Are you keen to learn about selling affiliate products online? I have some great news for you – this article will answer many of the questions you may have. If there is anything missing, feel free to drop me a message in the comment section below, I will pull out the stops to assist you! Before we go any further, it is worth clarifying that selling affiliate products online is affiliate marketing – this is the affiliate marketing industry – a very exciting place to be! Let’s delve into it, How to Sell Affiliate Marketing Products Online!
Table of Contents
An Overview
Learning about affiliate marketing need not be difficult or too long a process. Let’s address some potential questions upfront.
- What exactly is affiliate marketing?
- Can anyone do this?
- How do you go about finding affiliate products?
- What must be done in order to sell affiliate products?
1. What Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing?
Essentially, affiliate marketing is sales of products or services that are not your own products or services. The upside of this is that you are not responsible for anything to do with the product or service itself. You are purely marketing and selling the products and earning a commission.
How does one go about selling affiliate products?
Affiliate marketers promote the products and services of other companies via their websites and blogs. This is done through an affiliate link (a link provided to the affiliate marketer by the company which allows the company to track which sales are generated by the different affiliate marketers).
How Is Money Made?
On the sale of a product, the affiliate marketer is paid a commission – this is agreed to in advance. The commission is generally a percentage of the sale.
Why Affiliate Marketing?
Without a doubt, affiliate marketing is the best way to market and sell products. As an affiliate marketer, you do not carry the financial risks or responsibility of research and development, manufacturing, logistics, packaging, stock holding, and control. Your entire focus is on marketing and promoting the products online.
Many of my colleagues are making incredible money this way – which is why I am in training to do exactly the same thing. Why reinvent the wheel when thousands of affiliate marketers are enjoying massive success? You are welcome to read about some success stories here.
When I first started speaking with people about affiliate marketing I found that a lot of people had no idea what it was. For that reason, I have written a detailed article about exactly What Affiliate Marketing is here – feel free to click through and have a read.
2. Can anyone do this – make money selling affiliate products?
Anyone who is literate and hardworking can make money selling affiliate products. Literally, all you need is to be teachable and prepared to work hard. The steps are not difficult to follow, it just takes commitment and dedication. Much as I am part of an amazing community of like-minded entrepreneurs (and you can be too, more about that a little later!), self-motivation is crucial to success. The upside is that you know that the day will come where your business can run with less input and work, but that takes time. What other business can offer you that?
If you are currently employed, you can still do this – there is nothing to stop you from building your online business during the hours you spend away from work. Yes, that means you are working and then working some more. Just keep in mind, you are building your own online business.
Here are some ideas of who can do affiliate marketing:
- Professionals, tired of the 9-5 grind, commute, time away from home and family, corporate politics etc.,
- Doctors, Lawyers, Marketing, Accountants, Firefighters, Electricians, Plumbers – you name it!
- Students
- Stay at home mums (we have an awesome stay at home mum in our community, she is a Super Affiliate – proving that this is a perfect opportunity for a stay at home mum)
- Stay at home dads
- Retired folks, people heading towards their retirement
- Bloggers
- Digital Nomads – anyone who has been bitten by the travel bug in fact! Have a look at How To Work and Travel, yes, I’ve been doing some research.
Online Affiliate Marketing is a level playing field, it really does not matter who you are – what age, gender, nationality, race or religion, anyone who is prepared to learn and put in the work will succeed – it’s just a matter of time!
3. How Do You Go About Finding Affiliate Products?
Choosing affiliate products is very exciting. The first step you need to take is to decide what products are of interest to you. This is known as choosing your niche.
It is best that you decide to focus your website on one particular topic – choosing a niche can be tricky, but it’s very important that your website specializes – this will assist you in becoming an authority on the topic and be the best way to add value to your clients and generate traffic to your site. Traffic to your site results in sales. It’s the lifeblood to your business in other words.
Here is an article which can assist you in finding the best niche.
