Curios to read my Wealthy Affiliate reviews To be honest with you I was hesitant on writing about My review for Wealthy Affiliate Because there are tons of praises Written on Wealthy Affiliate I felt I would not find any readers to bolster my opinion
There are few affiliate links, if you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you
I am not promoting Wealthy Affiliate here The link above is just for reference I cannot promote something I don’t believe in Every bloggers are keen to make money through affiliate marketing Some accept the fact that they can promote shady products or services As long as they make lucrative commissions they shut down their consciences
I couldn’t do that even after gathering all The bright sides of Wealthy Affiliate Reviews Yes Wealthy Affiliate has some pros too
I will do my best here to show you Wealthy Affiliate reviews from a bias side Although I will always repeat it over and over Don’t go premium It will be a waste of money and time
Wealthy Affiliate is a membership site Offering 2 types of memberships Free and paid members for $49 monthly or $359 yearly coming to $29.92 per month
They don’t promise to make money online But they show you how to make money by Watching their training on how to start your own blog Also how to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing
The program is owned by Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim They started all the way back in 2005 They also own Jaxxy keyword research tool Nothing is wrong till now
Is Wealthy Affiliate a scam?
Although I am against joining Wealthy Affiliate as a premium member I have to admit it is totally legit business It is not a pyramid scheme of any kind It is very straight forward affiliate model Only premium members get 45% on monthly or yearly subscriptions That is equivalent to $22 monthly or $161.55 yearly
How many members currently in WA?
I asked this question in the community
Someone said 1.5 million, Holy moly seriously Then someone corrected that statement 1.5 members free and paid with all dummy accounts there One of the members said they are 200,000 active Finally one of the members privately messaged Kyle He reported back that Kyle replied back instantly
You would never know the actual paid members They are kept as public secret As per the member who privately messaged Kyle Remember as a free member You cannot privately message any other members
Why I am against Wealthy Affiliate?
All Wealthy Affiliate reviews claim that You can create your blog in 30 seconds Plus they give you the impression that You can make money from your blog quickly and easily These WA reviews are coming from members promoting the program
If you go and check most of the profiles there Their blogs looks like they are missing a lot to improve their designs I bet you there are more than 90% of members not making any money I am not sure about the turnover rate of members leaving WA program within first year It must be a lot because members who join and focus on learning from different sources Perhaps can make it online
What is my problem with Wealthy Affiliate?
First my problem with Wealthy Affiliate They successfully managed to make it sound damn easy to get into blogging world They don’t assess your blogging skills
Second you are not creating a blog You are just building WordPress on a new domain This process takes around 10 minutes If you are doing it from a control panel inside your web hosting As a new blogger you still need to configure your WordPress blog By installing your WordPress theme and plugins
Yes you can have a domain that has a blog running but you are not ready yet
Third It will take you a lot of time and effort to build a blog and More time till you can really make money online It can take more than a year to start making very few cash Again you will be paying your membership for long time without seeing any income
Fourth you will be in a position to promote Wealthy Affiliate to cover up your membership fee Even this process is already monopolized by big marketers
Fifth regarding the training itself WA offers a very basic training It is good for beginners who know nothing about online marketing This training will give you the basic You are just scratching the surface It will not help you more than finding your niche Building your blog and setting up your affiliate programs
I recommend you join as a free member You get some of the benefits for one week Get engaged with the community and Learn about what you can do before your 7 days trials get expired Yes you will be bombarded with emails from Kyle and Carson to go premium with incentive discounts I had to switch off their emails from my members area
The pros side of Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate offers very reliable web hosting of 1.3 ms loading speed
It has a mirroring system for your blog which means if web hosting goes down the second node takes precedence immediately
Wealthy Affiliate creates backup daily for your blog so if you do something wrong to your blog support team will restore it from backup
It has several layer of security to prevent spam and stop attacks on your WordPress
Wealthy Affiliate has a community where you exchange knowledge with peers
It has private messaging system where you can speak to Kyle and Carson and receive their reply back
Access to Jaxxy Keyword Research Tool
Be able to listen to regular live events
Access to comprehensive text based and video training modules
Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t provide advanced training modules like list building or link building, all training are very basic for beginners
It doesn’t give you control over your web hosting, you don’t have control panel
Wealthy Affiliate membership doesn’t get updated with new training modules so what will happen after you complete your training, do you think it is fair to still pay for the membership? they don’t consider switching you to pay for web hosting only
Community is peer to peer so you don’t know how knowledgeable the other member helping you
Should you join this membership program?
