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!

Welcome to affiliate marketing mentors!

The Truth About Affiliate Marketing

The truth about affiliate marketing is not always what you’ll be told just before buying a program. Affiliate marketing is tough, so it’s wise to go in with your eyes open. Most affiliates will quit long before they make any sales and many will rush in thinking they can make quick money. The truth is that to make money consistently with affiliate marketing you’ll need to put consistent work in and treat it like a real business.

With any business, you need to work hard and put the hours in. But with affiliate marketing many think of it as a get rich quick scheme. This can be a major problem and when it turns out not to be, it can be a hard reality to face. Affiliate marketing is an alternative for many seeking more choice and freedom. But there’s a price to pay with affiliate marketing and you’ll need to study it and build your business over time. It’s difficult especially in the beginning when you don’t have any experience or data to act on. You’ll need to spend months or even years before you see a regular income from it.

The Truth About Affiliate Marketing

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Affiliate marketing is a business model and anyone can learn to use it. If you are determined and persistent, and you use the right business model, you can make affiliate marketing pay! See affiliate marketing business models. There’s various ways to do affiliate marketing too. So depending on your available time and or money, you could take one of several routes.

The fastest way to generate income from affiliate marketing is through purchasing a high ticket sales funnel and using paid marketing. But you’ll need to test and measure your advertising and spend money in order to find a winning advert. This can take some time and there’s no guarantees. So while you’re spending money learning paid advertising, you aren’t necessarily earning money. This path might suit someone with little time but who has the disposable income to use for running advertising campaigns.

If on the other hand you have plenty of time but money is more of an obstacle, you can focus on building content instead. Affiliates create content in various different topics or “niches”. But there’s lots of others doing the same and not everyone can have a first place ranking for their content on Google, for example.

With fierce competition, you face going up against multiple other affiliates within your same niche. If you’re attempting to get your content found cheaply, or for free, this can be a major stumbling block.

But where there’s a will there’s a way; and there’s many other ways to get your content in front of buying customers.

The Truth About Affiliate Marketing – Rates Of Commission

I wouldn’t be doing this article justice if I didn’t mention commissions. When I started out I used physical products which pay very little. Amazon and eBay pay from 1% -11% commission on product referrals. But using digital products can change your potential earnings quite dramatically, when you start generating traction. Typically, digital products pay 20-40% commission.

Recurring commission products are worth a mention here too. If you choose recurring commission products, once you overcome the learning phase of affiliate marketing and get traction, things can happen quickly. A membership or software product can pay you ongoing income from each sale. This is well worth considering if you venture down the affiliate path.

But you still need to make the sale in the first place, which is the most difficult part of affiliate marketing, especially if you’re just starting out. Many affiliates build an email list of subscribers and after several years have email lists of tens of thousands of subscribers. With a list like this, it is so much easier to make a sale by offering products to your list. As a beginner, your list will be very small. Even after a few months you’re unlikely to have more than 500 people on your email list unless you use paid marketing and have a large marketing budget.

Most new affiliates will quit before they reach 1000 subscribers.

The Truth About Affiliate Marketing – How Much Can You Make?

So, how much does the average affiliate marketer make? According to the Affstat benchmark report (2016), affiliate’s income varies (see image above). The high earning affiliates are in a minority whereas the newer affiliates typically earn under $20,000 per year.

Affiliate income varies too and it’s not something which is stable, especially in the beginning. With high ticket products and recurring commission products though it can be more straightforward creating a consistent income from affiliate marketing.

As a beginner in affiliate marketing you should expect to work consistently for several months before seeing much in the way of results (depending on your marketing strategy). With paid marketing this can be speeded up but with content generation expect to work for a longer period before you start gaining traction.

Getting Affiliate Marketing Wrong

There’s also the possibility of working consistently at the wrong activities within your affiliate marketing endeavour. You can work for months without getting anywhere. This can be very demoralising and it’s something which leads many to drop out and quit. But if you can learn from mistakes and see them as learning opportunities, rather than failures, you’re more likely to succeed over the longer term.

See 23 affiliate mistakes newbie affiliates should avoid. To shortcut this problem it’s wise to get help from a mentor or coach. Access a free video series here to learn more about mentoring.

Marketing affiliate products and services is the biggest problem for new affiliates. It’s easy to build websites and sales funnels with pre-made affiliate websites and drag and drop software which you can purchase.

But getting people to your website and/or landing pages to drive sales is much more difficult. This is where most affiliates will struggle. There’s various marketing strategies you can use as an affiliate. See 22 ways to promote affiliate products.

Blogging – creating content like this article for example
V’logging – video blogging and uploading to YouTube
Social media marketing – connecting with people through the various platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc.
Email marketing – building a large email list and creating content to build relationships and offer value

Your Affiliate Link

When you first start out with affiliate marketing, it can be very exciting! You get your affiliate link and look for places to paste it! See where to put your affiliate link. But with only a link and no content it can be difficult getting anywhere. Why would someone use your affiliate link?

To generate sales you need to offer some kind of value first before sending people to products. You need to place yourself in-between the customer and the service somehow.

Example – A Review Website

One of the best ways you can do this is to give value and help them in some way. An review site is a good example to use. With a review website, someone is looking for information on a product or service.

After reading a review (the you have created), the visitor clicks on your affiliate link and purchases an item. Often affiliates will use review sites to give customers information on a number of products, comparing them to each other. Each product review links to the actual product through an affiliate link. So when someone buys you are credited with the sale.

Example – A Niche Website

Affiliates build niche websites too, like this one. AffiliateMarketingMentorsOnline is a niche website within the affiliate niche. But you don’t have to choose the competitive topic of affiliate marketing. There’s many niches you can choose from and ideally pick one which is much less competitive. It’s a good idea to choose a topic which you have a passion for if you’re going the niche route.

Niche websites can be built on specific keyword domain names to help them rank and get traffic (visitors) for free from the search engines. This can take some time and effort though and you should expect to work generating content for several months or years before you are generating a regular income through selling affiliate products.

