How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners And Quickly Get Your First Sale

Before you get in your car you know what the final destination is, you know where you are going, right?. 

Affiliate Marketing is no different. 

If you want to be successful, start with an end in mind. 

Decide first what you want your affiliate marketing site to be about. Choosing a niche is super easy. 

Some people get stuck at what a niche is, or how to find a niche. A niche is simply a group of people that have a common interest in something. 

If you are stuck finding a niche think about what you are passionate about, what you hobbies are, what gets your juices flowing. 

A niche can also be something that you are interested in or knowledgeable about or a common problem people are facing. 

The one caveat here is to avoid any medical problems or complaints, the Google algorithm updates make it difficult for health sites that are run by non-medical professionals to rank highly in search results pages.  

If you are quite the diva and have a passion for Beauty or  Fashion these are two great markets to get involved with. 

Notice I said markets and not niches. 

You will need to go down a level and "home in" or "zoom in" on a specific area otherwise you could just get lost in the crowd of literally millions of other similar sites. 

And you will stand out more with a specific targeted site with specialist information. 

Getting focused is easy just think who is your site for and have a specific person in mind. "Beauty Tips For" and this can be: 

1. Asian/Korean/Japanese Ladies.
2. Teens & Tweens girls.
3. Girls with pale or light skin. 
4. Low Cost 5min Beauty Tips For College Students
5. Women with certain skin type (Dry, Sensitive, eczema).  

I'm just free flowing, I can tell you there are some good beauty niches right there and targeted to a specific audience. 

Let's Run this for a Digital Photography Niche Site and see what niches spring to my mind. 

• Wedding Photography For Beginners.
• Travel Photography For Beginners. 
• Trick Photography Techniques
• Best Nikon/Cannon/Sony DSLR Cameras For Beginners/Experts/Pros
• Portable Photography Equipment

I think that you get the idea here, home in and go down a level and zoom in on a specific area or section and you have a niche. 

It is in my opinion important to select something that is close to your heart.

If and when you have a real passion for your niche you will find that time flies past and working on your site (read: Business) is so much easier. 

Bonus: Tutorial How To Find A Niche

The second question you should be asking is this:

Is There Money To Be Made In This Niche?

Let's be straight here, you are in this not for the ride or for the fun of it! while it is fun to make some cool hobby sites and have a great time building them, you are in it for the money!.

While, if we count advertising revenue all sites have the potential to earn money we should treat that as another revenue source and focus on affiliate marketing as, well, 2 sources of income is always better than one.

This means you have to be 100% sure that there are products for sale that you can earn an affiliate commission from. 

I'll talk a little later about how and where to find affiliate programs. 

What Topic Or Subject Can You See Yourself Easily Writing 30, 60, or 100 Articles About?

If you are not used to writing that might seem like a huge number, trust me if you are passionate about the topic the article will fly off the digital Guttenberg printing press!. 

In all probability you will end up in a situation where you are on fire and just can't stop writing. 

Let's say you are in the Fitness Niche or Sports Niche for the former you can write about various exercise routines focusing on different parts of the body.

If you are really into the topic and work out regularly you can easily roll off the top of your head half a dozen routines for arms, legs, core, and whole body, summer workout and winter workouts, there's 36 articles to kick off your fitness site!. 

Sports, oh wow!. content wise this is a gold mine. Firstly niche down to a specific sport. 

You can write about top sporting moments, sporting heroes for that sport, up coming fixtures, results events, news, equipment, gear and memorabilia, skills and training drills. 

There are literally a million different things that you can write about for each and every niche. 

Top Tip: If you ever get stuck for content ideas checkout and list your top 10 doppelgangers, check out what they are writing about and go create better more beautiful and more informative content than they are. 

If the food or travel blogging interests you, I have already listed my top 50 food blogs and top 50 travel blogs. 

Content ideas are never a problem, never!.

You need to create enough content to be taken seriously by both your audience and search engines to reward you with enough traffic for you to make a full-time income from. 