You may get the impression that I am convincing you not to join WA program This is not true If you are really beginner Who knows nothing about blogging and How to build your blog WA membership can be suitable for you
Wait, if you plan to join I recommend to join as a yearly plan You will pay one time of $359 for one year of access This is around $29 per month Assuming you will pay around or less than $20 per web hosting The $10 per month difference between $359 WA annual subscription – $239 yearly web hosting fees = $120 Consider this as a training opportunity and good chance to Meet with large group of people to exchange experience
I expect to finish the training modules within the first year Now you can be ready to move your blog to another Web hosting If you have your domain name under Namecheap You can move to Siteground and they will help you a lot with your blog migration
Remember to give yourself some extra time to do the transfer I recommend to start the migration process 3 weeks before your WA membership expires You have to make sure that your blog was completely transferred If you are curious how it will happen Siteground will take your backup and add it to their web hosting Then they will point their DNS to Namecheap
A question like “Can you really make money online?” or “Do bloggers make money online” Is frequently asked from failed bloggers
There are few affiliate links, if you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you
First time bloggers don’t ask these questions They start excited and full of enthusiasm After a while trying they don’t see any success They doubt the concept itself of making money online
They search online hoping to figure out what went wrong Most probably they come across an internet marketer or guru Promising to provide answer to this dilemma And so on
In this blog post I will provide you with honest answer to your frustration I will not sell you anything or refer you to online blogging courses If I do so you will not trust me As I know you want a straightforward answer
Let’s dive right in to understand few concepts Then I will link all concepts together to solve The baffle for how you can make money online?
1) Why gigantic e-commerce companies like Amazon or eBay offer affiliate programs?
Don’t tell me that they need to make an extra profit Everyone on earth knows Amazon and eBay I buy from Amazon on a regular basis OK so what is the issue here
I went on Google to search on how to find my key chain easily I was looking for a solution for not remembering where I left my keys Sure, I leave it in a designated place But it can happen to leave it in different place Also this applies to other personal things
I found an article talking about practicing ways to improve your memory Then offering a product as a solution on Amazon This product comes with a remote control that has 4 different color buttons and 4 same color stickers where each sticker is mapped to its same color button
Also you can write on each button on your remote control So you can remember which button is mapped to each personal item
Why I mentioned the above product Because Amazon and eBay have all products You can think of from needle to rocket All products are there to solve problems
Because people are always asking questions on Google That is the main core purpose for the internet Some questions or concerns are lingering ones
Amazon, eBay or big e-commerce companies They cannot spread all over the internet Answering all questions and mapping them to products
You heard before that if you can answer Your audience’s concerns according to their expectations You will be able to build a tribe in the long term While in the short term perhaps a quick sale
Requirements for making sales through affiliate marketing
Making sales through affiliate marketing is Something you have to master its details I recommend you read my blog post Where I covered the concept of Context – Authority – Trust (CAT)
What else does affiliate marketing require Does it require a lot of traffic or tribe Let’s discuss both traffic and tribe to see How each one can help you to make money online
2) Does traffic all you need for making money online?
Yes and No, I will explain the No later below but let’s discuss the Yes now There are so many bloggers making money from traffic generating thousands of pageviews every month What they do with that traffic
They apply for Ads network like Google Adsense Which is free to join with no requirements at all Only you must have a website and Google will manage to Place Ads around your content and get paid if visitors click on the Ads on your blog
Challenge is 50 visitors per day It will not make you significant money To generate 1000$ a month Assuming each click earns you 50 cents You need around 33$ a day
If your click through rate Which means the percentage of visitors Who will click on your ads is 2% Then you need 33$ / 0.02 x 0.5 You need 3300 visitors per day
Don’t worry, life is not that bad if you manager to get 3300 visitors a day That’s 99,000 visitors a month Then switch to Mediavine
They only require 25,000 to accept you It is an ad network competing with Google Adsense You will generate 4,000$ plus just from Mediavine
Another ad network called AdThrive Which can also generate decent income for you You have to try both and see which one works best for you
I started with the Ad networks to prove that You can make money online also Because it is 100% systematic traffic game The more you get as visitors The more money you will make
Now a question to you Can you really make money online with Ad network? I am asking this question now as you noticed The traffic you need looks impossible
Actually it is not, many bloggers reached 25,000 visitors per month They reported being easy relying on writing contents with long tail keywords
Requirements for SEO tools to help you with traffic
When you first start there are affordable tools Like LongTailPro with one time payment for 10,000 keywords It is similar to pay as you go Also keysearch offers cheap plans that anyone can afford it
Remember you can use one third of this traffic and Still generate the same level of income Just master affiliate marketing with email list Which are skills you have to learn by practicing and being persistence
Again with using one third of this traffic Perhaps less than that and by creating your own product You can generate way more than affiliate marketing income
You see traffic is the same but The way you utilize it is different Did you catch the pattern here? The more you want your income to increase The more you have to refine your skills
Traffic is the only way on How to make money from home for free If you have zero skills but only Writing blog posts consistently on your blog
Right now, speaking about creating your product Plus working on your email list Feeding them with your sincere knowledge
This leads us to the idea of generating more income with less visitors But how? Simply income that comes from email list or Building a true fans of your blog
This leads us to discuss the above Traffic question using the No answer
3) Does true fans or building loyal tribe replace the traffic game and make money online for you?
