Are you wondering what is the secret to affiliate marketing? Are you looking for those little gems that are going to make you rich, rich, rich? Well, then…
I hate to break it to you.
There really aren’t any secrets to affiliate marketing. But don’t worry, I will reveal some things to you anyway. Instead of secrects, I’m going to reveal some truths about this business. Some good, some not so good. Unlike those marketing “gurus” in their big fancy houses, I give it to you straight.
I actually love affiliate marketing. Love. It. But it took some time to get there because I was also looking for secrets and trying to make money really fast when I first started. This just made the process frustrating and not fun. I gave it up for a long time.
Now, I think of it differently. And if you can too, you can be wildly successful.
Let’s go over some things.
#1 – It Takes Time to Grow Your Website
Despite what you see out there in the affiliate marketing world, it actually takes time to grow a website into one that’s trusted by both search engines and people. I’ve been doing some reviews on different programs out there, and the one thing they seem to all have in common is that they all try to make it seem like it’s super easy and super fast to make money online.
I’m sorry, but this just isn’t true. I don’t have any official data on this, but I’m guessing this is the number 1 reason why people give up so easily. They think it’s going to be quick and easy. “It only takes `10 minutes a day. You only need a few clicks of a button to get the money rolling in. You can siphon it so easily off of the big guys.”
Er, no.
If you see these types of messages, then just turn your computer off and walk away. Please don’t be lured by them because they just don’t work. They’ll give you all the “secrets” for just $37? No. They won’t. Usually you end up with an out-of-date product that doesn’t really teach you anything. Then you’re left with $37 less dollars and you’re back to square 1.
How It Really Works
The way that it really works is through a simple process. But it’s one that takes some time. It goes a little like this.
- You think of a topic that you would like to write about (or create videos about if you ilke YouTube).
- You come up with a good domain name.
- You get hosting and put your site up.
- You find good keywords related to your topic.
- You start to write content using your keywords.
- You keep writing.
- You keep writing.
- You write some more.
- Google doesn’t know you yet, so you keep writing.
- And writing, and writing…
- Eventually Google finds you.
- You start to get ranked for your keywords.
- People begin to find you, but slowly.
- You keep writing and writing and writing.
- More people find you.
(Don’t know what any of this means? Check out my FREE Guide to Making Money Online for Beginners.)
And that goes on and on and on until you can become a trusted person on your topic. Once you get some traffic to your site, you can begin to make sales.
People get frustrated here because they think this should all happen really fast. It takes time. Think about the way you do things online. How do you shop? Do you just go to the first site that looks brand new, or do you find a trusted site? Take your time, provide good content and become a trusted site!
#2 – You Don’t Have to Be a Great Writer
You really don’t have to be a great writer to write a blog. I know I’m definitely not winning any awards for writing. I use improper grammar, sentence structure and probably misspell so many things. That’s OK though. As long as you can get your point across and speak passionately about your topic, people will read what you have to say.
Whenever I’m doing research for something I want to write about, I see so many awesome blogs and great bloggers. I start to lose a little confidence because they are doing everything so perfectly. Then I remember it’s ok because we all have different voices. I love to read different blogs about the same topics because they’re different thoughts, opinions and ideas on the same subject.
So, keep that in mind. Just because someone might have the same topic out there, don’t let it stop you. Use it as motivation to get ahead of them and be even better. Just keep it to a friendly competition though. Be nice. There’s room for everyone at the top. 🙂
#3 – Affiliate Marketing Really Has Some Benefits
I’m just going to first list the obvious benefits of being an affiliate marketer.
You get to:
- Be your own boss, set your own schedule
- Be there for your kids / spouse / signficant other / fur babies when they need it
- Be creative by making images and writing
- Use your brain to solve problems when they come up
- Create unlimited income (it’s only limited by your time and effort)
- Create multiple streams of income
Those are al obvous and probably the reasons why most people are seeking out affiliate marketing in the first place. Now, since I’ve been doing this full-time, I have discovered some not-so-obvious benefits too!
I get to:
- Work on my deck with my feet up when it’s nice out
- Play with my cats in between writing articles
- Run in the morning before working and in the evening after working too! Woot. I’m losing weight because of affiliate marketing.
- Eat when I want and what I want. I don’t like eating by someone else’s schedule. This is also helping me lose weight because I can eat when I’m hungry, and not just “when it’s time”.
- Do the laundry or vacuum during my mini breaks. Housework gets done little-by-little throughout the week, leaving weekends for more fun things.
- Save money on gas because I don’t need to go anywhere to work.
- Get errands done when there’s not much traffic because the majority of people are at work. This saves time.
I could go on and on really. Your not-so-obvious benefit list will probably look a little different, but you get the point. It’s great working for yourself!
#4 – You Need Good Training
When you first started any new job, what happened? You got training, right? What about when you decided what you wanted to be and started taking classes in college? That’s also training.
