it’s worth asking yourself a few questions so you can get clearer on who you are attracting:
Are my visitors likely to be able to afford my product?
Is my product a good match for my audience?
Does my product help my audience?
Do I relay the value of my product through my content?
Answering these questions (and more like them) will enlighten you as to whether your content is attracting the right audience for your products.
Checkout my post on the customer avatar worksheet too and go through it. You should learn something about the “who” you’re trying to attract, or are attracting by default by not thinking about it properly.
How To Make Blogging Pay – Lead Visitors To Your Email List/Product
Most people come to a blog post to read the content you have put up – if they have found it (more on this later). So, for this particular piece of content, “How To Make Blogging Pay”, I can expect people who read the content are already bloggers, or are considering becoming bloggers.
Bloggers are often trying to build an income online on a shoestring budget. Which means they aren’t likely to come to your content looking to buy something! However, people from all walks of life are also looking to learn how to make money blogging.
But unless you lead them to your products, they are mostly going to leave your blog post without having taken the action you want – (signing up to your email list or buying a product through one of your links).
You can lead visitors to your list/product through popups (annoying I know), embedded links and forms on your website. So make sure you test them out if you haven’t already done so. A popup on this website also showcases my ebook (Affiliate Marketing For Beginners) – Access it here.
How To Make Blogging Pay – Getting Eyes On Your Content
Without traffic to your content, you won’t make any affiliate sales and you won’t get any leads (email opt-ins). So content promotion is a large part of making blogging pay. There’s several ways you can get more traffic to your blog posts:
Write more content
Share your content more widely
Write for SEO – get ranked on Google/search engines
Think about how you currently promote your content, if at all. When I started blogging, I would write a post and sit back, waiting for Google to rank it – and the traffic to come flooding in! Sadly that mostly didn’t happen and although some of posts did rank on the first page of Google, most of them didn’t get a look in. So, in fact, most of my hard work at blogging was completely wasted because nobody saw my posts!
When I started to understand that I needed to promote my posts too, I started seeing more hits on my website. But it’s an easy mistake to make. So just make sure you promote your content, otherwise you’re pretty much guaranteed to get zero visitors unless you’re already a high ranking/popular blogger.
Methods Of Blog Promotion
There’s many ways to promote your blog posts once you have created them. Or, you can write content in such a way as to garner the respect of the ranking algorithms too – (i.e. get ranked on Google). This can be a challenge, but if you’re in a relatively uncompetitive niche it’s much easier to do. Checkout my post on how to find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
Here’s a few ways you can promote them too:
Post them on your social media accounts manually
Get an automated software to post them (such as Revive Old Posts)
Use share buttons on your website to give visitors the option of sharing on their social media
Send them to your email list
Link back from other websites to them (blog commenting or guest posting)
Use some paid advertising to drive traffic to them
You don’t have to do all of these, but I’d recommending as many automated methods as possible to reduce your workload.
Summary
So there’s a few aspects of blogging you need to get right in order to make it pay. Here’s a quick recap:
Choose your topic carefully – find a subject you personally align with and can write about for several months at a minimum, ideally forever!
Find a high value product (or products) you can align with your topic. Unless you attract an audience who want that product, even with a lot of content you won’t sell.
Make sure you are promoting your content – don’t rely on your content being ranked on Google or getting found through the search engines alone! Some will of course but most won’t.
Lead visitors to your product and/or your email list – ask for the sale. With a high value and good product which you audience needs, you should find selling through your content much easier.
If your topic is misaligned with your product, selling will be more difficult or even impossible. Can your audience afford your product? Is it vital for their success? Checkout the customer avatar worksheet for more on this.
Are you wasting time in your affiliate business? If you’ve been an affiliate marketer for any length of time, and are still not getting the results you want, there’s probably a good reason for it. Once you can identify that reason, and change your behaviour, things can and will change. There’s an estimated $730 billion being spent online each year online. That number is perpetually growing. too. All you need is a slice of that to earn an income online from your business.
