While there are so many ways to earning a living online, one of my favorite ways to cash in online is still, affiliate marketing.
Over the span of my internet career, I spent almost my first 10 years online using this method, and I've done it with great success.
I am not posting to brag, I am only trying to impress upon you that affiliate marketing is alive and kicking and it can be one of the best ways to earn online.
So let's talk about how you can make 100K a year with this model.
It's not as difficult as some people thing. But we'll get into that and more.
Ready? Let's go...
What is affiliate marketing?
Per Wikipedia:
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.
My simple definition would be: It is the process of selling other people's stuff. That's the redneck definition.
How does it work?
In its simplest form, you have your own website, where you place ads for affiliate programs. Your visitors click on your ad, they go to the affiliate site and buy something, you get a commission.
Pretty easy huh?
So easy a caveman can do it?
What's so great about affiliate marketing?
The best thing about this business model is the low level of responsibility. Your only "job" is to get send people to the affiliate program, once they're at the affiliate programs website, they take care of the customer completely. From selling the visitor, collecting payments, customer service, and shipping if it's a physical product. You'll never even need to interact with anyone.
Do you see the beauty here? If your website is getting traffic, your work is done. And of course your website runs on its own, so you could take time off whenever you want. You don't have to deal with customers, so you have no responsibility besides your own website and pushing visitors to it.
What About the money?
Commissions vary depending on the product or service.
They could be a couple dollars to 100's of dollars per sale. Most programs pay you a percentage of every sale. Amazon for example pays up to 6% per order. While that doesn't sound like much, it can add up because you get a percentage of the entire order your customer places, which could be $100's of dollars. Plus Amazon is an easy sell because they are so well known. Household name.
There are also a number of affiliate programs that pay a set fee for every sale you make. Better still there are products that will pay you high commissions such as $35-$40 when your visitor sign's up for a low cost trial.
How can you make $100,000 or more with affiliate marketing?
Let's take one of the last commissions I've mentioned, let's say you get paid $35 for every customer who signs up with the affiliate program you've sent them to.
Easy math:
1 sale per day @ $35 = $12,775 a year
2 sales per day @ $35 = $25,5550 a year
3 sales per day @ $35 = $38,325 a year (over $100 a day)
Let's bump it up...
6 sales per day @$35 = $76,650 a year
8 sales per day @ $35 = $102,200 a year
As you can see, it doesn't take long to make a very nice income. Also, you have to remember, your website is working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your website doesn't call in sick, won't need a salary and it doesn't ask for a raise.
You might be wondering, is it possible to make that kind of sales each day? Yes it is, I've personally done it. I don't say that to brag, once again, only to impress upon you that is not a pie in the sky business model. It's one that is working for 1000's of people online every single day.
Here's what you'll need to get started:
Website Hosting - Average $5-$10 a month
Domain Name - $10 - $15 a year
WordPress Website Software - Free
The process is quite simple. Sign up for web hosting, purchase a domain name, install wordpress and you have a business that's ready to make you money.
Where do you find affiliate programs to promote?
Here's a few to get your started:
Amazon.com - Millions of physical products.
Clickbank.com - 1,000's of digital products.
Share-A-Sale - Products of all kinds
Commission Junction - Another big player with 1,000's of products.
If you want to sell digital products here'a a few more:
Those are a few of the many, but those are some of the biggest programs with plenty of products for you to promote.
Advance Techniques:
To get the most of your affiliate marketing, there is a important factor you should consider. It is the term of Niche Marketing.
This means to narrow in and focus on a particular niche or market. When you do this, you will target your visitors better and they will convert to sales at a much higher rate. Basically it's a way to make more money from the traffic your getting.
As an example, the dog niche. This by itself is to vague. If you build a website for dogs, your visitors could be looking for anything from dog training, dog collars, or even cute dog pictures.
Now if you built a site for dog training collars, your site would be much more focused and your visitors would be more likely looking for dog training collars. See how it's much more focused? If your visitors are looking only for dog training collars, how many do you think you'll sell? Exactly!
To further this, instead of weight loss, maybe target something like weight loss pills, or weight loss for teens. Again, it's much more targeted. instead of health, you could promote products in the healthy eating niche, or the healthy cooking niche. I think you get the point.
I hope this article has shown you how creating your own business on the internet with affiliate marketing is not only possible, but obtainable by anyone with a computer and an internet connection.
If you want to make even more with affiliate marketing, you need to check out the gold vault right now: Gold Profits Vault
Your smart, I know you can do it and I know you can crush it if you put your mind to it.
Anything to add? Questions? I'd love to hear what you have to say, make sure to leave a comment below...