Hey affiliate marketer beginner! Thank you for visiting today.
My name is Jason Foster and I am the founder here at Smart Human Blogger.
I founded this website to help you to find the most authentic online earning opportunities and make a positive difference in your life.
I am an experienced affiliate marketer, learning my trade and craft from the Wealthy Affiliate Community since September 2014.
Since I have learned so much over the years and have been successful by doing smart SEO Affiliate Marketing, I think it will be beneficial to share this step-by-step affiliate marketing for beginners guide with you.
What I’ll do is present this information in a way that’s easy for you to grasp and implement as soon as today.
Once you follow what I show you care and take the required action, I know that you will be able to get REAL results which will enable you to earn real passive income for the long term!
Note: By the way, some of the links in this post will be my affiliate links to recommended training, tools, or any other product or service that I know will help you.
This is how I am able to keep running this website, pay bills and support myself and my family.
Thank you in advance if you use any of my affiliate links to purchase anything.
And even if you don’t, that’s cool as well. I’m just happy that you’re here to learn how to do authentic affiliate marketing.
Don’t worry if you don’t know what affiliate links are as yet.
I will explain them a little bit further in this article.
You can also learn more about them by reading my affiliate disclosure linked here.
Now let us begin by defining what affiliate marketing is just in case you don’t already know.
And if you already know what it is and want to skip along, feel free to do so, however, I suggest you read everything that I am writing because it will be of great benefit to you.
So What Is Affiliate Marketing?
There is a lot of information already online about affiliate marketing and some of the information is just too complicated for beginner affiliate marketers to understand.
The best way how I have seen affiliate marketing defined online is by Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.
Here is how he puts, it…
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income
Pretty straightforward, right?
It’s just simply recommending a product (or service) and getting paid when someone purchases through your affiliate link.
Pat Flynn is one of the most known, top-earning, and most ethical affiliate marketers that you are ever going to meet anywhere online.
He currently earns well over $100K per month online and most of his earnings are made from affiliate marketing.
He even displays his earnings per month on his website for all those people who are interested in seeing it…
Here I took a screenshot of some of his monthly earnings in 2017.
A very credible and transparent guy indeed…
I recommend you follow and learn from his affiliate marketing strategies whenever time you get a chance to do so.
Now let us move on…
What You Need To Possess In Order To Succeed With Affiliate Marketing
The most important thing you need to have in order to succeed in affiliate marketing is the right mentality.
In other words, you need to have a positive mental attitude and approach this with a long-term vision business plan.
All the tools, resources, and training won’t be of any good use to you if you don’t possess the right mentality.
If you are just going to come into affiliate marketing with the mentality to make money without first helping someone and providing genuine value, then this business will not work for you.
In fact, no business will work for you if you have that kind of mentality.
You have to know that your job is to first provide value to someone and then the money will come as a bi-product.
So, do keep this in mind as you start and build up your profitable affiliate marketing business.
The 4 simple steps beginner affiliate marketing blueprint…
Now, you’ll find that there are several ways how various people are teaching affiliate marketing online.
You can either choose to pay Google, Facebook, Bing, or other Advertising mediums to promote your affiliate products…
..Or you can choose to do it the free way by utilizing what is known as SEO (search engine optimization).
SEO is actually one of the most POWERFUL ways of getting targeted visitors online.
Because people are actually looking for answers to the exact keyword which they typed into Google and the other search engines.
With SEO, you’ll have to do keyword research first to see how many people are interested and searching for that particular keyword.
For example, I have written this article for you: the affiliate marketer beginner.
But before I set out to write this, I had to find out if people were actually searching for this information online.
So how do I get all this information?
I use what is known as a keyword research tool.
There are many keyword tools on the market but the one I currently use, love, and recommend is called Jaaxy.
It’s one of the essential tools for affiliate marketing which shows me the number of people who searches for any keyword topic.
In the screenshot above showing inside Jaaxy, you will see that I entered the broad keyword “lose belly fat” into the search box.
When I clicked on “Find Keyword” it shows me other keyword ideas which I can potentially write articles about and get ranked on Google.
It shows the number of people who will most likely click on the website link once it’s written and on the first page (TRAFFIC)
Plus it also shows the number of websites that are competing for that exact keyword topic (QSR)
Obviously, the lower the QSR, the less competition I will have to face.
To make it even easier to sort through the list of keyword ideas, Jaaxy displays the best keywords using the green text indicator in the KQI column.
Overall, Jaaxy will give you all the necessary data about any keyword so that you will know if you should write an article or review it or not.
If you want to read up more about Jaaxy, then you can do that.