Having a fans of yours who wait for your daily or weekly to emails or They get excited when they see your email If you send a broadcast email to them They want to listen to you Because they know you have something useful to say It all started with your blog
You already created a blog Which targets specific Audience Having lingering problem or issue You nail it down to one problem
Then segment your audience slightly to Move some of them to another problem Do it the smart way like moving to Another problem highly related
For example, If you talk about Affiliate marketing Doing it the right way then you associate that With building email list so you will be able to Maximize your profit when using both together Then you move smoothly to talk about How to build your email list to promote affiliate productsJack of all trades, master of noneClick To Tweet
I talked about the controversial discussion to prove that Yes you can make money online It is not that easy if you have just started
But to make my blog post useful for you Follow my steps below for your dream to come true
Tips for bloggers to start a successful blog
1) Start your blog about a narrow problem within a profitable niche You can refer to these profitable niches
2) Build an email list right away with lead magnet tightly related to the problem you are trying to solve
3) Target Pinterest from day 1 as a source for traffic Practically manual spinning is tough I use Tailwind to save my time for other tasks
4) Target SEO for long tail keywords with low competitions using SEO tools There are few tools that are not expensive like LongTailPro and keysearch (add link for both)
5) Write epic long detailed blog posts for problems you are trying to solve Add the invite to the email list at the end of your post It is acceptable also to add it to the middle of your blog post
6) Write a lot of moderate blog posts around 1000-1500 words for whatever long tail keywords with keyword competition less or equal 30
7) Put an extra effort into repurposing your blog posts content
8) Use Google Analytics and monitor your traffic closely Repurpose and rewrite any blog posts that get your audience’s attention
9) It requires traffic to make money online If you have no internet marketing experience Like writing professional emails to your list That promotes staff but doesn’t look salesy or pushy The more you learn the sales funnel technique The better you will make money with some traffic
10) Be very patient, It doesn’t happen quickly It takes lot of time to build traffic Believe in yourself that you can do it
Finally stop asking “Can you really make money online?” question, it all depends on your vision, will and ability to stand still against challenges
Now do me favor and share it with your friends using social media buttons to the left hand side or below (mobile)
Wondering how to make money with affiliate marketing
With the technique which I am showing here in this blog post It will help you connect the dots together I know you may have tried before and it didn’t work for you
I am here to explain why it is not working and How to make money with Affiliate Marketing
Why you don’t generate any income at all or For good assumption you generate an income That is not worth the effort you put in
When you read and visit blogs, hear stories for bloggers Making 4, 5 and sometimes 6 figure income per month Just from Affiliate Marketing (Is there 7 figure income per month? I’ve never heard of but may be there is)
You think to yourself according to your skills and knowledge Does making money with Affiliate Marketing something hard and not suitable for you
That’s why I am going to show you How to make money with Affiliate Marketing As shown in the table of contents below
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.
