分类: Affiliate Marketing

  • Wealthy Affiliate Reviews Honest Opinion To Read

    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

    Let me begin with

    Contents show

    What is Wealthy Affiliate?

    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
    • Live chat for quick turnaround solutions

    The cons side of Wealthy Affiliate

    • 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

    Study all the courses and build your blogs
    Buy your domain names from Namecheap
    Download a backup plugin like UpdraftPlus
    Learn how to do your WordPress backup

    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

  • Can You Really Make Money Online? -Find Out The Answer Below

    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

    Can you really make money online

    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?

    Contents  show 

    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)

    Go ahead and read below
    How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing? 

    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

    how can you make money online

    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)

  • How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing? Reality vs Illusion

    How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing? Reality vs Illusion

    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

    How to make money with Affiliate marketing
    How to make money with Affiliate marketing

    What Is Affiliate Marketing

    Well according to the definition by Pat Flynn

    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 Avon when 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

    I recommend you read more about
    Configuring your WordPress theme and plugins

    6) Designing your WordPress Blog

    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

    Please read more about designing your blog

    7) Writing your blog content

    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

    Amazon
    MaxBounty
    Peerfly
    eBay
    ClickBank
    CJ
    ShareASale
    OfferVault
    JVZoo
    FlexOffers
    VigLink
    Rakuten
    Skim Links

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    1. Headline/Title : obviously you have to add a high relevant title, some bloggers say prefix words like Honest review or 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
    2. 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
    3. Introduction : you can list what challenges you faced before finding this product/service
    4. 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
    5. 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
    6. Alternatives : list alternatives especially if the product is on the expensive
    7. 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

    It can be a tedious job to a lot of people
    You have to love what you do
    Remember my example above about
    If Affiliate Marketing is worth the effort

    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)