Have you ever thought “I want to work at home online”? OK perhaps not in your pyjamas (maybe that’s just me) but you know what I’m getting at.
Being able to work from home, or anywhere you choose for that matter, through some sort of online money making opportunity.
To not have to set that alarm, to not have to answer to a boss and to spend your days building your own business and fortune from the comfort of your own home.
Online is where it’s at as far as building a business that can pay you handsomely and allow you the freedom to work when and where you choose.
But if you have no skills and no experience can it be done?
I’m here to tell you, and show you from my experience, that yes indeed it can be done.
In fact I am quite convinced that anyone can work from home, build an online business and make a great deal of money, provided you follow the right path.
Affiliate Marketing
What is it? And is it Right for You?
My preference for escaping the rat race, being your own boss and being able to work online from home is affiliate marketing.
It is a super simple concept:
Step 1: Decide who you want to talk too and what your chosen topic will be, that’s called a niche
Step 2: Find some products or services you want to recommend to your niche
Step 3: Build a website
Step 4: Write blog posts about your chosen topic, including links to the products or services you have decided upon in Step 3
Step 5: Use free traffic to bring people to your site and once they buy you get paid a commission
OK let's break each one of those steps down so you can see how easy it is, if this is the right path for you and if it is how you can get started.
If you are the more impatient type and just want to get started you can click on the image below and join me at the platform that I am using to build my online business.
I will be your mentor and guide and will help you every step of the way. You can get started immediately (FREE of charge, yep no cost to be a Starter Member) and you can work through the training provided within Wealthy Affiliate and get started on everything I am about to explain below.
If not then read on my inquisitive friend!
Step 1 - Choosing A Niche
What The Heck is a Niche?
Many people when they first start get caught up on this step and procrastinate for days on choosing a niche. They start over-complicating things by second guessing themselves and what they want their website to be about.
It is a big decision but one that can be made much simpler if you follow my lead.
Do you have a hobby?
When you are at work and you think “I can’t wait to finish work so I can …………….…….”.
Or “I can’t wait for the weekend because I will be …………………………”.
You fill in the gap - that can be your niche. It really is that simple.
Now this can be anything from watching Netflix and a marathon re-run of Game of Thrones, to reading a good book, maybe you look forward to cooking brunch on Sunday or working in your garden on your organic veggies, or playing with the new drone you bought.
Any topic can be a profitable niche to get into, and for a first website, it is much better if it is a passion. Something you love to do, something you love to find out new information about or are experienced in using products or developing skills within that space.
You see Step 4 in affiliate marketing is writing blog posts. Now don’t freak out it’s not like writing essays at school. You simply need to write as you would speak to another person.
There is no right or wrong way to blog, there is only your way.
It is you that makes your website different from everyone else's and you don’t need to change to do that. In fact you need to be as authentically you as you can be.
Anyway I will go more into that when I get to Step 4 but what I was saying is you will need to write blog posts so if you are enthusiastic about your niche then this isn’t hard work. And who wants to leave your job just to do more work you don't enjoy? No one right?
If you love doing and talking about your chosen niche then smashing out a blog post about the topic is fun, not a chore. You will find you are always thinking about your hobby or passion anyway and so you have lots of ideas on what to write also.
Things come easily if you follow your passion.
Don’t Make My Niche Mistake
Early on in my journey, I started a niche site about video doorbells. I don’t have a video doorbell, I am never likely to buy a video doorbell (even though they look really cool) and I have no interest what so ever in gadgets like this.
So why did I start a website about video doorbells? I did my research and found out that tens of thousands of people are buying them online. So it looked like a really good product that would basically sell itself.
Cool, I’ll be rolling in money very shortly!
I built the website and wrote 2 blog posts about video doorbells. And then I stopped!
I knew I needed to write more blogs because the more blogs you have the more likely people are to see your website, the more traffic you get and the more sales you make and that’s how you make money.
But every time I thought about writing about video doorbells, my brain just rebelled. It screamed, “no don’t make me do it, I’m bored, this stuff is dull, I don’t want to research video doorbells, I don't even want to think about them”.
And so I didn’t. I put off writing blogs until finally, I came to the realisation that I just wasn’t going to make this site work because I wasn’t interested enough in it to write those blogs. I couldn’t fake my interest in video doorbells enough to do the work required to make it profitable.
So take it from me and save yourself a lot of angst and wasted time and effort. Choose a niche you have at least some interest in right from the word go.
There are no areas that are out of bounds as far as choosing a niche. Go with what you love first.
Step 2: What Will You Sell
Time to check out what you will be selling. There are thousands of companies who offer affiliate partnerships. They want you to market their products on your blog and send people to them to buy and they will pay you a commission for doing so.
The big name companies that immediately come to mind are Amazon, EBay, Walmart, Apple, Google but there are thousands of smaller companies who also offer affiliate programs and there are millions of products that can be sold.
If you have a few niche ideas that seem to tick these boxes then write them down and run through the following tasks to help narrow down your niche and make your decision.
Even if you have a definite niche in mind do the following so you can reassure yourself that you will have access to products and services to sell through your website.
- Jump on Amazon and see what products are available within your niche. Check out what is selling online, how many, is the product in stock most of the time, does it get good reviews, will it be easy to buy?
Let’s take a look at the “cooking brunch” niche in Amazon. There would be thousands of products, books and utensils you would naturally recommend depending on what you are cooking for brunch.