An Analogy Of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is definitely a tough business and not for the faint hearted. But it can be an option to escape a career and if you’re persistent you can, over time, generate a good income from it. The fact that most will give up and quit leaves plenty of room for those who are determined!

A good analogy I like is that of the Chinese Bamboo tree which takes a 4-5 year gestation period before you even see it sprouting. Most people would give up unless they knew the Chinese Bamboo operated in this way. Once it does sprout, with 5 weeks it grows to 90 feet tall.

If you can see your affiliate business like the Chinese Bamboo tree, you’ll be much better prepared for the tough times and you are more likely to see it through. Don’t expect an easy win from affiliate marketing through because it’s unlikely you’ll succeed with this attitude. But if you work consistently at it over a number of months and years, continue to water and feed it, you’ll reap the rewards!

Resell Digital Products

How do you resell digital products which don’t belong to you? It’s simple, you join an affiliate or partner program which offers them, and refer customers through your unique affiliate link. When a sale is made, you earn a commission which is tracked by your link. Reselling digital products is known as affiliate marketing. Affiliates can earn commissions through referring customers online to a variety of products and services.

Amazon is well known as one of the biggest online stores for affiliates but its products are physical. You can find digital products to sell on sites such as Clickbank, JVZoo.com and Click2sell.com. With digital products there’s less cost involved so profits can be shared more with the affiliate who refers the sale. Physical products have larger manufacturing, storage and delivery costs so commissions are generally much lower.

Amazon, for example pays affiliates from 1-11% commission on a referral. Digital products pay much more and some even offer 100% commissions on products you sell. Mostly though digital products will pay from 20-40% commission on a product.

Resell Digital Products – Flexible & Uncapped Income

One of the main reasons people learn how to resell digital products is to earn a flexible income which can be built on. All you need is an internet connection and a laptop to become an affiliate. You can join a number of affiliate programs to promote digital products which you don’t personally own; although it’s a good idea to purchase them yourself if you want to promote them.

Selling digital products online is a skill to be learned, and you can replace your income through using affiliate marketing. But it’s no easy thing and you should expect to spend several months learning before you start making regular sales.

Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that you can work flexibly around existing work and build your business up over a number of months or years. Some affiliate products even pay you a recurring income. Recurring income affiliate programs are usually programs which offer memberships or software products. These can be the most lucrative to use if you decide to learn how to sell them.

Over time, a recurring commission affiliate program can give you a passive income too. If you only make $20 a month from a membership product, for example, after 100 sales you’ll be earning $2000 passively, if your members maintain their memberships.

How To Resell Digital Products

Learning how to resell digital products can take some time. But once you learn this skill, you can automate sales. This is a skill which can serve you for life, replace your income and give you geographical and financial freedom. Not all affiliates are successful however, and many quit before they reach this point. The first 6 months to a year of your affiliate journey is likely when you’re most likely to quit. That’s the difficult part because you’re only getting going and won’t have any experience to draw on, or data to learn from.

Many affiliates build an email list of subscribers and automate an email follow up series which sells their products and services on autopilot. As a beginner, your list will be very small. As your list grows, you can expect to gain experience and start making sales. But a list of 100 members won’t products the results of someone with a list of 10,000 subscribers. This is why it can be difficult as a beginner getting through the quiet phase where not much happens!

Your first online sale should be celebrated as this marks the start of things to come! This can come after several weeks, months or even years. It’s different for everyone. The key is to keep moving forward and commit to learning and growing personally and with your affiliate marketing business.

Generating Traffic

To build an email list you’ll need to learn how to generate website traffic. Getting traffic to your website and landing pages can be a challenge, particularly when you are learning. There’s a few ways to do this and depending on your individual circumstance you may decide to opt for free marketing or paid marketing strategies. Or you might even do a little of both. Paid marketing is the fastest way to resell digital products but you’ll need to make sure you make more money than you spend.

This can be difficult with physical products because of the low levels of commission they pay. But it’s more attainable with reselling digital products because you’ll usually make 40% commission and above on your sales. If you use subscription affiliate products, you’re giving yourself another advantage still.

There’s several ways you can generate traffic to resell digital products:

Blogging
Organic video
Paid marketing
Social media
SEO – search engine optimisation

High Ticket Digital Reselling

Another key advantage is to use high ticket affiliate products. High ticket products pay much larger commissions. The average digital product you might find on Clickbank, for example, will cost $100. With a 40% commission you’ll earn $40 a sale. With a high ticket product, the price tag can range from $2000 to $20,000. 40% commission on a $2000 product will give you a nice $800 for each sale you make.

It’s also possible to resell digital products which cost upwards of $10,000. These can be membership programs and offer more personal coaching and mentoring. See 1 on 1 affiliate marketing coaching and mentoring.

Main Benefits Of Reselling Digital Products

There’s a few main benefits of reselling digital products. With an online business you can work flexibly around existing work and build up your business over time. Affiliate marketing is also a scalable business model and you can sell digital products globally from wherever you are in the world. You don’t need your own products or even any experience to learn this skill. Access a free video series to learn more here.

People who are long term affiliates enjoy working their online business from anywhere and with a flexible working pattern which suits them. They don’t need jobs and many have made their online business their main source of income. With a scalable income, geographical freedom and no need for a boss, job or commute, many affiliates relocate or travel while working from their laptops.

An online flexible working income is a good way to escape the 9 to 5 and replace your income. This is a real possibility for those who are prepared to work for it. Access a free video series to learn more here.

Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

Affiliate marketing programs for bloggers can cover pretty much any topic. You should choose a product which is suitable for your audience, according to your blog topic. So if you’re blogging about sports cars, for example, it’s not a good idea to sell fertiliser from your blog! You won’t sell any fertiliser to car enthusiasts because that’s not what they are looking for when they visit your blog. This brings us to an important issue about aligning your blog topic with your product. Get this wrong at your peril!

