Hello! My name is Kevin but for this website I have dubbed myself Your Helpful Affiliate. I have been researching affiliate marketing for years. On this website I share my tips and tricks for affiliate marketing. I share what has worked for me and what has not. In this post I will be giving you my honest opinion on what I think the best way to start making money online with affiliate marketing is.
The Quick Answer
While this affiliate marketing strategy is work intensive and more complicated than I can explain in a short paragraph, I am going to try my best.
Right now I think the best way to start making money online with affiliate marketing is to create a multi media brand in a niche you personally care about and have had experience with. By creating helpful content and answering common questions on many different platforms under the same brand you can create a following as well as a presence in search engine results.
You can suggest, review and promote affiliate offers naturally within your content as you talk about products and services you use.
This strategy seems to me to be the best out of the bunch. It can have a very low start up cost and every piece of content you create for your brand can work for you far into the future.
Affiliate Marketing Strategy Expectations
I want to let you know up front this strategy can take some time to be successful, but at least you will know what you should be doing. I can not and will not promise or guarantee you will be successful using this strategy but I think it is the best one out there. If you do the work your chances at success will multiply.
The Affiliate Marketing Game Plan
These are the steps required by this affiliate marketing strategy.
- Learn The Rules For Affiliate Marketing
- Learn The Most Common Mistakes
- Pick Your Passion/Niche
- Create A Homebase
- Find Affiliate Offers
- Create Helpful Content
- Create A Resource Page To Suggest Solutions To Problems
- Expand Your Brand To New Platforms
The Rules Of Affiliate Marketing
The FTC Disclosure guidelines –
The Most Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
Below is a short list of the most common affiliate marketing mistakes. Avoiding these will save you a lot of time and trouble.
- Picking Affiliate Offers Based On Commissions Instead Of Real Personal Experience
- Spamming Affiliate Links
- Trying To Sell To Everyone Instead Of Your Target Audience
- Spending Money You Do Not Have
- Focusing On Quick Results Instead Of Creating Quality Content
If you want to take a deeper dive into common affiliate marketing mistakes check out the blog post link below.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/10-common-mistakes-new-affiliate-marketers-make/
How To Pick An Affiliate Marketing Niche
First of all, let us talk about what a niche is. A niche in the simplest terms is the category your content is in. For example, my niche for this website is affiliate marketing. This is the topic most of my content focuses on.
Picking a niche can be tricky. It seems like a big decision right? Many people get hung up on this step. If you can, push through and just make a decision.
As you start to create content you will get a better sense of what a good niche is. At that point you can even start a second brand, for now though let’s look at what is important when you pick your niche.
A good niche choice should meet as many of the follow requirements as possible.
It should –
- Be a topic you care about and have experience with
- Have a group of people interested in it
- Have products or services that benefit the people interested in it
- Be a topic you will not mind researching
- Be a topic you will not mind writing about
Hobbies, personal interests and passtimes are good places to start looking for a niche that will work for you.
Creating Your Homebase Blog Website
For this step I suggest creating a blog website because it offers the most benefit in the long run as a home base. Having a website allows you to build a brand presence online. This will be where you direct your audience.
Pick A Website Hosting Service Provider
There are many options to choose from when it comes to picking a website host. I will compare my top 2 so you can make up your own mind.
Both of these website hosting providers offer a discount to new users. This reduced price can be applied to 1, 2, or 3 years. Once this introduction period is over the price will go up, so I recommend paying for as much as you can up front so save money in the long run.
BlueHost
BlueHost is my number 2 suggestion for a web host. This hosting service is the one recommended by WordPress.org. It is, from my experience, the most suggested and used website hosting service out there.
Below is my affiliate link for BlueHost. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
https://www.bluehost.com/track/bestsignup/
SiteGround
This is my number 1 suggestion for a web host. I am a constant user of technical and customer support for lots of my website tools. SiteGround has fast and knowledgeable support that has never failed me.
Below is my affiliate link for SiteGround. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
https://www.siteground.com/index.htm?afcode=396e6bef564936572a09158dc1fa4373
After picking a host you will need to install WordPress onto your website. Your host should offer customer support to help you get this set up correctly.
Pick A Theme
There are plenty of free themes offered by WordPress for you to choose from. Find one you like and go with it. This is another step many people get stuck on so if you can push through and make a decision you’ll save yourself quite a bit of time.
My personal favorite paid theme is called Acabado. This theme was created for members of Project 24, which I will talk about later. This theme was designed to be simple, fast and easy to set up.
Below is my affiliate link for the Acaboado theme. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
*Time And Money Saving Tip*
Below is a blog post that contains a few benefits to starting a blog website using WordPress.org instead of WordPress.com. If you have not set up a blog website before this post could save you hundreds of dollars!
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/hosting-moving-from-wordpress-com-to-siteground/
Develop Your Brand
Before you dive into setting up your website you need to develop your brand. I suggest picking a brand name with an available url that has between 2 and 4 words that pertain to your chosen niche.
I use NameCheap to check availability and buy urls. They have great customer service and an app! This really comes in handy when I What to check if a url is taken while I’m away from home.
Once you have decided on a brand name and a website URL the next thing I recommend you doing is getting a logo. The blog post below will walk you through how I get logos for my websites.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/how-to-get-a-lost-cost-logo-fiverr-case-study/
How To Find Affiliate Offers To Promote
Finding affiliate programs and offers to promote is very easy these days. Simply search for a product or service on google but add the words Affiliate Program to your search. This is how I find most of the affiliate programs I promote.
In the blog post below I talk about 15 affiliate programs you could join and promote.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/15-affiliate-marketing-programs-sign-up-links/
How To Create Content For Affiliate Marketing
The content you create on your blog website Should be written with two things in mind, your target audience and search engines. Do you want to focus on your target audience because that’s who you’re trying to help and you want to focus on search engines because that’s how they’re going to find you.
The formula for good affiliate marketing blogs goes as follows. You want to paint a picture of the story of the problem of your target audience. This way you can show that you understand the problem they’re having. Once you’ve done this you want to suggest a solution. This is where your affiliate offer could come in. In a clear and helpful way you should explain how the affiliate offer you are promoting will solve the problem they’re having.
How To Create A Resource Page For Your Affiliate Offers
The resource page is simply a page you can link to within your blog that contains information about all of the affiliate offers you would like to promote. Creating a page like this can increase your conversions up to 40%. This also allows your audience to see every product or service you are suggesting in one place.
Once this page is created it can be very valuable to link to it anywhere you can. Places I suggest linking to this would be at the end of blog posts, in YouTube video descriptions, and in your website menu. If you can find other places to stick this link that seem to make sense do you go for it.
How To Expand Your Brand To New Platforms
After you’ve created a decent amount of blog content, a.k.a. blog posts, on your blog website you may wanna start considering expanding your brand to new platforms. I suggest using platforms where the content has a longer shelf life that’s why I recommend YouTube and podcasts.
Setting up a YouTube channel or a podcast is easy and free. You can do this by simply downloading the YouTube app or a podcasting app and starting to create content on it.
What Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Choice I have Made?
I have spend years chasing the dream that I could make money online. Trying to figure everything out on my own was difficult, time consuming and unsuccessful.
So what changed? I decided to find someone who knows what they are doing and learn from them. I know there are tons of gurus, coaches and teachers on the internet who want you to take their course. I was looking for the best of the best and I think I found it in Project 24.
What Can Project 24 Do For You?
Project 24 is an online course designed to walk you through creating a blog website that can replace your income in a 24 month period. I love it because it takes all the guess work out of the whole operation. Just following the 60 steps in a timely manner produces results.
Below is my Project 24 affiliate link. This link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
If you would like to learn more about Project 24 I have written several blog posts about it and my experience being a member which I have linked to below.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/project-24-what-you-should-know-before-you-sign-up/
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/is-income-schools-project-24-worth-it/
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/income-schools-project24-day-1/