Let’s say you have selected your niche and it’s photography, here are some ways for you to find affiliate products:
Deal Directly with the Companies
You can go direct to the companies that interest you. The way to find out if they have an affiliate program is to go to their website and scroll to the bottom or conduct a search on their site for “affiliate program. If you are not sure of the companies you would like to work with, you can do a search on Google, something along the lines of “cameras + affiliate program”. I have just done a quick Google search and here is one of the results, Canon offering an affiliate program. it really is very easy to find them! I noticed too though that affiliate networks came up in this search, more on them in a little while.
When you find the companies and products which interest you, make sure you have a good look at the products and services they offer (I would go as far as to do some research on what other affiliate marketers say in their reviews too, it is very important that you only work with companies you can rely on – your customers will trust your site enough to buy the product, protect that relationship of trust with visitors to your site.
Another important aspect is the commission structure – some companies are extremely generous, more so than others, make sure you are happy with what you will earn.
One of the real advantages of affiliate marketing is that you are not restricted to one brand or company only. So, if you were to promote photographic equipment, there is nothing to stop you from promoting Canon, Nikon, and Logitech on your site. The choice really is yours. I recommend working with more than one, your customers are likely to have preferences, why not write reviews on competing products (without doing harm to one or the other) and enjoy the commissions from more than one brand?
Online Shopping Networks
Have you bought anything online? if you have, and maybe even if you haven’t, these names will be familiar to you: Amazon.com, Target.com, and Walmart.com are Online Shopping Networks. The biggest is Amazon.com, their program is known as Amazon Associates and is very popular. I am not an affiliate for Amazon (yet) but from what I understand, they have a great platform which is a breeze to navigate and there is a tool their affiliate installs which assists in creating an affiliate link from any of the pages on Amazon. As you can imagine with shopping networks as big as these three above, there is an exceptionally wide variety of products for affiliate marketers to choose from.
Affiliate Networks
Many companies choose not to invest in the setup and running costs of developing their own affiliate program so they join an Affiliate Network. This is a real win/win situation for all concerned because the Affiliate Networks already have the infrastructure in place. The networks generate an income when products are sold (and usually also for a membership fee the companies pay, not the affiliates), companies only pay both the affiliate networks and affiliate marketers on the sale of products. You can imagine, this works well for them as they do not have to outlay on staff and a sales force to get these sales made. Here are some popular Affiliate Networks:
- Awin
- ClickBank
- Commission Junction
- JVZoo
- MaxBounty
- ShareASale
(not in any order of preference, you will notice the list is alphabetical). I have also written an article about Affiliate Networks, have a look here for that.
Affiliate marketers generally do not pay to join affiliate networks. Just be sure that you are happy with the commission offered and when you will be paid – some pay bi-monthly, others monthly for example. As mentioned before, it is worth looking at reviews from other affiliate marketers too.
The affiliate networks (and companies direct) will also request tax information from you, make sure you have your tax number available. Another important consideration is how they pay, some pay by check, some by PayPal, some with a direct transfer into your account.
What Must Be Done In Order To Sell Affiliate Products?
Your number one priority will be a website – this is where you can write reviews and recommendations about the products you have signed up as an affiliate for.
Viewers to your site will want to read about your findings – the good, the bad and the ugly. Though, as mentioned before, it is preferable not to disparage a product – unless of course, you have found them to be an outright scam!
The site that you are on right now is a WordPress site, I highly recommend them!
You will also need a host for your website. There are a few to consider, BlueHost is one that I wrote about quite recently.
Then comes the fun part – when you write your reviews, you get to add in your affiliate links, this can be done with links in the words or images.
When you viewers click on the links, they’ll be taken to the website of the company who is selling the product. All going well, they will buy – and guess who earns a commission? Oh yes, that would be you as the affiliate marketer!
Perhaps you are now thinking – “I don’t have a website, nor do I even know how to build one”. If that is you, never fear, Late Bloomer is here – I wrote a quick article about that too, have a read – this article includes a video too.