But I would like to define it differently Based on its very basic core Once you understand it this way You can secure the first step towards how to make money with affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the word of mouth For the traditional marketing one
Perhaps you may have heard this term for the first time
Think about it and memorize it well If it doesn’t resonate with you Remember Avonwhen it started their direct selling program With your words of mouth you refer your Friends and family members and you get rewarded Not once but lifetime when they buy their products
On a daily basis we use the words of mouth Without even noticing it we are doing that You try a product or service You go and tell everybody you know about it
That’s why companies started to cut out The cost of their large sales team and Share the profit with people who love their products
Does this mean that You have to try the product before you talk about it? Wait I will answer this question below
How to Start Affiliate Marketing
Theoretically Affiliate Marketing for beginners Dictate the following steps to help you start It looks very easy as follows
You will soon figure out that it wasn’t that easy You sprinkle your blog posts with affiliate links but Nobody is clicking on your affiliate links or You have few clicks but no sales at all
Now bear with me please I know you are very curious to know Why affiliate marketing is not working for you But at least I have to lay down a detailed steps as the right approach to work with affiliate marketing
1) Choosing your niche
Make sure you choose a niche that is specific but not too specific Like Dogs accessories (specific) vs Dogs pink Collars (very specific) Your niche should have a steady demand by checking your niche on Google trends
2) Choose your reliable web hosting
Your success with how to make money with affiliate marketing is directly related To your overall blogging experience that is directly related to your web hosting That’s why I recommend you read How to choose a reliable web hosting
3) Choose your domain name
If you plan to work in one niche with no intention To add another niche later It doesn’t matter if you choose keyword(s) Related to your niche in your domain name
But if not sure go for domain name That is memorable and generic
4) Installing WordPress
You don’t have to worry about this technical part I recommend you read installing WordPress
5) Configuring WordPress theme and plugins
I don’t want you to invest money into Buying new theme and premium plugins When you are just starting
My reason is that, it will take you a long time Till you see a significant effect Controlled only by your time and effort
This is the place where you add banners on the side or on your footer section Although banners are not related to specific blog post I highly recommend to add relevant banners to your niche You will get very low conversion if you add fashion banner on your dogs accessories blog
Your mission is to solve problems When people search for problems like How to choose a dog collar
You have to be on search engine You need to apply basic SEO People who search for problems are most likely to buy from you
While people on social media are not in the mood to make a purchase They just waste time and less likely to buy anything
Anyway your approach for providing a solution should be thorough
You cannot have all your blog posts cluttered with affiliate links hoping to make a sale
Take dog accessories as example, although I don’t have a dog but I like this example
You talk about choosing a collar for your dog Then you list all features that makes a good collar Like texture, being resizable, material (leather or plastic)
Now comes the part that makes you list a leather collar You recommend it for wide neck like husky you say that it is not good for tiny neck like chihuahua
People who read your post starts to get a sense of This guy is not trying to make a sale as You are eliminating those who have chihuahua
Your job as a blogger is to provide a free solutions to your readers’ problems no matter what Then provide expensive product and cheap alternative If the cheap alternative is suitable for most people (your commission will be low) Be bald and encourage your readers to go for it
Also if this product is not suitable for everyone List an alternative that suits those who don’t own Huskies
I hope now you started to feel Why some or all of your blog posts are not converting any sales for you
I will continue below of what make your blog posts fit into affiliate marketing
How to Find Affiliate Programs to Join
Usually companies which are using affiliate marketing Tend to list their products through what is called Affiliate Network
The reason for that is very simple Who wants to take the hassle of hiring developers to code affiliate program to track sales for each affiliate
Also handling the payments and support issues Joining affiliate network can lift all the hard work for them
I will list below some of the best affiliate network for you to join like
There are exceptions to the rule Some companies have their affiliate programs running within their websites
If it happens that you come across a great product or service Take a look on its website for affiliate menu or link on footer that shows you how to become an affiliate If still no luck, go and search on google for the company name + “affiliate program”
How to Evaluate Any Affiliate Program
The key on how to make money with Affiliate marketing lies on no matter what you read below in terms of commission percentages and payout terms ..etc You’ve got to focus on audience satisfaction If it happens that you get a visitor who had a bad experience about specific affiliate program and He/She finds that your blog listing it as top recommended product or service You will lose credibility on the spot
