Becoming a successful affiliate marketer isn’t always easy, and it can take between around six months to a year to really see a profit. But if you have a solid strategy, you should be able to have a fantastic journey on your way to success, as well as being able to prosper overall. To get started as an affiliate marketer, you can follow these five simple steps:
1. Create Various Platforms
Most people decide to become an affiliate marketer because they already have a large audience, and want to use the trust they’ve spent time building to earn a small extra income. If this is the case, you’ll already have at least one platform from which you can endorse products. But you may wish to build your audience further by creating other platforms – blogs and YouTube channels are particularly good for increasing your audience and affiliate sales.
Try not to spread yourself too thin – you probably don’t need to invest too much time on platforms that don’t relate to your audience. As long as you have a presence on a few of the major platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook, you can always link the smaller ones back to your main platform.
2. Find a Niche
There is a lot of competition out there, regardless of your topic. That’s why it’s important to find a unique outlook or category when it comes to creating content. For instance, instead of choosing a general topic like ‘books’ to discuss, you could narrow your focus to ‘sci-fi books’ or ‘dystopian young adult books’. Don’t limit yourself too much though, otherwise you may run out of things to talk about!
It’s also essential to choose a topic you’re interested in. Your audience will probably be able to tell if you’re not particularly passionate about your content, and you’ll additionally have much more fun creating it if the topic is something that appeals to you. You don’t need to be an expert either – sometimes the best content shows a journey, with the audience learning along with you.
3. Join Affiliate Networks
The next step is to find the right affiliate programs to join. You can usually choose between higher paying programs with a more niche market, and high-volume programs that pay less. It’s often sensible to join several affiliate programs, across both categories, to make sure you cover all your bases.
Deciding on which affiliate programs to join with depend largely on the niche you have chosen, and your level of experience. For example, if you’re looking to target a business audience, the higher paying model may be better for you, especially if you’re marketing tech or software products.
4. Create Interesting Content
It goes without saying that you’ll need outstanding content to keep your audience engaged. Your content will need to be consistent, without going off on too many tangents. It’s also important to post content regularly – try to keep to a schedule, so that your followers know when to expect an update.
You will also need to ensure that your affiliate links naturally fit into your theme. It would look extremely out of place to start endorsing ski gloves on a website dedicated to baking, for instance.
5. Drive Traffic To Your Affiliate Links
Obviously driving traffic to your site and then your affiliate links is rarely as simple as it sounds. You may need to consider paying for traffic at first, by using PPC ads. The hope with these is that you’ll draw people in with paid ads, and then once you stop using them, the audience will continue to visit your site anyway, because they’re interested in your content.
Another significant way to drive traffic to your site is by using SEO. This is basically about knowing what your target audience is searching for, creating content that parallels this, and pushing these pages higher in search engines by using technical tricks like link building.
Ready to Become an Affiliate Marketer?
If you’ve already got a huge social media presence, a big loyal following, or are simply looking for a new challenge, affiliate marketing might be a great way to make some extra money. And you’ll probably have fun while doing it too!
Although it may take several months to really start seeing a significant income, as long as you have passion and are able to engage your audience, you should easily be able to become a successful affiliate. And if you’re looking to work in the financial industry as an affiliate marketer, Leadtree Global would love to hear from you!