Ideally when someone comes to your blog, you’ll have products and services which are useful and valuable to them. They’ll see your products and buy, or purchase from your email list after signing up for your freebie – an ebook or pdf download typically.

Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers

What is your blog about? What kind of person visits your blog and what kind of products would interest them based on this?

Ask yourself these questions to determine which product or service you should choose for your blog. Then do a search for “{your topic} affiliate programs” on the search engines. You should find many since there’s so many affiliate programs available to join.

So if your blog is about bonsai trees for example, do a Google search for “bonsai tree affiliate program”.

If you’re yet to choose a topic for your blog, consider what you would be comfortable blogging about for the longer term. What are your interests and passions? See also affiliate marketing through blogging and blog niches that make money.

Affiliate Marketing Programs For Bloggers – Choosing Products For Your Topic

Your choice of affiliate marketing program is pretty important too. If you pick a bad product or don’t get a good match, it can be harder to make money from your blogging. Clickbank is a good place to find a lot of digital affiliate products, but there’s also a lot of products which don’t do very well on Clickbank too. It’s a good idea to research your products well before choosing it. A bad product won’t sell, and this could be for a number of reasons: bad sales page, poor product, or negative reviews etc.

Join Clickbank and you can browse through hundreds of digital products in the Clickbank marketplace.

Here’s another way to find products you might want to sell from your blog. Looking at this particular product notice the Grav: 1.51 under the product listing. This means very few affiliates promote this and this can be for a few reasons. This might be good if there’s less competition for SEO (search engine optimisation). But it might also mean it doesn’t sell well.

Choose Products You Purchase Yourself

The best way to align affiliate products with your blogging is to choose products which you have purchased (and value) yourself. If you’re recommending a nice restaurant to a friend, you really should have been there yourself! The same goes for affiliate products. If you have personally bought a product, you’re also in a much better position to recommend it to your website visitors and email subscribers.

When I started out as an affiliate, I just promoted affiliate links willy nilly! I didn’t buy the products often but was just desperate to make money from selling them. Unfortunately this was a difficult learning curve and many products I choose didn’t sell at all.

Having great products which are hugely valuable is a must if you want to make consistent sales. It’s also worth choosing products which offer recurring commissions if you can too. Affiliate products with recurring commissions are usually things such as training and education tools, memberships and software type products.

Offer A Giveaway Product On Your Blog

Whatever affiliate program you decide to join is a representation of you. Your blogging style and content will draw in an audience who should be a good match for your product. However, not all products sell directly from a marketing banner placed on the side of your website.

Sometimes you need to build a relationship with your audience over a longer time period. With physical products you can find on Amazon, it’s much clearer cut what value your products offer. So if you have a photography blog, for example, you can sell cameras and camera equipment from Amazon. You can sell photography courses perhaps too.

With digital products such as trainings and courses, the product value is typically less obvious than with a physical products from Amazon. In the case of digital products (trainings, courses and software), you may have to take a different approach to marketing from your blog. The power of email marketing can help you build relationships with your subscribers and sell less tangible products like these.

To build an email list of subscribers from a blog you’ll need to offer some valuable freebie giveaway which connects you to your affiliate products in some way. On my site I offers a number of ebooks and a free video series explaining the different affiliate business models you can use to build an income online.

Not Started Yet?

If you’ve not started blogging yet and are yet to choose your topic, it’s worth giving it some serious consideration. Blogging is a long term marketing strategy and great fun if you choose a good topic you align with. But it can be tough to earn from if you don’t get the traction you need, or if you choose a topic which is not your passion.

I made the mistake of building a blog with the sole intention of making money from it. I didn’t build it around my passions! I found a domain name “whentoharvestgarlic.com” and starting building content. 6 months in and I was demoralised and burned out. I didn’t give a hoot about Garlic harvesting which made the topic hard to write for and less than a joy. I quit after a year and my site slowly dropped off the search engines!

It was a valuable lesson. So if you’re thinking of picking a topic just for the money it could make, I’d advise you to pick something else which you’re passionate about instead. That way writing is easier and more fun, and you can sustain the necessary effort over the longer term.

The best micro niche for blogging is definitely one you’re passionate about.

Affiliate Marketing Through Blogging

Affiliate marketing through blogging is a good way to start out, especially if funds are low. Blogging however is a long term strategy and less scalable than through running paid advertising. If you’re unfamiliar with affiliate marketing it’s one of the most popular business models used to earn income on the internet. As an affiliate you refer people to products and services online. When they sell, you make money!

Sounds pretty straight forward, right! With a blog, you create content to bring in people to your blog. As they browse your blog posts they can click on your affiliate links and join your email list. From your list you can promote your affiliate products further and for a longer time span. On a website someone has only a few minutes to purchase a product. Most people don’t buy from websites they don’t know. Often there’s a period of getting to know, which can be done through building an email list.

Once on your email list, you can build relationships with your email subscribers. Get them to know, like and trust you over time and they are more likely to buy something which you recommend.

Affiliate Marketing Through Blogging

But before that can happen, they need to find your blog! This is where you create lots and lots of content which will be a good match for your ideal customer. This is worth giving some serious consideration before you start because getting people to your blog posts isn’t the only factor in play with a profitable blog/website. You also need to get the right people to it, or no one will buy from you.

Affiliate marketing through blogging can be a great way to earn a living. But unless you get it right, it can be a very frustrating experience too. You need to choose content carefully because that content is going to draw a certain person to your blog. Write for your perfect customer, not just for anyone.

Who your perfect customers is will depend on your affiliate products. Ideally choose affiliate products which are a good match for your interests and passions. That way, you can write freely about the things which are of interest to you. This will draw in the right audience and they will buy from you.

So to sum up, your success as a blogger will depend on you getting traffic and making sales. Without the right content, or the right products, this can be a challenge. So it’s important to set yourself up for success from the get-go.

