Once you decided to become your own boss and start looking for ways to make money online you will start acknowledging that some avenues can be longer and harder to take than others. Therefore, starting your own business online is an exciting adventure from the point the idea is initiated yet it can have quite a few hurdles to begin with. The competitive market that you may have to face in almost any field can be a quite downer as many products and services are already sold by well-established websites backed by companies or even big corporations. When you don’t have a unique product to sell and the competition is fierce, good idea may be to become an ally to those dominating the market. What if I told you that there ways to make money online as an affiliate of these sites dominating the market? So how to make money online without handling an inventory?
Most major retailers on the North American market and increasingly more across the rest of the globe are using affiliates to expand their reach in their market niche. There are many 3rd party companies (Clickbank, Linkshare or Commission Junction) that handle the relations between vendors and affiliates and thus making the process much easier; in some cases the vendors handle this process themselves (eBay or Amazon). Regardless of who you choose to work with there are real money to make online as an affiliate. You will have to become real good at generating traffic to your site but you will not have to handle any inventory or ship any items. Sounds great, right?
CHOOSE A NICHE
Before starting your venture you will have to decide what products you want to sell, in which niche to develop your business. As a general idea the best thing to do is get involved in a field that you are passionate about; this will help you to build your business on the long run as it will likely keep you engaged. Choosing one of the ways to make money online available to you at any point does not have to take you away from doing you like, what you are passionate about. There are products or services that you can be an affiliate for in almost any niche. Some research to weigh your options is certainly a good idea; some niches are saturated and others not so much.
The more specific your niche is, the better. For example, if you’d like to go into clothing category it’s best to choose a gender and further more a specific niche like maternity or plus sizes clothes.
BUILD A WEBSITE
Once you decided on the niche to develop your affiliate business you will have to build a website. This is a step that has become easier and easier to accomplish year after year. Basically you can start your own website within minutes, whether you choose a service like Wix or simply start a WordPress site with a minimal investment. If you want to test the waters and not invest anything you can also start a blog on Blogger for free. If you want you can purchase a domain for $10 and use it for your blogger site; you can do this for the very beginning or later on as you develop your business. The earlier, the better as you want to establish in time a name for yourself.
In case you decide to promote a ClickBank product building your own website is not necessary, many decide to drive traffic directly to their affiliate links and skip this step all together. This is something for you to decide but on a long run a website will certainly pay off.
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ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE
APLLY TO BECOME AN AFFILIATE
Most vendors will evaluate your site and manually accept you to sell their items. For many of them it’s important to see if your site is related to their niche; it’s best to write at least 15-20 good articles on your website before applying to become an affiliate; you will not be able to re-apply for a while. You can choose any of the 3rd party websites mentioned above depending on your interests; most of them have the same process. You will be able to have an account with them instantly and then proceed with applying for various vendors to affiliate with. One of the great things about them is that you can apply from almost anywhere in the world! You do not have to be discouraged if some will choose not to work with you; just remember that ultimately this is one of best ways to make money online.
SET UP YOUR SITE TO PROMOTE AFFILIATE PRODUCTS
Once you have ben accepted by your vendors you will be supplied with banners and personalized links that will make it easy to track your earnings. You can now start placing ads on your website but try not to overdo it; try not to clutter your site as it may not provide a good experience for the visitors and thus increase your bounce rate. It’s a great idea to place links to your affiliates in an adequate context of your article to make the most of your targeted traffic. If you choose to advertise products from various vendors you can use the Woo Commerce plugin when you use WordPress as your platform for your website; you will be able to build an eCommerce store with a real potential of making money online. Best thing about this tools- they are free!
GENERATE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE
Next step in your venture to take advantage of one of the best ways to make money online is to heavily promote your website or, in case you choose the shorter route, the affiliate links. This is the step where many give up, as it is certainly a tough a race.
If you built a website in a niche that you are familiar with or open to learn about and become passionate with it you will be able to write original articles that will add real value to your online business, a thing that Google likes and will give you a nice boost on the search engine.
You will have to build backlinks to your site by leaving relevant comments on hi rank sites from your niche write articles for them or make press releases. There are many ways to build these links, something that we will cover in another article.
As you probably know already social media is one of the most powerful tools to advertise your items online; you can share articles and links with your friends but also pay for advertising. If people like your items they will share with their friends and results can be incredible.
Google Adwords is another popular way to pay to advertise your site and your products; you can choose to spend as little as $5 per day if you want to test the market or go big once you figured it out.
You Tube is the preferred method of advertising for many; especially those who choose to directly advertise their affiliate links without building a site (ClickBank products mainly). This is a very powerful tool, sometimes you can simply engage You Tube users who already have popular videos and work with them to advertise your links.
Once you master to built a relevant site in your niche and draw traffic to it earnings will start to come; it is not an easy journey but surely a rewarding one. Ultimately, building an affiliate website is cartainly worth the effort as it is one of the best ways to make money online. It is a learning process for many; everyone have their own ways of succeeding and there are certain things that you will have to learn on your own.
