Today I'm going to show you how to make money with affiliate marketing for free.
Getting started is easier than you might think…!
Never listen to self-proclaimed internet gurus who tell you you need to sign up for their expensive eBook to learn the ‘secrets' of affiliate marketing.
The only secret to affiliate marketing is that anyone can do it, yes even you. Because the truth is, with the right know-how you can start using affiliate marketing to make money online for free today.
And yes it's 100% free to get started so put your credit card away because you're not going to need to buy anything.
Right here, right now, I'm going to show you how to start your own affiliate marketing website and give you access to the best affiliate marketing training and toold you need to propel your online earnings.
You see, I've been making money online since 2014. Read my story here. Since then I quit my boring 9-5 call centre job, moved from the UK to Thailand and now, because I set online goals and then smashed them, I live the life I've always dreamed of.
I make $6,000+ a month as a direct result of following the step by step process I'm going to show you. I'm passionate about showing people like you how to get the same results.
What you’ll learn in this post
- 7 reasons why affiliate marketing is the best way to make money
- What affiliate marketing is and how it works
- How to get started with affiliate marketing for free, step-by-step
7 reasons why affiliate marketing is the best way to make money
I love affiliate marketing and my life was irreversibly changed 3 years ago when I first discovered it.
In my humble opinion and from first-hand experience, affiliate marketing is the best way to make money online.
Here's my top 7 reasons why:
1. It's free to start
Online business is definitely the best way to go if you're looking to start a business on a shoestring budget.
Forget the staff hiring costs, rental expenses and high investment costs needed for traditonal business and welcome to the internet age where anyone can earn money online without needing to beg the bank for an expensive business loan.
Thanks to websites like SiteRubix you can create your first affiliate marketing website in just a few minutes. They provide aspring affiliate marketers with free domains, free hosting and a beginner's-friendly website builder.
Free affiliate marketing training courses like those found at Wealthy Affiliate can equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to become a successful affiliate marketer, if you're serious enough to spend the time to develop and hone in on your skills.
2. You choose what you want to promote
You can build an affiliate marketing website around any topic and promote whatever you like.
Interested in fashion? Why not start a ‘real leather belts for men‘ affiliate website, dominate the niche and earn $$$ in commissions.
Got a passion for gadgets? Set up an affiliate website to promote the best camera drones, send people to Amazon and you've just built yourself an impressive online income stream.
An affiliate website can be built on almost any topic you can think of.
3. Your potential earnings are limitless
There are over 3.5 billion people searching online everyday. By using affiliate marketing as your weapon of choice, you can tap into this huge global marketplace and make money around the clock.
In 2016, consumers spent $327 billion online. And it's rising year on year. The best time to start your affiliate marketing business is now!
“The best time to start is yesterday. The next best time to start is now.”
4. Affiliate marketing pays you again and again
Making money with affiliate marketing takes drive, determination and hard work. As a beginner you'll have to spend time learning new skills. And whilst starting websites is easy, building them out with high quality content takes time.
Think about what most people in the employed bracket do – they get up at the crack of dawn every weekday because they need to clock in on time and put the hours in if they want to get paid. If they don't work, they won't get paid. It's a simple formula – they work for 37 hours and get paid for those 37 hours, just once.
The beautiful thing about running your own online business is that you'll get paid for the time and effort you put in to crafting that perfect blog post and hitting publish even years later. Pretty cool right?
The very first website I set up 3 years ago was about leadership and self-development. That same site still pays me $2,000 a month despite the fact I haven't touched it in 18 months.
This is a radical and powerful shift away from the traditional ‘put the hours in and get paid once' way of doing things. Affiliate marketing leverages your time and effort by paying you again and again, for the work you did once.
5. Affiliate marketing makes you time-rich
Because professional affiliate marketers know how to make time work for them, they're not forced to participate in the 9-5 rat race.
I probably wouldn't go as far to say making money through affiliate marketing is 100% passive, because it's not. You do have to put the work in to live the life you want.
But once you've got your niche websites started with a consistent flow of website visitors and a steady stream of sales coming in, you can maintain it with just a couple of hours a week.
Compare that with an executive SEO who earns $100,000 a year plus bonuses but has to work 60+ hours a week. That's what we call being cash-rich but time-poor. You can have all the money in the world but without time to spend it enjoying life, it's worthless. This is why time is your biggest asset, you can only spend it once.