Affiliate Marketing Through Blogging – Starting With Your Affiliate Product

Your choice of affiliate product/s is pretty important. You should ideally choose products which are a good match for some interest or passion you have. Blogging takes time and is a long, slow process. It can take months and even years before you build up a good solid following and start getting traffic, leads and sales. Before this can happen, you’ll need to create some great content and the best way to set yourself up for success is to choose a topic close to your heart.

Choosing a topic just to make money is not a great idea. Remember you’ll have to create content which speaks to your target audience. Be yourself and you’ll have an easier time of it. Try and pretend to be someone else and you’ll soon run out of steam.

Some bloggers start out with a passion topic and don’t monetise it until much later: after they have built a huge following.

What Not To Do

I made a big mistake several years ago and I built a website based on a topic I knew nothing about. Worse still, I had no passion or interest in the topic either! The site was called whentoharvestgarlic.com and it no longer exists! I spent a good six months researching content and building the site. It did rank top of Google for the very uncompetitive terms I was aiming at. However, I had no passion for the topic and after 6 months I was simply burned out. It was difficult to monetise the topic too, and it made next to nothing despite my hard work.

But I learned an important lesson. If you’re going to put months into your blogging, and build a business out of it, make sure it’s good and that you love it! Because a year down the line you’re going to want to enjoy what you do. Don’t put the money before the work. Focus on what you’re passionate about and the work will become a joy.

When it does, it’s so much easier to keep going when things get tough, as they often will.

Getting People To Your Blog

So you’ve chosen your topic and you’re ready to get started. You can even choose to build your blog/website around certain keywords which can help it in the rankings. See this article. But this isn’t totally necessary as the content is the most important aspect. See also best micro niche for blogging. To get people to your blog, you’ll need to write good quality content which is suitable for your particular niche. You can use Google’s keyword planner to help you find the keywords which are already being searched for. See also affiliate marketing content ideas.

Use an SEO (search engine optimisation) plugin to help you write SEO friendly content. This will help you get the right balance of keywords in your content to give you more chance of getting it seen in the SERPs (Search engine results pages).

Once you’ve written your first piece of content your job isn’t over. You’ll want to promote it as much as possible. Newer websites will usually have a longer wait before Google (and other search engines) rank they content.

A high ranking on the first page of Google is a great result but never guaranteed. Remember your ranking will depend on a number of ranking points such as length of content, content quality, domain age, back links, social media presence domain name and so on. It also depends on your competition so for a competitive niche such as affiliate marketing it will be so much more difficult to get free traffic to your blog.

Less competitive niches should be easier to get free traffic from, if you blog regularly over several months and promote your content well.

Useful Plugins

There’s a few useful plugins you can use to help you promote your content. Revive old posts is a good plugin, by revive.social. It lets you connect your new and old posts to be syndicated throughout your social media presence online. There’s a free version and a paid version you can use according to functionality but both are useful.

You can also get social media share plugins too which will show on your site. These make it easy for your readers to share your content on social media, so it’s worth choosing one which you like. There’s many free versions available.

I’ve mentioned already an SEO plugin is a useful thing to get too. I use Yoast SEO which helps me write content which is more SEO friendly.

Keep Going – Gaining Momentum

Blogging is a great way to earn from the internet but it takes time. Remember that it’s a long game so prepare yourself for a marathon not a sprint. Make habits out of creating content and over time your habits will serve you.

Here’s a snapshot from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. I thought it particularly relevant to blogging because it can take so long before the fruits of your efforts begin to show. And it’s not a linear journey. There’s a lot of work involved in blogging which appears as if it’s for nothing at times. But hang in there and keep going.

A good analogy of blogging is the Chinese Bamboo tree which has a 4-5 year gestation period and within 6 weeks grows up to 90 feet tall. So for four or five years nothing shows at all! Blogging can be a little like this too. You can work really hard for a long period and nothing shows. It can be tempting to quit. But if you carry on and keep going, you will see a slow generation of traffic. Offer some valuable giveaway on your blog and you’ll see the occasional lead (email sign up).

Use these small successes to motivate you to keep going. They are the “sprouts” of the bamboo tree!

Affiliate Marketing Through Blogging – Summary

Affiliate marketing through blogging can be a rewarding way to build an affiliate business over the longer term. Paid marketing can considerably shorten the journey, but it’s not for everyone, and requires more financial investment rather than an investment of time. See affiliate marketing business models.

Before you get started blogging, consider a topic or subject which you have an interest or passion for. By choosing your topic and aligning it with your interests you have a much better chance of success and for staying the course when times get tough. Creating content will be more of a joy and less of a burden with a topic you love.

Each piece of content on its own won’t make your affiliate business grow. But together and if you promote each piece of content well, you’ll be able to use your blog as a resource to attract your perfect audience. Over time, as your blog attracts more attention, you should see a rise in traffic and leads. You should start making some sales too. But this doesn’t happen immediately, at least in my experience. So be prepared for a long term strategy which compounds on itself over time.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, please share it!

Affiliate Marketing Content Ideas

I often get asked how I come up with new affiliate marketing content ideas. It’s simple! I just use Google’s free keyword planner to look for keywords which are suitable for my target audience. Then, I head over to Google and check how competitive these keywords are. If I get a good long tail keyword which matches my target demographic, and I think I can write some content on the idea, I’ll start planning an article.

If you’re a content marketer, you can create a lot of content which doesn’t really do much. You need to actively promote your content while creating new content to boot! This can take a heap of time and energy. So you need to make sure you have a couple of criteria right when you create any content. For me, these are the criteria:

The keyword or content subject has to be something I’m interested in writing about and have some knowledge on.
There needs to be already people searching for the keyword (hence using Google’s keyword planner)
Low competition – I look for long tail keywords which mean I have a chance of getting free traffic over the longer term.
Buyer keywords – not all content is “buyer” content. But your content should at least be aligned with the products and services you offer as an affiliate. Otherwise you’ll be doing a lot of work for nothing.

Affiliate Marketing Content Ideas – Keywords

Start with your own specific affiliate product and make a note of your main keywords. Whatever your product or service is, you’ll likely have thousands of related keywords which you can find using Google’s free keyword tool. This website’s main keyword is affiliate marketing.

But of course affiliate marketing has a lot of competition. So don’t aim for the short phrases which will drown you out in the search engines. Instead, find the long tail “low hanging fruit” which will each bring you a trickle of website traffic each and every month. Then create a tonne of great content which does the same.

If I’m unsure of what keyword to use, I spend a bit of time on Google’s keyword planner starting out with my main “seed” keyword. Here’s a short video which shows you how to find long tail keywords within your niche which you have more chance of getting free traffic for.

Affiliate Marketing Content Ideas

Once you get into the habit of finding keywords like this, you’ll start getting better at it. I like to find ideas which I’m enthused about. It’s much harder to create content if you don’t actually want to write, or create a video about the actual topic. One site I built was about mushroom harvesting! 6 months in and I was more than ready to throw in the towel!

With a good topic which you have enthusiasm for, you can create content for much longer. This will give you the best chance of success as an affiliate. Don’t pick a topic you don’t have an interest in! See best micro niche for blogging.

If you find yourself creating content in a niche you don’t care about, change to one which you do. You’ll find content creation can be much more joyful and lucrative if you pick a topic you love.

Content Creation & Ikigai

Ikigai is a Japanese concept meaning “reason for being”. But it’s much more than that too. In Japan, it encapsulates who you are and how you serve the world while creating an income. In terms of affiliate marketing, if your reason for getting up in the morning is lined up with your purpose and how you earn a living, you’ll be all the more happy for it.

Whereas if your purpose, passion and income source are misaligned, you’ll struggle finding a path for content creation in affiliate marketing.

Content Creation Using YouTube

You can also use YouTube to find content ideas in a similar way to using Google’s keyword planner. Simply type your seed keywords into YouTube and you should see a number of keyword suggestions come up under the search bar tool. This can give you an idea of what people are already searching for on YouTube.

A great little resource site to use is called keywordseverywhere.com. This can help you identify keywords in your niche which are already being searched for and also show you the search volume and relative competition.

Once you find a suitable keyword which suits you, your niche and offers less competition than the rest, you can create a video and use those keywords within the title and description of your video.

Affiliate Marketing Content Ideas – BuzzSumo

Another useful site is called Buzzsumo.com. Buzzsumo can show you content which is trending on social media. This can be useful in a number of ways. You can use the titles of these trending topics to give you ideas and inspiration for your own title content.

You can also use the content itself in conjunction with a clever little tool called Snip.ly. Snip.ly can let you use existing content and link to yours within it. I mention Snip.ly in my article 22 ways to promote affiliate products. Here’s a video I created on how to use Snip.ly:

Use Your Enthusiasm

Sometimes you get inspired to create content at odd times! If you can jump on this inspiration, it’s the best time to create it. Other times the creative flow just isn’t flowing. Use your enthusiasm for your topic to create it, rather than “trying” to do it when there’s a resistance. Create content about things you’re genuinely inspired by yourself. You’ll find content creation can be a joy rather than a burden. If you do a little each day, you’ll soon build a habit out of it. If you overwork, and try to create too much in too short a time, you’ll stifle that creativity.

Work on those things you are enthusiastic about, when you’re enthusiastic about them! That way, you’ll be genuinely turning “work” into joy, and your affiliate business will become a joy to work on. If you’re constantly struggling, you’re doing something wrong. Find an easier way and don’t make your life more difficult!

Building A Niche Website For A Local Business

Building a niche website for a local business is a great idea! One of the best strategies you can use if you have a locally based business is to build a niche website. Ideally choose your keywords based on the most searched for term in your local area. In the video below, I’m using the example of “dog walking leeds”.

This strategy can be used with affiliate marketing too of course. Although it works wonders for locally based businesses because there’s a lot less competition.

A quick keyword planner search of the terms “dog walker leeds” brings up a number of 590 searches a month for this (or similar terms). You can also use dog walkers or dog walking in leeds and so on. The terms are often bundled together so you can look for a suitable domain name on namecheap.com to purchase one which is a good fit.

Building A Niche Website For A Local Business

With a locally based business you have the added benefit of a much smaller audience. So with the results for my search of “dog walking leeds”, I can see there’s a good chance of ranking my website.

Once you have found your keywords and done some research on the level of competition, you can build your site. This article explains a little about how to build your website and optimise it.

It can take a few months for your website to start showing up on Google. You’ll need to create some content and build it up over time. Use SEO (search engine optimisation) plugins and social sharing plugins to help you get it noticed and ranked.

Don’t Forget Your Google My Business Listing

If you do have a locally based business, don’t forget you can also build a free listing using Google my Business. It’s a free business listing for locally based businesses so it’s definitely worth an hour of your time to set it up. Once setup, it’s done for life and can give you free customers forever!

As you’ll see, Google My Business listings appear generally at the top of the page. However, if someone advertises their business using paid marketing, they will appear even higher on the page.

If you want to use paid marketing, you can use Google Adwords program. Bing and Yahoo also offer similar services so don’t forget there’s traffic there too!

Building A Niche Website For Affiliate Marketing

Building a niche website for your affiliate marketing business can be done in just the same way. Certain topics within affiliate marketing are much more competitive than others of course. This strategy works better in the less competitive topics, although it can work in any. Affiliate marketing as a topic is very competitive and although I’ve built this site in an affiliate marketing niche, it’s been a tough cookie to crack!

That’s because there’s just so much competition. But there’s other affiliate niches which you can tap into using this exact same strategy. Just make sure you do your research and only target keywords with low competition.

I generally go for keyword phrases with less than 10,000,000 competition in a search on Google. Look for the number which appears under your search on a desktop computer. (See below)

How Successful Is This Strategy?