If you are a little thin on content you will have a hard time convincing your visitors that you are an authority on the subject of your site and have them buy something based on your recommendation. 

With a lack of content you will have a difficulty in convincing people to visit your site again and become regular visitors and buyers. 

The big "secret" to affiliate marketing is people don't buy from websites, they buy from people they trust. 

Is There Enough Space For Another Affiliate Site In Your Niche?

There are some very profitable niches where incredible money can be made as an affiliate marketer - I'm talking 6 and 7 figures here!. 

This does not mean that you should go ahead and dive in and start an affiliate site in those niches. 

These niches are incredibly difficult, busy and almost impossible for you to gain any traction in. 

And the competition is VERY strong. Those niches are ones that I strongly advise newbies to avoid, at least for their first sites. 

An example of busy niches are: 

• Diet/Weight Loss.
• Make Money Online.
• Blogging Tips.
• Work From Home.
• Self Improvement/Self Development.
• Fitness.
• Gadgets. 
• Investing.
• Health.

These are ones that I advise to avoid until you have earned your first US$1,500 month regularly with affiliate marketing.

By this time and point you will know what you are doing and have the skills set to make edgeways, slowly but steadily in those niches.

If you are new and lack the skills and knowledge, building an affiliate site in those niches really is a case of build it and they won't come!.

Are Enough People Interested In Your Niche?

The opposite of the above is true, just as there are very busy niches that you just won't get your voice heard in, there are niches that are, well, like the tree falling in a forest adage. 

If there is very little demand and a tight small audience to market to no matter how hard your try you just won't make money. 

"Classic South African Stamp Collectors For Men Over 60's" is really not going to make you any affiliate commissions worth mentioning. 

Note: Travel is a market NOT a niche, travel niches include, luxury travel, budget travel, beach, mountain, ski resorts, cruises and location specific such as Thailand, Vietnam, Spain, Malaysia, California are examples of niches. 

Usually there is an abundance of products to promote in any given niche. 

Bonus: Top 100 Affiliate Programs In Different Niches

Tip: Don't worry so much about what assets (graphics, banner ads, etc) comes with an affiliate program or network. 

You will stand out from the potential thousands of other affiliates promoting that product by making your own banner that blends in with your own sites branding and colour scheme, and you will get more sales!.

The first 2 steps were about finding your site and doing your background research and finding out if it is profitable and worth your while. 

These should be repeated until you find a profitable one that really hits the spot for you. 

Now it's lights, camera, action!. 

And thankfully...there is not much in the way of action.

Building a website in this day and age is super simple and can be done is a matter of minutes and a few clicks. 

You can set up a Free Account, Get 2 FREE Websites And 10 FREE Affiliate Marketing Lessons Here. 

This is by far the best and easiest way to get your affiliate marketing site and career off the ground and off to a flying start. 

• Best Of Articles

These articles should have Affiliate links. They won't convert as well to sales as Product review articles but you will still get sales. 

Example 10 Best Power Drills (yes power drills and DIY is a great niche!). At the end of the article state which of the Power Drills is best and why. 

• Top X Lists 

This is similar to above where you create list style posts for Top 5, Top 10 for example Top 10 Men's Watches (yes, an excellent focused niche). 

As per the best of articles above tell why a certain watch is your top choice and why and don't forget your affiliate links. 

This guy here talks about how he added an extra US$1,500 to his affiliate earnings using this technique!.

• Problem Solving Content 

When you solve a problem that people are experiencing within your niche you will slowly by surely create trust and become an authority in your area. 

If you are in the pet niche, you can create problem solving content helping your audience to toilet train their dog or their cat not to destroy furniture by scratching and destroying it. 

Parenting and mommy sites can write tons of, literally thousands of content on Solving Common Problem of all kinds. 

The general theme of your site, and particularly this type of content should be helping people. Sites that genuinely help people tend to make the most money. 

This content type is informational and should not contain affiliate links. 

• Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is content that never gets old or never goes out of fashion. You should aim for as much Evergreen content as possible as this kind will always pulls in beautiful, free, and highly targeted traffic for ever!. 

