Ever since people figured out that a passive income could bring them six figures, they’ve been searching for a way to earn it. While there are several ways in which you can make a passive income, affiliate marketing is the one that can bring you the most satisfaction, financial and otherwise.

Affiliate marketing is the process through which you earn a commission by promoting other company’s products. You choose a product or several products and promote them and you will earn a slice of the profit for each sale (or traffic) the company makes because of your referrals.

It’s like regular marketing and advertising, but a lot less intrusive. Instead of being aggressively in people’s faces with ads, you can just embed product links in your content.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is recommending products or services to your audience via a website, a blog or even an email list. When your audience purchases the product or service you recommended using an affiliate link, you will be paid a commission. 

Here are the steps from entering affiliate marketing to earning the big bucks:

1. Choose a Niche & Create a Website/Blog

The first thing you need to do is settle on a niche. While it might seem like a good idea to just promote everything you think is cool or has the potential to bring you money, users will not take you seriously and Google will not know how to index your website.

There are a lot of different niches to choose from. You can go sell products for Amazon, go the casino and sportsbook route, choose dating as your niche and countless others. 

After doing your research, thinking about the things you actually like and know the most about, and finally picking a niche, it’s time to create a website or a blog. 

Let’s say you’ve picked the online gambling niche and take this example all the way. When creating a website, the easiest option you have is using WordPress. It will look great and offer users a great UX, even if you’re not good with coding.

Here’s an example of an amazing online gambling affiliate marketing website that uses WordPress: SlotsCalendar. 

2. Choose What Affiliate Products You Want to Promote

If you’ve chosen your niche well, then choosing the products or services shouldn’t be complicated. They need to fit your niche and the content you put out. So, if we continue to follow our online gambling example, something that would fit the gambling industry would be promoting online casinos. 

There are thousands and thousands of casinos and new ones pop up all the time. As an affiliate website in this niche, you will need to find the best ones to promote so that they meet the user intent, and are not scams, and also bring you money. 

You can also go more in-depth and offer specific bonuses for those casinos, like the SlotsCalendar daily spins offering where you will find exclusive bonuses from different top-rated online casinos. 

If you’re unsure where to begin choosing products, you can join affiliate networks that can connect companies that make products with the affiliate marketers who want to promote them, so that everyone can make a profit. 

3. Create Content 

You can’t publish random content and insert affiliate links in it and be done with it. You need to make sure the content you publish will reach your target audience and meet their expectations. 

If they are unsure what to buy, you need to tell them which product is worth it and will fulfil their needs. This means writing quality content, targeting intent keywords and optimizing everything so that when they search on Google for something they end up on your page, where you give them the answer to their questions. Definitely not something unrelated just because you wanted to rank for certain keywords. 

4. Increase Your Revenue and Earn the Big Bucks

After you’re done with creating the content, it’s time to insert affiliate links. The article you’re writing and the links should have a correlation, they should be strategic. Here is how you can get better chances of turning your visitors into buying customers that will earn you a commission:

  1. Link where it’s appropriate.
  2. Add links as soon in the article as possible.
  3. Use floating bars, sidebar widgets, banners etc to promote the products. 
  4. Create pop-up campaigns.
  5. Display your campaigns where the most users can see them.
  6. Use email marketing.
  7. Don’t be spammy and don’t try to con your audience.