Being blogging for 4 years, I have hustled to make a decent income online by reading and implementing the strategies and even coming out with new methods that are not shared on the web.

I started Universal Blogging Tips after 2 failed blogs and only this blog appreciated my hard work.

Today, I cover my educational and personal expenses from my blogging revenue and save the rest to invest in stocks and mutual funds. 

There is no hard and fast rule that you should follow everyone to become successful in blogging.

Most people quit because they are not passionate about the topic on which they’re blogging about.

Some of my friends started blogs because they see me making money online but they were NOT passionate about it. Then what’s the use of doing it?

If anyone is thinking about JUST money, then it’s better to work 9-5.

Now, before getting started with the main part of this guide, let’s get to know about some basic Affiliate Marketing terms.

Though, I have shared it on my blog and even through emails but still it’s necessary for those who are not familiar with them.

EPC: Earning per click is calculated by taking your clicks divided by commission earned.

It is a metric used to indicate the average earnings generated as a result of your 100 clicks on your Affiliate links.

The formula for EPC is Affiliate Earnings/Number of clicks x 100. 

●   Click-through rates: CTR defines your targeted audience.

It is calculated by using this formula : (Number of sales / Unique Clicks) x 100.

Affiliate marketplace: There are many marketplaces like ShareASale, Peerfly, Commission Junction, JvZoo, ClickBank that works as central database for affiliate programs in different niche.

Affiliate software: Software's used by companies to create an affiliate program for their product. Ex: iDevAffiliate

Affiliate link: Special tracking link offered by your affiliate program to track the progress of your affiliate promotion.

Payment mode Offered: Different affiliate programs offer different methods of payment. For ex: Cheque, Wire transfer, PayPal and many more.

Tier 2 affiliate marketing: This is a great way of making money from an affiliate program.

In this type of marketing, you recommend others to join affiliate programs, and you will get a commission out of it, when your sub-affiliate make sales.

This is one of the best ways to generate passive income.

Check out  this post on my blog, which I have written to attract Affiliates for MyThemeShop and it's generating passive income for me!

The above piece of content is really informative. The boxes that you see in the content redirects the visitors to the optin pages like shown below and once the user optins, it redirects them to the sales pages.

This is how to create a sales funnel.. Now, the next step is how to MAKE THE MOST OUT OF YOUR SALES FUNNEL…

Want to make more money selling products?

Before starting a blog, keep your end goal in mind. Suppose your end goal is to sell a product worth $997. Now, if you directly convince your visitors to buy such an expensive product, they are most likely NOT to buy… Right?

But now if you create a proper funnel like the following, they would be willing to buy your product if you REALLY deliver them value through this product.

Blog / Website / Opt in Page >> $7 front end product/ebook >> $19.99 upsell product >> $49 upsell product >> $997 product.

Now, let’s assume they didn’t bought the product that you recommended them in the sales funnel. Still you have their emails, right?

Give them value through emails and pitch them the product over and again. I will cover some email marketing methods below that I learned.

How To Write A Perfect Review Post

I have a friend who has many review posts but doesn’t make a penny from them.

Why?

Because the review posts are not able to convince readers to buy that product.

Before writing a review post, know about the objective of writing it. The ultimate goal is to convince the readers to take an action or make a purchase, right?

Now, the next step is to keep yourself as a targeted consumer or according to the buyer persona that you created above and now think, can this product REALLY solve your problem?

Is this product worth the money?

Once, you get to know about it and chosen a product which solves your targeted customers problem, then you are ready to go!

When I generally write product reviews, I follow the AIDA principle of marketing.

Writing reviews like a bot gives rise to hit and trial method. I am a human being, so why should I behave like a bot?

Now, let’s see how I use AIDA model to write product review.

A ---)) Attention

I ----)) Interest

D ---)) Desire

A ---)) Action

AIDA principle helps in boosting your conversions by creating a funnel which REALLY CONVERTS.

A = ATTENTION

Your first motive is to grab their attention by sharing the great intro of the product and making them exciting about how they could use the particular product in their businesses.

To grab their attention, you should clearly know whom are you targeting. This information you will get from the buyer persona that you created above.

Secondly, you need to know about their problems which can get by shooting them an email or checking out the forums.

Now, suppose you are promoting Washing Machines, check out the forums and question answer websites for the exact ‘Keywords they are searching for and including those keywords in your title tags will grab your visitors eyeballs and boost your Click-throughs too.

I = INTEREST

Now, it’s time to dig deeper with the problems. You have grabbed their attention through an enticing headline and super good intro.

Now, you need to go in depth with their problems and tell how the product you are promoting will solve it very well. In this case, you need to deliver them a really informative piece of content that they don’t find anywhere else.

D = DESIRE

Okay, now they get to know about how the product can help them but do you think, if you were in the place of the consumers, have you bought the product at this stage?...

Ummm... I doubt...

You might be reluctant to make a purchase at this stage, so they are!

Do you know what?... PEOPLE NEED RESULTS!

Show them how using that product made you $$$$$ or how it has helped you in any other way or give them a brief case study how others have got results using that product.

If you have screenshots, show them.

This will create a desire in them to make a purchase otherwise why

would they spend their hard earned money?...

A = ACTION

Now, most of the hard-work is done but still there is a most important thing to be done which to make the user sign up/make a purchase or take any other action.

This is done by delivering a short and strong Call to action. Like flaunting a big button which allows them to take action.

That’s how AIDA principle works.

How To Do Promotion Of Your Affiliate Blog Posts?

1. Question and answer websites

I look for people on the question answer websites such as Quora and Yahoo Answers matching the buyer’s persona and have a look at the problems they are facing.

Then, I leave a quite interesting answer to their problem mentioning my post link at the end.

This has two benefits:

My answer doesn’t looks like a spam and it makes people to click on my link. 

2. Share On Communities

Communities are great source of traffic for my blogs and it can be for you too.

To make the best out of the following communities that I am going to share below, make sure you just don’t spam them or get ready for get banned.

Start by sharing some useful stuff, make people realize that you’re a human.

After sharing some informative tutorials and guides or just helping few people, promote your post.

Here are some communities that act as a good source of traffic for my blogs:

1. Bizsugar

2. Klinkk

3. DoSplash

4. Growthhackers

5. ​Inbound

6. ​Reddit

7. BlogEngage

8. Scoop.it

9. Triberr

10. Google + Communities

11. Pinterest

12. LinkedIn

13. Visual.ly

14. Slideshare

3. Make personal recommendations

Give out a free service and ask them to make a purchase from your affiliate links.

Suppose, you are a Bluehost affiliate.

Ask your readers to make a purchase from Bluehost from your link and you will setup a blog for them for free and I hope its commission would easily cover your cost.

Some Tools That I Personally Use In My Affiliate Marketing Business

I am not forcing you to buy these products. If you can afford, it will be great and will DEFINITELY help your business.

Otherwise, don’t put a financial burden on yourself at this stage.

Once, you start earning, focus on savings and investment rather than spending on useless things.

The below mentioned tools are REALLY some great investments to be made and they had helped in boosting my revenue in my Affiliate Marketing business.

1.  SEMrush

SEMrush is tool which is used for competition analysis.

Analyzing competition is one of the most important tasks need to be done in this business.

SEMrush flaunts all the keywords that my competitor is ranking for and their difficulty levels. It also flaunts the keywords which are being targeted for paid traffic.

Besides that, it is great tool for Adsense users too. It helps in finding high CPC keywords which can generate a good revenue from Adsense as well as Affiliate Marketing.

Themes That I Recommend :

 Thrive Themes 

 ​MyThemeshop

​ Themeisle

FAQ’s

#1: What skills are required to start an affiliate marketing business?

There are no such skills required indeed!

What you need to be just honest and have a good knowledge about the product that you’re promoting.

Besides that you need to have some marketing skills which will help you in building a brand and promoting your products more effectively.

The above mentioned basic techniques will help you in getting started with affiliate marketing and once you get familiar with them, you will develop your own skills and new methods that nobody is using.

Believe me, it’s true!

2. Which Affiliate Program Is The Best To Start With?

Don’t think of the commissions. Think of the niche you’re passionate about.

Once you get that niche, start working on it following the techniques mentioned above and the money would start flowing in hopefully.

3. Is Affiliate Marketing A Safe Career To Build?

I think, it’s not!

It’s NOT, unless you don’t have a brand name. If you have a built up a brand name and built a good list, then you need not worry!

If you are only relying on SEO in affiliate marketing, then you might face trouble in future! 🙂

Hope you liked this Affiliate Marketing Guide for beginners. Feel free to share it over your social network! 🙂