The Truth about Affiliate Marketing

Have you been thinking about starting a blog? Have you been blogging as a hobby or perhaps been trying to make a living as a blogger? If so, you have probably come across dozens of courses that teach you how to make a fortune on your blog or website through affiliate marketing.

Simply, affiliate marketing is when a merchant pays you a referral fee when someone buys their product or service from your recommendation. These fees can be as high as 75% of the sale price but can you really make a fortune in your underwear with a few clicks of your mouse the way these courses say you can?

I have bought many of these courses over the years. Some of them were utter garbage and others were very good, even though much of the information is rehashed and repeated with each new course that comes out.

I have spent countless hours learning about product selection, keyword research, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, article marketing, forum marketing, social bookmarking, social media, and back linking, not to mention the technical aspects of setting up and maintaining a blog and mailing list.

Does this sound easy to you? One thing that this experience has taught me (and it has taken a while to really sink in) is that…

It’s easier to teach Affiliate Marketing than it is to be an Affiliate Marketer!

This is why there are so many affiliate marketing courses. If it were so easy to make a fortune as an affiliate then why would anyone go to the trouble of creating a course and selling it? It would be much easier to sit back, click your mouse a few times a day and rake in the big bucks.

Does this mean that affiliate marketing is a waste of time? Not at all! Affiliate marketing is one of the best business models once you become successful. There are no products to create, no orders to fulfill and no payments or refunds to process. There is almost no overhead and you don’t even need a mailing list.

I believe that one of the biggest causes of failure with affiliate marketing is the unrealistic expectation that comes from the hyped-up sales copy used sell the “how-to” courses. A typical scenario is that a person reads the copy, gets super excited and digs in to apply what he’s learned. When he hasn’t made a dime in his first week or first month, he gets discouraged and falls for the next hyped-up course that he comes across. This leads to a perpetual cycle of buying and not earning.

If a person understands that it takes time and effort to earn a significant income as an affiliate blogger, as with any other business, their chances of success will be much greater. A few basic things to understand before beginning might make the process a little smoother.

Choose a Popular Niche

You may have a tremendous interest in a particular topic it doesn’t mean a lot of other people do. If your blog relates to something that only a handful of people are interested in you will have a hard time making any money from your blog, regardless of how good the information is. A wise man once said, “No one is going to pay you to follow your bliss”.

The three biggest niches online are health, wealth and relationships. If you can stick to a blog related to one of these niches your chances of success will be much greater.

You don’t need to get tons of traffic to be successful either. There are some blogs that generate nice income from only a handful of visitors per day. The reason for this comes down to focus.

Focus, Focus, Focus

People go to blogs for one reason only: to get information about a topic they are interested in. If you give them good information they will keep coming back. Everything from your domain name to your blog posts to your affiliate links and banners must be related to your blog’s niche topic.

If your blog is about investing make sure that your domain name reflects that. InvestingTipsByBob.com is a lot more focused than TipsByBob.com. People need a reason to go to your site and read your information.

Once on your site people want information about that niche only. Don’t put a “best restaurants” list on your investing site. You will lose readers in the blink of an eye. Make your blog posts related to investing and target a keyword in each post to help you rank higher in the search engines.

Along the same lines, when you choose affiliate programs to promote only choose ones related to your niche. You’re much more likely to sell a course on investing on your investment tips blog than an e-book on “6 Pack Abs”.

Making money with affiliate marketing is not easy, despite what anyone tells you. However, it’s not impossible and with patience and persistence you can generate a substantial income over time. Hopefully, this article has given you some insight and I’d like to hear from you. What has been your biggest challenge so far as an affiliate marketer?

Author Bio:- John Mak is the editor and owner of simply1software.com where you can find information about blogs, blogging tips, software reviews, and other related products with special deals and coupons. Latest discount offers are Raxco PerfectDisk Coupon & Raxco Perfect Registry Coupon.