The success of this strategy will depend on some key elements:

The keywords you choose
The competition for competing websites
How you build your website (content backlinks etc.)

However, I’ve had some great success with this strategy, particularly for locally based businesses. With the affiliate sites I’ve built it has been much more difficult because there’s more competition. A local business will always be less competitive than globally based businesses.

So if you have a locally based business there’s no reason not to give this strategy a go!

See also get traffic to your website free for more information on building up your site over time and getting its domain authority to improve.

Overworking And Burnout

If you’re an affiliate you’ve probably experienced overworking and burnout. Because affiliates are only paid when they make a sale, there’s often a lot of work involved; particularly in the beginning of your affiliate career. Initially you’ll do a lot of work and not see much in the way of results. Over time, your work can compound to generate a passive income even, if you stick at it long enough.

If you can see this eventuality, there can be a compulsion to over work. Over time this can lead to burnout and even quitting. So it’s important to notice when you are emotionally, spiritually or physically exhausted through over work. Don’t quit, just rest.

When this time comes, and it will, you need to be prepared to let go and unplug. It can be difficult to unplug from your affiliate “baby” but it’s well worth doing so. You’ll come back stronger and with more clarity if you do.

Overworking and Burnout – Shifting Strategies/Tasks

If you belong to a community of people who can help you, you can also switch tasks: watch a webinar or join a new training course. Try something different to what you are doing on a daily basis in your affiliate business. Or have a full week or day off the computer completely.

Screen time can affect your sleep too and it can be easy to continually have a screen stuck to your face as you check emails endlessly and look at your website traffic.

Here’s an awesome video I found from Tim Ferris in which he explains how to use your phone! I’m sure you think you know how to use your phone, but after watching this you’ll know how to not let your phone use you. It will also help your sleep which is a vital part of success in any venture.

Exercise and Sleep

If you’re experiencing burnout it’s also useful to prioritise some of the things you’re probably taking for granted. Exercise and sleep are often two of the main things which start slipping if you’re overworking. Take time out and focus only on activities which are the most important in your business, if you can’t completely stop.

Remember Wu Wei – effortless effort? Wu Wei is a philosophy where you use just the right amount of energy in the appropriate time and place. Sinologist Jean François Billeter describes it as a “state of perfect knowledge of the reality of the situation, perfect efficaciousness and the realisation of a perfect economy of energy”.

That’s all very well if your affiliate business is running on all cylinders. But if you’re just starting out, you could spend months without seeing any results in terms of sales. This can be super frustrating but as with many things, stepping back and looking at the bigger picture can often lead to larger breakthroughs than by maintaining work for work’s sake.

Why Work Doesn’t Always Work

Work doesn’t always work because often you can spend time in all the wrong places. Affiliate marketing is hard, at least at first. So it’s important to develop a growth mindset so you are working in the most efficient way possible for your business. This sometimes means not working. Practice a day of “mindful inactivity”. This can be very difficult for productive people, especially if you’re desperate for success with an affiliate business. But often the very nature of being “desperate” can push success away. A stressed and fearful mindset is seldom one which makes good decisions for your business.

Sometimes some time out can allow your mind to settle and you can often receive insights and inspirations which you were blocking out through overworking. Cloudy water soon settles when it is still.

Overworking and burnout is common and not just in the affiliate marketing business. By taking time out, prioritising diet, exercise and sleep, you can solve problems which only existed in your mind. Let the cloudy water clear! Namaste!

Growth Mindset and Affiliate Marketing

A growth mindset and affiliate marketing should go hand in hand. For a long time I looked to affiliate marketing as a means to only make money. “Where’s the money?” I thought. But over time I’ve come to appreciate that there’s a great “gem” to be taken from working an affiliate marketing business. That gem is personal growth. I’d always been fascinated by psychology and self help books have been my constant companion for many years.

In my 20’s and 30’s panic set in. I was broke and desperate so I though this was the perfect time to start an online business! Ha ha! Of course I didn’t realise that the mindset I brought with me almost guaranteed failure. Being broke and desperate meant I tried all the free stuff and quit too soon.

Growth Mindset & Affiliate Marketing Course after Course

I couldn’t afford to pay for training and courses, and I didn’t have the time either! I needed money now – yesterday in fact. The debt was eating me up and I was desperately unhappy while being desperately poor too.

So I looked to the internet as a means to solve my problems. Of course there was “easy money” to be made – I knew this because the “guru’s” told me so! But after months of struggle I knew this couldn’t be so. “Perhaps I hadn’t found the right get rich quick scheme yet”, I thought to myself. So I would buy another one, and another, and another.

Being addicted to “make money online” courses was as addictive as self help books. They always promised but never seemed to deliver. So I would abandon the course I was on, and look for another one. One which worked this time!

But of course I never thought to look into my own mindset – filled with fear and dread, desperate, broke! That’s not a good state of mind to go to the doctors, let alone start a business. But I didn’t want a business, I just wanted quick cash from the internet!

Giving Not Getting

I had a poverty consciousness and wanted to “get” not give. I had nothing to give, or so I thought. Over the years things changed most dramatically for my affiliate business when I understood that I needed to be of value. I let go of getting and started trying to give first.

When you’ve struggled for a long time through it becomes part of who you are. I was definitely becoming more “me” centric as I became entrenched in my personal drama of struggle. But after learning from coaches mentors about learning to let go of my own personal needs and wants, that’s what I set about doing. I had built a list by this point and had a few thousand people on it.

So instead of sending messages such as “click here” get money, I changed my emails to a more educational angle. I talked about my struggles and what had helped me, rather than sending spammy messages with an “urgent click here” rhetoric!

Low and behold things changed. People started buying, not because my products had changed, but because my attitude had!

