When I first found out there was a thing called affiliate marketing, I was so excited to realize that all I had to do to make money at affiliate marketing was apply to be an affiliate for products or companies, build a simple website to put a bunch of banner ads with affiliate links on it, post my website on Facebook, and poof! I’d be rich! (Don’t make fun of me…I really thought that LOL)
I spent money on a lame affiliate marketing course and created a one-page website. My home page was literally just a bunch of banner ads all containing my affiliate links. I put my website URL out on social media and yes, I honestly thought that was all I had to do. I was so disappointed when I didn’t make a single sale.
Can You Really Make Money at Affiliate Marketing?
Turns out, affiliate marketing actually takes WORK. I don’t know whether the two guys who sold me that affiliate marketing course were actually out to scam people, or perhaps they themselves were genuinely clueless. But the fact was, what they taught me no where near covered all the necessary steps for making money at affiliate marketing. But I didn’t know anything. All I knew was I tried affiliate marketing, and it didn’t work.
Skip Ahead a Few Years
A few years later, I found myself still wondering about affiliate marketing. The thought of working online from home, having my own business, setting my own hours – I really wanted that. So I decided to check into it one more time. And I’m so glad I did. What’s when I found a company called, Wealthy Affiliate. They have a step-by-step free starter program that teaches affiliate marketing for beginners. I signed up for their Free Starter Membership in August of 2015.
By November, I was making really great progress and I knew I wanted to do affiliate marketing as my full time job. So I upgraded to their Premium Membership, continued with the training, and I’ve been a full-time affiliate marketer ever since. So the answer to my question, “Can I make money online?” was yes – but I had to do it the RIGHT way, and that took WORK.
The Right Way to Make Money at Affiliate Marketing
Wealthy Affiliate taught me that the way to make money at affiliate marketing involves four steps:
Step 1. Choosing a niche
Step 2. Building a website
Step 3. Creating content
Step 4. Making money
First, you choose a topic you want to focus your business on. Wealthy Affiliate encourages you to pick a topic you love – something you’re passionate about. Then, they teach you step-by-step how to build a website. A NICE website. One that’s nice looking, functional, and one that’ll actually be recognized and indexed by Google. Third, they’ll teach you how to create content in the form or written articles (called blog posts) all about whatever your website’s topic is.
Now here’s the part that might be painful for some of you – it’s only after you’ve created post after post after post – to the tune of at least two or three posts a week – for a period of MONTHS – then and only then will you begin to build momentum and have money start trickling in. Yes, I said “trickling.” The fact is, building a website that makes money, getting recognized and ranked by Google, beating out the competition of the hundreds (thousands? millions?) of websites already online in your niche – it can take anywhere from 1 to 5 years.
I’ll give you a minute.
Can You Make Money at Affiliate Marketing Faster?
Yes, you can. The best way is to create more content. Become a content-making-machine. Just keep publishing blog post after blog post, and learn how to get those posts ranked in Google. You can also post your content on social media platforms. You can start collecting emails from your website visitors so you can send them all your new content. You can even pay for traffic to your website.
These are all things you’ll learn about in the training at Wealthy Affiliate. But I’m here to tell you – and keep in mind I’ve been doing this full time since 2015 – that the only way you can make money in affiliate marketing consistently, in large amounts, and as a full-time income, is to consistently create and publish quality content.
So, Can You Really Make Money at Affiliate Marketing?
Yes, you most certainly can. But you have to get the right training. You have to do it right. And you have to work consistently. I create content on a regular basis that gets ranked in Google because I know the steps to make that happen. I post my content regularly on social media. I send my new articles out to my email subscribers. If you’d like to see exactly what I do every day as a full time affiliate marketer, and see step-by-step instructions on how I do it, watch this video:
I Hope This Helped!
My best advice if you’d like to start affiliate marketing is to sign up for the free training at Wealthy Affiliate. You can read my full review of Wealthy Affiliate HERE. You get the first training classes absolutely free. You can also read my full overview of what’s included in their Premium Membership HERE. This is how I did it.
This is how I make money at affiliate marketing. Go ahead and sign up for the free training. Get your feet wet and see if this is something you like. ‘Won’t cost you anything to check it out, and if you decide you like it, you’ll know you’re doing it right. Best wishes to you, and thank you so much for visiting! Debra
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