But if you’re spending all your time on actions which aren’t moving the “needle” on your business, you’re likely wasting much of it. There’s one specific thing all affiliates need which without, they will never see a dime from affiliate sales. That thing is traffic. But more specifically it’s traffic which seeks that which you’re selling! This is also known as targeted traffic.
Wasting Time In Your Affiliate Business?
There’s a tendency towards those activities which you feel good about. Those which you don’t like, you avoid. In the beginning you’re likely to take a course, build a blog and watch training videos. Perhaps you’ll set up your sales funnel and start writing some blog posts. All this takes time and it’s time which isn’t rewarded financially until you sell something.
Selling something online means finding a specific person and getting them to click your affiliate link, and buy. If they are very well targeted, they are actively seeking the answers which your product gives them! Targeting the wrong visitors, or having a bad product are going to cost you dearly, even if you get everything else right. But if you’re actively engaged in creating content, but haven’t thought about promoting it, you’re being a “busy fool”! It might feel productive, but unless people are finding your content and engaging with it, you’re not selling anything!
I’ve written several ebooks, built many websites and failed many times with affiliate marketing but the one thing which makes sales is getting someone on your email list and delivering a product which is of value to them.
Wasting Time In Your Affiliate Business? Got A List?
The email list is definitely one of your best assets as an affiliate marketer. Get one here for free. Without it, you must drive traffic either by working (usually very hard) for it through content creation and endless posting on social media and SEO, or you must pay for it using paid advertising.
But once you have an email list of subscribers you have much greater control over your traffic. Plus, you can build trust over a much longer time period than is possible otherwise.
The list is a major piece of the affiliate success jigsaw. It doesn’t solve every problem, but a lot of problems are solved by it.
Wasting Time In Your Affiliate Business – Your Customer Avatar
Obviously you need to drive traffic to build your email list up. Most affiliates will quit before they have even got 1000 subscribers on their email list too, so make sure you stick with it. Top affiliates have huge email lists. So a single email will be opened by thousands, if not tens of thousands of subscribers! With only a small list, and only a percentage opening them consistently, you’ll see far better results with a large list.
Despite affiliate marketing being a numbers game it’s also important to understand who you are attracting to your list. Attract the wrong people are your sales will suffer. So who exactly are the “right people” to attract to your email list?
The right people are aligned with your product. They are the kind who will buy and become life-long fans. If you’re selling subscription products, they will maintain their subscriptions because they understand the value of your product/s. Checkout my post on the customer avatar worksheet to learn about who you should be attracting through your marketing efforts.
Using Paid Traffic
I’ve definitely had the best results with affiliate marketing when I’ve been using paid traffic. But you need to tread carefully too. If you haven’t tried using paid traffic before, start with a low budget you can easily afford to lose and build up gently.
Expect to learn a lot before you start seeing immediate results. Most ad campaigns aren’t going to work straight away and you’ll need to do some experimentation. But if you start to work on understanding your customer avatar, and carefully align your product with the type of search query which is a good match, you should see sales coming in, or at least people opting in to your email list.
To optimise your landing page, find a good giveaway product which is a good match for your product. Don’t send paid traffic to a blog, since you’ll waste a lot of marketing budget. Far better to send it to a landing page to collect emails for your list.
Take An Inventory
To help you gain traction in your affiliate business, take an inventory of the time you spend on your online business. What actions are you performing? Ask yourself whether this course of activity is going to take your business to the level you want it to over 6 months or 5 years.
If the answer is no, you should start investigating new ideas you can implement. If you’re studying and have just started, you’re likely to be watching videos and learning. Make sure you don’t get “stuck” here in “learning mode”. As soon as you have some information to act on, make sure you act.
It’s worth trying new things even though you’ll likely see many of them as “failures”. But without failing at something new you’ll never learn it. So, for example if you haven’t ever done any paid advertising, make sure you set up a campaign and run it with minimal budget, just to get the ball rolling.
Paid marketing is a much more scalable marketing strategy for affiliates and remember that affiliate marketing is a numbers game – the more sales you make the more income you make. Without targeted traffic, in large numbers, you can’t grow your affiliate business.