Anyway these are the factors to evaluate your affiliate programs based on
EPC
It stands for Earnings Per Clicks and in fact it reflects the earnings if we send the affiliate offer to 100 visitors
So if Product A has an EPC of $1.75 This means if you spend less than $1.75 on bringing 100 visitors to your affiliate offer through advertising, you are in profit
Commission percentage
Always digital products like eBook or online courses pay up to 50% or 60% commissions This cannot happen in physical products
Payout terms
This should not be a factor but I see some products or services make it tough They condition to pay out their affiliate members based on high threshold amount It is normal to see payout on or above $100
A payout of $50 is very normal I remember I found a payout of $500 Can you believe it, you have to accumulate $500 to get paid
Advertising Policies
I know lot of people they don’t read any policies It is not a joke You can find out that you get banned
Because you sent affiliate link to your email list (what is wrong with that?) Be very careful and make sure to read what you can and cannot do with your affiliate links Some affiliate network in their sign up pages provide you with a clear picture of their big NOs and it applies for all their affiliate programs
Advertising Facilities
I really like affiliate programs that design banners and promotional materials to help you succeed
Although this factor cannot be decisive but it is nice to have
How Affiliate Links Work for You
It starts when you get a visitor clicking on one of your affiliate links
Your visitor will be directed to the affiliate offer as known as landing page Affiliate offer will send you a tiny cookie to your computer
This small cookie file indicates that this visitor has clicked on an affiliate link from this computer Cookie usually has an expiry date like 24 hours some cookies have 30 days to expire If this visitor made a purchase before this cookie get expired You will get a commission
How to Add or Mask Affiliate Links on your Blog
If serious about how to make money with affiliate marketing then you should be aware that there is something called link cloaking
Why you need to mask or hide your affiliate link What happens is that there are affiliate malware being hidden in browsers It tracks affiliate links and rewrite them replacing your affiliate ID with their own affiliate ID
Unfortunately you lose all commissions That’s why you have to use affiliate cloaking Also some affiliate networks have long affiliate URL It is recommended to shorten them and be able to Track your clicks on your affiliate links
To be able to do that If you are using WordPress You have to install a plugin to mask your affiliate links I use something called Thirsty Affiliate
How to track all affiliate data in one place
Right now you have Thirsty Affiliate or whatever WordPress plugins you’re using
And it connected to so many affiliate network or as I called it earlier affiliate programs
To track all of your affiliate program, currently you have to log to each one and check your clicks and sales made against those clicks
I found recently a new WordPress plugin called WeCanTrack where you can track all of your affiliate data in one dashboard
I recommend you to use it to save time and be efficient
Where to Send Visitors When Clicking on Your Affiliate Link
This is known as deep linking Some companies have a wide range of products like Amazon It is recommended to link to a specific product(s) highly relevant to your context You will still get a commission if they buy any Irrelevant product p So do a deep linking and increase your chance for getting a sale
Why a Disclosure and How to Write One
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) mandated that you should inform your visitors That you collect commissions for any sales that happen through your affiliate links
To write a Disclosure
There are so many sites that generate free Affiliate Disclaimer All they need from you is the link the leave at the end of their disclaimer pointing back to their website I generated my disclaimer using https://www.disclaimergenerator.net/#wizard
What Are Best Ways to Present Your Affiliate Links on Your Blog
There are so many ways to write a blog post That works well with affiliate links Regular blog post also converts Assuming you add relevant affiliate links to your context But these blog posts are designed to convert better
Reviews
I am very skeptical when it comes to writing reviews Usually people became very cautious Not to believe any review they read online
That’s why if I write a review I will make sure that the product has 90 to 95 percent Pros At the same time I list all the 5 percent cons Doing it this way because I am sure the pros outweighs the cons
How To
I consider the How To one of the easy method to convert sales in Affiliate Marketing industry
Problem with How To It requires lot of effort to write step by step tutorial Some bloggers they go with creating a video or set of videos For me nothing is better than creating videos and then writing How To blog post extracting headlines from your videos While inserting these videos in your blog post itself
Resource Page
In my opinion, I cannot prove it Resource page is the last page visitors go to before exiting any website
Visitors will be curious what tools you used Especially if they fall in love with your blog Make sure to add your affiliate links categorized by their functions
Affiliate Links within free to distribute guide
I have seen some bloggers add PDF guides on the resource page These are good location to add your affiliate links within the context Also you can send a PDF link in your autoresponder when they first sign up
How to apply Affiliate Marketing effectively?