Growing Vs. Making Money

There’s no doubt that personal growth is linked to income potential. But if you’ve been in a frustrated energy for a while, it materialises into physical life in many ways. Money was most definitely one of them for me. When you’re in a desperate “energy” of never having enough, you simply create more of what you focus on: not having enough. If you have looked into the law of attraction, and The Secret – the Rhonda Bryne book, you’ll have seen this concept before.

A desperate shop keeper is a good example of how someone pushes money away by trying too hard to sell to his customers. As a customer, you came into his shop to look around. You get a vibe for the place to see if you’re comfortable. A pushy sales person comes up to you and won’t leave you alone. Do you buy something? For me the answer is always a no! Yet that is what I was effectively doing with my desperation to make online sales – pushing people away!

If you find yourself in a similar place, go back to learning and growing. Put yourself in a growth mindset where you see personal growth as the answer before the actual cash/sales. Join webinars and seminars, and network with other entrepreneurs. You can join a program through this website. Simply sign up using the form and you can access the free video series.

How Much Does The Average Affiliate Marketer Make?

How much does the average affiliate marketer make? How long does affiliate marketing take? Is it worth your time and when will you be able to replace your employment income?

Because there are so many affiliate marketers, it’s difficult to determine just how much the average affiliate marketer makes. The Affstat affiliate marketing benchmark report shows the following in relation to affiliate earnings:

This report was a few years ago now and no doubt there are many more affiliates since this report was carried out in 2016. As you can see from the image above, only 3.16% of affiliate marketers make $150,000 or more per year. The larger proportion (48.36%) make less than $20,000 a year. Many new affiliates won’t be making money at all. Here’s a view of the countries represented in this report.

How Much Does The Average Affiliate Marketer Make?

In 2015 this was the result of the AffStat report into affiliate’s earnings:

As you can see the statistics are similar to the following year as per the first chart. It’s also useful to look at the spread of affiliates who took part in the study. The following image shows the length of time affiliates had been affiliates and relates to the 2016 report:

affiliate since chart — Source: https://issuu.com/affiliatesummit/docs/2016_affstat_final

Based on the 2016 Affstat report, a massive 48.36% of affiliates earn less than $20,000 a year from their affiliate efforts. It’s difficult to get more specific about earnings than this but as a beginner affiliate, you shouldn’t expect too much. Every new affiliate starts from zero and earnings are performance based. Many of the affiliates in the test group had been affiliates for several years, too.

Is Affiliate Marketing Worth Your Time?

Affiliate marketing works for some but not for others. Many jump on the affiliate marketing band wagon expecting an easy win, but are disappointed by what they can achieve easily, so they give up. The affiliate marketing failure rate is therefore pretty high.

But for those who stick at it and overcome the difficulties, there are great rewards. It’s worth mentioning too, that there are many ways to approach affiliate marketing. Not every affiliate has the same approach to it. Here’s an image from the AffStat benchmark report from 2016 showing the various strategies implemented by the affiliates who took part in the study:

Source: https://issuu.com/affiliatesummit/docs/2016_affstat_final

From this image you can clearly see than most affiliates use SEO (search engine optimisation), leveraging social networks, blogging and email marketing. Only 34.28% use pay per click marketing and far less use the other mentioned methods.

Is affiliate marketing worth your time then, you may ask? Well it depends on how you value your time and your individual circumstances. Some new affiliates are desperate to escape their corporate jobs and would do almost anything to make it happen. They will be far more motivated to make an affiliate business work than someone who is just “having a go” for some extra income. Plus, they will have more disposable income to start and advertise a business.

Your income is a factor too. On a low income, you may not be able to access high ticket affiliate programs and use paid marketing strategies. If you have time though, you could pursue cheap and free marketing strategies, although this route will be considerably longer. For someone trapped in a career which demands their time, they will have less available time for slower marketing strategies. So they should use other methods to generate traction.

Can You Replace Your Income With Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, you can replace almost any income through using affiliate marketing. But as you see from the stats, the high earners are in a minority. Transitioning from a high paying job to affiliate marketing does give you the funds to use the faster methods of affiliate marketing. See fastest legit way to make money online. But you’ll still need to invest heavily to use high ticket products and test and measure your paid marketing campaigns before you can be profitable. Not everyone is willing to take the risk associated with starting their own online business though, and nothing is guaranteed.

If you aren’t in a well paid career, there are other ways to build an income online. You can use cheaper marketing strategies and invest at lower levels according to your budget. But cheaper products pay less in commission. So this generally will take longer than the paid marketing route.

If you’re interested in starting affiliate marketing but are unsure where to begin, you can access a free video series which explains the different ways of generating income online. Click on the image below to access.

How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul

Wondering how to blog for profit without selling your soul? If you think building a profitable blog means working tirelessly writing about something you don’t care about, you’re dead wrong! Blogging can and should be an enjoyable way to earn a living. Not all bloggers are profitable though and it’s important to establish a realistic expectation about what a blog can do for you. Yes, some bloggers make a great income from their efforts, but often they have been at it for years.

Don’t expect to start a blog, work sporadically on it and be able to quit your job! You’ll need to put in the effort to build even a modest, reliable income from a blog. There’s millions of blogs on the internet. In order to stand out you’ll need to work regularly building content for some time. Depending on your particular niche topic this could be months or years. But if you enjoy writing on your blog you’ll have some distinct advantages over those who are only blogging for profit:

You’ll enjoy the process and do it with or without payment
This means you’ll be able to sustain your efforts for much longer than the competition
If you’re passionate about your topic it will come across in your content and attract a larger audience.

How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul – A Short Story

When I started out as a blogger, I was determined to make money from a blog! I built multiple websites and blogs with the sole goal of making money. Unfortunately most of my efforts were wasted. I didn’t spend nearly enough time or energy on most of my content. In one particular case, I built a website around the keyword “when to harvest mushrooms”. A friend, who was also affiliate marketer, had had some success from a potato harvesting website! So I scoured the keyword planner for keywords which I could rank a website for on Google to get free traffic.

