Affiliate marketing has become super popular within the last few years, as have many other ways to make money online. I personally quit my job back in 2007 to start my own business at home online, and affiliate marketing happens to be what I ended up doing as my new career. I didn’t set out to actually learn how to do an affiliate marketing blog; rather, I just started looking online for ways to make money at home on my computer. I kind of fell into affiliate marketing by accident! LOL
Back around 2013, I came across a couple of guys online who were offering a course in affiliate marketing. I paid the money for the course, did the handful of classes offered, created a website, and slapped some affiliate links on it. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I really (really really) thought that was it. I’m Rich! I seriously thought people were going to just flock to my new website and I was going to get tons of sales using my affiliate links.
Never happened.
Needless to say, I was beyond discouraged. I tried a few more times – found companies I could become an affiliate for, and slapped more banners and affiliate links on my website. But nothing. No traffic. No clicks on my links. No sales.
So I gave up.
Luckily for me, about two years later I decided to check into affiliate marketing again. I had been so disappointed that the website I’d created never made any money (I was so sure it would!). I guess I just couldn’t give up on it. I really wanted to make a full time living at home with my computer. Frankly, I was just desperate to figure out how. So I typed “how to do affiliate marketing” into google and up came a company called, Wealthy Affiliate. Turns out that find that day was the best thing that ever happened to me!
How to Do an Affiliate Marketing Blog
Wealthy Affiliate actually taught me how to become a full time, successful affiliate marketer. They taught me not only how to do an affiliate marketing blog, but how to create an entire affiliate marketing website. I have two, actually – the website you’re on right now, https://WorkAtHomeOnlineForFree.com, where I teach people how to make money online like I do, and another website called, https://PeopleLovingAnimals.com which is my “passion” website devoted to the care, health and training of dogs and cats.
Wealthy Affiliate can teach you, step-by-step, how to create a website/blog all about a topic you’re actually passionate about. They’ll also help you to create a website to tell more people about Wealthy Affiliate, if you choose to add that as well.
Here’s the Basic Outline of How It’s Done
Step 1: Choose a topic (something you LOVE)
Step 2: Create your website/blog
Step 3: Drive traffic to your website/blog by creating content about your topic
Step 4: Monetize your website/blog – Start Making MONEY!
Let’s Go Through These Steps in a Little More Detail
Wealthy Affiliate will teach you everything you need to know about each one of these 4 steps in easy-to-follow, step-by-step videos. But I’ll give you a little explanation about each right now, so you’ll have a better understanding of how to do an affiliate marketing blog.
Step 1 is to pick your topic. If you’re reading this article, perhaps you already have something you want to blog about? If you do, that’s great. If you don’t, Wealthy Affiliate will teach you how to choose a topic (they call it a niche).
Step 2 is to create your website/blog. Wealthy Affiliate uses WordPress, which is the best there is, in my opinion, for creating websites and blogs. WordPress is super user friendly. Wealthy Affiliate will show you, step-by-step, how to create your website and set up your blog.
Step 3 is to drive traffic to your website/blog. That’s the mistake I made back in 2013 when I thought just creating a website was going to make me rich. I really thought the minute I clicked “publish,” my blog would go live and the traffic would just start coming. The fact is, there are several steps you need to take in order to get traffic to your website. There about a million steps to choose from – I mean, there really are a ton of ways to get traffic to your blog. But you do have to do it – you have to learn how to get traffic. They’ll teach you.
Step 4 is to monetize your blog. There are lots of ways to do this. But the way Wealthy Affiliate teaches you is to become an affiliate for products and services that have to do with your topic. If, for example, you were doing a blog about makeup, you could become an affiliate for several different makeup manufacturers and promote their products on your blog. They’ll give you what’s called an affiliate link for the products you’re promoting, and every time someone clicks on your link and buys a product, you get a commission. You could create a blog about skin are and become an affiliate for various skin care companies. You could create a website about pet health insurance and become an affiliate for pet health insurance companies and get commissions whenever people buy a policy using one of your affiliate links. One of the easiest ways to be an affiliate is to apply at Amazon. As you know, Amazon sells absolutely every single product in the universe! So no matter what topic your blog is about, you’ll find products on Amazon you can promote having to do with your topic as an affiliate and earn commissions for doing so.
I Signed Up for the Free Starter Membership
Wealthy Affiliate offers a Free Starter Membership that contains 20 step-by-step classes on how to do the 4 steps I’ve told you about. It’s not just a short free-trial period, and you don’t need a credit card to sign up. Just submit your name an email, and you can start the classes right away. You can read my complete review of Wealthy Affiliate HERE.
Once You’re Off and Running…
Immediately after completing the classes in the Free Starter Program, I upgraded to their Premium Membership. That membership includes more advanced classes on how to continue to build your website and make money. They cover absolutely everything having to do with making money online: affiliate marketing, social media, email marketing, everything. The training is ongoing and they even have weekly training webinars. The benefits in the Premium Membership are countless – you can read my full overview HERE.
The Cost of Wealthy Affiliate’s Premium Membership
You get your first month for $19. Then it’s $49 per month after that (you can cancel anytime). But it’s way cheaper if you sign up for 12 months at a time. You can get a full year of training for $495, which works out to about two months free – that’s a huge discount! That’s what I do. I’ve been an Annual Premium Member of Wealthy Affiliate since November of 2015. They provide me with ongoing training, they host my websites, they provide me with 24/7 tech support, plus a ton more that you can read in my Complete Overview.
So That’s It!
That’s how to do an affiliate marketing blog. The four steps are easy, but you do have to get training on how to do it the right way. I’ve been a full time affiliate marketer since 2015. I’ve seen and tried several other affiliate marketing courses. Not only are many of them super expensive (like $997, $1200, $3000 and more!), but in my opinion, those courses are not as good as what Wealthy Affiliate offers.
I’m glad you’re checking into doing an affiliate marketing blog. I personally like affiliate marketing; it’s fun, and I get to write and talk about topics I’m actually interested in. I like my job. Imagine that – I actually LIKE my job!
If you decide to start the Wealthy Affiliate training, you’ll see me in there. I’ll be one of the first ones to welcome you! I’d love it if you’d contact me there and let me know what topic you’re doing your blog on.
Best wishes, and thanks so much for visiting my website! Debra 🙂