Affiliate marketing is no different. If it’s new to you, then you need to learn the skills to be successful. And you need to continue to learn new strategies and techniques. Please don’t fall for those push-button marketing schemes. That will never work. It just won’t.
Everytime I see one of those, I cringe. Remember at the top up there when we talked about how it takes time to build up a website? That’s what those push-button systems are missing. They’re mostly missing the traffic portion.
In other words, maybe they’ll have you push a button to send out a video that has ads in it like Viral Cash App‘s program. But as I discussed in that review, you’ll be pushing your video out to no one. No one’s going to react to it because you need traffic for that. You need people to see your stuff. Again, that takes time to build up.
I use the training at Wealthy Affiliate. They are good because you get step-by-step videos walking you through the whole process of build an affiliate marketing website start-to-finish. But they’re also good because they have weekly live trainings so that you can stay up-to-date on everything. I would be nowhere without this site. Nowhere.
You might be able to find videos on YouTube for free, but it’s going to tak you even longer to put it all together and have a site that has good content and traffic coming in. I’m not going to tell you all the things that Wealthy Affiliate offers. I’m just going to show you my button that goes to my review page. Everything is there.
Click the Button to See Why Wealthy Affiliate is My #1 Affiliate Marketing Training Pick
Do You REALLY Want to Be an Affiliate Marketer?
Those are all of my “secrets” that I wanted to reveal to you. What do you think? Now you know some downsides and some upsides. Do you still really want to be an affiliate marketer? I know when people really want to continue and become an affiliate marketer. How? They’re the ones in Wealthy Affiliate who put their heads down, do the work that needs to be done and don’t worry about making money right away.
Can you live without making money for a while while you get your website going? Are you willing to jsut keep writing even though there’s no money coming in? (By the way, you can absolutely do this even if you already have a job. Just work on it when you can, but be consistent.)
Because if you can be willing to learn and go through the proper training and thenget to work building your site, you will reap the benefits in the end.
What’s your end goal? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to achieve? Do you want more time with your family? Do you want to work from home so you can pet your cats like me? Do you want to be your own boss and not have someone else’s schedule dictate your life? Do you want to set up multiple sites so that you have multiple streams of income? ALL of this can be accomplished.
If you’re willing to put in the time and energy to do it.
Trust me, it’s worth it.
Let Me Help You Get Started
To help those who are really serious about affiliate marketing get started, I’ve put together a FREE guide to Making Money Online for Beginners. I even show you how you can get a website up and running in just a few minutes. It’s actually really easy! (No, no. I’m not trying to be one of “those” marketers. It IS really easy to get your site up. The harder part is getting traffic to it!)
I’ve blathered on enough in this post. You know all the secrets. If you’re still interested in affiliate marketing after that, just click on the button below and let’s get started!
Click the Button to Go to My FREE Guide to Making Money Online for Beginners
Do you have any quesitons or comments about affiliate marketing? Is this something you’ve tried before? What did you think of it? Are you still interested? Why or why not? Leave me comments below.
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Hello Christina, first of all let me say that I love your site! loving it. Its just perfect and easy to navigate. This article right here is just brilliant. Thank you so much for explaining really how it works to be an affiliate marketer and how much work and time it needs to succeed. Many people think that this online business thing is easy and that they will be rich fast with no work done. Thanks again and much success to you!
Andrea
Thank you so much Andrea! All these “get-rich-quick” schemes really make people think that it’s really easy to be a millionaire working online, Like money just magically falls into your lap. Or there’s a button you just need to push and it hooks you into a “secret” system that will just start siphoning money. I used to fall for that too, and I can’t believe I did now that I see how ridiculous they are.
I have tried so many times in the past but was always overwhelmed by all the information that is out there on the internet. I like the idea that there is training videos and live trainings to help keep up with an ever changing market. Is there anything else that Wealthy Affiliate offers besides just the trainings?
Hey Huy! Wealthy Affiliate offers pretty much everything you need to get started. Including:
– Step-by-by step training to get your site going from start to finish
– Secure hosting
– Domain name purchasing
– 24/7 Support
– Weekly live trainings
– A community of like-minded people
– A content creator
– Keyword research tool
I’m sure I’m missing some things, but basically, they pretty much have everything. 🙂
Hello Christina,
You nailed it. Starting an affiliate marketing business takes time and effort but it well worth it at the end. Usually people are looking for easy and fast solutions and they just waste their time and money on hype products. But creating and growing a long-term affiliate business is another story and as you said it requires time, proper training and necessary tools to become successful at it.
Is the Wealthy Affiliate training that you use free?
