fbpx

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

How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners

A common topic I keep seeing on marketing forums is How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners. 

I will address this exact subject in a step-by-step fashion to help you to get started in not only the right way but in the best way and get your site off to a flying start!

If you are computer genius and tech wizard, brilliant!. You will get your site up in no time!. 

If you are like myself, and just not all that great with the tech side of things and don't even know a single line of code then I have some brilliant news for you!. 

We are standing toe-to-toe with tech geeks and computer programmers as none of those skills are required, needed or even serve as an advantage!. 

Are you curious and eager to learn exactly how to start an affiliate marketing website then keep reading!. 

More...

8 Simple Steps To Starting Your First Affiliate Marketing Website

I have broken this process down into 8 simple and easy steps that any affiliate marketing beginner or novice can follow. 


Following these steps will get you on the right tracks and earning your first affiliate commission before you even know it. 


Step 1: Think Of A Niche

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. 

Affiliate Marketing

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. 

How To Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

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 takenseriously 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. 

If You Are Thinking Of Starting An Affiliate Marketing Website Start With And End In Mind And Make Sure Your Niche Has Enough Demand.  #NicheMarketing #AffiliateMarketing

Click to Tweet

Does Your Niche Have Affiliate Programs Or Products To Promote?


Even if you have a huge audience, no affiliate products = no commissions.  Affiliate Programs are easy to find...easy.


We'll get to that in a second. 


Something to keep in mind is the commission level as a percentage, duration of the tracking cookie and payment method. 


Above all, product quality is the most important factor for continued success and repeat sales. 

Step 2: Research And Find Affiliate Programs!

As they say in Asia, "No Money No Honey!". 


When you have your heart set on a perfect niche you need be like a bee and find out where the honey is and how to make it!. 


It's time to find out about affiliate programs in your niche and what products you can promote. By now you probably have a good idea or inkling of what there is available. 


Still you need to do a bit of homework and dig deeper. 


Don't go around promoting and reviewing every single product there is in your niche hoping that you will make more money. 


More products to promote = more money...right? 


Wrong!.


It is counter intuitive. In the case of affiliate marketing it really is true that less is more. 


Start thinking about 5-7 top products for your niche that you can recommend for different categories. 


Assuming you are interested in musical instruments and are in the Electric guitar niche you would likely promote a Top #1 Recommended Electric Guitar as your main product. 


The very best Amplifier is another related product to promote as is Wah Wah peddle and a Program to learn how to play the electric guitar, a carry case and so on. 


This is youlivelihood, where your money is going to come from and, at the end of it how you are going to quit your job!. 


Quality is key!. 


Quality and the ability of the product to sell, and sell well with no chargebacks (products returned, lost commissions). 


Also, 


And this is one of the most important lessons you will learn in affiliate marketing...


Your brand and how your affiliate site is perceived and seen is at stake.


If you are recommending every guitar (for example) and amplifier as well as everything under the sun you are not going tobe well respected nor seen as a high quality site and brand nor an authority and expert on the subject matter.


The same can be said if you are recommending low quality or "so-so" products. 


Quality is key, It is far more important than price, even if a better quality product is available at a slightly or significantly lower price go for the quality. 


The same can be said when you are selecting a merchant to work with.


If their products are slowly delivered or they have a poor reputation, poorly packaged, or sub par customer support work with a different merchant. 


For my affiliate sites I consider myself as a full on eCommerce site and my merchants my suppliers.


It is a good mindset and attitude to have.


Money is a bi-product of everything I do online. It is no accident I get a lot of return clients and long-term customers for the products that I recommend and the merchants I work with. 


It is not an accident either that many affiliate programs, products and affiliate managers seek me out asking if I can promote their products. 


Finding Affiliate Programs Is Easy!


The easiest way to find is there are affiliate products in the niche that you have chosen is to do a google search as follows


"Your Niche +Affiliate Programs"

How To Start AN Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners

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!.

Step 3: Identify You Ideal Customer

This is a step that is often skipped and missed out. 


By identifying your target audience you will have a greater engagement on your site as your content will be more focused towards a specific person. 


Always create your content with a user/reader in mind. When you try to appeal to everyone you end up appealing to no one!. 


Think about the following questions: 


  • Who Is You Ideal Client?
  • How Old Are They?
  • Gender?
  • Are The Single, Married, In A Relationship?
  • Do They Have Children? How many?
  • What Is their education level?
  • What kind of job do they do?
  • How do they spend their free time? What are their hobbies and interest?

