From the Inbox
“I have been thinking about Affiliate Marketing. I do not have any marketing experience or a website and to be honest I don’t know where to begin. Is it easy to make extra money doing affiliate marketing from home? I am looking for an extra income of $500 plus a month.”
…..
Let me start by saying that making $500 plus a month is completely attainable doing affiliate marketing at home as your business, in fact super affiliates do better than that.
Reaching super affiliate status will depend on a few things, for example, how much you enjoy working in front of a computer at home all day, how self-motivated you are, the programs you promote and your promotion methods.
If you are a self-starter then affiliate marketing can be one of the easiest ways to make money online. Of course the word easy is relative, but compared to other home businesses it’s considered easier because you don’t need a product of your own, there’s no inventory, no licenses or fees, no shopping carts needed, no order processing and no shipping.
Your job as an affiliate marketer starts with offering useful information on a topic of interest for both you and the internet community. Once you decide on a topic, your job is to promote products that relate to that topic.
One thing to note is that your job as an affiliate marketer is not sell products or services to your readers, but to pre-sell. In other words your job is to warm them up by helping them understand how the products will benefit them. You’re helping them make the buying decision.
It’s the job of the sales page to make the actual sale.
So what does it take to do affiliate marketing from home?
For starters you’re going to need a computer and access to the internet. Next choose a good keyword research tool such as the Google Keyword tool or Wordtracker to help you find a profitable niche topic and categories to build your website or blog around.
A mistake that many affiliate marketers make is choosing too broad of a niche. For example, skincare is a popular topic that gets over 1600 searches a day but it also has over 90 million competing websites, that’s much too broad.
A much more realistic niche might be ‘Rosacea’ which gets over 500 clicks a day and has far less competing websites. Remember, the more focused the niche the less competition you’ll have which gives you a much better chance for making sales.
Next, create a blog around your niche topic. You can create a completely free blog with Blogger.com or create a self-hosted blog using WordPress. Creating a self-hosted WordPress blog requires a little more setup instruction and if you’re interested in going this route you can get step-by-step instructions as a bonus for signing up for my weekly tips newsletter above 
Once your blog is created, research the categories you’d like to add to your blog. For example, using my Wordtracker keyword research tool I found ‘rosacea’ categories such as:
- caring for rosacea
- rosacea treatments
- rosacea causes
- rosacea natural remedies
- makeup for rosacea
- rosacea diet
These categories will also help with ideas for writing content to add to your posts.
Make a commitment to post content to your blog at least 3 times a week and make your posts worth reading. Your success will depend on your ability to relate to your readers both emotionally and physically and be sure you understand the kinds of things they are most interested in finding out about.
If you get stuck on what to blog about here are 50 creative blogging ideas that may help.
Find Relevant Quality affiliate products or Services to Promote
Once your blog is indexed and you’re beginning to see some traffic, find the best affiliate marketing programs to promote A good affiliate marketer purchases and uses the products and services they are promoting. Write a product review. You could even invite others to guest post with their review.
It doesn’t take any special talent or ability to be successful at affiliate marketing, what it does take is a willingness to take action, strong commitment, strong focus and a commitment to making your affiliate website or blog profitable. And don’t forget, never stop learning 
You May Also Find These Interesting...
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think Affiliate Marketing from home is the best way to make money online.Nice informative post.Thanks a lot for sharing such information with us.
Thanks for this. I agree that keyword research upfront is crucial and should be the driver of your home business. Getting into something that is too niche or else the opposite (too sought after and thus too competitive) is a recipe for a lot of time wasting.
Before engaging with an affiliate programs, it must be related to your niche. This is the most important thing to know and to monetize your affiliate.
Twitter: Lintre
March 10, 2010 at 12:34 am
Affiliate marketing is great when you find the right niche, learn how to market, advertise and promote to a targeted market for the specific niche. Working online allows many freedoms, more time with the family, setting our own schedules, and earning is “the sky is the limit” depending on how much time and effort we put into it. You have some great information here, thanks.
Affiliate Marketing from home is a great way to earn extra money. Trying to find your right niche is often hard, but once you find yours the sky is the limit. Working from home can involve more hard work than working outside the home.