A Niche Website

When to harvest garlic fit the criteria of having monthly searches and not much competition for other websites. So I set to work! I bought the domain name whentoharvestgarlic.com and built a WordPress website on it. I wrote content using Google’s free keyword tool to title all my articles. It did rank top for those keywords for several months. But I ran out of steam. It was incredibly labour intensive researching a topic I knew nothing about – nor was I interested in it! I just wanted the end result. After 6 months of building content I gave up on the site and soon it drifted down the rankings.

It was a difficult topic to monetise too, with little to offer in terms of affiliate products I could sell from the site. I monetised with Google Adsense and found an affiliate program offering vaguely related products. However, the site was largely a failure, and I now use it as an example of what not to do!

The main takeaway from this is that my foundations were wrong. I put the “cart before the horse” and wanted the outcome more than the process. I was selling my soul! How to blog for profit without selling your soul? That’s an example of how not to do it.

How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul – Ikigai

What fires you up? Maybe you’re unsure what really floats your boat? Perhaps you haven’t found your “thing” yet. But a good way to determine what you’re all about is to ask yourself what you would do if money didn’t matter? How would you like to spend your life if money was out of the equation? If you could be with complete integrity with yourself, and not compromise, what would you do? The answer lies somewhere in what comes up for you here and the Japanese have a saying for what this is: Ikigai.

Ikigai is where your passions, interests and vocation all line up. Blogging is an awesome way to line up your passions with making an income. But you need to create the content first before the money comes. To create enough content and content which is good enough to get noticed, you need to keep at it for several months or years and become consistent at creating content. If you choose a topic which you’re not interested in, the chances of your blog making money for the long term is vastly diminished. But build a blog you love, and pay into it regularly (by creating content) and over time your blog can pay you handsomely.

Just Get Started

Whether you know or not just what your passion is, it’s also a good idea to just get started. Blogging is a long term endeavour and it takes time for you to find your feet. Often by starting something you can find your way. You can start out by purchasing a domain name. A good domain name can make a difference to how your visitors perceive your blog. If you’re unsure, just use your own name. You can also build a blog around a specific keyword which can help you with your rankings. Here’s a blog post on the process of purchasing a domain and getting your site hosted.

You’ll also need to regularly create content on your blog in order to get any visitors. This is where your passion should come into play. Without a driving focus and belief in and love for your topic, you’ll find just doing the necessary work far more problematic when blogging for any length of time. With a passion for your topic, you’re much more likely to succeed and you’ll enjoy the process too which is vital if you don’t want to sell your soul!

Monetising Your Blog

Monetising your blog can be done in several ways. The main two ways are through affiliate marketing and advertising. I use Google Adsense on this blog and several others. With Google Adsense, you can place code on your site which Google converts into advertising. When visitors click on your adverts, you make a small commission each time.

With a lot of traffic, you can make a nice extra passive income from this over time. But the key is traffic. With little or zero traffic, you’ll not make anything. Traffic therefore is linked to creating content and we’ve already said why you must love your blogging! Without a healthy zest for your blog, you simply won’t be able to keep up the work for long enough to make it pay.

The other way to monetise a website is through using affiliate products. Of course if you have your own products or services, you can also promote them directly from your blog, too. If not, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways, if not the best way to monetise a blog and start profiting from it. That being said, you need to choose your affiliate products carefully. Most importantly they need to be a good match for your audience and content. Without a good match, it’s unlikely your visitors will purchase something from your site. See how to know your target market.

Building An Email List Of Subscribers From A Blog

Building an email list is the best thing you can do to monetise a blog. Without a list, you’re depending on visitors to your blog taking some buying action on your site or clicking on your advertising. Most website visitors won’t purchase immediately from a blog or website. But by giving away a powerful “lead magnet” you can obtain your visitors email address and continue giving them valuable content through your email marketing campaigns. See the power of email marketing.

With an email marketing campaign, you can build relationships with your subscribers over weeks, months and even years and decades. On a blog, you only have a few minutes to make a sale. But an email list extends this time period dramatically.

Again, coming back to the main point of this article, you want to align your values with your content. If you don’t believe in the products you’re selling, you will feel like you’re selling your soul! So choose affiliate products you would purchase yourself to promote. Otherwise the disconnect will be reflected in the way you communicate through your content – both blogging and emailing.

Choosing The Right Affiliate Products

Selling anything doesn’t always gel with people and if you’re creative, this can be a sticking point. Ideally start with your passions and interests. Then look for affiliate products which relate to this. A simple Duckduckgo.com search for “your niche/topic affiliate program” will help you zone in on products and services which you can promote from almost any blog. Whatever your blog topic, you can monetise it through affiliate marketing in some way. But the best way to sell products is to choose products you’re genuinely aligned with and believe in.

I made the mistake early on in my blogging career in promoting products I had no clue about – just for the money. The problem was, I couldn’t create any content which was helpful to anyone in making a purchasing decision and therefore didn’t make many sales. Finding the products and services you want for yourself is the best way to find the kinds of products you are best positioned selling as an affiliate.

Consider selling something you care nothing for and actually don’t believe in! Then compare this to talking about your favourite topic or thing. What lights you up will come across in your content while you’re creating your blog and this is important if you want to create a worthwhile blog.

How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul – Summary

As Simon Sinek puts it “Start With Why“. Blogging takes some time to generate traction and if you choose a topic you don’t care about, it’s take twice as long and be half as effective! But choose a topic you love and your passion will turn into your vocation. You’ll find more content to write about and love every minute. If you hate the process, you may as well have a job you hate! At least you’ll get paid a regular wage!

You can monetise a blog with advertising and affiliate products but again, choose products you align with and personally would choose to purchase. Otherwise, you’ll be selling your soul! When you believe in what you’re doing, you’ll have so much more energy for it and it will be less difficult.

Find your Ikigai – ikigai is a Japanese term meaning reason for being. When you align your values and passions to your vocation, you’ll love working and it won’t seem like “work”.