Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable ways to generate passive income today. Thanks to marketplaces and online stores, promoting the products or services of a third party is perhaps the best online business you can do.
In this post we take a close look at this whole issue, because the profits will not come in the blink of an eye unless you consider a coherent and solid strategy. To help you master affiliate marketing, we've put together this guide that outlines every aspect, definition, and practice of this business.
What's affiliates marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a business strategy that seeks to generate income through referral. What is more recent is its application in the digital ecosystem, together with the practices and tools used for monetization.
That is, this is a profitable online business idea that works through a collaborative relationship between brands that seek to promote and sell their products and an affiliate that earns a commission for positive results, each time a sale is made thanks to their promotional services and channels.
It is very attractive for the company, since it will only pay when one of its products is actually sold, and for the affiliate because they can build a whole business on automatic pilot that allows them to earn money online.
That is, this is a profitable online business idea that works through a collaborative relationship between brands that seek to promote and sell their products and an affiliate that earns a commission for positive results, each time a sale is made thanks to their promotional services and channels.
It is very attractive for the company, since it will only pay when one of its products is actually sold, and for the affiliate because they can build a whole business on automatic pilot that allows them to earn money online.
What do you need to know to create a successful affiliate page?
1. Knowledge about a product or service or a specific market niche
You can learn many of the techniques along the way, but you have to start from some point or, in short, you must know something. When you master a product in detail, you will know its qualities and the problems it can solve. On the other hand, by knowing a market niche you are able to measure and segment a group of buyers, therefore, the products they are looking to buy.
2. Create a blog
That will be the channel to publish your valuable content and the main source of traffic from potential customers for the product to be promoted. You must create your blog and for this you may need to know some basic parameters that will help you build it.
Aspects related to the domain, hosting, design and programming will be very relevant. If you can do it, hire professionals to do quality work and invest in quality accommodation, it will pay off in the end.
Discover how to create your blog step by step and how to monetize it
3. Knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO)
Once you have your blog and a couple of articles, you should gain visibility. Content is useless if no one sees it. SEO optimization will help you climb search engine rankings every time someone uses a term related to your content. Here, key word management criteria, link optimization, information hierarchy, relevance and authority come into play. There are professionals who are in charge of working all the technical aspects of SEO.
4. Sign up for affiliate programs for the products you are going to promote
As I mentioned before, you could contact the companies directly and build your affiliate portfolio, but this may take more time. We recommend an affiliate program, as it will be easier and faster to start, and they already have a secure infrastructure.
5. Constancy
Even if at the moment you can't dedicate 100% of your time to it and just want to get some extra money, in the long run affiliate marketing could pay you big dividends, only if you are consistent.
6. A bank account with which you can associate the programs you sign up for
Of course, an administrative aspect no less important.
Steps to monetize your blog with affiliate links
1. Choose the right market niche
You must locate a market sector with which you can make profitable through a correct satisfaction of needs and to do so you must meet the following requirements:
Have good knowledge and choose what subject you are passionate about: doing something that does not generate interest or that we do not know anything about will simply be a waste of time. Think that to offer valuable content and properly manage your audience you must know what you are talking about, establish constant dedication and be willing to help. Simply entering a niche or market because you believe or have heard that it is profitable is not enough.
Market size: measuring the market in which you want to sell will give you insight into consumer needs. To choose the market, take into account that the larger the competition will also be greater and with more consolidated businesses than yours.
You must segment until you find a niche where you have more opportunities. For example, you want to get started in the mattress market, this first division by itself is very vague. If you choose orthopedic mattresses, you will find a niche with more specific needs and better conversion rates. Get completely away from the idea of opening a new market, it is very complex, takes time and requires a lot of investment.
2. Choose the products for your target audience
That they solve a problem: that is, they must be focused on improving or simplifying the lifestyle of your audience. Consider quality and relevance, like the mattress example above.