Let’s look at the options though, there is more than one way for you to get things going:
You could go directly to WordPress or Wix and build your site on your own. This is not something I recommend, because there are other far easier options available. When I say easier I am referring to the difference between having to learn by trial and error on your own, (which takes longer) or enjoying the benefit of training and community to help you along. Building a website is not difficult but it does require some know how. Then there is learning about how the online rankings work with Google, Bing, and Yahoo (enjoying the advantage of free traffic) etc.
You could hire a webmaster to build your site for you – this can be extremely costly and, once it is built, you will still not know how to continue the site, add content, change themes, deal with hosting issues etc. I also do not recommend this, particularly not if you are looking to be an affiliate marketer. First prize is to understand the online world – from building your website to getting it ranked with the search engines to adding content, managing traffic etc.
You could join an online platform where you receive everything that you need to build your online business.
My Number One Recommendation – this is where you can get two free websites plus your sites are hosted for free!
PLUS you benefit from the incredible training on offer – this is everything you need to build your website! Not only to build the site but to create YOUR online business – one that earns you an income!
I am a big fan of Wealthy Affiliate and am a Premium member, you are welcome to visit my profile here.
In my opinion, Wealthy Affiliate is the place to be – the training is truly exceptional, you can learn how and build your website as you go – this is where you create your online business! The opportunity for you to start making money online! In case you are wondering, I have experience with other platforms too, you can read about one right here.
Wealthy Affiliate’s training offers hours and hours of webinars, courses, lesson, and tasks – all put together in an incredibly clever way, providing you with everything you need to become a successful affiliate marketer.
To give you an idea, here is an outline of the two main courses offered:
Online Entrepreneur Certification: 5 courses, 10 lessons each (this course is designed in such a way that it supports you no matter which niche you select)
Affiliate Bootcamp: 7 courses, 10 lessons each (specifically designed for the make money online niche)
PLUS! There are 13 Classrooms available, as you can see below (and this is just a snippet) there is a wide variety of topics available!
Online Entrepreneur Certification and Affiliate Bootcamp take up the first two classrooms, we get to enjoy the many topics in the other 11 classrooms. So much exciting information, just waiting inside for you to learn!
ON TOP OF THAT we have:
- Live webinars every week
- Classrooms – 13 of them! These are available to teach a variety of topics, the image gives you an idea of them.
We are so fortunate with Wealthy Affiliate, the whole design and structure is extremely clever. In addition to all the amazing training, we also have a fabulous community of knowledgeable and generous people! There is always someone available to assist with any challenge you may come up against. This is within the Wealthy Affiliate platform, you don’t need to pop off anywhere else for a mastermind or group, it is all available in the one place!
Within the community, there are more than 1,500,000 members from all over the world. There is always someone available to assist you. The features that are available for assistance are:
- Live Chat (where you can ask pretty much anything)
- Site Support (for your website support specifically, these guys are awesome!)
- Private Messaging (Premium member)
If that is not enough, you even have access to the owners of Wealthy Affiliate – Kyle and Carson. They are great guys who are frequently available on the platform. They lead the way with their exceptional knowledge and generosity with that knowledge too.
I have more exciting news for you too, YOU can join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE with the Starter Membership! This is an awesome way to take the system for a test drive. There is no pressure, only once you are ready, do you upgrade to Premium Membership, or never – like I said, no pressure. You can remain a Starter Member forever if that suits you.
Premium members do have access to more than Starter members, have a look here for a comparison between the two:
If you would like to read more about Wealthy Affiliate, please visit my review.
So, are you ready to start selling affiliate products online? Here is how you do it:
1. Starter Membership – FREE (no card information required) HERE!
2. Premium Membership – $19 for the first month, $49/month thereafter or save by going to 6 Months or Yearly options as you can see in the image below. You can do that HERE!
Wealthy Affiliate is the best way I have found online to get started! When building your new online business you need training, education and support – al of this is offered within Wealthy Affiliate. What are you waiting for? It’s FREE!
I shall also be on the inside, ready to help you as much as I can – trust me though, there are many, many far more experienced online marketers available to show you the way. Still, I shall be available too.
See you on the inside!
Blessings
