How To Make Money From Affiliate Marketing in 4 Steps

If you’re a beginner wanting to learn how to make money from affiliate marketing, the RIGHT way…

Then this is THE place to be!

In this article, I’m gonna walk you through the 4 essential steps from a newbie perspective for not only building an affiliate marketing business from scratch…

But also generating a full-time income that grows exponentially month-after-month.

How To Make Money From Affiliate Marketing in 4 Steps

Sound awesome to you?

But first things first.

What The Heck is Affiliate Marketing When It’s at Home?


Put simply, the process of affiliate marketing is when YOU (as an “affiliate”) join an affiliate program (i.e. Amazon Associates) and choose products to promote to your audience of hungry buyers. 

From each product sale you generate, you’ll earn a percentage called a “commission”.

Commission percentages can vary from affiliate program-to-program and even product-to-product sometimes.

So from an economics standpoint, it’s important to choose your program(s) and product(s) wisely to make building an online Biz worth your time and effort.

If you wanna know the best figures to aim for when it comes to product $ and commission % – Ian Pribyl lays it out brilliantly in his cheap and cheerful ‘From Nothing‘ Kindle.

However, please do bear one thing in mind:

It’s gonna take a lot of hard work if you want a 4, 5 or even 6-figure income rolling in as an affiliate marketer.

YEP, you better believe it – there are some affiliates making 6 figures yearly, and even monthly in some cases!

The most successful online Biz owners may have a wealth of experience under their belts…

But like you, they started out with little to no knowledge on internet and affiliate marketing.

They simply learned what to do, knuckled down, and put the time  and also some money (yes, there are costs) into building an empire.

In addition, they made sacrifices – none of this sofa, snack bowl and Netflix stuff lol.

Don’t get me wrong, you can take occasional breaks to balance out your life, but it’s all about priorities at the end of the day…

Work like a donkey, first.

Chill out time, second.

That’s the secret formula to success.

If they can do it – YOU sure as hell can!

How The Affiliate Marketing Cycle Works


Now all that’s out the way, here’s a quick diagram of the 4-step affiliate marketing process.

Step #1: The process begins with the potential customer conducting a search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo OR even via social media.

#2: They see your relevant blog site article or review in the search results and click to read it.

#3: If your content’s insightful, they’ll buy your recommended product/service (via your affiliate link).

#4: You pocket a cool commission off of that sale.

Now, what if 100s of peeps visit your site and a fraction of them buy products on a daily basis.

Can you imagine your earning potential each month…

Especially when the more content you publish, the more hits your site will receive overtime?

It’s a digital world of unlimited opportunity.

That’s affiliate marketing, baby!

But before you start your new adventure in the land of affiliate marketing.

It’s important to write down your financial and non-financial goals on paper.

Scratch that, create and laminate your own goal cards – just a few will do, as not to overwhelm yourself.

Be specific with your goals, set realistic deadlines, and even sign the cards to hold yourself accountable.

Review your goals daily.

Because it will put your mind into gear – giving you that drive to achieve them.

Check out my article on creating an affiliate marketing business plan for more help.

Now, let’s look at the main criteria for building a successful affiliate Biz in greater depth, shall we?…

4 Steps To Making Money Online as an Affiliate


#1 PASSION – What Inspires You?

An Artist Passionately Staring at Her Paintbrushes

  • What hobby or interest do you have during your spare time?
  • What are you insanely passionate about?
  • Is there something you love doing, that you’d love to share with others?

Pick just one thing.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, you must start with a passion for 2 very simple reasons.

  1. It will be your direction online.
  2. You need something FUN.

If you’re working on something that you don’t enjoy, how successful do you reckon you’ll be, huh? Not very.

Choose the wrong interest, and it will feel like working a 2nd mundane “JOB” lol.

Your passion is your starting point, and will be the “niche market” you’ll be focusing on, going forward on the web.

I’ve found that the most successful affiliates are also the most passionate ones.

So it’s important that you get this step right from the very beginning.

But What if You Don’t Have a Hobby or Passion?

Well, that’s OK too.

Because you can also choose your niche based on an education qualification, past/present job experience or even a personal problem you’ve encountered for a while.

But again, make sure it’s a niche topic that you’ll enjoy helping others with.

For more in-depth guidance on choosing your niche based on the said criteria above…

I highly recommend you grab a copy of ‘From Nothing’ – It’s an awesome book published by Ian Pribyl 😉

How to “Niche Down” & Why It’s Crucial

OK, so when you’ve figured out your niche, it’s vital that it’s the right one to roll with from the get-go.

This is where many newbies go wrong (even myself many moons ago).

Because if your niche is too broad, you’ll have difficulty in building yourself an authoritative blog…

Google won’t be able to make much sense of your blog’s topic and it just won’t get the rankings and traffic you want from the search engine to be profitable.

So you really must “niche down”.

As an example; if you’re a golfing enthusiast

Instead of choosing golf (= too broad), choose golf equipment instead. 

Or narrow it a little further to golf shoes or golf clubs, etc.

Example #2; what if you’re into cosplay?…

You could go with adult’s fancy dress.

Or narrow it down more to just women’s costumes or men’s plus size costumes, etc.

But don’t go too narrow with your niche either.

Because it will mean lack of content to write and fewer opportunities to make good money as an affiliate.

These examples are just off the top of my head, but you get the idea right?