I personally like eggs so let's check out egg cookers on Amazon. Immediately in their best sellers is a 6 egg cooker which has sold almost 8,000 units. I would definitely be writing an article on serving eggs for brunch and recommending this product. - Google your niche + affiliate programs. So let's stay with the cooking brunch niche, I know it's making me hungry too! In Google search I put in brunch + affiliate program.
After a quick Google search I can see there are loads of companies who have affiliate programs in this niche. So we will have plenty to choose from. And that is without even narrowing down the search to things like recipes + affiliate programs, cooking utensils + affiliate programs, restaurants + affiliate programs.
You see where I’m going with this?
Ok so now you should have a good idea of what your niche will be and what sort of products or services you will be marketing to your niche.
I just want to clarify that you won’t be actually buying the products and then selling them on. You will simply be recommending the product through your website and providing a link so the person can go straight to the company’s website to actually purchase it. This is called an affiliate link and we will talk more about that shortly.
Step 3: Build a Website
Take my word for it you do not need to be a techy whizz kid to build a website these days and better still you don’t need thousands of dollars to build and host it.
In fact you can do so for free.
My recommendation for not only training but for building and hosting your website is Wealthy Affiliate (WA). They will allow you to join as a Starter Member (remember that image at the top of the blog) and give you two free websites on a subdomain, suffice to say it is a great way to start your business with no capital outlay.
If down the track you want to buy your own domain name then you can do that at WA also and move your website to the new domain in one easy click. So nothing you start working on will be lost or wasted time.
A domain name will set you back $13 - $15 when you are ready but it is not imperative to have one to have a successful site.
You can see if your website name is available using the tool below and this will also take you to the Starter Membership within WA. Just put in a title for your website and click Build It Now and you will be off and running.
Make your website name one word and all lower case with no hyphens or funny spelling.
I know if you have been looking around for sometime to start earning money online you might have come across a heap of scam sites, and you may be getting a little wary at this stage and wondering where the catch is!
When do you find out that this is, in fact, going to cost you money!
That this is just another one of those scams right?
There is probably nothing I can say to you at this point to ease your mind, but honestly hand on my heart I can guarantee you that you do not have to pay one cent to build your site and get up and running.
Wealthy Affiliate is so sure of what they offer that they allow you to join for free as a Starter Member and you do not ever need to upgrade. You can join today for free, with no obligation to stay, and check it out for yourself.
You do not need to put in your credit card, you won’t have any sneaky deductions from your account and you won’t be spammed with upsells.
Yes they do offer a Premium membership but it is entirely up to you if you wish to take that up. You can do that at any time or not at all it’s entirely up to you.
There is absolutely no pressure to do so and as I said you can stay free forever.
I have put together the below video so you can see just how easy it is to create your website within WA.
Step 4: Get Blogging
You Do Not Need To Be An Expert
Many people get worried about this point as they don’t feel they are expert enough to write a blog post even if the niche they have chosen is one they know really well.
I’m here to tell you, you absolutely do not need to be an expert to write blogs. Your blog is exactly that - it’s your view of the niche. It’s your take on the products you recommend and your experience of thoughts on various aspects within that niche.
Visitors to your site are there because they want some information, or have a problem they need to solve, or they are looking to be entertained by you.
They love the same thing you do and they want to read about your thoughts on that topic. You basically can’t do it wrong because you are being you.
Blogs should be written as if you are speaking to the person in person (cripes that was a mouthful!). Let me explain. You don’t need to use great big long words. Just type how you speak.
Imagine I am sitting across the table from you, with a cup of coffee and a biscuit, explaining how you can get into affiliate marketing. That is how I am writing. I don’t have a thesaurus open in the top of my screen and I’m not checking a dictionary for fancy words to throw into my post.
People who visit your site want to know you are genuine and they know this because you are not trying to be someone you are not. Your visitors are people just like you and I.
I know how I want to be treated and so do you. Do that in your blogs and you will be successful.
I can guarantee that.
Step 5: Show Me The Money
OK so now we get to the good part. You’ve built your site and are blogging regularly. Your blogs have affiliate links in them to products and/or services that you recommend.
When your visitor clicks on an affiliate link, because you have built trust and they respect what you have been blogging about, and they buy that product you get a commission.
The link you have used leads directly to you and your affiliate company is tracking that and will pay you a commission. Often times these are via Paypal, some may be into your bank account or some if from another country might be by cheque.
Whatever way you get paid this is how you are going to earn a fantastic income.
And for most affiliates it’s not even just the product you have recommended. Take Amazon for example - if someone clicks on your link, goes to Amazon and then wanders off and buys a different product (within 24 hours of clicking your link) you get paid for the product they purchased.
You get the reward (the commission) for having introduced the buyer to Amazon. Amazon doesn’t mind what they buy and if they buy anything at all you get paid.
So you recommend a $4 spatula to flip your eggs from your “Let’s Do Brunch” website and the visitor clicks through to Amazon and sees a $500 Kitchen-aid machine and buys that - you get commission on the Kitchen-aid.
Pretty good deal right?
Are you ready to make money in your pyjamas?
And that my friends is how affiliate marketing works and how you can work at home online and make a more than healthy living doing so.
If you are like me and want to do this every day in your pyjamas then you can. Affiliate marketing is a proven way to make money online.
I am doing it and 1.3 million other members can’t be wrong.
I’d love for you to join me. It is my mission to help as many people as possible to reach their dreams and be living the life they want and it would be my absolute pleasure to help you do that too.
You can get more in depth information on the topics we have covered here today plus all the information about the platform I am with in my Ultimate How To Affiliate Marketing Guide - simply click on the button below.
If you have any burning questions I haven’t answered please pop them in the comment box below and I will get back to you.
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