I wrote an entire article about how it works and how you can use it to help with getting high rankings in google.
===> You can read it on this page.
Paying For Ads
Now, the method of paying for ads does work faster, but this is for people who have a good advertising budget to start off with, or more experienced affiliate marketers who are looking to scale up their business.
Since you are just starting out, I recommend that you first learn how to get traffic to your website the freeway (SEO).
And this is what I will be showing you in this 4 simple step blueprint method below.
Now keep following along because this is quite powerful and long-term.
Step by Step Affiliate Marketing for Beginners…
Step 1…
The very first thing that you are going to do is decide what you want to write about on your website.
In other words, who do you want to help with a problem when they visit your website? (These people are often referred to as a niche)
As an example, I have personally decided to help you to get started with affiliate marketing so that you can build up your own successful online business. (This is my niche)
Now ask yourself this:
“What am I good at, and how can I use that knowledge to help other people who are having some problems in that area?”
Some ideas could be that you want to help someone lose belly fat with a routine that worked really well for you.
Another idea is that you may want to help someone fix their bad credit so that they can get out of debt.
It could be that you want to help someone learn how to take professional photos so that they can sell them online?
Or it could be that you want to help people to play the Piano…
Really, this can be anything that you want.
You get the idea right?
You just want to be interested or knowledgeable about a topic and willing to teach others about it.
If you have problems coming up with an idea for yourself, no worries, you can reach out to me on my Facebook page and I will personally work with you to find something that will work.
Or you can comment with a question below this post and I will reply with an answer.
Step 2…
In step 2, you are going to build yourself a website so that you’ll be able to reach people (AKA your audience) who are interested in what you have to offer.
And don’t let the thought of building your own website scare you because it’s really simple.
When you use the SiteRubix website builder Inside Wealthy Affiliate, they make it SO easy for you to do this.
Here are the simple steps to follow…
From your Wealthy Affiliate dashboard, just go to “Websites”
From there, go to Site Builder
After clicking on Site Builder, you are going to reach a page like what you see below here:
Now, here is where you choose the kind of website you want to build.
You have a couple of options…
The first is to build a website on a free domain (subdomain).
And the second option is to build a website on a domain that you already own.
By the way, a domain is just the address of the website which usually looks something like this: https://www.yoursite.com
So for example, the domain name for my website is https://www.smarthumanblogger.com.
Now, if you were to choose the “on a free domain” option, your site will contain the .siterubix.com extension and it will look something like this: https://www.yoursite.siterubix.com.
If you choose the “on a domain you own” option, then your site will be something like https://www.yoursitename.com.
Choose the name of your website
Now, the next step is simply choosing the name of your website.
It’s recommended that you name it the same as your domain.
So, therefore, if your domain name is https://www.losebellyfatpro.com, you can simply name your website: Lose Belly Fat Pro.
Which Domain Option Should You Choose?
When just starting out, you can always choose the “on a free domain”, but eventually, you will want to move over to your own domain to be in full control over your own website.
Also, as you can see from the image further above, there is an option to register and buy a domain name if you don’t already have one.
You can do this right inside Wealthy Affiliate and they will also host the website for you.
OK, for now, let’s use the “on a free domain” option to build out your website.
Let’s do it!
Steps to build out your free website…
When you have done selecting the “on a free domain” option, you will see that there are 3 other steps to complete.
The Number 2 step is where you choose your domain name.
The Number 3 step is where you enter the title for your website (remember: this can be the same as your domain name)
So if your domain is http://www.babymonitorspro.com, that means you enter your title as Baby Monitors Pro.
Got it right?
Now the Number 4 step is where you’ll choose the theme of your website.
A theme is basically how your website looks.
There are thousands of themes to choose from and it can be overwhelming to choose one if you allow it.
The best thing to do is simply just choose a theme without wasting much time and then move on to more important stuff.
You can always change your theme in the future if you like, so it’s not a big deal.
After you’ve done all this, the next step would be to click on the button which says Click Here to Build This Site!
It’s very easy stuff as you can see.
Your website is now ready for you to start creating content and getting it ranked in Google, Yahoo, and Bing!
Now, let’s go to step 3.
Step 3…
Now, step 3 is all about creating content on your brand new website!
This way, you’ll be able to start attracting the right people.
In the affiliate marketing industry, you’ll hear these people referred to as “traffic”
The skill to acquire this free targeted traffic to your website is extremely important.
So here’s how you do it…
As I mentioned before, you first need to do proper keyword research as this enables you to find great low-competition keywords.