Summary
Paid marketing is the fastest way to drive traffic. But you also need to make sure that traffic is very well targeted, or you’ll waste your ad budget. You must also make sure you’re using a high value product which is of huge value to your customer avatar. Unless you have chosen a good product to promote, no amount of advertising will help!
While blogging, creating ebooks and video content is rewarding, it doesn’t necessarily drive traffic very well. There’s over 600 million blogs on the internet and more than 114 million YouTube channels. So the chance of your video finding a large audience is very small. Likewise with your blog posts.
Blogging can take months before you start to see large amounts of visitors and it’s the same with a YouTube channel. Paid advertising on the other hand delivers targeted traffic very quickly. You can rapidly see whether a campaign is working. But with organic (content) marketing, it can take months to discover that your strategy is flawed! After which you’ve already done a lot of work!
Building success online is done through tiny achievements. Sadly, the money doesn’t come in immediately with affiliate marketing. But it’s there for the taking if you commit to the journey and stay the course. There’s an estimated $730 billion (USD) being spent online each year and it’s a number that is perpetually growing.
You only need a small slice of the pie to make a living from affiliate marketing. But it starts with taking small daily steps.
Building Success Online With Tiny Achievements
While it might sound nice to be earning $10,000 a month with an online business, every affiliate starts making nothing! From the foundation, you can get some training and begin by building a website., for example.
Once you’ve set up a website and a sales funnel, you can progress to studying a marketing method, such as paid advertising or blogging, for example. Each of the first steps as an affiliate is the foundation to your ultimate online success.
But it’s often after the initial excitement has worn off, when a beginner will lose interest. Once you’ve done all the initial steps, and yet nothing much seems to have happened, is where many lose their mojo and quit! To keep yourself moving, no matter how slowly, you must focus on the next step on the journey!
Building success online is done with tiny achievements. Each step leads you closer to the long term goal of having a profitable online business. But unless you keep going, you’ll lose momentum and likely quit. So, how do you keep going when the mountain seems so high and so far away? The answer lies in small, easily achievable goals.
Building Success Online With Tiny Achievements – Touching The Void
If you haven’t seen the film Touching The Void I highly recommend it, especially if you’re an affiliate. In 1985 two friends, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to climb Siula Grande in Peru via the West Face. This was a unaccomplished feat by any climber.
Joe breaks his leg on the descent and Simon is in the process of lowering him on a rope to get them both to the bottom. However, a problem arises and Yates realises he has lowered Simpson over a crevasse. With no strength to pull him up, and having to make a decision he cuts the rope in order to save his own life.
Assuming Joe has been killed, Simon proceeds down the mountain. However, Joe is still alive! His story is something to behold and it’s an inspiration if you’re a struggling affiliate.
In the film, Joe explains how the only way he was able to sum the strength to drag himself (broken limbs and all) down a mountain of obstacles, which would have been enough to discourage most able bodied people, was to focus on small wins. He sets himself time limits with which to get to certain points on the horizon.
Only with the small, achievable “wins” was he able to continue and survive against so many odds!
Building Success Online With Tiny Achievements
While building an online business isn’t quite so perilous as dragging a broken body down the Siula Grande, it certainly has its challenges!
But as with looking at the big picture with a mountain, if you look at the feat of building a profitable online business it’s easy to become discouraged. When you start an online business you’re bound to be discouraged at some point too. The answer is to use this same strategy – focus on what is in front of you. Make small goals which can be accomplished within a short timeframe.
In Touching The Void, Joe gave himself strict time limits to get to a specific point on the horizon. He knew, if he didn’t get to basecamp before Simon left that he was finished!
With an online business, these tiny “baby steps” can be easily achievable goals which can be done within the day – not long term goals which seem impossible!
Why Most Quit
There’s a 95% drop out rate in affiliate marketing which means only a tiny percentage actually keeps going and becomes successful. But like with the Joe Simpson analogy, if you look at the big picture, you’re bound to become overwhelmed and quit before you even begin!
So instead of doing so, look to the small steps you can easily accomplish:
By making a habit out of achieving the small wins, and celebrating them, you keep yourself moving forwards towards your longer term goals.
