Affiliate marketing is the king of all money-making sources for almost every blogger and marketer.
Once you master the art of turning your traffic into sales, affiliate marketing helps you make money even while you sleep. You don’t have to work very hard for every dollar you make, unlike any other source.
Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting the products or services of another person or company in exchange for a commission on the resulting sale. Affiliate marketers join affiliate programs, find reputable affiliate products to promote, and then share those products with their audiences.
Basically, it’s a modern interpretation of a very old idea — getting a commission on a sale.
Once you set up your own traffic conversion funnel, it sends you payments whenever someone buys from your affiliate links. That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing.
affiliate marketing has been a buzzword on the internet. This potential money-maker is often the source when you hear about those incredible, if not common “I made a fortune $$$ blogging!” stories.
Affiliate marketing is really just a quick way to offer products and services without having to create your own products and services.
For bloggers, that means you find a product or service that you like, promote it to your readers, and earn part of the profit on each sale that you make.
Yes, it’s nothing new, but affiliate marketing is still going strong. And you can make a serious living by focusing on a smart affiliate marketing strategy.
If you’re unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, the concept is pretty simple:
Promote products/services on your blog.
Add special links to those products/services in your content.
When your readers click those links (or purchase products after clicking those links), you get a cut of the profits from the merchant.
In other words, affiliate marketing is a lot like commissioned sales. The difference is you’re driving traffic and leads to the merchant/advertiser’s website through your blog posts.
SO WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Pros
- It’s a great way to make passive income. While you’re off working at your full-time job, your affiliate links and blog posts will be working in the background. With the right combination of SEO and engaging, honest writing, you could be looking at a passive income cash cow.
- You don’t need marketing experience. You don’t need any marketing experience to become an affiliate, though a bit of SEO knowledge and writing chops never hurt.
- You can do it in your free time. With only a bit of time + money investment up front (setting up a website, getting set up with affiliate programs, and creating content with your affiliate links) you can start making money.
Cons - You have zero control over the offers, products, or services. You don’t have to mess with products (creating, distributing, selling) but at the same time, you don’t have any control over what you’re promoting, either.
- It can be competitive. Affiliate marketing is relatively simple, so there will be plenty of other affiliates out there competing for clicks and leads – some of them with years of experience behind them.
- There are scams. Affiliate marketers need to be wary of scams and fraudulent affiliate programs.
Now that you know the pros and cons, if you’re still interested in affiliate marketing, it’s time to dig in and learn more.
That dream you’ve had of making passive income isn’t just a silly fantasy.
It’s a completely achievable reality.
Sure, it’s not as easy as pushing a magic button or throwing Google AdSense all over your site, but with a little knowledge and persistence, you can definitely do it and even turn it into an online business.
Once you’ve gained a respectable following, affiliate marketing is one of the best business models for making money (and from the comfort of your own home too).
And the best news is that it’s so easy to get started. All the steps for starting an affiliate marketing business are spelled out in this post.
Simply identify the one big thing everyone in your audience needs to reach their goals and start there.