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”
― Stephen Swid
6. You can work anywhere with an internet connection
Thanks again to the internet, if I want to work from home or take a trip to my local coffee shop I can.
Heck, if I felt the urge to take it to extremes, I could work from a tropical island beach. (There's one just an hour away from where I live.)
To be honest I probably wouldn't though because the WiFi is terrible and I don't want to get sand in my keyboard but the point is I could if I wanted to!
You could take this a step further and start a travel blog to fund your global adventures. Affiliate marketing makes everything possible.
I started my first website in an upstairs bedroom at my mum's house in a small village in the north of England. Now I'm writing this from my very own condo in Sriracha, Thailand. I'm no longer bound by geography.
7. Once you know how, you can rinse and repeat
If you follow this guide and make money with your first affiliate marketing website, you put yourself into the ‘successful online entrepreneur' category and the only way is up.
By that I mean, once you know what works you can repeat to scale. You have a whole lifetime to build as many affiliate marketing websites as you like in as many niches as you like.
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Before we get into helping you become a profiteering affiliate marketing pro, I just want to lay out exactly what affiliate marketing is and how you can cash in on it. Here's a quick video breakdown:
Click here to get instant access to your free affiliate marketing course
Definition: A way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies (“affiliates”) who market the company's products for a commission . – Entrepreneur.com
The best way to make money with affiliate marketing is to create a website (don't worry this is easier than it sounds) based around a narrow topic. This is what we call a niche website.
Let's take ‘running shoes for women‘ as an example.
You'd create a website called runningshoesforwomen.com and create helpful content in the form of blog posts like this one you're reading now or videos.
You could talk about the importance of wearing correct footwear when running ad make recommendation. You could review different types of running shoes, pointing out the pros and cons of each, basically giving relevant information and advice to women looking to buy women's running shoes.
You could join free affiliate programs like Nike, Reebok or Amazon where they give you your own unique affiliate link you can use in your website to point people towards their online stores.
Once you've got that set up it's time to attract visitors to your website. You can this by sharing your content on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
You also learn how to get your website to come up at the top of search results on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing to send flood of people to your site.
If someone you referred to, say, Amazon, makes buy something, Amazon will give you a set commission for every sale you sent their way.
How to get started with affiliate marketing for free step-by-step
Now I've shown you how simple the process actually is, let's get this show on the road and get you started in the right direction.
Remember when I promised I'd show you how to make money with affiliate marketing for free? Well, I'm a man who stands by his word, so let's get into the nuts and bolts of how you can set up your first website, start getting traffic and make your first affiliate sale.
Are you ready?
Follow this guide and you will be a very successful and profitable affiliate marketer. And the work you put in now will pay dividends for years to come.
1. Create your free account at Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate is the internet's number one affiliate marketing training course and they'll show you exactly how to create your first income-generating website.
The video walkthroughs and action steps with each lesson makes it ideal for beginners. In fact, Wealthy Affiliate is the exact place I learned how to earn $6,000+ a month online.
Click here to join Wealthy Affiliate as a free member. All you need is your name and email to get started.
Further reading:
How to join Wealthy Affiliate
The Wealthy Affiliate review
How long does it take to make money with Wealthy Affiliate?
Once inside the member's area, you like you can write a short profile bio by way of introducing yourself to the Wealthy Affiliate community if you like.
2. Start your free Wealthy Affiliate training
Now you're in it's time to start your affiliate marketing training! Inside the member's area you'll see a green ‘Get Started Here' button. Click that to head over to course 1.
The best thing about Wealthy Affiliate's Online Certification Course is that it's practical, interactive and created specifically with newbies in mind.
Here's an outline of the first course (Level 1):
Lesson 1: Welcome and Getting Started!
Lesson 2: How You Actually Make Money Online
Lesson 3: Choosing The Right niche
Lesson 4: Going LIVE With Your Very Own Website
Lesson 5: Laying The Foundations For Future Success
Lesson 6: Telling Search Engines Your Site Exists
Lesson 7: The Key That Unlocks Top Google Rankings
Lesson 8: Creating your first pages and posts
Lesson 9: Creating Content That Connects
Lesson 10: Time To Kick It Up A Notch
More than just theory, as you complete the action steps at the end of each lesson you'll be building your affiliate marketing business. This means you can earn as you learn.