All your blog posts should imply the following Context – Authority – Trust (CAT) concept I will refer to it as CAT below
Context
It is when you stay very focused in Your blog posts to only the products or services that are highly relevant to what you are trying to solve for your audience
My friend is a dentist so money is not an issue for him He and his wife they eat outside a lot Trying all different kind of restaurants
If I need to take my wife to a nice restaurant He will be the first person to ask him for the best place I can even ask him for a restaurant that suits my budget or Specific type of restaurant like Italian, Chinese or Vietnamese
If he replies back to me with buying cook from frozen Pizza Do you think he was relevant to what I asked him for
Think about your audience mindset When they search for a solution to their problems
Authority
It is how your audience see you When my friend recommends a restaurant, I listen Because he tried every restaurant in town
What makes your blog an authority site From your readers’ perspectives is the way You took to handle your niche
If you decide to cover dogs’ accessories only You have a chance to have an authority blog Better than if you go with Pets’ accessories or Adding other things related to dogs on top
Trust
It is something similar to Authority But it complies with the way you handle Your affiliate links to show your readers that You really care about them and not about your sales
People can really feel it those days Very few bloggers manage to write honest reviews They pretend to be listing the real cons After the pros section You can really tell if they fake it and Obviously if they really tried the product or not
Affiliate Marketing and Buyers Lifecycle
Think about the buyers Lifecycle as something
What is the reality of affiliate marketing
that goes together with the CAT technique this will help you understand how to make money with affiliate marketing
Buyers Lifecycle stages are Unaware, Aware, Consider and Purchase
I will explain them below based on something Happened with me recently last summer
I live in Canada so it is damn cold in Winter but you rarely see insects In Summer, I noticed incredible amount of house flies I remember I killed 60 flies in one day
Unaware
This stage you are not aware of the problem I was not sure what was wrong so I went to search for Why are there so many house flies in my home
Aware
This stage I became aware of a duct problem A high chance that a bird or rodent died inside my duct This attracted the house fly and most probably laid its eggs there
Also I reviewed free methods to get rid of house flies Like ripened fruits in almost closed plastic bags That can easily let house flies in but not out
Consider
This stage I found many solutions but I chose very simple one like the sticky sheets That attract house flies due to its scents
Purchase
This stage is when you decide what to buy You have to look for the best deal
Keep in mind that in all stages There are different keywords The most competitive keywords are the one That have “Buy” + ‘the keyword” itself
That’s why if you are not able to rank for buying keywords You can apply all the above stages in your blog post
Not everyone will take a quick decision But at least few of them will do Don’t expect someone will buy a $1100 blender through your affiliate link Unless you show that you are really covering all customers’ concerns and answer all of their questions You have to apply the four stages properly and use CAT to demonstrate Why the $1100 blender is the best choice for a group of people
The problem is that we assume that a specific product is good for everyone While in fact specific product is only good for few buyers Who completed their due diligence comparing it to other products Again if you can have a comparison with other competitive products on your blog Then you have a high chance that buyers finish the Consider stage and ready to buy
How to write the best affiliate product review post
One of the key on how to make money with Affiliate marketing is down below in the next line
What I am suggesting here does not guarantee every visitor to make a sale but at least it will establish credibility – trust and a high chance of increase in affiliate sales
So when you write a review, consider the below as a checklist to make sure you have everything below covered in your review post
Headline/Title : obviously you have to add a high relevant title, some bloggers say prefix words like Honest reviewor the complete truth about, say whatever you want but keep in mind, readers won’t trust your title till they go on through your review
Summary : why you want readers to go through your entire review to come with a conclusion if this product/service is good for them, you have to do a summary of how you feel about this product/service – I know what you think, if the review is to get people to click on my affiliate link so all products/services summaries will say positive summaries, big no because you can have a negative summary about a product/service and list another product/service that you believe is a perfect fit, you see it can work both ways
Introduction : you can list what challenges you faced before finding this product/service
Authority : under this section, why you are the right person for all readers to listen to what you are saying, you can say I have been doing SEO for 5 years and I was not able to an easy course like the one you recommend to teach beginners how to do SEO like professionals – keep in mind at any point, you cannot fit a product/service to all audience at least some people will get discouraged to buy it
Review : the real pros and cons and let the users decide if it is the right fit for them, don’t be pushy and respect users’ mentality
Alternatives : list alternatives especially if the product is on the expensive
Conclusion
Is making money from Affiliate Marketing a myth
Maybe the concept of how to make money with affiliate marketing used to work a decade ago and Now it is completely impossible to make a profit out of it
Well Affiliate Marketing still works even more than before With more of well known brands joining affiliate networks daily There is more than enough room for everyone So It is not dead and it will never be