Summary
Success with affiliate marketing doesn’t come easily, although some early “easy wins” are possible. However, long term, sustainable success is something different entirely. It can be easy to become overwhelmed by the size of the task you have undertaken, and as a result, lose your belief and faith that it even can be done.
Don’t look at the top of the mountain! Look instead only at the step right in front of you that you can take!
Good luck!
If you’re ready to get started in building an online business from scratch, you can get started here.
Here’s 6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates. Affiliate marketing can be tough, especially if you’re a beginner. There’s a lot to learn and then you need to actually do something, once you know what to do.
But you don’t know what the outcome will be, and you’re a little uncertain whether it’s worth your time and the effort. In this state of “cautious trepidation” you’re not taking bold steps. More like you’re taking nervous and unsure actions and then looking for results to confirm whether it’s worth your while! You’re uncertain, so you tread carefully.
The problem here is that when you look for results, you confirm your scepticism, and this leads to inaction.
Perhaps you write a blog post, and share it on your social media platform. Nothing happens. So you create an ebook, and place it on your website. Still nothing. At this stage you’ve spent several days/weeks/months with no results to show. Perhaps affiliate marketing isn’t for you after all, you think to yourself! Hmmm!
Around 95% of affiliates will quit, so by not doing so you’re already ahead of the herd! But you also want to start generating sales, or your efforts are pointless. Or are they? Perhaps a better way of looking at your affiliate marketing efforts is from the point of view of a great analogy – the Chinese Bamboo Tree.
6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates – #1…The Chinese Bamboo Tree
So here’s game changer number 1! The Chinese Bamboo tree takes 5 years of gestation under the surface of the soil. Once it sprouts through the soil, it grows 90 feet in five weeks! During it’s gestation period, it needs to be watered and fertilised. Affiliate marketing is a little like this too.
First you spend time learning and studying, to understand how it works. Next you build some infrastructure around your affiliate business – a website and an email marketing system perhaps. This all takes time and it’s time where you don’t see any results because you’re in the early phase of building your foundations.
The next phase is marketing. You must learn some kind of marketing strategy to attract an audience in order to promote and sell your affiliate product. Some affiliates will post on social media, others will write blog posts or create videos. Some will run ads, sending traffic into their sales funnels.
Depending on your particular circumstances, marketing budget, choice of marketing method and the relative competition in your niche, this can take some time! It’s going to be different for everyone. Here’s the point. If you start looking for results before you’ve done the work, the result will be inaction. You’ll look for the shoots of the “Chinese Bamboo” before you’ve given it time to develop.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer -#2… Think Big & Acquire The Right Knowledge
The “roots” of your Chinese Bamboo tree are your knowledge and aspirations. Everything grows from that. If you’re thinking you’ll just make a little “on the side” extra cash each month, your actions and results will grow from that kind of thinking.
If you think a little bigger, and decide to replace your income from affiliate marketing, you can absolutely do that too – but only if you believe you can first!
Henry Ford : “Whether a man believes he can or he can’t, he’s right”
So, be honest. What is your vision for your affiliate business? What does success look like for you?
In a similar vein, the knowledge you acquire in the beginning will set you on a path. In a straight line, even a 1% deviation off target will take a rocket far off its target on a trip to the moon.
Thinking big and acquiring the right knowledge is therefore a pretty important factor. If you’ve got a bad strategy, for example, even if you work really hard at it for months, it still won’t pay off! See my post on how to earn more money online with less effort.
6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates – The BattleFront Soldier
A while ago I started learning Forex marketing, before I decided to become an affiliate. I studied for a couple of years but eventually gave up because it didn’t work for me. I just lost money! But I learned quite a lot in the process and one of the things I learned was to be a “sniper” not a battlefront soldier.
“A trader is a sniper, not a battlefront soldier” – one of my mentors told me.
The same is true of affiliate marketing.
When I started affiliate marketing I posted my affiliate link everywhere that would allow it. I posted it on eBay, I posted it on my social media profiles, just everywhere! But nobody bought any affiliate products from it.
Why?
Simply because I was out blasting my affiliate link like a battlefront soldier. Whereas I should have been a “sniper”. A sniper might take longer to find their target. They lay in wait, perhaps for months. Then they take a single shot, and get their target.
In the case of affiliate marketing, their “target” is a sale.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer – #3 Be A “Sniper”
So how can you be the sniper as an affiliate marketer? One of the best ways to become the “sniper” as an affiliate is to understand your customer avatar. See the customer avatar worksheet pdf for more on this. The customer avatar, is the type of person you can best serve with your particular affiliate product. By understanding “who” this is, you can more effectively target them online very specifically and ignore the rest.
Posting your affiliate links anywhere and everywhere is being the “battle front soldier”. But you’re wasting a lot of effort with this tactic. Most people online aren’t interested in what you’re offering. But when you bring this understanding to your affiliate business, and get very specific about “who” your target audience is, you can become more intentional about every action you perform online to attract them.
Each blog post is crafted with your customer avatar in mind. Each video/ advert speaks intentionally to their needs, and in their language – speaking to their pains and problems. Adverts are targeted towards the demographics of your target audience – those exact peoplewho are most likely to want, and even need your product/service.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer – #4 …Take Responsibility
You are the weakest link if your affiliate business isn’t working! It’s not the fault of the “business” or of your marketing tactic, it’s you! Unless you take full responsibility for this, you can always sidestep your responsibility for success with your affiliate business. If you do this, you will look for excuses rather than solutions.
Your business cannot grow beyond the thinking you bring to it. So if somewhere inside your mind, you don’t believe in yourself, or think you’re incapable of the success you really want, or that it’s simply unachievable, that is what you need to fix! This is often related to your “identity” or self image – how you see yourself in the world. See also how to change your self image.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate. – C. G. Jung
There’s power in accountability. When you accept that you’re fully responsible, regardless of your circumstances, it can be very empowering for you and your business. Are you honestly taking full responsibility for the results in your affiliate business?
#5 Your Circle Of Influence
Jim Rohn – “You are the average of the 5 people you spend most time with”.
If you’re a struggling affiliate, it’s definitely worth having a look at your circle of influence – close friends/family who you might go to for support and advice. Are they supporting you and cheering you on with your affiliate endeavours? Or are they undermining your efforts and/or secretly hoping you’ll fail?
Although this sounds a little harsh, the dynamics of a friendship can change dramatically if you succeed beyond the success of your circle, or in a different way. So there are subconscious conflicts going on beneath the surface, even if your circle doesn’t let on overtly.
When I became an affiliate all I could think about was pasting my affiliate link and getting those sales. I was desperate for a sale. Unfortunately, desperation is seldom a great marker of success! After joining an online business mentorship program (access here), I got given some great advice:
Give first, get later – switch your mindset to giving/helping, rather than to getting
I realised I was mostly focused on “getting”, in my affiliate endeavours. This came across in my email messaging, my advertising and my writing. It was a great realisation. So I started thinking about my intention when writing a blog post. Over time, I was able to switch from “getting” to helping.
This made a massive impact for me. Things changed quite clearly and I was enjoying the process much more because I wasn’t obsessing about my results (or lack of them).
Giving also means producing content rather than absorbing it. Just think about how much content you absorb/consume on a daily basis. Most of us are consumers and not producers. By switching your activity to producing content, rather than only consuming it, you’re helping people and leading them to your affiliate products simultaneously.
Recap/Summary
So there’s my 6 game changers for struggling affiliates. Here’s a quick recap:
Affiliate marketing is like the Chinese Bamboo tree – work on fertilising the soil and watering it – grow in knowledge and experience and don’t look for results until you’re in full swing with your affiliate habits. The work will pay off, but you must be patient. The Chinese Bamboo grows 90 feet in only 5 weeks once it breaks the surface of the soil. The same is true of affiliate marketing if you take the right action steps (and keep taking them)
Think big and get the right knowledge – thinking small seldom creates large results. So think in terms of the volume of people you can reach, how you can serve and the right action steps for your given situation and circumstances. The wrong knowledge can take you far off course.
Be a “sniper” not a battle front soldier – a sniper knows his target. So don’t blast everyone online looking for the sale. Know your target audience and customer avatar, and make every action secure in that knowledge that you’re targeting the right type of person with every action you take.
