Nobody enters a business without a business plan and neither should you. But we also understand that it takes time. That’s why we have done the basic work for you. Everything s been set out in schematic manner, so that this post becomes immediately actionable for you.
First — and very briefly — the four foundational concepts underpinning affiliate marketing are:
- Niche
- Website
- Traffic
- Keywords
We have broken it down into four distinct steps for your ease.
Step 1: Identify Your Niche
Let us just say that you love growing fragrant, colourful flowers.
That is also the classic definition of a niche — something sufficiently well-defined to be called a speciality. Therefore, if you were a horticulturist you would be a specialist horticulturist. “Specialist,” is a word applied to many professions — hairstylists; grocers; butchers and so forth. We could say they are a niche within a niche, a very exclusive domain — which in the case of the humble grocer earns them the grand title of porvidore (use only if you want snobbery added to your list of sins).
Our concern here is with the broader definition of a niche — just as a grocer is set apart from a butcher because they deal in different commodities.
You like flowers but do not grow them yourself — you admire them in florists’ windows. That, too, will do. Actually, that will do even better because you do not have to market them yourself.
Your only investment could be a laptop and an internet connection, to start with and both of which you may already possess. Almost zero capital expenditure in that sense — and all the while still continuing to admire the blushing red roses in Rosemary’s shop window.
Congratulations. You just identified your niche market.
That model could be applied to anything around you. In fact, here is a small exercise for you: look around the room where you are sitting and identify the things that you like and make a list. Next, go online and do some research — identify and explore the companies that produce those things. Let us just say that you like small hand tooled leather products (wallets, credit card cases, belts, pen cases). There could be potentially hundreds of such producers. It will give you an idea of the scale of the opportunity — based around your passion.
Finding your niche is finding your motivation.
Motivation, however, will only get you so far, unless you find your tribe, too. An effective way of keeping yourself motivated is to seek stimulation from a community that understand you immediately. And it is easier to find that community on a reputable platform, rather than investing too much time in what is already available somewhere.
See under “Reviews” for Best Recommendation.
Step 2: Build Your Website
Again, the platform you subscribe to is usually the first port of call.
Here it is important to note that it is not just your website but other social platforms — Facebook, X, Instagram, Youtube – can be integrated into your website to give you greater leverage from the outset.
Returning now to our horticulturist metaphor. What are the occasions on which people buy flowers? Birthdays. Weddings. Graduations. And those are only a few of the occasions. Have us covered for the whole of our existence.
There is a community surrounding each human interest. Your market exists already. No need to grow your own flowers and look after them.
In the old economy built around the industrial revolution, businesses struggled to make their presence known to their audience, resorting to crude physical means: standing on the street corner with sandwich boards; proclaiming loudly their wares on street corners; advertising in the newspapers and magazines. Print media was the last hold out of the old economy.
Digital media that came about as a consequence of the internet spawned its own forms – blogs, vlogs, one-page websites with their own links – superseded print media.
All it takes now is a decent ad copy, some graphics, and a “publish” button to get online before millions of potential buyers in any niche. Somewhere in the world even as we speak a finger is poised over a “publish” button. Only a keystroke stands between a seller and a buyer. We live in a digital economy defined by the infinite capacity of digital forms that allow us to grow our audience faster with increasingly less effort.
The rule of the game is: engagement. The more engaged an audience, the more likely it is to convert. And this in turn relies on the size of the community you are able to foster on your website.
Having said which, it would still be best to learn from industry leaders — such as Wealthy Affiliate who are eager to help you up your game – than to venture out alone on your own and lose motivation even before you gave yourself a reasonable chance to experience what it might be like to set your own direction in life rather than relying on others for an income, as it happens in a regular job.
Affiliate marketing is something you can start while keeping your current employment. Wait until you have replaced your income fully from affiliate marketing before exiting. Keep your day job.
3: Get Traffic
Building a website is the initial step. This is still a slow internal process. To succeed you need to send traffic to your website. Again this is where a reputable platform comes in very handy. All the work of setting up the process has already been set up for you.
The best method of getting traffic is ranking high on Google searches. And how do you rank high on Google? – by creating content, not just any content but high quality content. Google rewards substance and places it over mere style. For example, a few fancy words with fancy photos alone will not cut it.
You will need solid research that can back up your assertions. For example, “Affiliate marketing could make you wealthy” – that is a superficial statement. Instead, you will need something like this: “Affiliate marketing has generated income in the range of X$s/annum for individuals within the first 2 years, as the data from Y-agency reports.”
This kind of research also requires developing a knowledge of another area: keywords. And the process of finding good keywords and installing them in your posts to improve your Google ranking is called search engine optimisation, SEO.
But the question is how do you find the good keywords? Fortunately for us, keyword research has become a specialised industry in its own right. Names such as Jaaxy dominate the market. Although it is possible to get a subscription directly from the company, a better strategy would be to work within a single platform with a good reputation. Check out Wealthy Affiliate .
Take Action — Monetise
You have found your passion (Pomeranians, damask roses, composing commissioned sonnets for any occasion — or whatever takes your fancy ); built your website; done your keyword research. Now transform them into revenue.
Your paramount consideration from now on is data — which will be coming fast and thick as you go live. It may even seem a bit overwhelming once the initial euphoria of novelty starts to wear off and it begins to look like work – because it is work. This is where you can rely on a platform with its built-in community of fellow travellers and mentors who are ever ready to answer the paramount question: What are the key metrics and how can I make them work for me?
As a prelude (or, as a follow up) to this and other questions of a similar nature I recommend the following:
Why Choose Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing’s Moving Parts