Take your time, follow through with the lessons and you'll give yourself the very best chance of success. All of your website builders, resources and tools are easily accessible in one place, not to mention support and help for when you need it.
3. Reach out and ask for help when you need it
When we're learning something new, they'll inevitably be times when we're feeling stuck. Can you do me a favour? If when you're going through the course, you're not quite sure about something or just want some advice, please reach out and get support.
It won't take you long to realise the Wealthy Affiliate community of like-minded entrepreneurs are a friendly and helpful bunch who are more than happy to answer your questions or give you feedback. They were a lifeline to me when I first started.
You can join the conversation in the live chat area, add your comment within the lesson area or ask a question within the community. There are lots of ways you can get support quickly, so take advantage of it and learn from experienced affiliate marketers who are already where you want to be!
There you have it
I've just given a rundown on the basics of affiliate marketing and given you access to the training and tools you need to make it happen – for free. Now it's over to you.
If you really want to make money with affiliate marketing then apply yourself to the affiliate marketing course, commit the process of investing time into your education and your future self will be glad you did.
Take massive action on what you're learning and nothing will be able to stop you from making your dreams a reality. You'll be the one getting sand in your keyboard and living the time-rich entrepreneur lifestyle.
Have you got any questions about making money with affiliate marketing? Pro affiliate marketers, do you have any tips or advice for people just starting out? Please leave your questions and comments below 🙂
Simon Crowe is on a mission to help as many people as possible kiss their bosses goodbye.
Take the free Wealthy Affiliate test drive to discover how to smash your online income goals and make your dream business a reality.
Thank you for your insights on this.
Every day new challenges but I can not give up, Please Keep doing this worthy work and updating me.
I am new in this era and facing some problem like traffic, links, time management etc but after reading this information I get a lot of confidence, really you help me a lot. Keep doing this within work and updating me.
Hi Gaurav, I hope you’re doing well.
You have a great website there with a lot of good content. I can see you’ve had your website since 2014 so I wouldn’t say you’re a newbie.
If your content is unique then you should be getting Google rankings already, if you’re not then you need to take a look at what keywords you’re targeting and although you can gleam ideas from others, work hard to write from your own perspective because if you’re just writing what everyone else has already written about or spinning articles, Google will have no reason to rank you.
I think you might benefit from the Online Certification course at Wealthy Affiliate. Although you obviously know a lot, it will take you back to the beginning and work through gaps in your knowledge and make sure you can continue to build your site on a strong foundation.
I hope this helps, if you need any advice or feedback, please just let me know 🙂 All the best to you!
I like the way you explain affiliate marketing. Work once, and get paid continuously, unlike the employee who works and just gets paid once. This is the mentality of the majority of employed the people having a short term goal in life. The definition of working a job to me is being broke, living from pay packet to pay packet. A wealthy life is being time rich, very well said.
Thank you I appreciate that! I know making money with affiliate marketing can be a little intimidating at first, especially for beginners, so I try to lay it out as simple as possible and give people the tools and resources so they can start in the right direction. A lot of people helped me when I first started and know it’s my turn to do the same 🙂
Yes I read an analogy recently in Tim Ferriss’ ‘4 Hour Work Week’ book. He asked the queston, who is richer, the high level executive making $100,000+ a year but has to work all hours and never see his family, or the affiliate markter who builds a passive income stream online, works just a few hours day and gets to enjoy his life with the people he loves?
This is what being time’rich is all about and affiliate marketing is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to achieve this.
Hi Simon,
Enjoyed reading thru your site and it raised a couple of questions.You highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate and I was curious, is there a lot of help for newbies within W.A.? Where does all the training material in W.A. come from? Is it rehashed stuff or written by successful individuals?
Regarding an Amazon store or account, how much traffic does a person need before they are able to sustain an Amazon account?
Sorry for so many questions but your post stirred my curiosity. Well done,
Jim
Hi Jim,
I wrote a post recently called What is the best internet marketing training for beginners? and Wealthy Affiliate is always my number one recommendation for people who are serious about making money with affiliate marketing.
The main reason is you are given a very clear road to run on, mentors to guide you along the way and all without any hype, up-sells or any other nonsense. It just gets to the practicalities of learning how to start an affiliate marketing business for yourself that actually makes money.