Take full responsibility – is your self image or identity sabotaging your best efforts. Make an effort to notice and understand the programs running in the background of your unconscious mind. See my post on how to change your subconscious beliefs.
Your circle of influence – are your closest friends and relatives unconsciously wishing your failure, or do they genuinely want your success? Do you take advice from people who are more successful than you, or less? Find other affiliates by joining an online community.
Become a producer rather than a consumer, start giving/helping rather than trying to constantly “get” from your affiliate marketing business. Take an inventory of the time you spend consuming material online versus producing it.
If you’ve tried earning income online you’ll know how frustrating it can be, but what if there was a way to earn more money with less effort? Well, read on because there is….
When I started out looking for ways to earn online, I began with blogging. My first sale came from a software product I had bought which helped me build websites. I wrote an article reviewing it and someone bought it! I was over the moon, I knew now that I’d made a single sale online, I could make many more.
But my method of selling wasn’t scalable, and only a handful of people saw my review. Soon after that, my account on Hubpages.com (a free blogging site) was suspended and I lost my content. However, I had gained a valuable foothold on my affiliate marketing journey, and the first sale is an important step forwards. If you know with certainty that it’s possible to sell a product online, you have already put yourself in front of many struggling affiliates whose doubt and scepticism holds them back!
How To Earn More Money Online With Less Effort – Paid Ads + High Ticket Items
While content marketing can take months and even years to gain traction with, there’s a faster and simpler method: using paid advertising. While paid advertising can be prohibitively expensive for smaller items, if you choose to promote high ticket affiliate marketing products, your return on investment is much larger. In addition to using high ticket items, it’s also worth choosing subscription products too.
Subscription products pay you a recurring income. So when you make a sale it’s compounded effort. You continue to earn from the membership for the lifetime of the customer.
So for a simple comparison say you promote a low value product from Amazon at $100. A physical product will pay out 10% as a maximum (sometimes less) to the affiliate. So you can only make $10 per item for referring that particular product. This means, if you’re paying for advertising, you must spend less than $10 to make a profit per item! However, if you choose a high ticket item which pays $400 for a sale (plus recurring income from a subscription) there’s much more leverage. You now have up to $400 to spend on advertising to make a sale, rather than $10 to come out on top!
As a beginner in affiliate marketing you can expect some of your ad campaigns to hit, and others to miss. But with only $10 it’s going to be much more difficult finding a winning advertising campaign that’s consistently profitable.
How To Make More Money Online With Less Effort – A Scalable Strategy
With paid advertising you have a scalable strategy. Whereas if you are planning on blogging to sell your affiliate products, prepare yourself for a very long journey! Both strategies of content marketing and paid advertising have their merits however. With content marketing, you can gain traction over a long period of time. When you do, it is the content which is working for you, bring in sales organically. But this can take a long time. Plus, when it happens, it’s much more difficult to scale up.
With a paid advertising campaign, there can be some learning involved initially. It can take some testing before you hit upon a campaign which works. However, when you do, you can simply scale up by increasing your advertising budget. This just isn’t as feasible with content marketing.
So, to make more money online with less effort, focus on a strategy which is scalable. Once you find a campaign which works, you can run it consistently on complete autopilot. With content marketing, you always need to create more content and it can take months or years!
How To Make More Money Online With Less Effort – Use An Email List
For a long time I didn’t have an email list. It was only after a couple of years of struggling as an affiliate did I get the good advice to start building one!
There’s some really, really good reasons why you need a list to become successful as an affiliate marketer.
Here they are:
Selling directly from an advertising campaign is sometimes disallowed by marketing platforms
Many people don’t buy on their first time seeing a product/website – so they will bounce and you’ll waste your ad budget
It takes 6-8 “touch points” with a product/website before a customer will buy
Running paid advertising is expensive so it’s worth collecting their details for your list, giving you more opportunity to sell over a longer timeframe (even months or years after they subscribe)
Having someone’s details means you can follow up with them and send them to a product multiple times
You can build trust through your email messages – much more difficult on a website or with a single interaction
Organic marketing takes a long time and a lot of effort, paid marketing is expensive, getting someone on your list puts you in greater control of your traffic
Build “You” First – Start With The Foundations
The foundations of your affiliate business is your understanding of how it works. Unless you pay some attention to your online business education, your business is going to be flawed from the start.