Why is Affiliate Marketing so Hard
How to Make money with affiliate marketing is not hard You just don’t stick with Context – Authority – Trust (CAT)
If you promote a shady products or services Due to its lucrative commission You convince yourself that you will write an honest review If you write a really honest review Then nobody should buy it
A good product promotes itself Any affiliate product with high sales volume It doesn’t mean that it is a good product for you to promote
Remember there is a huge difference between lack of features and cons If you buy a laptop with a very small hard drive It can be good for someone who wants to Browse the internet and install few applications on it
What if this laptop heats up and has a high fan noise This is what you have to report under the cons
It can be up to the buyer to decide I would say an honest reviews for multiple items listed next to each other Where you compare the pros and cons In a comparative way Like Highest – Moderate – Lowest fan noise
This can lead to making few sales for the moderate and lowest fan noise That’s because they were listed beside the worst one
I would like to write an equation below Traffic + Best Customers’ Experience = Sales
If your Sales number still the same while you added double the contents and Your traffic increased according to Google Analytics Then this is a good indication that you are not following the CAT technique fully on your blog
Can You Really Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
Yes you can
But how to make money with affiliate marketing requires you to keep in mind When you start a new blog You almost have no content
It will be very hard at this level I would say the best traffic like Google organic search With almost few contents on your blog will not convert to sales
That’s why you have to be very patient This industry requires patience as a talent
Is Affiliate Marketing Worth The Effort
Yes it is worth it, it is like a snow ball Once you get the snow ball rolling It is getting bigger while rolling and nobody can stop it
Usually people quit before they see any result Why, because if you require let’s say 100 epic blog posts each take around 25 hours of work effort Then you need 2500 hours equivalent to a year and one quarter
Assuming you work 4 hours on your blog daily Then you will see significant result in two years and half Since your mind will fight against your will You always quit before your reach your goals
Is Affiliate Marketing Saturated Due to Competition on the Internet
How to make money with affiliate marketing is not related to competition
I believe competition is way less than affiliate products demand There is still room for everyone I will prove to you there is nothing called affiliate marketing Saturation
Assume we have 20 products for specific niche using Affiliate promotion These 20 products are distributed between Physical and digital products like eBooks and eCourses
If each blogger takes between 5 to 10 products out of 20 products to promote Assuming they all promote on Google organic search only
I will take the lowest number from screenshot above and I would say you have 15504 chance of comparing and Reviewing different set of products together
Product assumption
Assuming we have only 20 products Which is way less than reality and also assuming that no other New product that comes to market (which is theoretically impossible)
A real life example happened to me I was looking to buy a very strong vacuum It happened that I heard about Dyson I found only within Dyson around 20 different models
First I decided I will not compare other brands vs Dyson It will be very distracting, I eliminated my search within Dyson To filter between the price between $300 and $400 Plus the cordless feature can last around 30 minutes That was enough for my needs
Imagine going through different models vs Dyson Comparing different features beside being cordless and price You end up in almost unlimited combinations of ideas Who can cover all of that under one roof (Blog)
You just have to be persistent and choose the best affiliate products Work on them from different angles to show your audience Why these products can be the best fit for them to buy
How to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer
How to make money with affiliate marketing counts on the below rules
This question by itself can be a separate long blog post Since it is inside the context of other affiliate marketing questions I will just write down rules as list items with little description Where I discussed them earlier so I don’t want to be redundant
Rule 1
Affiliate Marketing cannot live without Traffic Nobody comes to your blog by chance They must have shown an interest That’s why they followed your link to your blog Successful bloggers strive to impress every visitor
Rule 2
Build your blog to get traffic to it When you build your blog Make sure you define your audience When you keep your audience in mind Every visitor should stick somehow to your blog
If you manage to pinpoint their problems and concerns The other platform which I don’t see it as a replacement to your blog is to build a YouTube channel If you manage to have a good presence on YouTube which requires a lot of effort Why don’t you build a blog too
Rule 3
The secret on how to make money with affiliate marketing lies on building your email list as soon as possible I will not say from day one of launching your blog At least I would say after you managed to add the first 5 blog posts You capture some of your visitors You can start to tag or segment them based on their specific behaviors This will give you a competitive edge to laser target them with the right affiliate marketing product
Rule 4
All traffic are not created equal You have to understand that part of your conversion process completely depends on your source of traffic SEO is way superior than any other sources People are actively half way ready looking to solve their problems If it happens that you show up to them You have a high chance for getting a conversion (if you do it right)
