I started out doing affiliate marketing without much money – so I looked for low cost affiliate strategies I could do for very little financial investment. In the very beginning this meant totally for free.
I used blog websites such as Hubpages.com and free website building programs such as Weebly.com. The blogging platforms you can use are many, and you can choose from sites such as Blogger.com, Medium.com, WordPress.com to write posts completely for free.
My very first affiliate sale came from Hubpages after writing a review of a software product I had purchased. But I had some problems after that and my account was shut down. Free blog platforms have their problems and one of them is getting traffic to your content.
As time went on, I realised it was worth building my own websites and hosting them on my own domain. This gives you better standing both with the search engines and your visitors. Your own domain name gives you a greater authority than a free blog site. Plus, gaining approval from the search engines (particularly Google) is much more difficult on a free blogger site.
Low Cost Affiliate Strategies – The Niche Website
The niche website has definitely been the best low cost affiliate strategy I have used. I’ve written a post on how to build a niche website but I’ll explain a little here too. The way I build niche websites is to start with some keyword research. I research keywords that I would like to rank my website for first.
Of course the most competitive keywords are generally well over subscribed. It’s difficult to rank for them and the domain names are usually gone or incredibly expensive. So instead of going after those top (more competitive) keywords I look for the diamonds in the rough – those keywords which are less competitive but which still give the opportunity to sell affiliate products from.
This niche website has been built around the keywords “affiliate marketing mentors” and is an example of site which has generated free traffic and sales.
Back in the early 2000’s you could throw up a niche website with only a few pages on it and rank at the top of Google for your chosen keywords. Today this is much more difficult to do. You’ll usually need to show Google that your site is worth a listing at all – let alone a top place. In a competitive niche (such as affiliate marketing) it’s more difficult to rank a website than a less popular one.
Low Cost Affiliate Strategies – Blogging
Blogging is a fine compliment to building a niche website. A niche website can easily fail too and I’ve built many of them which simply didn’t work. The key factor to making your niche website a winner, I believe, is to choose a topic you can continue to enjoy working on, despite of the money.
Many of my niche websites failed mainly because I only wanted the end result of them – sales on autopilot. I threw them up and they offered little in the way of value for their visitors. Some made a sale or two, but it was hardly worth the effort really, for all the work I put in. But when I found a niche I could put some love into – like this one, things changed because I enjoyed working on it! This meant I could out-last others in the same niche who wouldn’t put the same love and attention in.
Checkout my post best niche for blogging for more on the topic of choosing your niche.
A Lesson Learned
One of my blogs was on a site built around the subject of mushroom harvesting! I knew nothing of this topic, but I was trying to rank a website on Google and this keyword had very little competition.
I did manage the rank the site, but it was difficult to monetise. After a few months I ran out of love for writing on the topic. Because I knew little on the subject I had to research every blog post I wrote! This made it much more difficult to sustain the effort needed to keep building content.
After a while another (more passionate) blogger overtook my place on Google and mine fell away. I simply couldn’t sustain the effort needed to maintain my place on Google. After several months of unrewarded work on this site, I eventually let it die! But it was a lesson learned. Choose a topic you can monetise, and choose one which you are passionate about over the longer term.
Low Cost Affiliate Strategies – Facebook
Another low cost affiliate strategy I learned was through using Facebook. Although I didn’t pursue this strategy as much as the blogging, I did find it to be effective. The strategy involves setting up a lead magnet on your Facebook page. Then join groups where your customer avatar will be likely to hang out.
Chat with people in those groups and help them out with problems. Don’t spam, simply chat. Spend a bit of time each day leaving comments and interacting in group chat. Over time, some people from those groups will visit your profile and notice what you’re offering.
It’s a simply free strategy to encourage people to visit your Facebook profile and therefore notice your affiliate offering. You can read more about this strategy in my post unpaid social media marketing.
Quora
Quora is another great resource for low cost advertising if you’re prepared to make a daily habit out of posting on the site. I used Quora.com quite effectively to build traffic back to my various websites.
Start by opening an account on Quora and answering questions in your niche. If appropriate, you can link to content on your website in your answers. Providing those links are repeated multiple times, and they are relevant to the answers you are giving, they are allowed. Directly affiliate link posting isn’t allowed however. If you do this you’ll get a warning and then you’ll get banned!
Make sure you are posting value in your answers as shorter answers with links to your content are likely to be removed. For more on this strategy visit my post affiliate marketing on Quora.
See also 22 ways to promote affiliate links for more strategies both free and paid.