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Believe it or not, every one of us loves financial freedom! You would love to see your bank account getting filled while you’re enjoying your precious time with family & friends, isn’t it? Well, I know you love it too! This is the reason why I wish to show you how I started affiliate marketing for free.
I’ve heard a lot of people talking about online scams. No one used to believe me when I said I’m earning money online. Some people used to demotivate me, while some people used to remain calm. I still continued focusing on my work & research even more on how online pros are making big money!
I then started a FREE blog to learn the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and gain technical knowledge. As months passed by, I started publishing more blogs, analyzing the errors & resolve them. Meanwhile, I’ve seen many affiliate marketers earning millions of money by promoting Amazon products on their websites. I thought to try this by myself!
Soon after my graduation, I started another FREE blog for affiliate marketing. Surprisingly, I saw some good figures in my Amazon affiliate account where the earnings reached up to $1000.
Amazing, isn’t it? So now, do you wish to learn affiliate marketing for free? If yes, then Keep reading…
Niche Research
This is the most important step if you wish to start affiliate marketing seriously. Also, the most common reason why people fail in affiliate marketing. I suggest you never get into a niche that you’ve no knowledge of. People just blindly jump into a topic/niche that can make millions of dollars but fails miserably due to a lack of knowledge in that subject.
I too did the same mistake and failed the first time. Since then, I’ve been choosing the topics that I’ve knowledge of, and was fun to create content.
Research. This step is the root of Affiliate marketing & can make you rich within a few years if done properly.
It took me more than 2 weeks to search for the best niche where I could rank easily and profitably. DO NOT hurry to start a blog/website without researching thoroughly, you might regret this later for not researching properly. The first thing I did was researched popular topics on Google then used a keyword planner to find the hidden gems (targeting keywords). After 2 weeks, I luckily found a popular niche that had no competition at all (I’m sorry but I cannot disclose it publicly). Soon after I found that particular niche, I started browsing Amazon & Flipkart websites to check out the demand, reviews & quality of those products.
Also remember that you’ll be successful only if you prefer going with one single product (for example – a camera), instead of opting for the entire category (for example – electronics).
Research until you find your favorite niche which is less competitive & most importantly, make sure that your niche has long-tail keywords in Google search. This can tell you the demand for that particular product. Remember that long-tail keywords can get your website on first page of Google.
As seen in the image above, the keywords with 4-5 words are known as long-tail keywords. These long-tail keywords are highly targeted and have higher chances of converting.
The main keyword might have more searches compared to long-tail, but they are highly competitive & can take years to get on the first page. So eventually, it’s much better and recommended to opt for long-tail keywords as I’ve always been doing it.
Let me explain to you with an example: if someone searches for “phone or smartphone” then they’re just willing to know the information. Whereas if someone searches for “best smartphones under 10000”, then that user is more likely to purchase a phone online.
Now that you’ve understood the process of researching for the right niche, let’s move on to the next step.
Start With a Free Blog
As I was a passionate blogger & had basic coding skills, I was confident about launching a new blog for affiliate marketing. The easy-to-write & easy-to-customize blogging platform was blogger.com. This platform is completely FREE & easy to publish content. There are many other free platforms but they don’t allow affiliate links in posts. So I would suggest you to go with a blogger.
I then chose an eye-catchy domain name that says what the blog was about (sorry, can’t share it publicly). The only thing I customized was the template (blog theme), which was available on other websites for FREE. Instead of using a plain blogger.com layout, it would be much better if you choose a theme that has a better design, better widgets & better blog structure.
Creating a FREE blogger account is extremely easy. Just go to blogger.com > Click on Create New Account > Click on Create New Blog > Give an attractive unique Title that says what your blog is about > Enter the name of the URL > Select a Theme > Click on Create Blog. That’s it!
If you don’t want your blog URL to contain blogspot.com as an extension, then you can add a custom URL later as well.
I did the same! I started a FREE blogger blog with a blogspot.com domain and then purchased my own domain name. This way, you need not invest a single amount until you start earning from affiliate marketing.
Quality Content with Attractive Buttons
Soon after launching a blog, I published my first post that was related to a fashion product. The article was around 350 words long with affiliate links embedded within the text along with a Buy Now button (you can find good buttons, banners & widgets in your affiliate account).
Please remember that sharing a product image with 1-2 lines description is not enough. Internet users need a review about the product, they could buy it offline, but before buying they would like to read the product reviews, if found good they will purchase it online.
My beginning posts were about 300-600 words long with in-depth reviews based on the long-tail keyword. There were 2-3 affiliate links that were added in the text & one eye-catchy CTA (Call-to-action) Button. You also need to remember that quality matters the most. Writing quality content is a hard part but if you have enough skills, you can make millions from it.
Try to keep the content 1000-2000 words long along with attractive images, internal linking to other posts of your blog, and adding affiliate links to your text.
As per the survey, review posts convert the best & are much more profitable in affiliate marketing. Other ways include deals, coupons, video marketing & price comparison. They seem to be easy but extremely hard to drive organic traffic from Google due to high competition.
So if you make a review blog, try to use those products personally before writing an article! This way, people might find your reviews more interesting & trustworthy. This will eventually tempt them to use your affiliate link to purchase the products.
I used to publish 2-3 posts within a week that were focused on long-tail keywords. After having enough content on my blog, I started submitting it to search engines and implemented off-page SEO work that helped my blog get indexed really quickly. After a few weeks or so, I received a commission on my first order from Amazon, which was really exciting, and couldn’t control my happiness.
The first commission I received was Rs. 78 ($1.08). Although this seems to be less any amount we earn online with our hard work is priceless! That was the day when I started believing in making passive online income. I then started continuing to post more products based on the long-tail keywords, and my earnings were raising on monthly basis.
Choose Products with High Quality & Good Ratings
This is another important step that can make you rich if implemented properly. Just imagine, you found a product that is extremely beautiful & attractive but the reviews are very poor. Would you like to promote it on your blog? Absolutely NO! Finding a useful and feature-rich product is extremely necessary for affiliate marketing.
What I did was, I used Google search & keyword planner to find which product is in-demand and useful to the customers. Once I get good suggestions, I used to start browsing on Amazon & Flipkart for reviews, to know the demand, quality of the product & discounts. Once I find that product interesting, I used to research that product, use it if necessary & promote it on my blog.
I always used to go with 3.9+ ratings and would suggest you to do the same as well. My first order was a fashion-based product that had a 4+ rating. My first paragraph had long-tail keyword covered with informative text, soon after the first paragraph, I placed a Buy Now button in green color (dark color buttons attracts the most). All the product images had affiliate links that would redirect to Amazon.
Choose the Correct Affiliate Program
Once you’ve decided about your niche & done creating your free blog, it’s time to pick a worthy affiliate program. There are many programs in India but you need to stay away from scam sites as well.
My first affiliate program was Amazon, as they’re the largest in the world I could trust them easily. There are two ways to get the affiliate link to post on your blog. The easiest way is by using Amazon Associates SiteStripe.
Once you’ve logged in, you can see the sticky SiteStripe on the top of every page of Amazon. You can click on “Get Link” and grab the affiliate links or click on Facebook & Twitter icons to get affiliate links to share on social sites. You can even check your earnings by clicking on “Earnings” from the top right side. In order to access this stripe, you need to log into your account first.
Creating an Amazon affiliate account is FREE and extremely easy! You just need to fill up your personal details, blog details & bank account details, that’s it!
Other good affiliate programs are Flipkart (registrations are closed as of now), Paytm, cue links & vcommission.
You don’t really have to rely on these affiliate programs if you have a good number of traffic per month. You can earn a lot with Google AdSense & other major content monetization platforms if you’ve more than 30,000 organics traffic/per month.
Share it on Social Media
I haven’t done this much due to lack of time but would suggest you do it. Create a FB page, increase the likes & shares and keep sharing your blog posts on your page. Sharing your blog posts on social media has many benefits such as your blog value would increase dramatically with brand awareness & backlink profile. You can even share the affiliate links directly on your FB page but make sure you use the social links from SiteStripe.
Things to Keep in Mind
- Start with a FREE blog, once you have gained experience on how to publish content, maintain a blog, and about basic technical errors, you can purchase a custom domain & hosting.
- Never go for a niche that you have no knowledge of. I personally failed the first time and would honestly request you not to do the same.
- Always write quality content. Do not copy from other websites/resources.
- Always target the long-tail keywords, as they’re less competitive & target the buying customers.
- Always find the products that are popular, have 4+ ratings & a good number of reviews.
- Please be patient! Do not lose hope if you haven’t got any orders or the website doesn’t rank on Google. It really takes time!
- Never Give Up! Keep working harder and you will definitely reach your goals.
- Stop listening to people who demotivate you. Believe in yourself & your ability to do something.
