How can I start affiliate marketing?

[AllThingsconsidered]

I used to think that being involved in affiliate marketing is effortless and is an easy way to earn passive income. Well, it is not AND money does not simply fall from the sky.

In any business success - EFFORT and COMMITMENT - is Key. So before you immerse yourself in this business - ask yourself whether you are willing to put in 100% EFFORT and COMMITMENT.

By definition “Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission through promoting other people's or company's)products. You find and select a product you like ( which is usually termed as NICHE) promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make. “ Sound easy as ABC right?

Well technically not that easy as it sound. You need to be committed to learn the steps towards become an Affiliate Marketer and most important is to take ACTION.

Here are some basic steps as to how I got started :

1. I first tried learning from internet but find it rather difficult to understand. There is lots of Video on YouTube but the tutorials are rather scanty in content . So the next best thing I did was to enroll in a classroom program that guided me step-by-step on how to get started as an Affiliate Marketer. This was my initial investment -knowledge acquisition. To start in any business , one need to put in a small investment initially - for nothing is free. But this investment has given me good returns indeed.
2. The program also required that I made a small investment in having at least one domain name and a web hosting account to be registered - just like any other business - it must have a name and a site. For web hosting and domain name there is plenty of service providers to chose from such as BlueHost; GoDaddy etc
3. You also need to sign up for your auto-responder account ( eg. AWeber or GetResponse) to capture and store emails of your clients/customers who subscribed to your promotions. One thing to remember is that both web hosting and auto-responder services requires payment - but it is cheap and affordable.
4. Next, you need a to identify your NICHE.If you don't quite know what your niche is yet, here's some advice that you might find useful. Some key questions to ask yourself when determining your niche are: What topics am I already passionate about? Is there money in this niche? Is there enough interest in/demand for products in this niche? Are there affiliate programs available in this niche?
5. Choosing an affiliate program that cater to your chosen Niche will take some work. Put in a significant amount of time into analysing the program because this is, of course, where your income will come from.How much commission are you likely to make from the products? Make sure you sign up for programs that are profitable and generate a sufficient return in on investment.
6. There are many Affiliate Programs for both physical products available in the market such as Amazon Associate etc. and for digital product such as ClickBank, ShareASale; Market Health;JVZoo and so forth. You need to sign up for a free membership before you can start promoting their products. The terms of commission will be spelled out clearly by these programs
7. Finally, once your site is ready, it's time to create content for it. The content you create must be relevant to your niche but also interesting and engaging enough to keep your audience coming back. There are many software available on how to create your Landing Page/Squeeze page that can be used to attract subscribers. Just get one of these to meet your basic need when creating this page to be uploaded to your website.
8. Then you need to promote your products by getting lots and lots of traffic to your products. There are free traffic method - such as through FaceBook Postings, YouTube Video ; On-line Forums; Blogs - and through paid traffic such as advertisements in FaceBook; Bing Ads or Solo ADs

So there you go, some basic information to get started in affiliate marketing.The lure of affiliate marketing is undeniable; who can resist passive income? But to make that passive income happen, you have got to put in some work first. The steps listed above are well…not passive. You need to commit; take action and persevere to see success.