From which you can create enough articles: as the hook for the audience is the content, you should look for something that you always have something new to say or at least allow you to get enough articles. How do you know? Check on the web how much information there is about it and search for keywords.
Get good commissions: analyze this in detail. Generally, an expensive product generates a higher commission rate than a cheap one. If you choose an inexpensive one, you will have to make many purchases to earn profitable commissions, but a more expensive product can give you good income with fewer purchases.
3. Analyze the competition
Evaluating what your competition is doing will tell you 3 great things: if there is a space for you in that market, what are the appropriate positioning terms and what you should do not to become a copy of others. You can start with:
4. Create content based on your keyword research
Start with informative content about your niche to attract a large audience related to your goal. The options can be very varied depending on the approach, the listings, feature texts, tutorials, tips and tutorials are very useful for people who visit your blog. Some ideas can be:
Lists: 7 tools for effective time management
Questions: Take a look at the product FAQs and create content related to them. If they are there, they have searches.
How to: how to vacuum your home while working with a ...
General information articles on a topic.
Transactional content: transactional content is those that focus on the users who are closest to buying according to the buyer's journey. Hence, the importance of ranking the keywords and knowing which terms are relevant to create content that encourages purchase. Some examples:
Comparisons of various products: the best SEO tools 2020.
Reviews of one product vs another: similar to the previous one but focused on two products, generally direct competitors.
Alternatives to a product or service.
Opinion of a specific product: talk about a success story, How I won my first job with
Things to keep in mind
To choose the affiliate program that best suits you, you must take into account the type of system according to its commission, the cookie conversion time and the% of sale. We explain everything below.
1. Cookie conversion time
The cookie is a tracker that is installed in the user's browser and serves to identify that the buyer comes from your website. Affiliate programs assign a conversion time for that cookie, so if the person decides to buy later, you could still take the commission. The conversion time can be from 1 day to a month.
2. Percentage of sales
Some programs have higher sales percentages than others. This depends a lot on the company that wants to promote itself and if the market is very competitive. It could also happen that the company wants to grow quickly and opts for an aggressive affiliate marketing strategy (in other words, you pay more commissions, so that all bloggers choose to promote their products. If in your case, the product passes with your principles and market niche and on top of that they pay a high commission, you're in luck. 🙂
3. Type of commission
These determine the kind of program
CPC (cost per click): the commission is based on the number of clicks achieved on the affiliate link, which can be advertisements of a wide variety of types. The advertiser is responsible for providing the graphic materials to be used.
CPA (cost per action): the most common action is based on the final purchase of the recommended product, one of the most common forms of affiliation, and is paid after having registered the conversions in the affiliate platform. Apart from the final sales cost per action, you can also earn money by obtaining leads, each time the person who arrives with your link fills out a contact form.
Recurrent: for affiliates who are responsible for getting customers who buy several times from the same company. Thus, a commission is generated for the first and subsequent sales, ideal for subscription products.
Bonded: It is also used for subscription products, but in this case it is not necessary for the user to buy, but to fill out a form. By becoming a lead, all subsequent purchases you make on the website will generate affiliate commissions. Simply put, you shouldn't recommend products for direct sales.
Affiliate programs in Spain
Amazon
The Amazon affiliate program is one of the largest and most popular that allows you to take advantage of the immense sales potential of this platform, the one with the highest turnover in Spain and Europe. So without a doubt you should consider it as one of your alternatives. It works quite simply, you send customers to Amazon and for each sale made you get a commission. The downside is that the commissions are low and the cookie conversion time is 24 hours.
However, if you create a good blog with enough traffic and also take advantage of the popularity of this platform, you will find a great source of money. The immensity of its catalog will allow you to promote many products in a niche market, both cheap and expensive. Commissions range from 1% to 12%.
Registration is quite fast, you can sign up for affiliate programs in other countries and it allows you to charge commissions, with a minimum of 25 euros, through a deposit in your bank account or with gift checks. Once you complete the registration and have placed the links on your blog, you will be able to track conversions from your affiliate account panel
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