4 Steps to Creating a Successful Online Business

Hi folks! In my mind, affiliate marketing is one of the BEST ways to make money online. There are no financial barriers to entry, either, making it an incredibly attractive way to get started without having to worry about how much it’s going to cost you. I am going to simplify the affiliate marketing process as much as I can for you. Affiliate marketing isn’t complicated at all. ANYONE is capable of creating an affiliate marketing business – all you need is a drive to succeed.

So if you have a few minutes, I am going to show you how you can build a successful affiliate marketing business without requiring any prior knowledge of affiliate marketing, any specialist or technical skill, or any knowledge of how to build an online business. I will be showing you how you can do this through the same platform that I have been a part of since 2018.

So let’s have a look at the process of affiliate marketing, and how that works…and then I am going to be jumping directly into the process of what and how to start an affiliate marketing business looks like, and how you can get started TODAY (yes, you really can start today!), with your own business online.

How Affiliate Marketing Works

There is a vast amount of information out there on affiliate marketing, but the problem is with so much information there is going to be bad information, really good information, confusing information, and information that lies somewhere in between.

You have a product, and you have a customer.  Your job as an affiliate marketer is to align these two things.

The premise of affiliate marketing is that you can be rewarded with a commission for selling someone else’s product via an affiliate link online.

Anyone like you or me can sign up for an affiliate program and sell a product on behalf of someone else, say through a company like Amazon.

The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can earn money from selling products without ever having to buy those products, or ship them. You can do it from the comfort of your own home. Here’s how it works:

Now I am oversimplifying this a little, but I am doing this for a reason.  I don’t want you to be scared of the term “affiliate marketing”, because you are just as capable of creating a full-time and very successful affiliate marketing business as me.  All you need is the right training, the right guidance, and the tools necessary to get you there.

The thing is, affiliate marketing at its core is very simple.  There are a few terms that you will want to become familiar with.

Affiliate (YOU).  You are the affiliate, this means that you can join companies like Etsy, eBay, Walmart, Amazon (and 10,000’s of others) and promote their products and services.  When you join these companies’ Affiliate Programs, they will give you a special “affiliate link” that is exclusive to you and allows you to track all of the sales you generate.

Affiliate Program (companies like Amazon, Nike or Bloomingdale’s, etc). Most companies have an affiliate program, 99% of all of the brands in the world in fact can be promoted online and you, as an affiliate, can earn a commission. Amazon is one of the biggest affiliate programs in the world and will allow you to promote 100’s of MILLIONS of products, with a single account.  Pretty awesome right?

Earning Affiliate Commissions. Affiliate programs will give you a commission if you can send people to their website, and they end up buying something. Say you send someone to Amazon through your affiliate link for shoes, and they end up buying a TV, Amazon will pay you a % of the total sale. Amazon offers around 3-6% commissions, so a transaction like this may yield you $50-100 (depending on the price of the TV).  Depending on the company and affiliate program, they will typically pay between 2% and 75% in commissions.

Unlimited Potential.  As an affiliate marketer, your potential has no limit.  The more people you can get buying through your affiliate links, the more money you make.  Many affiliate marketers make several million dollars per year, and this can be a reality for anyone that is willing to put forth the effort to build an affiliate marketing business.  But HOW do you build an affiliate marketing business?  I am going to cover that in the next section.

The 4-Steps to Starting a Successful Affiliate Marketing Business

So how can YOU create your own successful affiliate marketing start-up?   There are actually only 4-steps to creating a successful affiliate marketing business, and if you can follow these and have access to the training, tools and support necessary to run your business, you are going to be off and running!

Step 1: Choose an Idea

The first thing you are going to need to do before you start the build-out of any business is come up with an idea for your business. This is also called the “niche” stage of your business, where you get to choose the audience and the category of your business. This could be anything, from training a puppy, to designer clothes, to crypto, to parenting, etc. There are literally millions of potential directions that you can head with your business. This is the exciting part.

I recommend to people choose a passion/interest as their niche.  This way, you will truly enjoy your business and when you love what you do, you never have to “work” a day in your life.  The Internet and the affiliate marketing industry have afforded us all this very opportunity.

How to Choose Your Idea:  Choose a niche or a passion.  There are close to 5 BILLION people online now, so even the most obscure niches have vast audiences. If you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate, you have direct video classes walking you through the niche selection process along with direct help from the community who can give you feedback on your niche.

Step 2: Build a Website

Your website is the foundation of your business. Think of it like a shop within the offline world. If you have no “storefront”, you don’t have the ability to attract and help customers, or the ability to sell anything. Your website is in essence your storefront, where you are able to help your audience, communicate with your audience, and promote products/services to your audience.

If you don’t have a website, you don’t stand a hope of running an online business.  It is the first and key necessity you need to create a long-term business.

How to Accomplish:  You can build high-performing and profit-ready websites with ease, at Wealthy Affiliate. You can even get up and running with one for completely free, within the Starter account. Another perk to using the website platform over at Wealthy Affiliate is that their hosting (where your website lives) is high-speed and ranks better than other providers. This can give you a competitive advantage and can lead to a lot more opportunities as you build out your website.

