In this article, I’ll share what an affiliate marketing job description actually is by telling you exactly what I do every day as a full time affiliate marketer. I’ve been a full time affiliate marketer for several years now. It took a few years for me to get a real “system” in place, and figure out exactly what I should be doing every day to make my business as efficient and profitable as possible.
In the beginning, I wasted a lot of time doing tasks that were unnecessary, worrying about stuff I didn’t have to worry about, and doing things that were actually keeping me from making money at affiliate marketing. But now, after years of trial and error, I believe I have the perfect system in place.
Affiliate Marketer Job Description
Here are the exact steps I do as a full-time affiliate marketer. I’ll list them, then I’ll tell you a little more about each one.
Step 1. Doing Keyword Research
Step 2. Creating Quality Content
Step 3. Sharing Content on Social Media
Step 4. Doing Email Marketing
How to Do Keyword Research
Keyword research is where you figure out what keywords or phrases are being searched most often in Google, but specifically, finding ones that don’t have a ton of competition. This is how you choose titles for your blog posts or videos that will actually make them RANK in the search engines – meaning people can actually find your content.
Learning how to do keyword research, in my opinion, is the difference between failing at affiliate marketing or succeeding at affiliate marketing. I personally use Jaaxy as my keyword research tool. You can click HERE to read my full review of Jaaxy. Here’s a video on exactly how I do keyword research.
How to Create Quality Content
This can be in the form of a written post for your blog or website, a video for YouTube, or an audio recording for a podcast. I personally do both blog posts and videos. First, I write a quality article to publish on my website, then I make a YouTube video covering the article. You don’t have to do what I do. You can do any or all of the forms of content creation. If you like writing, then do blog posts. If you like video, then do YouTube videos – if you’d rather just talk, do a podcast.
Choose the form (or forms) of content you’re most comfortable with, then stick to it so you’ll get good at it. You can read my step-by-step article about How to Create Content for a Website, or watch my video below to see exactly how I create content.
How to Do Social Media Marketing
There are about a million social media platforms available today. One of the mistakes I made when I was a new affiliate marketer was trying to cover them all. It’s too hard and too time consuming. I personally post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. If I had to narrow that down even more, I’d personally choose just Facebook and Pinterest. Both of those are “search engine” platforms, meaning people will go to Facebook and Pinterest to search for information (and find your posts!)
Choose which social media platforms you want to use, then create a page or account. Every time you create a piece of content, don’t just post it once on your social media accounts; rather, use an autoposter to schedule your post to occur again and again. I personally use a WordPress plugin called Blog2Social for all of my social media marketing. You can read my article about it HERE. Or watch my video below to see exactly how I do this.
How to Do Email Marketing
If you haven’t heard the phrase, “The money is in the list!,” then you’re missing a major component of making money at affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, you have to create an enormous volume of content – be it blog posts, videos or podcasts, in order to get ranked by the search engines and get people to actually visit your website, YouTube channel or podcast. It’s a ton of work.
If you do the work and succeed at getting people to your content, that’s great. But they come, they see, then they leave. WHY NOT GET THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS SO YOU CAN KEEP SENDING THEM YOUR CONTENT? That’s the value of email marketing. If someone is viewing your content, then obviously they’re interested in your topic. They’re a targeted audience. If you can get their email address and create an email subscriber list full of these people who are interested in your content, then you can keep putting your content in front of them again and again, for years to come.
That’s where your future is. That’s where your financial security is.
I personally use AWeber for email marketing. You can read my article, How to Do Email Marketing Step-by-Step. You can set this up to be automated. You do the work of setting it up, then you’re done. Here’s my complete step-by-step tutorial for email marketing.
Can You Make Money at Affiliate Marketing?
Yes, you can. But you do have to understand that it takes work. Many people think they’re going to become an affiliate for a product, slap a few affiliate links on social media, or create a sales page on a website and that’s it. That’s not how it works. You have to create a website, YouTube channel or podcast, then create quality content daily or at least several times per week, in order to get ranked in the search engines and actually get enough visitors to make money.
You have to learn how to do keyword search, learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies, get your content on social media, plus maintain an email subscriber list to get regular income out of what you’re creating.
How Long Does it Take to Be a Successful Affiliate Marketer?
That depends on you. Minimally, it’ll take at least three months or so for Google to index your website once you start creating content. Creating enough content (posts, videos or podcasts) to build a substantial number of monthly visitors, thereby creating any sort of substantial income can take 3-5 years.
You don’t wait that long to make money – the money can start coming in in small amounts in your first few months. But if you’re looking to make a real, full-time income as an affiliate marketer, it does take time. If you pound out the content in huge volume each week, then of course it’ll happen faster. If you only have a few hours a week to spend and can only create content, say, once a week, then it’ll take longer.
It really is all up to you. The best advice I can give you for making it happen faster is to follow the steps I’m outlining in this article. Watch the step-by-step videos I’ve provided for you here. Learn from my mistakes and don’t waste time figuring it all out like I did. And most importantly, create a ton of content.
You might like to check out my article with 10 Essentials for Successful Affiliate Marketing.
Where I Got My Affiliate Marketing Training
If you’re checking into doing affiliate marketing, then you’ve probably already spent some time on the internet trying to figure out what is the best affiliate marketing program. I got my training to become an affiliate marketer from a company called, Wealthy Affiliate. They teach people, step-by-step, all the steps I’ve talked about here and tons more. I signed up for their Free Starter Membership back in August of 2015. Once I completed the free classes included in the starter program, I knew affiliate marketing was what I wanted to do for a living.
So that November, I upgraded to their Premium Membership and continued my training with them. I’ve been a full time affiliate marketer ever since. You can read my full review of Wealthy Affiliate HERE. You can also see my full overview of what their Premium Membership includes HERE. Or watch my video below to find out more.
I Hope This Helped!
I Hope This Helped!I personally love being an affiliate marketer. If you want to have your own business, work from home, set your own hours, and be your own boss, then affiliate marketing is definitely a job that can give you all that. I hope the affiliate marketing job description I’ve laid out for you here helps you to have a more complete understanding of what affiliate marketing actually is, and what you’ll be doing every day if you choose this as your job.
Regardless of whether or not you choose affiliate marketing as your new career, I wish you the best of luck for your future. I give you a lot of credit for being smart enough and brave enough to actually look into things like this so you’ll end up with a job you actually like! Imagine that! Debra 🙂
