Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn some money online and it’s really easy to explain how it works. In fact I believe this is one of the best ways you can make money online if you want to be traveling around the world and not have to worry about a lot of customer service things that comes with selling your own products. So, here is an affiliate marketing how to guide so you know how to do it and where to find some extra training.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? The 8 Stages…
So affiliate marketing is pretty simple really. You point someone to someone else’s website and if they end up buying something you get paid a commission, usually a percentage of the sale. To make it down a bit further there are 8 stages.
- The affiliate (you) shows an ad for the merchant (the person selling the product) on their website
- The visitor/customer clicks on the ad or link you the affiliates website
- The visitor/customer is sent to the merchants website through a tracking link (affiliate link – a link that uniquely identifies that customer as being sent via your website)
- Visitor/customer makes a purchase on the merchants website
- Affiliate network records the purchase and details of the transaction
- The purchase is confirmed by the merchant and the customer is sent their product
- The transaction is credited to the affiliate who referred them to the merchants website
- Affiliate gets paid their commission for the sale
That’s all there is to affiliate marketing, that’s how it all works. There are many other things that go into getting that customer to your own site and getting them to click on your affiliate ads and links and we’ll start talking about that next!
Affiliate Marketing Guide For Beginners
So your aim is to get as many people to your site as possible and getting them to click on your ads and affiliate links. Hopefully the merchant is good at getting people to buy the product so you both end up making money… But how to you get people to your website in the first place?
Well the best way, and the way that doesn’t cost any money, is to write posts on your website.
If you write something that engages you visitors, something that gets them thinking, then you’re building rapport with your audience. This is the most important thing. Building rapport with your audience. If you can build that relationship with your audience then they’ll begin to trust what you have to say and believe any recommendation you make is a good one. This is where it is important to be as transparent with your audience as possible.
Being honest is vital… If something is a pile of crap… Tell them. If you are 100% honest then your audience are going to respect you and trust you more.
The more posts you write on your website, the more people have to read and the better chance you have of building that rapport with the visitor. Plus, it creates more things for the search engines, Google being the most popular, to index so when people try looking for something online, your site will appear in their search results for them to click on and come to your website.
There are other ways too such as Pay-Per-Click marketing, but that’s a whole new ball game. Free is awesome, especially seeing as we are saving money for our travels! Phase 2 of the Bootcamp course over at Wealthy Affiliate is fantastic at showing you how you can create the content that will get people to your site and how your content converting so your sending people to the merchant’s websites.
How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
So they way you would make money is my almost “pre-selling” to your audience so you get them into that buying frame of mind before they even end up at the merchants website.
The merchants website should be pretty good at converting visitors into paying customers but if you can get them into that buying frame of mind before they get there then it’s pretty much a done deal when they click on your affiliate link.
The best way to be successful is to find a problem people are having and come up with a solution. Whether that means creating your own product or promoting someone else’s (which is essentially affiliate marketing if you’re getting a commission for the sale) then it’s entirely up to you.
The affiliate route is better if you’re wanting to travel, less “custom service” things to worry about like I said earlier. But it is an option if you’re happen to outsource the custom service side of your business, but you need to be making money already. This is a completely different topic I could write about for weeks. Let’s focus on making life as easy as possible for yourself first!
Once you have your potential customer, or what we call a niche, then you want to start writing for your website to get these people there. The more specific your niche is, the less competition and the more successful you’ll be.
Remember the internet reaches billions of people around the world so no matter how small and specific you think you niche is, there’s still big enough to make a full time income.
The best analogy I’ve read is, you’ve seen the little specialty stores in your local towns. The crazy little store that seems to sell the more random things in the world and you wonder who the hell would go in there. Well they’re obviously making enough money to keep the store open and that’s just form the people who happen to go past when they’re in town.
Now imagine the amount of people who could “stroll” into your online store, your website, when you have potentially billions of people “walking past” 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
Anything is possible! Get a website up with anything you’re passionate about and you could have your own business making you money.
Getting Started In Affiliate Marketing Before You Start Traveling
This is the best advice I can give! Start your business first before you leave!
It is possible to do it while you’re on the move. I did a good majority of my set up for this website whilst I was travelling around Australia.
I met a Canadian guy whilst I was working as a scuba diving instructor on the Great Barrier Reef who ran a travel blog. He was flown out to Australia by the Queensland Tourism Agency so he could write about his experiences in the country so the 30,000 people he had visiting his website every month could see it and potentially go there themselves.
We were talking about online businesses and how amazing it is to have one and be able to travel around the world and still be making money and all you need is an internet connection!
It’s amazing stuff really!
It was chatting to him I realized all the people I met throughout my travels were all trying to find boring jobs just make money so they didn’t have to go home! Having your own business is fun!
So can have your own online business and plan your trip to travel the world before you leave home.
The benefit of getting started before you leave is that you will have more time to get everything started. It does take a bit of time to get everything up and running to the point where you are making some money. All you have to do is keep adding and expanding whilst you’re travelling then.
Even when you have no internet connection for a period of time, your business is set up so you don’t have to be there every day to keep it running! There are things you can do when you have no internet connection too.
Best Way To Make Money Online To Fund Your Trip
When you are travelling there are many ways you can make your trip cheaper.
Like I’ve mentioned in my planning your trip around the world post, depending on where you go depends on the value of the money. If you go to places in South or Central America or parts of South East Asia, things are a lot cheaper so you can get a lot more for your money.
You can work in the country you’re in. When I was travelling around Australia I figured out that you can work in hostels you’re planning on staying at for a few hours per day and get free accommodation. This is excellent if you find a place you want to stay at for a few weeks then all you have to do is pay for your food and any activities you want to do.
By the way, if you’re ever in Australia, you must go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I ended up doing almost 500 dives there… Absolutely incredible!
You can always save up for several months to a year to fund your trip. A lot of people save up several thousand and then hit the road and try to make it last as long as possible. So long as you have a return ticket home, it doesn’t matter if you run out of money then.
But the best thing you can do is to start up your own online business. Like the guy I met in Australia, you can travel the world for YEARS at a time if you wanted if you had an online business as all you need is an internet connection to do your work. You can still have a job and save up the fund whilst working on your business. The more time you can spend on your business before you leave your country, the easier it will be to run it when you’re travelling.
I promise you that!
So I hope you now see that getting involved with affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to see the world and not have to worry about running out of money and have to go home. Unless you want to that is!
Want to start your own business? Great! I’m happy to help. I’ve created a step-by-step guide on what to do for your first 3 months online with only $100 per month and just spending 1 hour per day working on it. A great starting point for anyone wanting to start a business online and become a digital nomad.
I want to hear your thoughts on affiliate marketing as a way to travel the world or just a want to make an income. Is this something you’d like to try? Leave a comment below and don’t forget to hit those Facebook and Twitter buttons too and share this with your friends.