Building a website through Wealthy Affiliate is a whole lot easier than you might think, and there are classes that walk you through the process. You can complete the classes in your own time, in the comfort of your home, and watch as many times as you like. What I’m trying to say is don’t think that building a website is going to be hard – it really isn’t. All the support is available to you.

Step 3: Get an Audience

In the Internet world, your website is also the place where your “traffic” will arrive. Without people coming to your website, there is no way to make money. So it is important to understand how to attract traffic to your website.

Traffic can come in many forms, but one of the most sustainable and long-term traffic methods is search engine optimization.  This means, getting ranked in search engines like Google, and as a result getting all sorts of FREE traffic to your website.  Once you have traffic, you have opportunity.

So this is the next focus, once you have your website up and running. Building out your website in a way that leads to traffic.

How to Accomplish: You need proper “traffic” training, along with a website that is set up to rank well within search engines.  These are both things that are provided within Wealthy Affiliate, you have access to elite SEO training, along with classes and access to experts that will personally help you with your traffic campaigns.

Plus, there are many other ways you can get traffic to your website as you build it out.  Social media channels, YouTube and video blogging, podcasts, and paid traffic channels.  These are all covered in detail within the training at Wealthy Affiliate.

Step 4: Make Money. 

Last but not least, the “make money” part of your business.  This is where you earn money through affiliate programs.  Basically, there are over 550 MILLION products/services that you can promote as an affiliate marketer, in exchange for a commission.  You will be adding these special links on your website from companies like Amazon, Etsy, Nike, Apple, eBay, etc…and you will then earn a “kickback” if someone goes from your website to theirs and ends up buying something.

The affiliate marketing industry is growing at the fastest pace ever, and affiliates stand to earn $12 BILLION online this year…with this growing even more next year. You can get your chunk of this pie.

How to Accomplish:   Finding affiliate programs can be an inefficient task at the best of times. You typically have to go through a bunch of Google searches, just to find what you are looking for.  Within Wealthy Affiliate, you have instant access to an Affiliate Program search where you can search through 10,000+ affiliate programs, across some of the top affiliate networks online.

Not to mention, the training you will be getting on how to properly integrate affiliate promotions into your website to maximize conversions….along with some insight into the customer purchase lifecycle, and critical information if you want to become a high-performing, and successful affiliate marketer online.

Most affiliate programs are very easy to sign up for. When you sign up for an affiliate program, they will let you know how to access the affiliate links that you will put onto your site which will turn into your commissions. You do not need to have any technical knowledge to do this. The affiliate programs will provide easy-to-follow instructions.

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From my perspective and in speaking with hundreds of people in the Wealthy Affiliate Community over the years, the main reasons I see that people start in the affiliate marketing business include:

1. Low startup costs: To start an affiliate marketing business, you don’t need to create your own products or invest in inventory. Rather, you can join an affiliate program for free (or in some cases with a minimal fee) and start promoting products immediately.

2. No need for specialized skills: You don’t need to have a specific skill set to become an affiliate marketer. Anyone can join an affiliate program and start promoting products online. There are people from all walks of life in the affiliate marketing community.

3. Flexibility: You can work from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. There are no fixed hours, no requirement to turn up to an office, and no boss. Affiliate marketing is a truly flexible business model.

4. No customer service responsibilities: As an affiliate marketer, you’re not responsible for handling customer service inquiries or addressing any issues related to the product or service. Your role is simply to promote the product and earn a commission for each sale made through your link.

5. Wide range of products to promote: There are countless affiliate programs available that offer a wide range of products and services to promote, making it easy to find a niche that suits your interests and expertise.

Affiliate marketing offers a low-risk, low-cost way to start a business and earn money online. So there you have it, how to effectively start an affiliate marketing business in a nutshell. If you are interested in creating your own affiliate marketing business and have no experience, or you are currently trying to build out or scale an affiliate marketing business and you are not getting the results you want, Wealthy Affiliate is your answer. Everything you need to be successful is available at your fingertips.

Still not sure about it?

The potential in affiliate marketing is HUGE

As e-commerce has grown exponentially, so has affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing allows many companies to survive as more and more retailers are having to close their doors. The really smart retailers are those that are expanding their online presence and harnessing the power of their affiliate networks – they rely on others to attract people to their websites and make purchases, and they reward those affiliates well. Businesses are now able to quickly expand to new audiences through affiliate advertisers, offering them the ability to quickly acquire new customers through these partnerships without requiring massive advertising budgets.

With the continuing exponential growth of online retail, the affiliate marketing industry will continue to grow and thrive.

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You can get started right now!

Upon creating your Wealthy Affiliate account, you will get access to training, websites, hosting, research tools, networking, mentorship, and support.

It’s also free to try, you can get a “test drive” Starter account for no cost … no credit card is required.  I highly recommend if you are even the slightest bit interested in becoming an affiliate marketer or learning about the world of online marketing, you can get rolling right now with your account.

And if you have any questions you want to leave here for me, feel free to do so.  I will make sure I get back to you as soon as I can.