Here’s the truth about affiliate marketing… yes, you can make money in it.

So, what’s the lie? Well, all too often affiliate gurus make it sound like you’ll be rich in a matter of weeks… days… hey, maybe hours!

Another truth about affiliate marketing… it’s like any other part of business processes. It takes time to build.

I don’t want you to be one of those affiliate marketers who enter this industry hoping for a fast buck. You know, the ones who get sucked into those get rich quick schemes. And when those quick bucks don’t happen, you throw up your hands and leave blogging altogether.

What I do want is you go into blogging, and marketing you blog through affiliate sales, with your eyes wide open. It’s a mistake to think you won’t have to work hard. And that’s the third truth I want you to understand. You will work hard. Let me say that again… YOU WILL WORK HARD. But once you master affiliate marketing, it is possible to make a steady income.

So What’s an Eager Young (or Old) Blogger To Do?

Part of mastering affiliate marketing for me is immersing myself in learning. But not so much that I’m spending all my time learning and not doing. I’m reading everything I can find and I’ve even pulled out the credit card to pay for Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course (it’s, great, BTW, and I’ve learned loads… check out my course review here). And while I’m learning, I’m also implementing.

As I look at affiliate marketing, I see it made up of two parts:

1. A good product, that you know and believe in (and that you think would be a benefit to your audience) and,
2. A marketing plan that introduces and helps your audience understand how it will help them.

How to Find Affiliate Products

Become a student of your niche.  Spy on your competition (well, read and interact with them). What are they talking about and selling? What are their readers wanting to know? Pay attention to those burning questions. And if they keep cropping up… well, maybe you want to start coming up with answers to those problems. And one of the answers might be a great affiliate product.

The other place to look for affiliate products is within your own life. What products do you use and have benefited from? Do those products have affiliate programs to join?

You’re probably a semi-expert already on those products, so go a step farther and become and expert. And then move to the marketing phase of selling.

The Best Selling Techniques for Affiliate Products

It’s not a squeeze page. Or ads. It’s good old fashioned blog writing. And sorry to say… LOTS of blog writing. Especially when you’re still working on creating an email list.

The thing is, those blog posts don’t have to be a hard-sell. In fact, that’s the last thing you want to do. Instead, you need to make your audience see the value of the affiliate has… for them.

It works out to be a give and take with you and your readers. You give tons of value in exchange for that traffic.

It will probably take a few (or more) posts talking about the affiliate product before you starting selling consistently. One affiliate marketer I was listening to the other day said she likes to schedule one or two posts a month about the product she’s selling. And she uses a variety of posts types.

She, of course, interlinks as many of those posts as possible.

Michelle has a whole section on how she uses a similar technique in her course. If you’re interested you can learn more by clicking here for Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

After you start writing about you affiliate product you do want to do some promoting. Social media seems to give you the biggest bang… and often you don’t even have to spend a buck. The goal is to intrigue enough readers to get them back to your blog to read more. And possibly buy.

The next step us is promoted Pins and Facebook Ads, but that a whole other learning curve.

Today, I just wanted to get you to take a look at affiliate marketing. It’s a great way to monetize a blog, but it’s not instant. With enough work, however, it’s just might be the steady income you’ve been looking for.

Let’s do this again,

.