An affiliate marketing passive income can provide you with an incredible lifestyle that most people only dream about. It’s a lifestyle that we call mobile and passive. Each of these two is powerful, and combined they’re unbeatable! Mobile means work from anywhere, and passive means earning income on vacation!
And you might have thought about creating an extra source of income apart from your daily job. Maybe you want to free yourself off that student loan, or need more to meet all your financial obligations (like family and life). Regardless of your reasons, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to create that additional income.
But is affiliate marketing passive income, and do you need to quit your day job? Here, we’ll briefly go over affiliate marketing and how it can create passive income for you.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
As the name suggests, affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where you promote a company’s product or service and receive a commission for every successful sale. And the best way to do this is with your own website. Period.
In simpler terms, affiliate marketing is a way to earn money by promoting other people’s or companies’ products without doing the sales work, like providing customer support or carrying inventory.
Find something you like (your passion), promote it to others with online content, and take a piece of the profit for each sale. It’s an attractive proposition for many brands as it represents a low-risk investment. And with time and hard work, it can provide you with a laptop lifestyle that gives you freedom and choice.
But how can affiliate marketing lead to passive income? Often people wonder where the passive part is in this equation. And it’s a valid question!
While affiliate marketing isn’t just a case of sharing a link and people buying things, there is a way to make it more passive.
Unfortunately, like everything else, it needs your hard work to get things off the ground (at least, to get started). And most people want to do it ethically, where others benefit from your hard work.
How To Make Affiliate Marketing Passive Income?
Start An Affiliate Website
The first thing in making affiliate marketing passive income is to have a platform where you can promote and convince potential customers to buy products. One of the best platforms to do this is a website. A website gives you a central place to promote all sorts of products and services. It becomes your foundation.
While other platforms, such as social media, are still effective, they don’t provide the same in-depth analysis and convincing power as a website. They are also not 100% your’s and often get taken down or censored. This is a very key distinction. With a social media account, you are borrowing your space on their platform, and you are at the mercy of their decisions and policies.
But a website is something that you own and control. You ultimately control the content, design, and how you want to promote products. And no one can take it from you!
Additionally, a single post on your website can get readers even after months or years, unlike social media posts, which get lost in the shuffle after a few days. Thanks to the power of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), website posts can get traffic long after you’ve published them.
While websites took weeks or even months to build in the past, nowadays, you can create a website in a matter of minutes or hours with various tools. Buy a domain, choose a hosting web service, and pick a template to start.
Click to see our recommendation of the very best tools online to build a website, and the training required to make it happen.
Generate Traffic to Your Website
After you’ve set up your website, which only takes a few days, the next step is to generate traffic or an audience. First, you optimize the site for search engines. That means using the right keyword, so your site appears as a top result when people search for topics related to your niche.
Second, create content that is convincing, easy to read & understand, and informative. It can be in the form of images, blog posts, infographics, or even videos. It also should be original and offer value to the reader. Don’t copy other people’s work, as this can lead to penalties from Google.
Your content must be high quality, determining whether people stay on your site or scroll to the next. If you have a high bounce rate (readers leaving your site immediately), it indicates your content isn’t good. And that hurts your site.
Also, you optimize the content for SEO to ensure that it appears as a top result in Google searches. Make sure it’s people-friendly and not just written for the search engines.
Apply for Affiliate Programs
With enough traffic (your audience) on your site, you can apply to be an affiliate for companies in your niche. For example, if your blog site is about cooking, you can be an affiliate for cooking equipment, utensils, or books.
The market has no shortage of affiliate networks. Some of the most popular Programs are:
- Amazon Associates
- ClickBank
- ShareASale
- CJ Affiliate by Conversant
Get Accepted Into an Affiliate Program
Most affiliate programs have a requirement list that applicants should meet before getting accepted. They vary from program to program, depending on the nature of the business. If you qualify, search for products that fit your website niche for promotion.
The affiliate program will provide you with merchant affiliate links. You insert these links on your website content by hyperlinking to relevant keywords or phrases. The links take your audience to the merchant’s website, where they can buy the product or service.
Generate Sales Through Your Affiliate Links
While building a considerable audience on your website takes time, it becomes much easier to generate sales once you do. If people like your content and find it helpful, then they are more likely to click your affiliate links and make a purchase.
Ensure you provide value with your content and not just promotional materials. No one wants to get spammed with affiliate links, so creating a balance is essential.
But if you’re writing about your passion, then your content will be naturally engaging as your audience will feel your passion. So don’t overthink the content part of this process….anyone can do it!
With a little effort, you can start earning passive affiliate marketing income and make money while still keeping your day job. You will only track your sales and progress to ensure that you’re on the right track. And if you need some further inspiration, check out our passive income quotes.
Online Affiliate Marketing Training
Consider taking an online course if you need more training on building a passive affiliate marketing business. Platforms such as Wealthy Affiliate offer comprehensive training in every aspect. You can start for free to see if it’s a good fit. Not even a credit card required to get the ball rolling. (1)
See our top to bottom review of Wealthy Affiliate, and you can decide if it’s for you!
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