Once you have this in mind give him or her and name and create an avatar. 


This will go a long way to establishing a dynamic brand and a very engaged and targeted audience. 

Step 4: Building Your Site!

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. 

How To Start And Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners

Building A Website In This Day And Age Requires Zero Coding Skills

Step 5 Produce Engaging Content

Many people will tell you to create excellent content, that is rather subjective and,  well, we are all proud of our own work and think that everything we create is excellent. 


What is far more important is to create engaging content. Engaging beats excellence every day of the week. 


Besides, 


We can always go back at any time we wish and update our content and improve it. Keep step 4 in mind - you are not writing for yourself, nor for search engines you are writing for people, a very specific person. 


When you engage them, and google knows when you do and for what pages you are getting good engagement for they will reward you with higher rankings which means more free targeted traffic!. 


What Kind Of Content Should You Create?


You should create a healthy mix of the following content types. 

  • Product Reviews

This is going to be your bread and butter and how you are going to earn your money from affiliate sales. 


People are very informed consumers and like to research products before they buy something.


This is why having an ideal customer avatar is a first class idea. By having one, you end up "becoming best buddies" with that ideal client and create trust through your content. 


I suggest creating sales pages for your Top Recommended Products and diverting traffic from other reviews to those pages. 


For example, If your top recommended electric guitar is a Fender, but your review is of a different guitar a Gibson, you can still review the Gibson guitar and at the end you can say what Guitar you play and why the Fender is better, why it is your top choice. 


You can still put affiliate links there for the Gibson Guitar, some people will click then and choose to buy the Gibson Guitar for whatever reason, be it brand loyalty. Either way, you still made a sale and a commission. 


Good Keywords To use here are:


  1. Product Name +Review
  2. Exact Product Name +Review (eg, Dewalt CD777C2 20V Drill Review)

You will get more traffic for the 1 example, while the second one will get less traffic but will convert better. 


  • 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!.

Starting An Affiliate Site For Beginners

With A Good earning Affiliate Site You Can Forget About Your Alarm Clock.

  • 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. 

WA Success CTA
  • 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. 

Step 6 Building Your Audience

This is not playing around on social media, building your audience is an important key aspect of establishing your site and your business. 


Numbers are a vanity metric, 1,000 active and engaged members on your Facebook Page and Group is far better than 10,000 inactive ones. 


Again, engagement is very important. Building your audience also brings in more traffic sources for your site which solidifies your business for prolonged success into the future and keeps you safe from algorithm changes by search engines and social media. 


Again, here any follower is not what your are looking for, you need and want targeted followers that are genuinely interested in your niche. 


This part is pretty tough to start with but you hit a tipping point where everything just snowballs and your hard work just pays off. 


Note: Social Media is not obliged, or a must have in order for you to succeed. I generally don't use it as I honestly don't like social media much. If you are not using social media you really must build your email list. 


  • Use SEO Techniques For WordPress

Organic Free Traffic from search engines will always be your best source of traffic because for the most part it is free, easy and totally passive. 


Learning SEO For Your Niche Marketing Site will help you to achieve this objective


Don't worry, SEO is easy. It forms part of the Free Training here (Lesson 6 of 10).


  • Guest Posting

Guest Posting is something that you should not do with the sole intent of gaining or winning a backlink. 


Your goal with your guest posting campaign should be to treat it as if it is your own site and to engage their audience and potentially win over some new followers of your blog. 


Guest Posting is a tremendous way to expose both yourself and your site to a new crowd in the same niche as you. It is a means of establishing your presence and authority. 


A bi-product of this is more traffic!.  

  • 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".

Affiliate Marketing

Step 7 Start Promoting Affiliate Offers

This has been touched on earlier in the types of content to create section


Create reviews for your Top Recommended Products and at the end of your other articles recommend your #1 Recommended Product. 


Remember 5-7 recommended products is the ideal maximum. You can have affiliate promotions in "Top" or "Best" style articles also.


Remember, you can write reviews for other products too and have affiliate links for that product and gently tell why your top recommended product is better and link to your review of that product.


All your other content at the end remind your reader of your top recommended product, effectively creating a traffic funnel, funnelling traffic to your sales products. 


The best, most effective reviews you can write are ones that teach the user how to use the product. 


