Firstly, what is affiliate marketing? It is the process where you market products that you do not own and still earn a commission. The following diagram sums up the process in an easy to understand 4 step process that shows you the best way to do affiliate marketing.
For a more detailed explanation, check out the diagram below.
A customer (1) lands on your website when they are searching for information on a product or service that coincides with your niche. They read your content (2) and click an affiliate link to the company where they purchase it (3). The company pays you a commission (4).
It all sounds so simple. But, and there is always a but, if you as an affiliate marketer didn’t set up your online business correctly, then many problems will arise, And they do.
If you happen to be a struggling affiliate marketer, I truly understand why that is. The training you got may have been insufficient in certain areas. My feeling is that they are making it more difficult than it needs to be.
Click the video below to watch how this all works.
The Affiliate Marketing Process Chain
In this article, I am going to define all the areas that need careful attention. Think of each area as a link in an affiliate marketing process chain.
9 fundamental areas require rigorous execution for your business to have even a good probability of success. It only takes weakness in one area to negatively impact your business.
These how-tos are usually done sequentially. They all dovetail together to create a cohesive whole. You may come across other steps, but these are the most crucial.
The 9 How To’s Of Affiliate Marketing
You can click each of the links below to get connected with their respective articles.
Let’s check out how to…..
- Select A Niche Based On One Thing You Are Passionate About
- Build An Affiliate Marketing Website
- Create Content To Promote The Products and Services In Your Niche
- Use Keyword Research To Rank Your Articles On The First Page Of The Search Engines
- Set Up Your Website Content For Search Engine Optimization
- Drive Traffic To Your Website And Manage It Using Funnels
- Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console To Analyze Your Business For Success
- Utilise Email Marketing To Build A List Of Prospects And Convert Them To Paying Customers
- Use Social Media To Promote Your Content And Drive Traffic To Your Website
Read the above very carefully and ask yourself how much attention have you devoted to each of these areas? Have you learned how to do all these things effectively? If not, why not?
Make a list of areas that you ARE doing correctly and those that you ARE NOT. Also, make a note of any of these areas you are not doing correctly or are confused about them.
It is OK to acknowledge any weaknesses you may have. Unless you can admit these shortcomings, you will not make the effort to improve your skills in these areas.
Success may not come your way. Not a good thing to happen. Right?
The Weakest Link
A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Are you currently working on your affiliate marketing business? After you have reviewed the above steps, can you identify which links are the weakest for you?
Having that knowledge will put you ahead of the game. You will know where to spend more time to strengthen your affiliate marketing business structure.
You may discover that you have more than one weak link. And some may be weaker than others. That is OK. The important thing is to know what areas you will need to reinforce your knowledge and skills. Then just do it.
I am going to help you in this process. For each of these 9 steps, I shall be itemizing specific topics that you will need to get good at. Your homework is to find one or more sources to acquire this knowledge and skills.
This is how you will create a strong chain of knowledge that will be unbreakable. The goal is for you to have no weak link in your affiliate marketing chain.
The 9 Links In Your Affiliate Marketing Chain
Niche – 1st Link
- How to Generate Niche Ideas
- Researching Products and Services In Your Niche
- Advanced Customer Research Techniques
- How to Create Viral Infographics For Your Website
- Advancing Your Authority In Your Niche
Affiliate Marketing Website – 2nd Link
- The Fundamentals Of WordPress
- Choosing An Amazing Theme For Your Website
- Advanced WordPress Techniques and Strategies
- Components That Make A Beautiful Website
- Integrating Key Money Elements Into A Website
Content Creation – 3rd Link
- Writing Effective Content That Ranks
- Content Research Strategies
- Putting Your Content Research Into Action
- Marketing and Promoting Your Content
Keyword Research – 4h Link
- Understanding The Fundamentals Of Keyword Research
- Keyword Comprehension
- How To Use Google Search Console In Keyword Research
- Researching Keywords In Your Niche
- Mastering Keyword & Market Research
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – 5th Link
- The Basics
- Creating A Blog Post And Optimizing It For On and Off-Page SEO
- Check List
- Transitioning From Basics To Advanced SEO
Traffic & Funnels – 6th Link
- Four Core Traffic Strategies
- How To Leverage Quora For Traffic
- An Introduction To Funnels
- How To Get Traffic To Your Funnels
- Understanding Marketing Funnels
- Building An Audience Beyond Google
Google Analytics – 7th Link
- An Introduction
- Setting Goals
- How To Track Con\versions
- Tracking Affiliate Links
Email Marketing – 8th Link
- Relevancy Flow
- Creating Effective Landing Pages
- Core Concepts Of Email Marketing
- Content Creation
- Creating Opt-In Pages That Convert
- Timeless Opt-In Strategies
Social Media – 9th Link
- A Primer
- Creating Amazing Pinterest Graphics
- How To Power Post Pinterest Pins
- Running Ad Campaigns
- Getting Started
- Establishing Your Instagram Brand
- Story Posting Strategies
- Automation Posting Strategies
YouTube
- Intro to YouTube Marketing
- Producing, Recording, and Uploading Videos
- Promoting Your Videos
- Live Streaming
When you first start using Social Media select only one. Perfect its use. you will know when that happens after you are able to connect with other people of whom some decide to follow you and buy what you are selling.
One Question For Your Consideration
There are free resources all over the Internet that teaches everything you need to know about building an affiliate marketing business. However, it will be a challenge to find high-quality and training and resouerces that you need for each one of these topics.
Is ot OK if I can make this task super easy for you?
Training webinars on all of these topics as well as all the resources you need are available on a one-stop-shop platform called Wealthy Affiliate. I’d like to tell you a little about it.
Wealthy Affiliate Summary
Wealthy Affiliate has been training entrepreneurs in affiliate marketing for over 15 years. More than 2.5 million students have gone through their program. Thousands are currently active on their platform as students and graduates. Learning is continually updated to stay current.
I highly recommend you check Wealthy Affiliate out to see how the platform works and if it is right for you.
In addition to high-quality training, it also provides you the tools to create your websites and have them hosted for free.
Additional tools are provided to help you do Keyword Research and Affiliate Program searches to match the niche you decide you are passionate about.
Weekly Live Webinars Live Chat And Questions
Live webinars are held weekly and every live training is archived to watch later. Expert coaching is available and experienced members are eager to help any student who asks. A live chat is available to ask for and receive assistance immediately.
You can even post your question within the platform for others to read it and respond. The co-owners of Wealthy Affiliate are also available to answer questions regularly.
Want More Details?
I wrote an article that provides more details on Wealthy Affiliate that you can access by clicking the banner below.
After you read this article and want to check it out, I will provide you free access to the platform as my guest with a free starter membership. No credit card will be necessary. Note that free members have limited access to all the training and resources.
You will have access to 20 out of the 120 lessons available so you can get a flavor of how the training is conducted. Each lesson consists of a video given by the co-founder Kyle. It also includes extensive notes and assigned homework. Part of this homework is to write content for your WordPress website that you will be shown how to build using the tools available.
After you check out the platform and decide you want to upgrade your membership, you will have the opportunity to do so. There are only two membership options depending on what your goals are. Once you pick one, the price will never change as long as you remain a member.
Online Affiliate Marketing University
Think of this as a University education on affiliate marketing plus training on other forms of online businesses. If you took a similar course at a university it would cost you several thousand dollars. And many years of your time.
I am embarrassed to say that this cost is so low. Click the following link to find out the cost:
Wealthy Affiliate Brief Review.
The value provided should justify charging much more. Note also, that there are zero upsells.
No student is permitted to promote any other program here. The focus is 100% education and helping students to create their online businesses. There is a pay it forward culture. Experienced are encouraged to help other members if they can with their questions.
Everything is done to make sure you have no weak links in your affiliate marketing chain.
Closing Thoughts
My first goal was to help you decide if affiliate marketing is right for you. This business is not for everyone.
My second goal was to help you understand the knowledge and skills necessary to build a thriving online business that will pay you 24/7 even when you sleep.
Finally, I wanted to show you how you can acquire all of this through Wealthy Affiliate.
What do you think of this article? Was it helpful to you? Did any particular sub-topic stand out above the rest? I covered a lot of information so if everything doesn’t make sense right away, that is OK. Let me know if I can clarify any section of this article and I will be happy to do so.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.
Cheers!
Edwin Bernard
support@affiliatemarketingforleaders.com
I think your article ‘The Best Way To Do Affiliate Marketing’ will be especially useful to a lot of people who are interested in becoming an affiliate marketer and have no idea how to go about it.
I really appreciated that you gave à detailed, analytical and comprehensive legion of information in your article about affiliate marketing.
Thank you for your supportive comments.
Cheers.
Edwin
Affiliate marketing is a very good and profitable online business you can invest into. For this reason a lot of my friends are into it,
I believe you need to have a clear background knowledge of the business before badging into it, it makes you understand what you’re into earlier.
This article is very understandable and it was so helpful to me, thank you for posting.
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for commenting. Glad you found this helpful. All the best to you.
Edwin
Thank you for what you shared here as it can make the whole difference for the beginners like us.
I value every detail here and I take it as something that can help to improve us affiliate marketers. If I can, I will try to ensure that these ideas are really effective immediately and help to ensure success here.
Thank you
Hello Nath,
Thanks for your comments. What did you think about the various elements that go into creating an affiliate marketing business that I covered in this post?
Glad you found this helpgul.
All the best to you.
Edwin
I started with affiliate marketing about 3 years ago and agree that it is not necessarily the right thing for everybody. I love the 9 links that you have mentioned for successful affiliate marketing. Looking at these links, my links become very weak after the fifth link, search engine optimization, as I don’t currently have a funnel.
So I do share to social media platforms, but realise that I am lacking efficient marketing and analysis. I like your suggestions of Wealthy Affiliate, as they can certainly help you to achieve success in affiliate marketing.
Thanks so much for your comments. My main reason to write this niche was to act as a filter for prospects who read my post. There is a fine line between encouraging my readers to get into affiliate marketing as well as recognizing for some it is not for them.
I am so happy that it helped you to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can take action to work on the weak areas.
You are correct that all the solutions are available on Wealthy Affiliate. All we have to do is to make the right queries and find the answers most applicable to each of us. I use this feature a lot.
All the best to you.
Cheers.
Edwin
I wish you much success in your affiliate marketing venture
Hey Edwin,
This was eye opening stuff, I have been doing this for a while now and not having much success, the way you structured everything made me realized what my weakest link is: Content creation and driving traffic are definitely it.
I keep wondering what am I missing? when putting my site together and creating content. I am not consistent and I’m not driving the traffic correctly, this site is a fountain of information and will stick around to see more, thank you so much for this information!
Hello Victor,
Thanks so much for your excellent comments. Glad that my post was of help. I had originally written this post a while back and just updated it.
My purpose was to take my readers through a journey that clarified the work and dedication necessary to make affiliate marketing successful.
You may be interested in reading a more recent post on a related topic. Here is the link:
How To Learn About Affiliate Marketing Online in 2022 And Get The Results You Want.
We have to find questions that people are asking in our niche, then write content that answers these questions in a way that resonates with them. We also have to be consistent with this.
There is no way around the hard and consistent work we must do to get the results we want.
I wish you much success in your venture.
Edwin
Hi Edwin
This is a very professional and well-written article on the Wealthy Affiliate platform I have read so far. I absolutely agree with you that affiliate marketing is not for everybody, and you clearly point out that lazy people will not have much success. I think you have covered all aspects and promoted the platform excellent. I like that you are giving an example for each specific topic and you clearly explain what needs to get done. Thanks for sharing your article.
Rosie
Hello Rosie,
Thank you for your insights about my post. You got it. And that makes it all worthwhile. I wanted to use this post to filter out prospects who are not prepared to do the work. I rather have fewer referrals who are serious rather than loads who are after a handout.
Cheers.
Edwin