#2 WEBSITE – Lay Your Foundation


A Monkey Holding a Laptop

In today’s fast-growing internet marketing world, blogging is the best and most popular way to publish content, recommend products and services, and above all, build your own brand.

If you do a Google search right now for a specific topic in your niche, you’ll see a lot of blog posts in the search results.

Those blogs provide visitors with lots of useful content, and content that converts into income.

People LOVE blogs.

Google LOVES blogs.

Blogs rule.

Period.

Writing articles and becoming an authority in your niche, not only builds you a following of readers who perceive you as an expert on the topic and trust you.

But is an awesome way to earn a full-time income from that “trust” and those “relationships”.

In my opinion and experience – owning a website (aka blog) is the most lucrative way to generate commissions as an affiliate. (You’ll see why in step #3).

How to go About Starting Your Very Own Blog

First up, you’ll need to buy a ‘.com’, ‘.net’ or ‘.org’ domain name – these suffixes are trusted more by your audience and Google.

This is the web address for folks to find and visit your website.

Go with a short and memorable domain name that reflects your niche or could even be branded around your own name.

You can purchase a cheap domain from:

  • NameCheap
  • GoDaddy
  • And Hover, to name a few domain registrars.

Secondly, you’ll need shared web hosting for your website to make it accessible online.

Just like a domain name, web hosting is very affordable and can be bought from the likes of:

  • Hostgator
  • Bluehost
  • And Hostinger, to name some hosting services.

And then you connect your domain and hosting together, and install WordPress (which takes MINUTES!) inside of your chosen web host provider.

But if all that sounds too technical, then easily build your WordPress website here – it takes no time at all.

#3 ATTRACT VISITORS – Targeted Buyers


Attractive Woman in Bright Glasses and a Hat

This is every affiliate marketer’s favourite aspect (besides money) – and that’s website visitors (aka traffic).

Your goal here is a simple one, and that’s to drive TONS of traffic to your blog daily.

To create a successful business online, you need “potential customers” visiting your site.

Without people, you have no business. That also applies to the real offline world.

It’s an easy formula:

Traffic = Sales = Profit.

For an abundance of free traffic, you must learn current content, keyword research, and SEO strategies for search engine rankings and organic visitors from Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Using these internet marketing concepts for scaling out your site and generating website visitors is gonna lead to an incredible online business as an affiliate.

Some affiliates are literally generating 1,000s – 10’000s of visitors per day to their blogs.

Insane, right?

The harder you work at attracting customers, the chances are you’re gonna become a highly successful digital entrepreneur.

You’ll be a traffic magnet…

An unstoppable machine… 

Just like ‘The Terminator’ – but without the killing part.

#4 EARN REVENUE – KACHING!


Excited Man Holding a Laptop and Punching The Air

Now, this is the most exciting bit you’ve been waiting for, and I don’t blame you!

When you have a flow of traffic (audience of people) to your website, you can join free affiliate programs such as Amazon and MANY others.

And then make money from the promotion of MILLIONS of products and services available to you in your niche market.

You’ll earn certain percentages of commissions, depending on the programs you sign up for and the types of products/services you promote for sales.

The awesome thing you’ll love about affiliate marketing is the hassle-free approach…

No inventory, shipping or dealing with awkward customers, etc.

You simply promote stuff on your WordPress blog, attract the traffic for sales, and let the marketplaces/affiliate programs handle the rest.

Wrapping it up on This Affiliate Marketing/Make Money Online Stuff…


When it comes to making money with affiliate marketing, there are a number of different ways it can be done.

But blogging about your hobby or passion and generating free traffic from the search engines is definitely the best way to build a profitable web-based business, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, this “online money making thing” isn’t gonna be an overnight success.

It will require a combination of education, hard work, time commitment, and making the necessary sacrifices.

If you can do all of those things, then BIG success is gonna be on the cards for you.

So let’s quickly recap on the aspects you’ll need for creating a full-time biz….

GOALS – Before starting out on your quest to make money as an affiliate, it’s critical that you set your financial and non-financial goals.

They also act as a reminder when seas may feel a little rough in life and online.

Look at your list each day and stay focused on what you want to accomplish from your biz.

NICHE – Your passion will enable you to build an extensive business.

Find something fun and exciting in life, and roll with it. The more passionate you are, the more success you’ll experience.

Choose a Niche of Interest

Remember, the most passionate affiliates build the biggest businesses and earn the most commissions.

Become one of the successful webpreneurs.

WEBSITE – What’s gonna separate you from amateur affiliates who throw crap against the wall and hoping something sticks…

Is by starting your own blog, creating a brand brand, being an expert in a niche, and delivering VALUE to your visitors.

A Smiley Geeky Man With Glasses Typing on a Keyboard

VISITORS – Learn to implement the current and most effective marketing strategies on the web for attracting free organic website visitors on a MASSIVE scale from the 3 top search engines.

Graph Chart With a Hand Drawing an Upwards Arrow

Work your socks off, and Google + Yahoo + Bing will reward you with traffic and customers.

REVENUE – When your traffic is flowing nicely, you can monetize your blog by promoting products and services from various affiliate programs.

You’ll earn commission percentages from the sales, and those commissions will stack up to form a full-time monthly income that continues to grow.

And there you have it – How to successfully make money on the internet as an affiliate marketer and turn your life around during the process.

==> Start Your Affiliate Marketing Business For $0!

Here’s to your long-term success…

Your Friend, Neil 😀

Do you have any questions or thoughts on building a digital business as an affiliate? We’d love to hear your comments below…

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