Prior to creating this kind of, or any content I strongly suggest Using a Keyword Research Tool. 

The use of keywords and doing your keyword research will help you to rank and stay ahead of the competition. 

Understanding Keywords and their use is lesson 9 of the FREE Affiliate Marketing Training Course. 

• "How To" Guides

How To Guides teaching your audience how to do something, like "How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners". 

Or "How To Tune A Guitar", "How To Assemble Ikea Furniture" 

This type of content is evergreen, attracts a lot of links and over time draws in a lot of traffic.

How To guides also help to affirm your place as an authority in your niche. 

• Best Ways To

This kind of content is similar to above "How To Guides" but written in a best ways style.

Best ways to bake a cake, Best ways to train for a marathon, best ways to lose weight and Best Way To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing are all great example of content you can create in this fashion. 

• Buyers Guides

This type of content is usually focused on detail and is commercialised with your affiliate links. 

This as it sound detailing what to look for when buying a specific product item. 

"A Buyers Guide To Buying the perfect SmartTV".  

• Beginners Guides

This type of content is very informative, written for beginners and with beginners in mind.

The content ideas here are almost limitless and there are plenty for whatever niche you are involved in. 

Beginner's guide to Italian Cooking, a beginners guide to playing the drums. Etc, etc. 

• Build Your Email List

This is perhaps something that you have heard all too many times. It stands true today as it ever has been and will always be. 

Email is going nowhere and it remains a very powerful marketing tool. If you are like me and just don't quite get or social media just doesn't click with you then you should double down on building your list of subscribers. 

This traffic and money in your back pocket!. You own it and nobody can take it away from you. I consider my email list as an asset. 

As far as being promotional, or overly promotional be easy on that. 

One of the biggest affiliate marketing lies you will ever here is "the money is in the list"

The money is in how you treat your list!. 

As Marketing Guru Gary Vee puts it "Jab, Jab, Right Hook"

By that he means 2 helpful and informative emails,  followed up with one that has commercial intent.

Personally, I prefer to add an extra Jab as I genuinely like and love to help people. 

• Paid Advertising (PPC Marketing).

Without a doubt paid advertising and marketing is something that can and will short circuit your pathway to success. 

It is a skill to be learned and mastered. Just spending your money on adverts gives you zero right to get sales. 

There are many moving parts to paid advertising including (but not limited to) your advertising copy, the image used, your targeting, your landing page and of course how well you manage to convert visitors to buyers. 

As paid advertising and marketing expert and Guru Perry Marshall says "Paid Marketing is what switches your site from being a hobby that makes you money to a full blown business".

It can be a bit overwhelming to begin with and sound like a lot of work, but it is not really. 

As you get going, you really get into the swing of it and the habit. It like starting an engine it takes more energy to get started than it does to keep the engine running. 

I often describe learning affiliate marketing and building an affiliate marketing site like walking.

In the beginning, walking was really difficult!, It took you 9, 10 months may be a year or there about before you could take your first steps. 

And then after that there was no stopping you!. It was easy and effortless and even started running!. 

Affiliate marketing is no different!. 

It will take you some effort to get that first site running as you develop your skill set but by the time you are building your 2nd or 3rd affiliate site you will be hitting that nice round US$1,000 month mark in a few months!.

So do put in the effort, it is worth it. That there is no doubt about!. 

Here is a Quick recap you what you need to do. 

1. Think Of A Niche.
2. Research and find affiliate programs.
3. Identify Your Ideal Customer.
4. Building Your site.
5. Produce Engaging Content.
6. Building Your Audience.
7. Start Promoting Affiliate Offers.
8. Repeat steps #5 to 7 on an ongoing basis.

 This is a tried and trusted and tested manner of How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners. You only reap what you sow, so put in the work and you will be reaping the rewards of your labour later.

If you need a little extra help you can Get A FREE Mini 10 Lesson Course On Affiliate Marketing Here!.