Rule 5
This rule is very crucial on how to make money with affiliate marketing
Use all other traffic sources to build your email list SEO is the best source of traffic for conversion but That doesn’t mean that all other traffic sources are useless You cannot expect from Pinterest users to buy through your affiliate link on the first visit to your blog but at least You have a high chance of getting lot of email subscribers
Rule 6
Don’t judge affiliate marketing programs based on their payout terms Some affiliate network or affiliate programs by themselves pay every certain period of time or Sometimes they pay you when you accumulate certain amount Don’t take the payout terms as a way to filter out the good affiliate programs
I know everyone wants to get paid instantly Some programs pay like $20 as a commission while their payout is $100 If you are just starting, it will take you long time to convert 5 sales to reach the $100 Think about how you are serving your audience by introducing them to the best of the best
It wouldn’t be a nice experience if you lose your audience forever because of an average affiliate product You should spend a lot of effort on delivering the best content Not only on your blog but also extending your blog to the affiliate offers
Rule 7
Keep good mix of different price range for affiliate products When you first start your promotion You don’t really know which offer converts the best Sometimes the price can be a good factor While some other times they are the landing page themselves So a good mix of different prices can increase the chance of good conversion
Things to Avoid in Affiliate Marketing
Important aspect on how to make money with Affiliate marketing is to consider the below as some advice
If you follow them you still have to read and understand this blog post They cannot guarantee your success in affiliate marketing but they will add up to the overall effort of your blog
Avoid being like a salesman
With content creation Speak to your visitors as if You speak to your friends and family Don’t try to be like a salesperson You are in fact selling something Make it like a recommendations
You found Product a very beneficial to you You explain why without showing that If they don’t buy it, their life will be miserable Watch out your tone of writing
Avoid irrelevant banner
Don’t display a banner Inside of your context That is completely odd
It applies to anything If you manage to display Ads to earn some income Don’t over do it and don’t Clutter your blog with Ads You are repelling your visitors
Avoid popups at all cost
Your readers should have a very nice reading experience Imagine yourself in their position While in the middle of reading You get a popup that is hard to get rid of
Make your blog a mobile friendly
Most of the people browse from mobiles If found that 86% of my visitors are coming from mobile devices You have to use a mobile friendly theme for your blog
Affiliate Marketing Reality vs Illusion
Finally I will reach a stage Where I believe it is my duty to lay down Everything about how to make money with affiliate marketing Between Reality and Illusion I will always list the Illusion first
Illusion : Affiliate Marketing requires working few hours per day
Reality : Nobody is going to dictate to you how many hours you need to work per day or week Making money with affiliate marketing in general requires a lot of work A kind of work that requires you to sit in front of your laptop Writing blog posts/articles CONSISTENTLY
Illusion : Once I am satisfied with my level of income I can have it on Autopilot
Reality : If you don’t work consistently on your blog Your income will decrease back to zero It will take long time to go back to zero But it is inevitable as making money with affiliate marketing requires consistent hard work
Illusion : This Affiliate Marketing training or course will definitely secure my success
Reality : I am not against buying any Affiliate Marketing course or eBook These materials give you lot of ideas You may not be aware of The challenge here is the actions from your side Again it will take you long time to learn and practice everything yourself
Illusion : Steve, made $11,372 from Affiliate Marketing on his first month blogging
Reality : Steve is a fictional name, and so is the amount he made It doesn’t matter here Do you know Steve in person Maybe Steve has 10 years of making money with affiliate Marketing and blogging experience
Please don’t believe the exaggeration That you can start earning money on your first month I am not trying to be negative If it happens then it will be few dollars amount
The secret on how to Make money with affiliate marketing on your first month happens only when you have long experience You really know what you are doing You planned/created your content ahead of time
Even at this stage your Income will come from different sources Search engines will take some time to find your new blog
Illusion : You can make affiliate profits by advertising your affiliate offer
Reality : Very hard and takes a lot of learning and practice In fact, to connect your affiliate offer to an AD on Facebook or Google Adwords You have to expect to spend some money to optimize your AD till it starts making profits
When advertising your affiliate offer Usually professional bloggers do this way They connect visitors to their blog post Where they add signup form with enticing report or guide Then you keep emailing your list This will increase your chance for making sales
Conclusion
How to Make money with affiliate Marketing is a very long journey that requires patience and perseverance
Usually most beginners who start blogging fail before see any significant success Either you are on the right track for achieving affiliate marketing success but you need to wait a bit longer or
You are off track for so many reasons like writing little or no value content, writing about many niches and not focusing on one niche, not getting enough traffic to evaluate your contents from visitors’ perspective…etc
Finally if you learned how to make money with Affiliate Marketing, please share it with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)