The Wealthy Affiliate training is comprehensive and systematic which is why it’s perfect for newbies – everything is explained in an easy to understand way and the courses are very interactive. It’s created by co-founders Kyle and Carson who are two very successful internet markters who have been doing this for 40+ years combined. Wealthy Affiliate was launched in 2005 and today boasts of more than 800,000 members.
I wrote an honest and full review of Wealthy Affiliate here, including Wealthy Affiliate FAQs which you might find useful.
With the regards to the Amazon Affiliate’s program, it’s free to join and pretty straight forward. If I remember correctly, they close your account if there has been no activity (sales) over a 3 year period. I’d say it’s best to have a website up and running before you apply as that’ll increase your chances of being accepted. All aspects of applying for affiliate programs and choosing the best affiliate programs to promtoe on your website are covered in detail within the Wealthy Affiliate’s training courses.
I hope this helps Jim, let me know how you get on! Wishing you every success.
Hi Simon! Great overview of affiliate marketing and recommending Wealthy Affiliate is a great move also. I work with Wealthy Affiliate and it is an amazing community. Do you think that people are scared of their own success – they want to take the leap into internet marketing but fear kicks in. “what if it actually works” I think winning the power of the mind is the key to online success – and you seem to be doing a great job. Keep up the good work buddy. Ricky Brigg
Hey thanks Ricky!
Honestly, I think it’s sometimes people are scared to go into this for a mixture of this, one of them is a fear of the unknown for sure. I mean getting results you’ve never had before will mean doing something you’ve never done before which is scary for some people. I think this is why sites like Wealthy Affiliate are so important, they give guidance and support and only teach real and proven affiliate marketing methods.
Another thing that stops some people is the terrible reputation the ‘make money online’ sector has. It is definitely getting better as people wise up to the work from home scammers, but I think it can be difficult (it was for me) for beginners to know who to trust. This is why I recommend that people looking to make money with affiliate marketing, join as a free Starter member so they can try it out for themselves.
This is a great article, I enjoyed learning how to make money with affiliate marketing. You put together some valuable information that will take my knowledge to a whole new level in building my business online.
I do believe making money with affiliate marketing is possible with the right tool. Wealthy affiliate has been a great challenge in taking my business to the top. Thanks for a wonderful article.
Thank you Anthony, I agree – success in affiliate marketing comes if you have the right training, tools and support, and a generous portion of elbow grease from your end.
I’m glad you’re learning lots of new things and making progress with your affiliate marketing business, thanks for sharing. As my mentor likes to say “Keep climbing, see you at the top!” 🙂
I’ve just discovered Affiliate Marketing and as you say, when you think how many people use the internet each day then it seems a no brainer that with perserverance and the ability to write engaging content anyone can be successful at this. You really hit the nail on the head when it comes to the potential and benefits of affiliate marketing and I am excited about what lies ahead. Also just to say I love Thailand – great place to live.
Hi Steve, for people looking to get out of the rat race, become financially independent and start earning money online, affiliate marketing is definitely the route to go down. $6billion was earned online last year and that’s only going to increase! Believe it or not, the internet is still in it’s infant stage and the best time to starting making money with affiliate marketing is now! With 3.5 billion people online every day the potential is HUGE.
Yeah Thailand is definitely where I feel like ‘home’. I’m thinking about starting another website (I love starting websites!!) about my adventures. It’s very different to village life in England that’s for sure 😉
Hi there,
I myself would like to say that my experience with wealthy affiliate has been nothing but AMAZING! I spent hours and hours searching for a legit online work from home job and I came across wealthy affiliate. Let me just say, it was the best thing to happen to me and I am now able to do what I love, which is writing. Thank you for this amazing article.
Wow thanks for sharing your Wealthy Affiliate experience so far Yancey. Wealthy Affiliate’s slogan is “Turn your passion into a thriving business” and it definitely sounds like that’s what they’ve helped you do.
I also spent years, on and off, looking for a real way to work from home. I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad when I was 19 years old and I dreamed of a better life. But like anyone else, searching online for “the best way to earn money online” or “work from home opporunities” brings up a lot of scammers and I did get scammed a few times.
Thanks God those days are behind me. One of the main reasons I decided to launch The Make Money Online Blog was for this very reason, to help others avoid the work from home scams I fell victim to and to tell people “There really is a legit way to make money online and anyone can do it!”
I’m glad you found this article useful, I enjoyed writing it 🙂