After you have found the keyword, the next step would be to write an article about it.
You want to aim for 1000 words or more because Google prefers long-form content and tends to rank them higher.
But keep in mind that your main job is to provide massive VALUE to your audience – NOT writing a certain amount of words.
Where To Add Your Keywords
The top 3 places where you’ll want to make sure that you put your keywords are:
- Within your title
- Within your first 2 paragraphs
- Within a sub-title
Once you’ve got those ticked off, all you have to do at this point is to concentrate on writing the most helpful content that answers your visitor’s questions or concerns…
PRO TIP: If you find it difficult to write, then I always suggest that you write as if you are speaking to a close friend or relative.
This way, the words will flow on the page naturally and you’ll even surprise yourself because you’ll find that you are even writing more words.
Most of all, you want to enjoy the writing process. Make it enjoyable.
Now, let’s move on to the final step…monetization!
Step 4…
After you have created several helpful and valuable content on your website and also gotten traffic, you will want to start monetizing that traffic with affiliate links and/or Google Ads.
Google Ads
Have you ever visited a website and seen ads being displayed and wonder how it benefits the website’s owner?
Well, the reason is that the person who runs the website earns money whenever time someone clicks on those ads (usually a few cents to a dollar per click).
This is a really great way to monetize your website, especially if you are getting a lot of traffic.
The highest-earning record I’ve seen so far with people earning from Google ads is from this guy called Jeremy Shoemaker.
He earned well over $132,000 for one month from Google Adsense clicks!
So, if you want to monetize using this method, then I say “go for it!”.
But again, know that you need to have traffic already coming to your website before you’ll get accepted into the Google Adsense program and start earning money.
Monetizing With Affiliate Marketing
Now, you should already know that affiliate marketing is the #1 way of monetization I prefer and recommend.
Almost every major company or product out there has an affiliate program.
And they are very easy to find too.
You can go directly to Google and type in a service or product followed by the affiliate program.
Example: Basketball Shoes + Affiliate Program or Dentist + Affiliate Program
You should see a lot of results displayed on the first page for these.
Just sort through the results and choose the companies you wish to work with.
The most known affiliate program is Amazon.com and this is where a lot of beginner affiliate marketers start.
To apply, just go to the bottom of the Amazon.com website and you’ll see a section that says: “MAKE MONEY WITH US“
Then go to the part that says “become an affiliate” and follow the instructions from there.
As long as you have a website that is already getting decent traffic to it, then you won’t have any problems getting approved.
NOTE: When you get accepted, Amazon will give you 180 days to make at least 3 sales. If you do not make those sales, Amazon will deactivate your affiliate account.
Again, to avoid this, ensure that you are getting quality traffic who will most likely buy when they click on your links.
And make sure that the products that you recommend are all relevant to your niche.
A Quick Note On Affiliate Links
When you get accepted to be an affiliate with any of these companies, they will provide you with your own unique affiliate links, banners, etc.
You will then take those links and put in relevant words and images which will link back to the product or service which you are recommending.
Whenever your website visitor clicks through and makes a purchase, you will earn commissions from the sale.
And the good thing is that you’ll be able to track all your links activities such as the clicks, the ordered items, the sales, etc, etc.
Below is an example where I show you some Amazon link stats from one of my sites and also from another affiliate marketer.
This will give you a much better understanding of how this works.
Now, what I have provided here for you is a simple step-by-step affiliate marketing for beginners guide.
Now, as I mentioned to you at the beginning of this article, the place where I started to learn all of this is from the Wealthy Affiliate community.
They provide in-depth affiliate marketing training suited for a beginner just like you.
The best thing is that it’s free to get started so you can test it out to see if it’s the best fit for you or not.
And if you decide to sign up, you can do that using my affiliate link.
I will get a notification from wealthy affiliate that you joined through my link and then I’ll be able to contact you and provide my personal help.
===>Join Wealthy Affiliate Here For FREE
Conclusion
I truly hope that this step-by-step affiliate marketing for beginners post was useful and valuable to you.
My hope is that you use what I share with you and take massive action to be successful as an affiliate marketer.
I have tried many other business models online and I love affiliate marketing the best.
Give it a go NOW and make it work for you too.
I know you are going to be fulfilled when you learn these skills and master them.
Please share this with other people you know who are just getting started with affiliate marketing and want to get on the right path to success.
Also, feel free to Follow Me On Instagram Here
Thanks again for visiting and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below.
Your friend,
Jason Foster
Founder: Smart Human Blogger.
BONUS TIPS from Neil Patel that can further help you out as a beginner affiliate marketer: