Who wants to try affiliate marketing?

How the hell does one begin?

Just to clarify , I have no intention of starting some cottage industry from my bedroom making curiosities to sell on Ebay.  What I’m looking for is the means and techniques I can use to generate an income from home with what I have at hand , now , right in front of me.

What do I have at my disposal? :

1/ One laptop, tablet  and a smartphone

2/ Internet connection .

3/ The ability to read and learn .

That’s about it . I have no physical product , no existing business experience or knowledge and no real clue yet!   I knew I would need some online presence , which was why I started this blog . Even this was an eye opener and a new experience / learning curve.   I found another blog that instructed how to start my own . It told me I could use a ‘hosted’ site or ‘self hosted ‘ option ? What ? ….. It said I would need to choose between ‘ Blogger’ and ‘WordPress’  ? Excuse me? But I’ve muddled through and now I have the beginnings of a blog site and the satisfaction that I now know a few things I didn’t last month. Incidentally this is an important mindset . I know small incremental gains are good for long term success.  This is going to be a big project . This will take time . I’m purposely trying to avoid comparing myself to others and just trying to be a little bit better and more informed than I was yesterday…………. each day going forward.

So what have I been doing with the three above things at my disposal ?  I’ve been scanning the internet for ideas and knowledge . My time doing this has provided inspiration .  I have a plan . There seems to be a multitude of people out there with nothing of their own to sell, but making a living online. .  No business selling a product or service that they have created themselves . These people are leveraging technology to sell other people’s goods and services .  No doubt many started out with nothing more than I have . These guys and girls are affiliate marketers and it seems some of them after lots of hard work are doing very well . 

One step at a time

It’s easy to find a definition of  affiliate marketing : simply it is a method of earning money by recommending or promoting someone  else’s stuff. I’ve learnt a little bit of terminology already the ‘someone else’ ’ is the advertiser , the affiliate marketer is the publisher . The advertiser will provide the links using their own affiliate program for the publisher to use .  On their own website the publisher promotes the advertisers’ links to their product or service . If a customer clicks on that link and makes a purchase the publishers earns a percentage from the sale . I’ve yet to learn the actual fine detail of how this all works technically or the ‘nuts’ and ‘bolts’ of it all?   

Start with nothing and find a niche 

There is of course a big ‘but’ .  One needs something to actively help  sell and promote . This seems to be the hard part of the game to me?    I’ve read another article that has pointed out some clues and it has to do with having  a ‘ niche’ . The definition of niche for our purposes is : a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.

The advice runs as follows :  One must find a niche that is interesting and has the potential to make money from .  Build a website , generate content and promote . Before this can be achieved it is homework time .  The article stressed that finding the right niche is critical to success and many things need to be taken into consideration . These can be summarised :

1/ What do you know about or are passionate about ? 

2/ Do others share your passion ( potential customers )?

3/ Has it potential to be long lasting and not a fad ? 

4/Does it solve a problem for someone?

5/ Will it be profitable ?

6/Can you link a product or service to your niche?

7/ Are there affiliate programs for the subject matter ?Is there an advertiser with the right product with an affiliate program to enable links to be generated ? 

The article I read was linked to an outfit which in terminology is called an ‘affiliate network’ .  These guys and girls provide a platform to act as a middleman by connecting publishers to advertisers by providing a platform that enables publishers to sign up to affiliate programs .  I have no idea if there is a cost involved in this or how to register as an advertiser? It does seem though you can spend a long time searching around for individual programs or speed it all up by using what is effect an agent . 

That is as far as I’ve got to date . But it is a start and if nothing else I’ve learnt something new !