Earn Money through Affiliate Marketing

---

Affiliate Marketing is the fastest growing industry on the Internet today. Extra income made through this channel runs into billions of dollars yearly. However, many people get involved in it without a solid plan for success. Indeed, many want to earn extra income using affiliate marketing, albeit without a real base plan, which is the most important reason for most being unsuccessful at it.  Should you really look at any earning without understanding or planning the future of any business, be it at work or at earning extra income?

Do not be under any misconceptions, though, affiliate marketing is an easy and entertaining way to earn extra income, but it is serious work and is just like any other job that requires effort, perseverance, and above all, a clear line of sight and plan of action from start to finish line.

Small things like setting up your home office properly, getting up to date on know-how, setting achievable goals, making people connections, and investment in your business will ensure that you are one-up on your competition, and also make sure that you firmly stand over them.

Home Office Setup

The most important step to take before becoming an affiliate marketer is to set up your base – a little home office you’ve always wanted.

You can find many resources on the internet about ergonomic design. Ergonomic because anyone intending to spend a major amount of time working on their computers need space which promotes good posture at the same time takes care of safety issues involving their office workspace.

Setting Goals

The major problem that plagues most new affiliate marketers is that they tend to set themselves unrealistic goals by being overconfident about their skills and plans. This results in becoming disenchanted very quickly due to non-attainment of goals. Being realistic removes a lot of pain in this context. For example, a goal of $5,000 a month is definitely attainable, but a first-time affiliate marketer is not likely to attain it when starting up.

Beginners and first timers should look at something more modest than $5,000 dollars a month. Starting with a smaller objective like $50 or $100 extra income a day, at the same time learning the trade’s smaller and important nuances will be worthwhile in creating a long term and sustained affiliate marketing business.

As a goal of earning extra income of $50 a day may seem small and non-lucrative, but it is achievable and affiliate marketing is a continuous learning process, it is a good place and budget, to begin with. Remember, you are also learning how to do things successfully at the same time. Give it some lead time and you could substantially increase your extra income using affiliate marketing.

Keep revising your goals periodically, as often as fortnightly or monthly. Remember these goals should point in the direction of one larger single goal that you want to achieve in terms of success or in terms of the amount of extra income you want to earn. Put these goals on paper and make sure they are in a visible range on your table all the time. This will help focus your energy towards your goals.

A lot of literature is available on focus and goal setting by renowned and successful people like Zig Ziggler and more. Reading them would help you not only to add to your knowledge base but also to work in a better and more efficient way towards achieving that extra income goal of yours.

The next step would be the most important in your career as an affiliate marketer to earn extra income. Go out of your way and into the field to make connections and contacts with relevant and useful people in the affiliate marketing industry.

Connections to Your Future

The professional affiliate marketing people are well knit and a close group of individuals connected constantly and regularly with each other. A constant stream of information is shared by helping each other. All these successful marketers strongly believe that everyone benefits by learning from each other’s mistakes.

Getting out there to help people would be a better attitude to take rather than just looking for business since this field of marketing works on a principle which says “Help yourself by helping others.” This is a better philosophy to follow in the long run to make long lasting friends and building a business that gives long lasting extra income. People out there will certainly help you when you are willing to help and extend the hand first.

If you can try and relate to these people, which I am sure you can since you will be sharing the same objectives as they do in the long run of generating a good extra income, will relieve a great deal of work stress and as a result, you will be able to perform better.

Learning the Trade of Affiliate Marketing

Nobody gets into work untrained. Even when you applied for your first job, you had made sure that you are qualified and can do justice to it. Putting in a nutshell, no one hires you for giving you a free extra income without basic training.

What you need then, is to get some training on how to become a professional affiliate marketer. You can start by finding another one (affiliate marketer) and check what they can do to help you. There are many professional affiliate marketers already earning a substantial extra income, who would be willing to teach you by passing on their knowledge so that you can augment the extra income they are already earning. The internet also offers a lot of resources of which you can learn to use.

The secret is to become a student of your own business; you will get to learn something new day after day. Then you will be ready to begin by setting more realistic goals for yourself.

What is the Best Way to Learn About Affiliate Marketing?

As an Affiliate Marketer myself, I learned through several methods:

1. Reading books by successful affiliate marketers
2. Taking part in webinars and workshops
3. Signing up for newsletters from successful Affiliate Marketers

But the single best way to learn about Affiliate Marketing I found several years ago.  In August of 2014 in fact.  That was the day I signed up for a FREE trial week at Wealthy Affiliate University (WA).  Yes, it was FREE.  I had full access to the WA online training and hosting platform for seven days.  I logged in and tried out some of the 10 free lessons (both textual and video based).  I entered the community area and “followed” many of the top affiliate marketers (experts who have achieved success) and read their posts and asked them questions – talk about connecting and networking – its the best!  They were wonderfully helpful.  I created my first blog site using WordPress, selecting a template, customizing it and created my first pages and posts as I walked through the 10 free lessons.

On Day 3 of my trial week, I was so impressed and inspired by what I had learned and the massive amount of expert training and help available, that I upgraded to a Premium Membership.  Yes – I pay each month for that membership.  With discounts, I pay only $25/month and I’m locked in at that rate – no expensive upgrades like other affiliate marketing training sites require of you.

I now host 21 websites with the free hosting that is part of my Premium membership.  17 of them are affiliate sites or client sites that I earn money from.  I make enough to pay for all my fees and extra.  I am still learning too and I have an affiliate marketing network of over 12k WA members, many who have reached their financial goals.

For more information, you can read my detailed Wealthy Affiliate Review on my “Earning Money in Retirement” blog site.

Or if you would like to try out the FREE 7-day trial, then click below.

Comments

I love to get questions and comment from my site visitors, please leave yours below and if you have enjoyed this post, share it with your friends. -Shirley

NOTE:  This post contains affiliate links, which, if clicked and a product purchased, I receive a small commission (with no extra cost to you).