Just the tip:
Affiliate marketing is probably a small boy style business but its probably a bigger boy than your W2 job. I started diving hard into the world of SEO for our Saas company and deals website (we gotta distribute or it will fail) and realized there SEO may be a perfect gig…but the article isn’t about SEO. We will talk about that some other time. So really good SEO (search engine optimization…the goal is to be the 1st result on google) people don’t run an agency, they just work for themselves. They run affiliate sites. So affiliate sites exist to get you to buy a product. They advertise a product or somehow sucker you into their website with probably bullshit info about products so you click their referral link. If you buy something from that website in the next week or month, they will get a cut of the action.
Quick off topic:
If you get bored, look into SEO. You realize the internet is nothing but BS marketing. Those “Best TV of 2023” articles is nothing but an affiliate site. The best TV is probably a link to the highest paying affiliate site and is NOT the best TV. This same goes for VPN/whatever topic you searched on Google. Looking at blackhat seo tactics make you realize everything is basically a scam. I was excited about a digital PR place to help with our SEO for our sites. It had 250ish 5 starish Trustpilot reviews. This must be a great product! Well, then you realize some dude sells Trustpilot reviews and Google reviews for $10 each. So for $2500 my website looks like a killer. ITS ALL A SCAM (or modified truth we should call it)
Quick Thoughts:
Cost to get started: [1]This is a single $ ($,000) business to get started (hell it could be a $0 business to get started. You need to buy a domain, you need some wordpress hosting, and probably some sort of tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to get started for keyword research.
Ease of business: [1] – If old ladies can run cooking blogs, you can do this too.
How big can this grow: [3] While you can see some major outlets out there that work on affiliate marketing, they probably make most of their money on ads. I think this could be a solid $100k-200k business (with like 95% profit margin). If it got big, it could be in the low millions.
Resource level: [1] It doesn’t take much to get started. Tons of great info on youtube. If you want to shortcut it, you can buy a course. Ahrefs has a full video series on Youtube for free.
Can I pull it off: [5] For sure, and I’m going to prove it. This shiny object took hold one night and I’m running with it.
Why This and Where is It Going?
Reason #1: So why am I going to run with this affiliate marketing idea? Well, I needed to find a list of emails for healthcare professionals for a future business idea. I need an audience to spam. I need them to come sign up for the other future business so I have distribution when the time comes. How do I get that list of healthcare professionals? MONEY…not my money but someone else’s’ through affiliate marketing.
Reason #2: I have a guy working for me full time as a python programmer. He is a web developer that helps run our deals website and is responsible for scraping all of the info we need for the site. I’m going to flex more of his skills for this affiliate marketing idea too. He’s on payroll and has free time, might as well use our paid resources
Reason #3: I developed an obsession with the idea of SEO. If you can learn SEO skills, you can distribute anything. Online casinos, generic viagra, saas software, onlyfans accounts…I wonder if people really use SEO for onlyfans (see…another shiny object).
Where is this field going? I’m not sure where it’s going but I can tell you 100% its not going down. Advertising is behind everything we consume in our lives. Products we purchase, places we eat, information we consume. Affiliate marketing is nothing but getting paid based on results of advertising. As the internet has consumed our lives, I feel that this segment has a lot of room to grow.
Lets Talk Financials:
So starting costs to this business can literally be a couple bucks a month. You need some basic web hosting which can be had for <$5 a month. There are plenty of free tools out there that you can do keyword research and what not but all of the features are scattered across multiple tools. I’d pay for a semrush or ahrefs cheap package.
So how much can you make..I’m sure this is why you’re here. I was first shocked to see some business for sale online. Quietlight.com had some businesses for sale in the $2.1M – $2.5M range. These are about 3-4X income. Small site were selling for $400k and doing $150k in revenue (95% margin). The small businesses are running as solo entrepreneurs posting just a few times per month. Im sure the $1M blogs are running some employees but still make well over $500k net.
How to Get Started:
Youtube. Spend a lot of time doing diligence on this business method. You gotta learn a lot about SEO, then affiliate marketing, then affiliate networks. The good news is, its all online for free. This is something anyone can learn to do. If you know nothing about servers, webhosting, website design, etc…its ok. Its easy. You pay some people on fiverr $25 to design your site, you can get a wordpress site up and running for $5/month. I’d definitely learn about picking a niche and would pick something you enjoy. There is nothing worse than plowing a way at something you hate (like nursing…unless you see some money…maybe its worth it)
Step 1: Research SEO/affiliate marketing
Step 2: Pick a niche you want to write about (and hopefully enjoy)
Step 3: You need a domain name. While I love a .com address, most of the good ones are taken. Think hard and use something like Porkbun.com to register a domain name (some webhosts offer domain purchasing so its all together)
Step 4: Find a wordpress host (wordpress is by far the best option for a website)
Step 5: Hire a desginer on Fiverr do design your page for you
Step 6: Start writing. You wont make any money for a while. Get a dozen posts under your belt and see how it goes
Step 7: Share all of this with your friends. Ask them to share it with their friends. You need traffic to come to your website
Step 8: When you start getting people, time to find an affiliate network to work with. Youtube for good affiliate network info
Step 9: Profit. Its going to be small profits for a long time but this grows. It doesnt take a ton of time to make new posts.
Here’s a video by Matt Diggity. I don’t know him but I like the guy. He’s entertaining (BTW, classic SEO move…changing the title from 2023 to 2024 for SEO optimization 😂😂😂)
Affiliate marketing isn’t a get rich quick but can be a long lasting business. Starts as a side hustle and can replace your day job. You really need to learn SEO because that is your gateway to traffic which is your gate way to affiliate purchases.
Final Thoughts
Affiliate marketing can be good. I’ll follow up eventually here with how it worked out for me. While my initial goal is to wrangle up some healthcare workers for a future project, this by itself is looking pretty good. I’m lucky to already have a head start with a python developer on the team but I will have to hire out the rest. This will help scratch that SEO itch that I have and want to learn. You don’t need a python developer to run an affiliate site. I do because I’m scraping info off other sties and condensing it all to a single place, my website.
What is this for you? I think this is a totally possible with low to no money way to make “easy” money. You are not buying physical products, its not a lot of money to get started. Once you get this figured out, you can multiply this whole concept to several different niches and make money working from anywhere in the world. It has a very low barrier for entry and doesn’t require any special education. You can learn everything you need to know about this business online and for free. There are several great forums, facebook groups, etc to help support you.
Check out Ahrefs free video about affiliate marketing:
