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Affiliate Marketing Basics For Beginners (2023) – An Introduction

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Opportunity Seekers, for this post today here are my Affiliate Marketing Basics for Beginners. In this guide, I will be exploring the business of promoting products from other people’s businesses to earn a commission from each sale. This is something I’ve managed to do over the past few years with varying degrees of success and hopefully by this logic I can help YOU do exactly the same.

This is something that definitely CAN be achieved. Something I say is not because of the few thousand pounds I’ve made myself but ultimately because of what countless people you will find online have done for themselves. I am dead serious and within this guide, I will do my best to share with YOU my own methods that you can yourself use to get started with Affiliate Marketing Today. 

It’s definitely something I feel very passionate about and this is partially the reason why I have put this guide together. For anyone that is interested in following a similar path, I want to try and help. Best I can… So definitely keep on reading and if any questions you have got I will do my best to answer them in the comments section at the end of this post.

Affiliate Disclosure;   

Please NOTE;   This article contains affiliate links.  If you happen to make a purchase through any of the links on this website it may mean that I make a small commission as a result.  The price you pay will not be affected and if you find this content helpful in any way please don’t be shy affiliate links help to keep this website running. For anyone reading this, I will explain this better throughout the course of this post…

Now, I’m not going to lie to people, you have got guys like;

yoda affiliate marketing

*The Internet is rife with these Self-claimed Gurus that sell expensive courses and claim to have all the answers…?

Like you would actually think that this is the only path to becoming successful (through these gurus and their courses) AND if truth be told I am not saying none of these courses will work for you – if you can actually afford to pay for them. This is your choice to consider but…
Still, there are plenty of other ways to make this work. I mean check out these guys above and their free webinars by all means but proceed with caution.

Not everyone will be able to afford to join these courses. Really they expect you to rob a bank or something first or spend your whole life savings! ?

Not exactly ethical if the methods taught in these courses DO NOT lead you to at the very least making your money back.

So this is not the route I would recommend and actually just follow this guide I will let you know what to do next for FREE!

Not only this but things that will actually help you.

I am no expert.  Don’t get me wrong but I do know a fair few things that I’ve learned over the years and I DO want you to be successful.

So let this guide serve as an introduction and let me show you what I can do to help you start making money at the soonest possible convenience.

Just trust me on this one because right now all I ask is for you to stay on this page and read what I have to say next.



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What Are The Basics of Affiliate Marketing?


I think a lot of people will have a pretty good idea of what affiliate marketing is already but if you do not… 

Affiliate Marketing is selling somebody else’s product as an affiliate for a commission

An affiliate means partner and marketing mean that you display something for sale, and try to convince somebody to buy it.

Here is a screenshot from Google of Investopedia’s definition of Affiliate Marketing.


So, the general idea for affiliated marketing online and it’s as simple as this;

Basically, you are canvassing your very own unique product links to people, and any sales that occur as a result you automatically earn commissions from them.

Many will achieve this through a blog (writing things like product reviews and self-help guides), or it could be through somewhere like Youtube (creating video content and sharing affiliate links in the comments section). Or It could be through emails where you pitch your products to your Email list. Or through social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

Anywhere basically where you can share a URL link online can be used to do affiliate marketing!

Recommended Blog Post: 64 Lessons To Learn About Affiliate Marketing (Blog Checklist)


So For Anyone That Is Interested!


Here is my advice for people looking to try this out.  There is much I am yet still to learn myself but I can definitely teach you at least some of the affiliate marketing basics to help you get started today! 

1# – First, you have to find a product that you want to promote.  Choose something that is ethical and that you can build a trusted brand with.

For example, you don’t want to be selling something like shampoo that makes people’s hair fall out.

Or even a money-making system that doesn’t make people money?

2# – Do your research about the best online business marketing strategies and choose products that you really believe in. 
This is very important.

3# – Build content around these products.  Write articles and if you feel comfortable doing so record videos for video marketing!

4# – Your goal is to publish these links within your content alongside valuable information that makes your recommendations seem credible.  Places like social media posts and blogs are known to convert. 

Plus if you can manage to build an email list this creates a platform where you can share new content with a targeted audience.  
Get a Free Email List Builder with Aweber HERE.

5# – If you are looking to go the blog route it might be sensible to consider only ONE niche. If you are considering a second niche then do so after when you have published a good amount of content that can hold its own. If not through affiliate marketing at least through advertising!

6# – Creating content with affiliate links is only really for cosmetic reasons. What you really need to do is drive traffic to your medium containing your affiliate links. There are two main ways of doing this SEO {Search Engine Optimization} and SMM {Social Media Marketing}.


How To Promote Affiliate Marketing Products?


OK, so I have already given my thoughts briefly on this, in the last section.  To elaborate on this a bit further the most important thing I think is to get your content found (TRAFFIC). You should of course make sure your content is something your audience will positively respond to first of all but yes I would say the best way to be successful with affiliate marketing is by getting your content found by people searching online.

Through Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

Your chief goal for achieving this should be optimizing your content to be found on search engines (SEO). You can help achieve this in a number of ways;

  • Internal links (to other posts/pages) on your website.
  • External Links (to other posts/pages on other people’s websites).
  • Keywords and Keyphrases (things that people will search for on search engines).
  • Bounce Time (the longer you can keep people on your website posts the better).
  • Image and Video SEO (Fill in Alt Descriptions to describe Images and Videos).
  • SEO title, meta descriptions, and Social Share Counts.
  • Submitting your URL for indexing within google and regularly resubmitting your Sitemap
  • Make sure your Site Speed is below 3 seconds (if too slow people will not stick around)

PLUS – another thing that can work which is much faster usually is Social Media Marketing. What I usually do with my content once I’m finished is a few things.  I share it on my Facebook profile and business page.  Then on Twitter and Pinterest.  Followed by a few other places. If you need any help with ideas seriously I would take a look at this product here – I highly rate it and it’s definitely helped me to increase my traffic.

This is a content marketing strategy guide that covers basically everything you should know about getting traffic to your blog.

Unfortunately, this is not free but it’s well worth it. I would say get this but again your choice – obviously no one wants to spend money if they don’t have to. I am exactly the same and this is me being TOTALLY straight up with you.

Promoting Affiliate Marketing Products with Free Traffic


This video below I found recently to be helpful.  It’s much the same as what I’ve written above but for any small details that I might have missed, you can see for yourself…


Being Successful with Affiliate Marketing?


This is the million-dollar question. “How to be successful with affiliate marketing”, and I can’t give you a solid answer for this.  Some people find it easier than others but I will try my best to give you the best answer I can.

So, this snippet appeared on Google earlier today.  It’s from an affiliate marketing program called Affiliorama.  

I do not recommend this by the way. The information is outdated.

The course has not been updated for years but what this says, in essence, I think answers this question very well.

Now, I think this in essence how affiliate marketing works but then this is maybe not very helpful.

You want to actually learn how to be successful at Affiliate Marketing not just know the steps to take how to be successful. 

This is essentially it but it leaves even more questions (I think).  It’s kind of like this other image that I found whilst surfing online today.

I think if you really want to Learn Affiliate Marketing you need to choose the right training. 

Sure there are many different options for this. 

⏬Mine you can find out more about by clicking on the button below⏬

but do your research because what is good for me might not be good for you.

Check Out My Suggested…

Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners

learn how to do affiliate marketing

i.)  Affilorama


So.  I’ve already mentioned Affiliorama.  As I said above It is not really my recommendation to get started with but it has a good amount of free training so definitely worth taking a look at I would say. If you actually check their reviews on Trustpilot out of 300+ reviews most are positive (5-star) but other more in-depth expert reviews point out many flaws to do with this program including outdated information and expensive upsells.

I have not actually gone through all the free training with Affilorama for myself and certainly not it’s paid training but I know since its inception in 2006, it has been helpful for at least a good number of people.

Last time I checked Affilorama had something like 600K active members. I assume people are still using this platform but as they have not bothered to update their training materials in years (or so I’m led to believe) the question is if their training is still something that would work still in 2023 and beyond.

So, I do not recommend this really for this reason but If you are interested then by all means give it a go. 

I’m sure at least the free training should in some way be helpful.

I have written a review if you would like to read more here and of course, you can check out their website to sign up for their free course too.

Affilorama free account Sign up!  Click here


ii.)  My Online Start-Up


One course I have found very helpful in recent years is Chuck Nguyen’s My Online Start-Up. I actually paid to upgrade my free membership for this. A one-time payment of $199 and I actually made this back by following their training. I also got a free DFY website made and this included several premium plugins and the Astra Pro theme.

I’m not sure if you can still get this – I know the upgrade after this was put up in price and Chuck Nguyen seems to have disappeared ? …

But still, with the free course, there is still a lot of value here. What I found especially helpful was the mindset training but some other good tips here too. Although be wary of upgrading from the free course at the moment – support is still active as I’ve spoken to them recently and there does seem to be a plan moving forward for this platform but beyond the free training – I probably would say look elsewhere (at least for now)


iii.)  Wealthy Affiliate


I know this might sound a bit biased here as I have been an active member of Wealthy Affiliate for very close to 3 years now. Also, I have a very big incentive for recommending WA as an affiliate because anyone that joins through my link if they decide to upgrade after finishing the free training –
I am given 50% recurring affiliate commissions. You can get this too very easily – it is very competitive but it is a great place to be (I would say).

It has its haters though don’t get me wrong. I haven’t gone through a whole of other courses yet but I’ve found WA is a great place to be with many different benefits and tools that have really helped me. I can’t really speak for too many others but I will share a video with you from another WA member called Roope Kittu. He is a bit wacky – not going to lie ? but he is actually one member of WA that has done quite well for himself.

PLUS the video he does here the good thing is he interviews 4 different SUCCESSFUL WA members!

So yes Wealthy Affiliate I recommend to anyone interested in getting started with blogging and affiliate marketing. If you would like to give their free course a go to see what all the fuss is about check them out here – and what’s more if you would really like to get a bit extra for free including my free coaching, ebook, 30-day email course, and much more to come… USE THIS LINK HERE INSTEAD<<

In Conclusion – Thanks For Reading (If You’ve Got This Far!


Well, what do you think? Is Affiliate Marketing something you would like to consider doing? It’s not the only way to make money online. There are plenty of online jobs out there and actually some you might find pay pretty decent money but here is the thing about Affiliate Marketing the money you can make is Insane.

You can work from anywhere you want (all you need is a laptop). You do not have to hold any stock. You do not have to worry about dealing with customer complaints and it can make you very rich ✅

learn how to do affiliate marketing


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20 thoughts on “Affiliate Marketing Basics For Beginners (2023) – An Introduction”

  1. Hi Alex, Thank you very much for the detailed article. I have learned from it very much! For me, Wealthy Affiliate is a great platform, and I really can relate to what you are saying. The classes and courses are outstanding; even some need updating. It is not that easy when someone is trying it on their own, so definitely, I would go for a coach, and you have significant experience to give through to others. Affiliate marketing is an excellent business form and opens the world to a laptop lifestyle that I desire. Working on your own chosen time is brilliant! I recommend this to anyone!:)

    1. Thanks Sylvia appreciate you taking this time to comment – glad you liked my article and yes totally agree the laptop lifestyle is good to aim for. Obviously, affiliate marketing isn’t the only way but it’s a good one.

  2. Hey Alex,

    Thank you for the great information, and I agree, SEO is so important if you want search engines to easily find your content. I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate, it’s such a great platform if you’re just starting out. I gained a lot of information from your article and I look forward to reading more from you. Keep up the great work. Take care.

    1. Thanks Gaylene. Glad you found it helpful I agree about SEO has to be one of the ultimate goals if you are looking to achieve a means of passive income.

      Wealthy Affiliate is a good tip – to be honest, I don’t really watch as much of the new training as I should but there is definitely a wealth of knowledge here. Especially with the member uploaded training. I think if anyone has any doubts about WA this is definitely worth looking into. I have been with them for around 2 years now – mostly happy with them but I don’t think every member finds success but it’s definitely a good platform with lots of useful resources.

  3. Hey Alex,

    thanks for sharing this useful guide on the basics of affiliate marketing for beginners. I’ve personally tried a couple of the platforms you’ve mentioned. But for me, the only one that has the full package (including extensive support) is Wealthy Affiliate. I’ve been a member since 2016 and have never looked back. I’ve been able to develop a website development business from what they teach and earn from affiliate marketing too.

    Definitely worth a check for beginners who want to learn the correct way of getting started… Thanks again Alex

    1. Thanks for commenting John. Yes, I have tried all sorts over the years trying to make money online. Some things are successfully and some are just a total waste of time. I think Shopify I tried for like a year I never sold anything and still ended up paying like £20 a month for a whole year. You really have to be careful I think and honestly I wish I had the sense to get into affiliate marketing sooner. Definitely, 2016 you mention when you got started I was looking for online opportunities I think a year later in 2017 I was buying auto-post websites of Flippa but that just ended up going wrong for me. Half wish I could have found out about Wealthy Affiliate back then. I mean it has been a bit slow at times really for me personally but I’ve definitely spoken to enough people in the community that have actually done quite well. I would actually recommend it because I tried building a website without it – it really doesn’t get enough credit I don’t think.

  4. Hi Alex,

    Thanks a lot for showing us how affiliate marketing works. It will help those who are looking for tips. I am also running an affiliate website, so I vouch for everything you mentioned here. Making money online through affiliate marketing isn’t an overnight success but a marathon. You need to put in hard work, patience, and persistence to your website before getting positive results. I often see people quit in the first 3-6 months after a few setbacks they met, which is pitiful. If they can land on your site before stopping, they might have a chance to make it.

    Matt

    1. Hey Matt, Yes I think it is good for people to read this kind of information before getting started or if they are having trouble. I think there is so much to this – for anyone reading this comment I would say yes you are totally right Matt hard work, patience, and persistence are the key to making this work. Some people for sure can be fortunate enough to start making money in the first few months. I made my first commission in one week and for a month I did really well but if I am going to be really truthful with people that wasn’t an ongoing thing and after that, I soon was finding out how tough it can be running a new website that isn’t making money. I think if I was to give people advice now it would be to commit to this work as a longer-term project and if you can start making money before then great. However, I would also say that if blogging does start to become a financial burden then consider a few side hustles along the way to cover the costs. Even a couple hours a day or whatever but main thing is for the average new blogger I think a year at least should be the goal.

  5. I really enjoyed your take on affiliate marketing. I also enjoyed Roope’s video! lol
    I find affiliate marketing extremely difficult and I was hoping you had some tips. People make it sound so easy, but in my experience, it is a lot of hard work. I struggle to get traffic to my site. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

    1. Hi Brianna, Yes I know how you feel. I am still learning myself and know how hard it can be. But yes I can definitely give you some tips. So I see you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate – we can chat through there if you like. I could maybe do a quick assessment on your website or something but yes so – most marketers will tell you this. You first need your content, then traffic and then if everything works you will either make sales or collect leads. Now, making sales I will say from just writing a blog post and driving traffic to it – this will not always be very fruitful. It is said that only 5% of people will actually make a purchase if even that and that people need to see the same content several times before they decide to actually buy anything. So yes in effect you will want to set up your blog content in a way that you are not actually trying to sell but capture leads.

      To do this you want to give people a good reason to give you their email address. You must offer value. In fact, your content should be purposed to offer value. You want your visitors to enjoy reading your posts. The longer they visit your website and keep reading your posts the higher it will push you up the search engines. That should be your long term goal to get your posts ranked.

      My best advice I would say is to keep publishing content and improve with every post. Go back and rework your old content and find clever ways to collect leads. If you have money try Thrive Themes I think these are great tools. Also, try to perfect your SEO and keyword research techniques. I

      I am doing a post on this soon but yeah you know what check out this post on Medium and watch the videos. I hope they help and yes drop me a message on WA and I will see if there is anything I can do to help you along.

  6. Excellent work! I appreciated how you included your own experience and activities in the write-up, so that the reader understands that the person speaking has done what he or she is advocating.

    Affiliate marketing is a rewarding career route for individuals who put in the time and effort required. Your article focuses on the knowledge component that a beginner requires the most. It is vital for a newcomer to avoid pitfalls and joining one of the programs you have recommended will go a long way toward supporting a newbie in their affiliate marketing journey.

    The upside of affiliate marketing, as you indicated, is that you may generate money at your own pace. You are in charge of your own destiny!

    Femi.

    1. Hi Femi, Yes I think it is important to share my experience. After all people are giving up their time to read my work so it is important to make it relatable I think. And I agree Affiliate marketing can be a rewarding career to embark upon for those willing to spend the time to learn.
      Also, yes you say that my article focuses on the knowledge component that a beginner requires. This is definitely what I want this article to be about. I am willing to help anyone that needs it based on my experience so far. I think the programs I mentioned I think they can definitely help but yes also I think it is important to also offer my own expertise.

  7. A great article to show people how to start affiliate marketing and I can be also say that you are right when it comes to choosing affiliate marketing programs since many gurus are out to get people’s money especially the gullible people.
    Your points of starting an affiliate marketing blog are good and I like the point where you said people need to do their research.

    1. Hi Thabo, Yes absolutely a lot of people have vested interests and they will gladly say whatever they can to get someone’s money. I signed up for one called the power lead system. It wasn’t a total scam but I think at the time I had a load of questions before I upgraded and how they got me into paying $54 a month was so shady. I think I pretty much cut my losses on $100. Maybe I could have made money from this but one important thing to know as well is taking on too much is not good. So really a good coach will tell you to stick to one thing. Like the book by Gary W. Keller (the One Thing) he says to be really successful at something you should focus on just one thing at a time.

      Over at Wealthy Affiliate I’ve heard a lot of people say that when you begin you must really take your time to decide on your niche and just work on one project until its successful. They are not kidding you should never spread yourself too thin there are only so many hours in a day. I think if you actually dedicate your time to making your first project successful then if you want to you can either continue to keep building or you can leave your first project as a means of passive income and then put your efforts towards another project.

      Starting an affiliate marketing blog I did this maybe a month after creating my first blog. I think maybe if I could go back in time I would have said to my former self to just stick to the one project but then I have learned a lot of things because of my other blog that I’ve been able to integrate into my main blog. My time is pretty much split between the two now but I do try to treat my main blog with a bit more time and it is actually starting to produce more results. Just a couple of days ago I got a text on my phone about a $50 commission which was really nice. This was totally passive income as well from one of my blogs I managed to rank.

  8. Great information on how to get started with affiliate marketing and the great potential to create a sustainable passive income. Even though it takes time to learn the skills it is well worth the effort.

    Nothing of value is acquired without dedication and commitment. Thanks for sharing this.

    1. Your most welcome Joseph. It’s definitely a lot of work but worth it in the end if you have the time and commitment.

  9. I learned about affiliate marketing in this article and the best thing is that you can make your own hours and work hard at your own company. You bring up great people that are in affiliate marketing and they are successful. We are learning from all the mistakes that others have made. You are showing us that affiliate marketing is for beginners and pros.
    Affiliate marketing is not easy and has lots of competition depending on what niche you get into. We’d like to thank you for this great read and your knowledge.

    Cheer,
    MnD

  10. Great informative article on how to make the most of affiliate marketing today there are a lot of methods online if you want to make money, but in my opinion affiliate marketing is definitely the best way if you work hard and dedicated, and especially if you are on the right platform like wealthy affiliate: -) I am sure that this article will be useful to many as it was to me. I wish you success and good health.

  11. I started affiliate marketing in 2004. I think Russell Brunson was also in his first year but the go to guy to learn from at the time was Corey Rudl of the Internet Marketing Center. I got lucky as a broke to hope marketer to get tid bits and long sessions with him as a friend before he died.

    Corey’s big thing was the whole concept of give freely and it will always come back. He made millions even younger than Russell.

    These guys all gave systems that work but the most complete I have worked with is Wealthy Affiliate. Regardless of if you start with the niche like the training or build the niche out around a product set they guide you with every step vital to success in an order most can easily follow.

    Affiliate marketing is a passion business. Your desire to help others solve problems is the key to the kingdom.

    1. Never heard of Corey Rudl before. What you say about his concept of giving freely and it will always come back this is certainly true I think. Basically the law of Karma. Wealthy Affiliate is a good platform. Its quite easy to find things to complain about but it has a lot of good things about. The support team I think for me is like no other. The amount of times they have got me out of difficult situations and saved me having to pay somebody but training and tools are great too.

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