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Alright, so have you finally taken the pledge and are you looking to make money online by blogging using affiliate marketing? That’s great, and this detailed guide will help you achieve your goals, provided you take action!

Let’s face it—making money online is not as easy as it sounds. Don’t believe the hype you see everywhere (especially the gurus’ hyped-up sales pages). However, if you are focused, learn from the best, and take action, things are not that hard. You just need to make it work for you.

If you have a blog (like ours), there are many ways to monetize it; you can sell banner ads or do PPC like Google AdSense, and the list goes on and on. Depending on the keyword, they all pay between a few cents to a few dollars a click, so don’t expect early retirement. They all work well, but the payouts aren’t that good.

What’s the most profitable way to make money from your blog? Affiliate marketing. So, what exactly is it? Let’s dive in. Feel free to skip through sections if you’re looking for a specific topic.

What Is Affiliate Marketing

There’s a good chance you have already participated and didn’t even realize it. Have you ever referred people to a service or product and received coupons/discounts/monetary rewards? That’s affiliate marketing.

You’re getting paid for recommending a product to others. If you’re looking to purchase a cell phone, for example, chances are you will do a Google search and stumble across a list of websites. Then, you will select one, check out what they have to say, and then make your purchase decision.

So, you did a Google search because you were unsure what to buy; some of the reviews helped you decide, and then you probably purchased a product from a link. If you purchased your phone from a link on any of these websites, an affiliate marketer just made a commission, thanks to you. Chances are they are signed up to promote electronics as an affiliate.

The Process in a Nutshell

In affiliate marketing, you market other people’s products and earn a commission if someone decides to make a purchase through you.

When you make a purchase on Google, it could be you clicking on a review-style blog post written by an affiliate marketer or a YouTube video, and you find the link in the description. They do a thorough review and help you out. You, in turn, purchase the product through their link, and they get their commissions as a result (at no extra cost to you, of course).

Affiliate marketing can be very powerful since it can bring you monthly recurring money. Just set up a system once (like a high-quality product comparison), and you will get paid every time someone visits your review and decides to purchase through your affiliate links.

Some Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Potential 9-5 Day Job Killer – With affiliate marketing, the sky is the limit. That’s because your affiliate website will be up 24/7 working day in and day out for you while you do something else. Nothing beats the feeling of waking up to money! (If you ever woke up to money, you would know!). This does not mean it’s a get-rich-quick scheme though. Treat it like a real business, invest some time and effort, and let the cash flow begin!
Flexible Working Schedule—Once your blog gains some traction and starts to generate some cash on autopilot, you can FIRE your boss and work on your own terms. The timings are flexible, of course, and there’s no need for that annoying alarm clock anymore. Location freedom is another great benefit; you can work from anywhere worldwide. Time and location freedom = travel lifestyle! All you need is a computer and an internet connection.
Anyone Can Do This—You don’t need to be gifted to start an affiliate marketing business. You just need the basic skills (such as knowing how to use a computer, send emails, etc.).

What You Should Know Before Launching Your Blog

As we mentioned, you don’t need any special talent to get started with blogging & affiliate marketing. You just need to learn the right skills and take MASSIVE ACTION!

No programming skills are required.
You can start with as little as $100 (it doesn’t cost an arm and leg)
You don’t need to be a great writer
Treat it like a real business – money makes money
It’s NOT a get-rich-quick scheme
You have to PUT in the work to make this work (there’s no secret sauce, which is just over-hyped BS)

So, without further ado, let’s get started (be sure to follow the step-by-step guide closely to maximize your results).

The Steps

Finally – the steps! As we said, this will be a detailed guide in which we will try to cover everything. (YES! Everything!). Now comes the fun part. The actual steps that you will be following to launch your affiliate marketing blog and get to profitability fast. Trust the process, and take action that will make a massive difference.

#1 – Register a Domain Name

The first step to starting an affiliate marketing blog is registering a domain name. Before you select a domain name, you have to make a few decisions and do some research which again involves a few steps.

Selecting your main niche: You’ll have to decide the main topic around which your content will be centered. A website writing about cat/dog products certainly won’t have content on jewelry. That would make no sense and be totally unrelated.

Just make sure the domain name is easy to pronounce and makes sense. If the readers know what the domain is about just by checking out the domain name, you’re good to go. Don’t buy a domain yet; it will cost you $12 per year, but there’s a way for you to get it for FREE (surprise!). Yes, free – more on that in the next step.