Imagine building a skyscraper on the foundations of a cottage! How long do you think it will last? It may sound silly, but that’s what most people do when they attempt to build an online business without any experience of business.
The foundations of your affiliate business is you – your education. To get a good foundation:
Make good habits out of working on your business daily
Build your knowledge as well as your business
Keep learning and growing, but shift to doing once you have some knowledge
Get started as soon as possible with a marketing method and stick to it for several months until you’ve mastered it!
If you’re struggling, return to the basics – foundational learning and development.
Summary
So there it is! That’s how to earn more money online with less effort. Keep in mind that whatever you do it’s going to take time and effort. But that effort is better placed when you have a solid foundation and you choose a scalable marketing strategy and a business model which supports long term growth.
Lets have a quick recap for those who skipped to the end!
Use high ticket and subscription items – which gives you more leverage and more room for error when you’re learning
Use a paid marketing campaign which is much faster and more scalable than using content creation which can take months or years and isn’t scalable
Build an email list (get an email autoresponder here for free) – an email list gives you more control over your traffic plus you can create multiple touch points with customers, build trust and sell over a longer period than is possible from a website alone
Start with your education – invest in “you” because you’re the foundation of your business. A business will never grow beyond the thinking of the person who runs it! Access an online training resource here.
What are the pros and cons of Amazon affiliate program? Amazon is one of the most popular affiliate program and has been around for decades. In July 1996, Amazon.com launched the first widely used affiliate program on the Internet. See also when did affiliate marketing start? Since then, millions of people have attempted to make money using Amazon’s product range.
However there’s some down sides to using Amazon despite their huge range of products and widely accepted customer base.
Pros And Cons Of Amazon Affiliate Program
Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the most popular. Everyone knows the brand and studies show that 89% of consumers are more likely to buy from Amazon than another e-commerce website. Amazon is well trusted, so if you send someone to the site through your affiliate link, there’s less trust issues than with some other affiliate programs.
It’s fairly easy to join Amazon’s affiliate program too, although there are certain requirements. Once you have joined and your application is accepted, you can start using affiliate links from Amazon to direct your website visitors to certain products on the site.
One of the benefits of using Amazon is the ability to make extra commissions when your referrals place multiple items in their shopping basket. So at Christmas, for example, a referral could mount up to multiple commissions. You can earn from multiple items, even if you’ve only referred one of them.
Pros And Cons Of Amazon Affiliate Program
There’s literally thousands of products you can choose from on Amazon, too. This means that whatever topic your website covers, there’s probably a suitable product you can find on Amazon to monetise it with.
Amazon’s commissions aren’t the best though, so it’s worth having other income sources if you’re an Amazon affiliate. Amazon pays affiliates between 1% and 20% although most commissions fall between 1% and 10% with Amazon games taking up the 20% category. Here’s the breakdown of the UK commission structure for Amazon, although this is know to be changeable:
Amazon’s rep isn’t exactly good from the affiliates point of view. They consistently cut commission rates and make it more difficult for affiliates. So if you’ve spent years building content and linking to Amazon, they could easily change the rules and cut you off!
Amazon’s a good idea if you want to add another income stream to your affiliate business. It lets you monetise a website in almost any topic because of the large choice of products on the site. More people are comfortable with buying from Amazon which means you don’t have to do so much pre-selling as an affiliate to make a sale. You can also earn from your referrals other purchases when they checkout if you’ve sold them an item.
There’s a few downsides to using Amazon though too. The main one is most products pay peanuts. Small items are hardly worth selling because they pay so little. So you’ll need to sell a lot of products to make a good amount.
Amazon regularly changes their terms and conditions and lowers commission rates for affiliates too. This is frustrating when you’ve built a tonne of content and suddenly the rug is swept from under you and you’re no longer eligible. So making Amazon your main source of online income is risky.
