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Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Last Updated by 23 Comments

I've been online as an affiliate marketer since 1997. It's not rocket science. Read the following article to learn about affiliate marketing for beginners.

I've condensed and simplified the steps required to start your own affiliate marketing business as much as possible in the following article and have included links to relevant articles and videos.

NOTE: If you're not sure what affiliate marketing is or how it works, please watch my video, “How Affiliate Marketing Works” first. Then, at the bottom of this post, you can watch my “Affiliate Marketing Simplified” video. 🙂

Here, in 7 basic steps is how to start an affiliate marketing business.

1. Pick a Niche Topic

Pick a topic about which you are both knowledgeable and passionate, then search the web to find sites related to your interest.

Pay particular attention to sites with informative and entertaining content and note which products they promote. What words and phrases (keywords) would customers search to find those sites? Make a list of those terms to help you in your marketing later. Do you see areas in which those sites could be improved? Take notes to make those improvements part of your site building plan.

Learn more about niche and keyword research.

2. Register a Domain Name & Arrange Web Hosting

Choose a domain name that is relevant to your chosen topic and has the .com extension. Keep it short, simple, and devoid of hyphens (if possible). If you want to register your domain separately, I recommend GoDaddy.

You can however register a domain name (for free through BlueHost) at the same time as you set up web-hosting. A web host is a server on which your site resides.

Here is the list of web hosting services that I currently recommend.

3. Start Building Your Blog

As an affiliate marketer, you NEED a website. Don't let anyone tell you any differently.

Building a website nowadays is SO easy. I use the WordPress blog platform on all my sites. Here's a tutorial that shows you exactly how to start your own blog today.

4. Develop Content

If you love to write, you're already ahead of the game by leaps and bounds!

If, on the other hand, you hate to write, creating content for your blog may seem rather daunting.

Fear not, getting information together for your site is probably easier than you think, as there are many wonderful resources of pre-written content available to you.

To help you get started, here are 6 ways to create content for your site.

5. Source Products to Sell

Having a site full of great information won't do you much good if you don't recommend products or services that your visitors can purchase to solve their problems or fulfill their needs. 🙂

I suggest joining the following affiliate networks to start with — ClickBank and Shareasale… but only AFTER your blog is up and has some content.

6. Build a List

Overlook this step at your peril! It is absolutely essential to build a list to keep in touch with your visitors so you can promote more products related to their interests.

Learn all about email marketing. I personally use and recommend Aweber's autoresponder service.

7. Market Your Site

Here is a list of my favorite 3 ways to get traffic.

There you have them, the 7 basic steps to get your affiliate marketing business off the ground.

Start today, work diligently and reap the rewards of becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,
sig-ros

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Comments

  1. Mehul Mehta says

    Apart from your SuperAffiliateHandbook, do you have any online video tutorial course on how to start affiliate marketing and earn an online income ?

    Reply

    • Rosalind Gardner says

      Thanks for asking! I do have a video tutorial course at Affiliate Blogger PRO, which however is temporarily closed for renovations (updates). If you’re interested, you can submit your information to be notified when the course re-opens sometime in June 2019.

  2. Angie says

    For 2016, what domain name and web host provider do you recommend? I came across ipage.com and their charges are very low.

    Reply

  3. chris says

    Thank you for the 7 pointers you gave to be a successful affiliate marketing I really like the
    1st one The Choose your Niche because this is the foundation of all to be successful affiliate marketing.
    You need first to choose what you are passionate for.

    Reply

  5. Judy van Niekerk says

    Hi Ros,
    My husband and I recently purchased your Super Affiliate Handbook educational – it is superb of course!! My husband introduced the concept to me a few months ago when we took stock of our lives and essentially walked away from our high stress rat race lifestlye – and your guidance has been like a bible to me.
    This new career for me incorporates all of my passions – wirting, research, marketing and of course the topic of each of the blogsites/websites we are building! which includes travel, self development, building wealth etc.
    We are quite far down the road and almost ready to go live; I continue to research the topics for hours and hours – sometimes it feels overwhelming.
    I would like your opinion on something with regard to ‘extra’ information I may require to promote my sites specifically Public Domain Riches, Public Domain Gold Mine and Content Composer – I know you meniton them in your blogs, but the way in which the websites are structured, they don’t fill me with great confidence as they seem more a ‘push’ for you to purchase their information and ‘frighten’ you into doing so. I can imagine that in no time at all one can spend many thousands of dollars in getting set up, but is all of it required, as I am very confident that we will earn great money – eventually – so in esseince what I am asking is – in your opinion do you think purchasing these ebooks are essential for success?
    I really appreciate your time and everything you have done to promote this profession – your honesty and passion is so obvious!

    All the best
    Judy

    Reply

    • Rosalind Gardner says

      Hello Judy,

      Thanks very much for getting in touch and for your kind comments.

      As to the ‘extra’ info.. unless you plan to sell information products using public domain products, neither of the first 2 that you mentioned are necessary. And because you love to write, you certainly don’t need the latter. What you might be interested in however is Scribe SEO a tool that I wrote about here https://rosalindgardner.com/blog/rockin-the-seo/

      Hope that helps!

      Cheers,
      Ros

  7. rakeback says

    I started my poker affiliate site this year (I am 21, Female) and spend 8-11 hours per day promoting the site. It’s stressful only seeing small profits each month but your information has given me a little bit more of a push ”phenomenal rewards” lol. Well I hope so!

    Thanks for the information!

    Reply

  9. Carlos Arredondo says

    Hi Rosalind.

    Thank you for he great tips; reading your material (and practicing) is saving me a lot of time, you write
    everything clear and to the point, and a lot of your material is FREE, thank you so much.

    I always read your e-mails because I know I’l learn someting new. Thanks again.

    Carlos A.

    Reply

    • Rosalind Gardner says

      Hi Carlos,

      Thanks kindly for getting in touch and for the compliment. It always makes me happy to hear that the work I do is truly helpful.

      Cheers,
      Ros

  10. David says

    Thanks Rosalind for all these great tips.

    Question:
    What do you think about using Wikipedia for research?
    Also they let you (I think) copy the text if you insert their
    copyright notice/links at the bottom.

    Thanks’

    David

    Reply

    • Rosalind Gardner says

      Hi David,

      Wikipedia is one good place to do online research, for sure! As to copying/using their content… you are better off providing a citation and then linking to the work on the site. Copying content in full can result in duplicate content penalties.

      I hope that helps.

      Cheers,
      Ros

  12. Kathy/Bioniclily says

    I just wanted to say thankyou for all of the Useful information that you provide. I open you emails first, because they pay off.
    Thanks again
    Kathy

    Reply

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