#2 – Get a Quality Web Hosting

Yep, you have the domain in mind; now you need a great web host. Web hosting is like a garage where your car (your domain) will be parked (just like our website is blog.workfromhomereviews.net). There are a lot of web hosts to choose from; this is where your domain will live so choose wisely.

As we mentioned in the last step, you need a domain. You can get a domain for FREE with Bluehost, the web hosting company we use & recommend. We have been using them since 2013, and they have never failed us.

They are the only web hosting company that WordPress recommends. There are many reasons why you should get Bluehost:

Cheap (as little as $5 a month) and reliable at the same time
Over 3 million websites are hosted by them
WordPress comes pre-installed – no installation headache or setup fees
SSL certificate included for FREE
30-day money-back guarantee (you have nothing to lose)
The ONLY company recommended by WordPress
Fantastic customer support – tickets are quickly solved

Your affiliate blog will be powered by WordPress, which comes pre-installed with Bluehost. You also get a domain for FREE! Just go here, select a domain name, and get started.

Setting Up Your Website

Go to Bluehost’s website and click the get started button.

After you click on get started, you will be greeted with the pricing cards. There are four options to choose from – basic, plus, choice plus, and pro. For our usage, the basic plan is good enough for our requirements; you don’t need a bigger package unless you need it.

Consider package(s) other than the basic plan ONLY if you intend to host multiple domains on your web hosting account. The basic plan comes with one domain (which, of course, you will get for FREE for the first year instead of paying $12/yr). If you’d only host one website and there are no plans to get multiple moving forward, the basic $3.95 plan is all you need.

In the next step, you will be asked to select a domain (which will be FREE with Bluehost). If you have a domain name and wish to use it with Bluehost, enter that in the second tab. If not, search for a new domain in the new domain tab and click next.

After you’ve entered a domain name, you’ll be asked to enter your personal information (Name, address, and other details), which is required to create your account.

Note: The longer your plan duration is (12, 36, 60 months), the less you will have to pay.

Make sure to uncheck all the package extras except for domain privacy protection. Without domain privacy, your personal information (name, phone number, address, etc.) will be publicly visible on whois.

Having public who-is info isn’t necessarily a problem, but often, web design/SEO firms will spam you to death with phone calls or emails cold-pitching their services, which can be a bit annoying because everyone can find your website’s who-is info upon searching for it.

Next, you would enter your billing information to complete the process. Once all is done, your brand-new domain and web hosting are ready to go—it’s time to use them.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you came this far because you’re a true action-taker.

Action Step: Go to Bluehost’s website and complete the above steps.

Time To Check Your E-mail

Once you’ve completed the steps and signed up with Bluehost, you will receive a welcome email. Before you can log into your account, you must create a password.

One big advantage of Bluehost over other web hosting providers is that WordPress will be automatically installed on your domain so the blog creation process won’t be a headache. Once you’ve logged in to your Bluehost account, complete the on-screen steps and click on the ‘Start Building‘ button – with it, you will skip straight to your WordPress dashboard.

Once you’re in your WordPress dashboard, simply navigate to Settings and click on General. There, you can set your blog’s title in the Site title option and description in the tagline field. Oh, and to expand the left menu bar, just click on the right arrow button at the bottom of the menu.

Now, your blog is all set and ready to go. Time to customize it and turn it into a piece of art!

#3 – Essential Housekeeping

This brings us to one of the most interesting steps in this guide: the sky is the limit with WordPress customization. There are over a thousand WordPress themes to choose from (both free and paid) and almost 30,000 plugins. Feel free to skip this section if you’re already familiar with how WordPress works. If not, keep reading.

With WordPress, you start with a blank canvas, and you’re only limited by your imagination. Themes & plugins are the core components of a WordPress website, let’s take a detailed look at them.

WordPress Theme

A theme will change the look and feel of your WordPress website and will ‘theme’ it. Different themes sport different designs, colors, and layouts. choose one that works best for your requirements. This does not mean you cannot customize it, though. You can always jump in, experiment with different color schemes, and customize the look and feel to suit your needs.

To add a new theme, go to Appearance and then click on themes.

Once you’re in, you will see the theme installed and active on your website. If you want to add a new theme, click on the ‘Add New’ button next to the ‘Themes’ headline near the header.

Browse through the themes directory (over 10,000 WordPress themes are available), select the one you like, and click on activate and DONE! This step is complete; this is how you will install a free theme from the WordPress repository.

To check out the new design, just open your website in a new browser tab.

There’s also an option to preview the look and feel of a theme before you activate it.

WordPress Plugin

A plugin will add specific functionality by ‘plugging into’ your WordPress website. If you’re looking to extend the functionality of your website—let’s say you want to add a table—how do you do so? This won’t be hard if you’re a programmer and can write code.

What if you’re not? This is where plugins come to the rescue. Just find the plugin you need, activate it, and you can add a table without writing a single line of code. You can either drag and drop the table with the plugin or click and edit it like you would in a Word document.

Also, plugins are useful in every scenario, but just because you can write code does not mean you should. They can save you a lot of time. Just focus on building what you want and let the plugins do the heavy lifting. To install a plugin, click on the Plugins tab on your menu and click on Add New.

Once you’re in, you will see a bunch of plugins in this section. Every plugin has a title and a mini description, which can help you decide whether it will make a decent addition to your site.

If you have a paid plugin (from a marketplace other than WordPress’ repository), you would instead upload that plugin using the ‘Upload Plugin’ button and install it. Here are a few plugins which you will find handy:

Yoast SEO – will help in your website’s on-page SEO/search engine optimization
Akismet Anti-spam – will help in filtering out comment spam
Thirsty Affiliates – for adding and beautifying/cloaking affiliate links.
Contact Form 7 – will create a contact form for you, which your website visitors can use to contact you.
Sassy Social Share: This will encourage users to share your content on social media, helping to increase your website’s exposure.

Action Step: Install a theme on your Bluehost website and install the required plugins.

Fixing The Site’s SEO Structure

WordPress does not come with an SEO-friendly site structure out of the box. Thankfully, there’s a quick 30-second hack to fix your website’s on-site SEO. It will beautify the website’s inner links (pages/posts), and the URLs will make much more sense.

To do this, you will have to modify your permalink structure. Go to the settings section and click on permalinks.

A website will use the default permalinks structure by default, and a URL would look like this: http://yourwebsite.com/?p=123.

As you can see, this website URL does not share details like what this page/post is all about; instead, you see page number 123, which makes little sense. To find out what this is all about, you will have to open this URL and read the content. To rank on Google, you have to have content that is easy to understand and very readable—URLs included.

Instead, if you would have something like http://yourwebsite.com/sample-post/.

It drastically improves readability and user experience. For obvious reasons, it’s highly recommended that you change your permalink structure to ‘Post name’ so your posts are more readable. The above example shows that this URL is about a ‘sample post,’ unlike in the first case. This is good for your website’s SEO.

Select the Post name option and click on save. This will modify your permalinks, and all the existing website URLs will be modified accordingly. The best practice is to have a short but easy-to-understand URL structure.

Instead of an inner URL like this-is-the-first-post-on-this-website, you’re better off with a shorter inner URL like the first post.

Connecting Webmaster Tools

For better tracking of your website’s performance on Google search and for faster indexing, you should sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and register your website. Simply visit the link, and follow the on-screen instructions and add your affiliate blog. Check out this article by Yoast which assists with the same.

After you add your website to Google Webmaster Tools, you will be asked to verify your web property. Once you have done this, your website will appear in the Webmaster Tools dashboard, and you will be seen as a verified owner.

The Website Sitemap

This is a crucial step that many people (including the so-called gurus) skip. We are no gurus, but we definitely know what is working today. A sitemap shows the structure of your website in XML format, which is more understandable to search engine crawlers who visit your website. Consider it the language of the search engine spider; the more it reads, the more it understands.

If the bot finds a proper structure, it will index your website better and reflect changes faster on Google. It’s a good SEO practice that one can’t afford to neglect. Let’s create one first, and then we’ll submit it later.

Creating a Sitemap

To submit one, you need a sitemap first. Luckily, creating one is not that hard with WordPress; you definitely don’t need any coding skills, let alone XML skills (see why we are using WordPress?).

You can install one of the two plugins: Google XML Sitemaps or Yoast SEO. It does not matter which plugin you install; they work similarly. In this guide, let’s focus on Yoast for now. Simply go to the plugins tab, click on add new, and type Yoast SEO.

In the screenshot, Yoast shows ‘Active’ because we already have Yoast installed; instead, you’d see the ‘Install Now button. Just click on Install Now and activate the plugin from the Installed Plugins tab.

Once installed, you will be asked to configure the Yoast SEO plugin. You don’t need to change any of the settings. Follow the on-screen instructions and go with the default options; that’s the plugin configured for you in less than a minute.

Alright, all done. The plugin is now installed; how do I find my sitemap? There’s one good piece of news: the plugin automatically created a sitemap for you. How do I find it? Click on SEO, go to ‘General,’ and then go to the features tab.

Click on ‘?’ next to the XML sitemaps option. You will find two links. Click on the ‘See the XML sitemap’ link and copy it. That’s your sitemap URL.

Save the sitemap link, for now; we’ll submit it shortly.

Submitting Your Sitemap

You have a sitemap ready to go. Now what? It’s time to let the Google bot know about its existence.

Go to the Google Search Console and log in with your credentials. Since you’ve already verified your web property, it will be listed there. If you don’t see your website listed in the search console, ensure you have connected webmaster tools and the website is verified.

Simply navigate to the sitemaps section, enter your sitemap URL, and click on submit.

You don’t need to do anything once you’ve submitted the sitemap URL. Google bot will eventually crawl your website and index it within a few weeks.

If your sitemap was submitted successfully, you would see a ‘Success’ message like in the image above. Our website is perfectly set up now, and the next step is finding the right keywords for it.

Action Step: Fix your site’s permalink structure, connect with Google Webmaster Tools, and submit your WordPress website’s sitemap.

#4 – Keyword Research

Now we have a WordPress website, and you’re ready to add some content. Before you add some content, you have to make sure it’s something people are looking for. That’s where keyword research comes in.

With keyword research, you can find the keywords – specifically the topic you should be writing (You don’t need to be a writer, of course; more on that in the next step).

If you can’t find your niche/main topic for blogging, it’s best to write about the topics you love. This way, you will naturally produce quality content because it’s something you’re passionate about.

If you love fishing, for example, you’d naturally produce quality articles on fishing-related terms—fishing net, fishing gear, etc. You get the idea.

In this example, let’s say you want to write about the best SEO tools. Many KW research tools are available on the market, both free & paid. Let’s get started with some. You can use these or all of them and save the keywords you collect in an excel spreadsheet.

Keywords Everywhere (Free & Effective)

Keywords Everywhere is a FREE browser extension that works with Chrome and Firefox. Visit the website and install the extension. Once installed, you may be prompted to restart your browser.

Once installed, make sure the plugin is active. Click on the ‘K’ logo, which will be in your browser extensions section, and activate it. Next, do a Google search and search for a keyword. In this case, we will search for the ‘best SEO tools.’

You will get a list of related keywords and the search terms that people are searching for. If you can’t see it, ensure the Keywords Everywhere plugin is ‘ON’ like in the above image. Go ahead and export the list of keywords in a CSV file if you want. If not, you can note them down in a text file.

Google Suggest (Free)

Google Suggest is Google’s autocomplete tool. If you search for anything on Google, do you see a list of searches that changes as you type? That’s what Google suggests—it helps the user find what they are looking for.

One thing worth mentioning – Keywords Everywhere integrates very well with the browsers, and you also get to see a few extra metrics like the keyword search volume, cost per click/CPC, and the competition. See how powerful this little plugin is?

If you need more keyword ideas, just edit your search term – add/remove words, and the list of keywords will re-generate. Scrolling down the page, you will find a list of keywords related to your search term. It might be worth noting them down, too.

Spend some time researching your keywords. It makes no sense to rank for keywords that get few searches, and it’s not a good idea to go after very competitive keywords, right? You can rank for competitive keywords, but it will take some time and effort.

It’s best to try to rank for long-tail keywords first. As the name suggests, these keywords have a long tail.

Short Tail/High Competition: lose weight (will take months to rank)

Long Tail/Low Competition: how to lose weight fast (will rank faster)

As you can see, the longer tail keyword is way more specific and longer. It definitely gets a lot fewer searches a month, but it’s also less competitive. Since the competition is low, you can rank for it within weeks, if not months!

SEMrush (Paid, Insanely Powerful)

SEMrush is a fully-fledged SEO tool that comes with a bunch of features including a great keyword research tool that is built into the platform. It also comes with a 7-day FREE Trial.

You don’t need it, but SEMrush can be a game-changer in the long run. Here, you won’t be able to input a keyword to get ideas. Instead, you would enter any of your competitor’s website URLs and find a list of keywords they are ranking for. Spying is fun, isn’t it?

It’s one of the best ways to cut out guesswork because if you’re modeling someone else, it’s a surefire way to succeed. Don’t worry; it’s perfectly ethical to spy on your competition. I’m not encouraging you to steal someone else’s content, but model it and develop your own stuff.

If you want to use SEMrush, get started with a FREE 7-day trial here.

Once logged in, enter a domain and click on search.

As you can see, SEMrush is extremely detailed and can sometimes be overwhelming. Don’t worry; just focus on the sections you need. You don’t need all the features for sure.

We want to check out the top organic keywords tab. Click on ‘View full report’ to look closely at the keywords for which this domain is ranking. You can also export the keywords in a CSV file for later use.

You can sort data using many metrics (keyword position, search volume, CPC, and last updated, to name a few). Get started with a free SEMrush trial here.

Action Step: Conduct keyword research and use the above tools. For best results, start with SEMrush. Get a FREE 7-day trial here.

#5 – Writing Content

You’ve come far. Everything is set up, and now, thanks to keyword research, you have ideas in mind—it’s time to bring those ideas to life and write content that your readers will absolutely love.

Writing is not easy, but it isn’t as tedious as it sounds. It’s a choice – you can write it all yourself or hire a good writer for a reasonable price from websites like Fiverr.

If you are thinking about outsourcing content, keep these things in mind.

Write very clear instructions.
Ask them to proofread content through services like Grammarly to eliminate grammar errors.
Bookmark your favorite writers (for your next project).
The more you pay, the better quality you can expect.

Also Read Tools & Resources We Use & Recommend

On-Page SEO

Follow the best SEO practices while producing content for your website. Once you get the hang of it, it is pretty straightforward. You probably have Yoast SEO installed by now. If not, go ahead and install the plugin from the plugin directory.

When you create a new page or post on your website, under the Yoast meta box, you will find an ‘edit snippet’ option. Here, you can enter your page’s meta title and meta description.

So, what’s the use of a meta title and a meta description? How does it help you? Good question! If you search for anything on Google, you will find that each website listing has a title and a short description. That’s your meta title/meta description.

How does it help you? Simple – if a user sees your website, they will either click on it or scroll down to check out another listing on the page. The only goal of the page title/description is to get the user to click and reach your website. The better your title and your meta description (web page’s summary) is, the more a user is likely to click.

If your website’s click-through rate is good, Google may consider it important, and you may start receiving some love from the biggest search engine and, ultimately, site visitors.

Action Step: Write some content or hire a content writer. Follow the best SEO practices, and eventually, your website will rank.

#6 – Getting Visitors To Your Blog

Let’s face it—SEO takes time. You won’t get instant results, but if you follow the best SEO practices (step #5), you’ll eventually get organic traffic from Google.

There are many ways to drive traffic to your blog, while SEO does its thing. Here are a few evergreen methods that still work today (proven repeatedly).

Answer Questions on Quora:

On Quora, people are looking for answers to their problems. This is where you come in, try to solve their problems, and maybe drop in your article URL if it’s a solution to their problem. They get a much-needed solution, and you get much-needed exposure. Win-win, right?

Join niche-relevant groups on social media:

Join Facebook or Skype groups and aim to solve people’s problems, just like in Quora. This will again attract a lot of attention and ultimately bring free traffic to your site.

Build connections with influencers:

Get social and build connections with influencers in your niche. Drop reasonable comments on their article; it will link back to your website and get you some traffic through the link. You also get a nofollow backlink, which is a cherry on top.

To find relevant blogs on Google, use some Google search operators. Double quotes will bring you the searches that contain the exact same keyword. For example, “best SEO tools” will only bring you the website that uses the exact same keyword somewhere in the content on that page.

This is very powerful; use it with caution. Don’t overdo anything; it will hurt your website.

Overdoing something is NOT good for SEO

Final Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed this in-depth resource. Take our word for it —if you follow this guide and take action on every step (there are six in total), there’s absolutely no way you won’t succeed.

With that said, know that SEO is a long-term game plan, and instant results aren’t a thing (forget all the over-hyped BS that you see everywhere). Consider affiliate marketing and blogging like real businesses, which will require some investment from you – time, effort, and money.

It’s the mindset that makes a lot of difference in the end. If you treat something as part-time, you can’t make a full-time income from it. Good things take time, and you definitely need to put in the work.

Our top recommendation has helped hundreds of people escape their 9-5 day jobs and has helped them earn a realistic 4-5 figure per month online. It has been going strong for over a decade, and the strategies have stood the test of time.

It will require some investment of your time and efforts, though. If you’re ready to start your own profitable online business and finally increase the monthly cash flow your businesses generate, we highly recommend you give it a shot. If you ask us, it’s worth it.

Using this FREE training, a broke 20-year-old went from $0 to $6,000 a month working online in less than three months.

Related Resources

How to Build an Affiliate Marketing Blog Today