  • Banner Adverts

You can put banners in various places on your site from the header to side bar and in your content. 


Place them appropriately and subtly, don't over do it. 


There is hardly an affiliate program or merchant that does not provide you with banners of varying sizes that you can use. 


In my experience it is much better and more effective when you design your own and make them blend in and more congruent with your site and branding. 


  • Email Marketing

The point of email marketing is not just to send promotional offers as I explained earlier. 


In my email marketing campaign I have a strong preference for seeing further down the road and creating a presence and loyal readership and sending reader over to my site and getting the traffic benefit which also aids SEO rankings. 


I am not one for sending emails with Affiliate links, particularly for product reviews, I like to warm them up by sending them to the review article, let google see I have additional traffic sources for that article and enjoy the ranking benefit and a higher conversion rate for the product in question. 


I am also exposing my audience to my brand more and gaining more trust and authority. 


Note: 100% of your traffic is return traffic as they have previously visited your site, this is a very good user experience signal picked up by Google and hence a possible boost in rankings and thus more traffic for that article. 


  • In Content Text Links

Also known as anchor links. 


This is very common and you will have seen this quite literally millions of times.  Well placed and well worded in content text links will get clicked and will generate sales for you.


The key is to casually and naturally blend in those links with your content. These work every bit as good as banners and buttons and are not over salesy. 


Only put affiliate links in your review articles, best of, top X, and similar articles. Don't make all your articles with affiliate links. 


Google will just see you as a bridge site and not rank you. Do drive traffic from your other non-affiliate link article to ones with affiliate links by linking to them.


This signals to Google that those pages are important and give them a bit more ranking juice!. 


  • Giveaways & Discounts

Running competitions and contests are great for generating sales and getting traffic, but you do need to promote your competition/contest well. 


This one you will need to ask the affiliate network and consult with them if they permit this as most do but some don't and the last thing you want is your account to be banned!. 

Step 8 Rinse & Repeat!

Now you know exactly what you are doing all that is left for your to do is to get into the swing of it and the good habit of repeating steps 5, 6 and 7. 


And yes, 


You will start to get traction and authority and those sales will come it. Building a Site and an affiliate marketing business won't happen overnight but it will happen and it will work, only if you do!.


The fantastic news is once your site gets going it tends to snowballvery quickly in terms of both traffic an income. 


When your income is at a really nice point you can, if you want,start to think about hiring a writer and outsource your content creation and just manage your site, sit back and enjoy life.


Yes,


You can also think about another site in a different niche if you wish. That is entirely your own choice!. 


Bonus: Stuck for list of niches or Niche ideas Check out this Ultimate List Of Niches!.

Making Money Online Is Easy CTA New

How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Website For Beginners A Quick Recap!

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!

How I Make Money Online

Affiliate Marketing is my Number 1 recommended way for making money in the digital world both for those just starting out and those that are semi experienced. 


The reasons are pretty simple:


  • No huge startup costs!
  • No Selling face to face!
  • No Stock to keep or manage!
  • No huge investment involved - (Get started with a FREE TRIAL!)
  • No networking or recruiting required. 
  • You can operate in any market you wish! - even your hobbies & passions!
  • Earn a full time income & more!. No limit to your earning potential!. 

In fact...


I have created and built a regular mid 4 figure passive monthly income and fully enjoy a life of travel to where I want and when I want. With no boss to answer to and zero annoying co-workers I completely enjoy life and work when I choose to.


This is all thanks to Affiliate Marketing!

Proof WA Photo 1

To emulate what I have achieved, real freedom and a passive income stream, click that red button below..and watch the video that I have prepared for you. 

Because MORE MONEY IS Waiting For You. The Question Is: WILL YOU TAKE IT?!?

Don’t Forget…

As a subscriber, you never miss a post AND you get access to my exclusive free guide and 7 day course. Sign up today to join over 20,000 happy subscribers!

Derek Marshall

Hi folks, I'm Derek and like yourself, I was struggling along in the digital world, and yes I got scammed once or twice..but not thrice!. I noticed most of these low quality programs and methods like surveys and yes...most MLM don't teach you the process nor the skills of earning money online. If you are willing to put in the effort and take the time to learn the process and the skills then do Try My #1 Recommended Program FREE For 7 Days and get personal mentoring from me as part of your bonus!.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below

Leave a Reply: