Affiliate marketing is the shortcut to success you might have been waiting for

When you’re involved with affiliate marketing and you want to start your own business, you’ll have the opportunity of earning commissions without doing any real work — just selling products or services provided by other companies.

Unless your business really takes off and becomes lucrative, you probably won’t earn enough money to be completely self-sustaining.

However, affiliate marketing can be a great way to supplement your income right from home.

There are a wealth of such opportunities available right now, even with companies that are well known throughout the US.

Here’s what you need to know about establishing your own affiliate marketing business.

1. Sell products you’re familiar with

At the beginning of your affiliate marketing career, you should stick to selling products which you know fairly well — a reflection of your present interests or current occupation.

The reason for this is that you will almost always do a much better job when you already have a working knowledge of those products you’re trying to sell.

2. Create a website which caters to your niche

When you’re trying to get established with specific companies as an affiliate, they will want to know the website you are going to be using to sell their products.

This is very natural because any company affiliating itself with independent entrepreneurs is going to want to know that these websites will not damage their reputation.

It will be very easy for you to set up your own website, especially if you use one of the most popular content management services like WordPress.

As you’re building your website, make sure to include content which is not dominated by sales pitches.

Instead, what you should aim for is to present yourself as an authority in your particular market, so that potential customers will want to come to you for relevant and useful information.

3. Cost of creating a website

When considering the cost of a new website, a number of factors come into play.

These include the number of pages you’ll have on your website and the kind of content that you’re going to post on the site.

A study conducted on 400 of the top freelancer profiles on UpWork came up with some ballpark numbers which can be used as a guideline for someone who intends to become involved with the affiliate marketing business.

A 10-page website will cost somewhere between US$200 and US$1500 for its initial setup, and then there will probably be some modification costs afterwards.

If you want to include some custom site designs rather than using a WordPress template for instance, the range you might expect to pay would be from US$1,500 to US$5,000.

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If you were to further enhance that website with custom designs and custom functions, a 10-page website might cost anywhere between US$5,000 and US$10,000 for its initial set up, along with periodic additional investments for marketing and development.

If you are a newcomer to affiliate marketing, you’re probably going to want to stick to the low side of website costs, and keep your investment somewhere near the US$200 range, which is entirely possible when you use a WordPress template as a framework for your site.

4. How to become an affiliate

As mentioned above, you should probably start by researching affiliate programs which offer products that you’re familiar with, and that you can comfortably pitch to potential customers.

One good place to start is on Amazon because the site sells just about everything, so whatever you’re looking to become involved with, there’s a good chance that there’s an affiliate marketing potential at Amazon.

One other great option is a company called Commission Junction, which will help you to become an affiliate for a huge number of successful companies that you’ve probably already heard about (Office Depot, Overstock, and a great deal more).

Clickbank is one other option that is worth researching, and which many affiliate marketers have become very successful.

Commissions earned from companies associated with Clickbank have been very profitable in the past, and are likely to be just as lucrative in the future.

5. Join your chosen affiliate program

Generally speaking, there is no charge associated with becoming an affiliate in any specific program.

That means you should be wary of any company which asks you for your credit card number when you’re trying to join an affiliate program, because you may be getting scammed.

Virtually, all reputable companies which provide opportunities for affiliates, allow entrepreneurs to affiliate with their companies for no charge.

You are likely to be asked for a PayPal account number or a bank account number, but that’s not because the company wants to extract money from you. They will need an account number to deposit your commissions in, once you start becoming successful.

You may also be asked for the URL of the website you created for your affiliate marketing business, and this is quite normal as well.

6. Include affiliate links inside your content

One great way to boost your commissions without even having to make a sales pitch is to include affiliate links within the content on your site.

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Whenever site visitors click on any of those links, they will be taken to the company site, and if they make a purchase there, a commission will accrue to you for your efforts.

Most companies make it very easy for you to acquire links to their websites. The method that you acquire these links may vary from one company to the next, but it’s almost always very easy to link to any products you’re looking for.

7. Keep producing relevant content

If you want people to continue to come back to your website, you need to continue producing relevant and useful content for your users.

The more users are encouraged to come back to your site, the better the chances are that they’ll click on affiliate links and make a purchase, which in turn earns you a commission.

By producing a steady stream of content which interests your readers, you’ll encourage more visitors to your site.

Eventually, the sheer weight of numbers should operate in your favour, and a number of these visitors would be clicking on affiliate links to make purchases — while you earn profits.

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