Best,
Albert
Yes, Albert, I do use the training at Wealthy Affiliate. I use the paid version since you get a lot more information. I think of it almost like college. I paid to go to college to learn, and I pay to learn at Wealthy Affiliate, too! (Except, I think I’ve learned WAY more useful things at Wealthy Affiliate. lol)
There is a free membership as well if people want to just try it out and see if they like affiliate marketing.
Thanks for stopping by!
Affiliate marketing can be a magical thing. However, like you stated, people need to realize how much goes into making it happen. There is no such thing as a fast-track or get-rich-quick idea that makes money appear out of nowhere. I’m glad there is someone else out there telling people the truth about how hard it can be to get started and offering alternatives to help them along the way. Great Job!
I love how you said affiliate marketing can be magical. I think it’s magical too. There are so many benefits to being in this business. I just love it! Unfortunately, you’re also right that the magic doesn’t extend to making money appear out of thin air. I wish! lol Good training, time, patience and practice are what make the money appear.
Hi Christina, i know what you mean when you say you look at other people who write blogs and they are doing everything so perfectly, i felt the same way when i recently joined affiliate marketing. I have tried to think that our sites are all different for many reasons and probably no-one site is perfect.
What i found however, is there are some very good ones and i think yours is very good. You have presently your readers a clear and concise suite of ideas if followed as per the training will lead to financial success.
Cheers to your success and the success of your readers, thanks Shane.
Thanks Shane for your kind words. I always keep in mind that I love plant-based blogs and YouTubers and they’re all different and unique with their own way of doing and saying things. This is no different. There is room for all of us. 🙂
You’re so right when you say not to fall for the “get rich quick” tricksters out there! I have been fooled so many times. I’m glad I came across this honest opinion and explanation on what affiliate marketing actually is!
How much time do you recon is a realistic time to wait before you will start seeing any income?
I think you can start making sales fairly quickly. Not overnight but maybe in a 2-3 months. Realistically, a full-time income will likely take 1-2 years. But it really depends on your niche, your effort and how much time you put into it. It could be much faster than that, or even slower. The thing is, if you make a full-time income doing this, isn’t it going to be worth it?? I always say the time passes anyway, so why not do something with that time and work on creating a better future?
AWESOME article. I love your straight-forward approach. Thank you for being so realistic! Everything you said is spot on–there are no “secrets”, only truths….it’s a process that takes time and patience, and you’ll only fail if you’re not willing to invest your time or patience, and you’re only limited by what you’re able to put into it or not. Thanks for putting it all out there so succinctly!
Thanks, Holly! You get me! 🙂 I see people give up so quickly (I was one of those people in the past) and there’s really no reason to. Just keep working at it.
You are absolutely right when you say that there are no secrets to making money really fast as an affiliate marketer, and in fact in any other form of business ownership.
A lot of people make the mistake of trying too hard to make money really fast when they first start, I believe this is part of the learning curve in any business, perhaps more so in affiliate marketing.
I am in business, not online, but in a reasonably successful business and I can tell you that no matter what type of business the main thing to remember is that it takes time.
Your comment about keeping on writing sounds like the critical step here. Which means that you will need to have a good knowledge of your product, industry or area of interest so that the writing can be consistent and improve with experience.
I like the way you have explained the pros and cons of affiliate marketing but the one thing I am sure of is that the amount of free time that you have will not be great until you have become profitable (or is that successful?).
I’m glad you brought the offline business experience into this conversation. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye if they hear that it takes a year or more for an offline business to be profitable. Yet, the rules seem to be different in people’s mind about online business. It’s not really much different because in either case, you still have to get the word out that you exists and you have to start to build up a good reputation.
I’m fairly new to Affiliate Marketing, and still has a long road ahead of me to eventually be a successful Affiliate Marketer. You did a great job on sharing an overview and general information of Affiliate Marketing. I agree with you that this is not a get rich quick kind of scheme, It really takes hard work and passion for you to succeed.
I think the secret to being a successful Affiliate Marketer is no other than your “proper mindset, perseverance.”
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Glenda! Stay the course and you will do great!
I completely agree with you. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for anyone to earn real money but time is our only problem. We want money and we want it now, today and that is the problem, we think that with few clicks we will earn $$$$ in no time. You did great job writing this because people need to understand that it takes time.
I know. I think we’re so used to getting everything we want right this minute. (or in two days if you’re an Amazon Prime member! lol!) Patience is a virtue for a reason!
I have been involved in the Wealthy Affiliate Program for two years and I could not agree more on what you have revealed on this website. The program requires hard work, but if you follow it lesson by lesson, you end up with all the knowledge and skills to build a niche website based on your passion. You are proof of that.
I especially like your “Pick Plants” website and the section on “Essential Oils”. Easy to read, understand and help in taking the next step.
Your sites are such a pleasure to view and read.
Thanks, Roger! I appreciate your comments and your thoughts! I wouldn’t know how to do much without the training at Wealthy Affiliate. They have taught me everything.