Yes. Affiliate Marketing Is Legit. But Is It Worth Your Time?

Affiliate selling is wherever you beforehand different company’s merchandise oregon work successful speech for a commission. When radical click your nexus and bargain the merchandise oregon service, you make money.

It is perfectly not a scam.

• It is legal, arsenic agelong arsenic you comply with applicable laws and regulations successful your country. For example, present are FTC’s guidelines.
• It is ethical, arsenic agelong arsenic you disclose your narration arsenic an affiliate and lone beforehand products you judge in.

Many websites gain wealth this way, including large ones similar the New York Times, The Verge, NerdWallet, and more.

The existent question is… is it worthy your time?

Given that it’s the monetization method astir radical person succeeded with, it seems the reply is yes.

Source: LinkedIn

There are plentifulness of examples of folks making abdominous stacks with affiliate marketing, too.

• Entrepreneur Pat Flynn made astir six figures successful conscionable 1 period in 2017.
• Living Cozy, an autarkic affiliate website (i.e., not associated with immoderate large brands), achieved more than $12 cardinal successful revenue.
• Another autarkic site, Grilling Dad, generated implicit $25,000 per month.
• MoneySmart, Asia’s NerdWallet, made $29 cardinal successful 2022.
• DogFoodAdvisor, a canine nutrient affiliate site, was acquired for $9 million.
• Wirecutter (now portion of the New York Times) was acquired for $30 million.

That said, it’s nary get-rich-quick scheme. The process is simple, but not easy. It takes tons of concern and clip earlier you commencement earning anything, and you need to cognize what you’re doing, particularly erstwhile it comes to SEO.

But if you’re consenting and capable to dedicate your time, energy, and wealth to affiliate marketing, it tin beryllium worth it.

Affiliate selling itself is not a scam, but similar immoderate industry, it has its stock of fraudulent activities.

Here are 3 large ones to look out for:

Pay-to-join affiliate programs

As its sanction suggests, you person to wage a interest to articulation these affiliate programs. Don’t.

Real affiliate programs are ever escaped to join. After all, determination is nary downside for the merchant, arsenic they lone wage you for each sale.

Fake gurus, courses, and grooming programs

In the affiliate selling industry, fake gurus are radical who merchantability courses connected however to bash affiliate selling (or marque wealth online) but person nary real-world experience. Their main wealth shaper is not affiliate selling but the people they’re selling you.

As a result, these courses oregon grooming programs are typically underwhelming, generic, and apt bash not present connected their promises.

For example, years ago, earlier I started moving arsenic a integer marketer, I work Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek and became funny successful making wealth online. So, I signed up for a two-day offline store for a hefty sum successful Singapore.

The store was incredibly underwhelming. Most of the participants needed assistance adjacent double-clicking icons. I wasted 2 days connected what could person easy been a three-hour workshop. For the terms I paid, it was so a scam. True enough, aboriginal on, I recovered retired the teacher was a well-known “fake” guru (I was greenish and didn’t cognize it back then).

I privation to assistance you debar my fate, truthful present are immoderate reddish flags to spot:

• Unrealistic promises — If it sounds excessively bully to beryllium true, it astir apt is.
• Pressure tactics — They work Cialdini’s book erstwhile and spammed you with urgency and scarcity. Especially if they’re fake (“How does an online people run out?”)
• Image implicit value — Rather than supply escaped content, their selling and positioning are each astir however luxurious their beingness is, however galore sports cars they have, and however overmuch wealth they make. Just cognize that their cars are usually rented and their gross numbers doctored.
• Questionable occurrence stories — They person “social proof,” but they look suspiciously fake. Generic names oregon nary photograph IDs. And these days, AI-generated images and testimonials.
• No impervious of their ain success — They person nary lawsuit studies oregon sites of their ain to show. If they person charts (usually up and to the right), it’s fake oregon stolen. Check if you tin inquire them for their existent sites, past plug that tract into our free postulation checker to spot if it’s actually generating hunt traffic. (If they garbage to amusement you their site, it could beryllium a telltale sign.)

To find bully instructors and courses, invert everything supra and find instructors that:

• Don’t overpromise. They should springiness realistic expectations.
• Don’t usage unit tactics. If there’s urgency to their offer, it should beryllium morganatic (e.g., it’s a unrecorded cohort class, truthful determination tin lone beryllium that galore people).
• Provide escaped and invaluable contented that proves their expertise.
• Have existent (and independent) occurrence stories you tin find connected societal media, forums, Reddit, etc.
• Have impervious of occurrence (e.g., they got acquired for $X and it was reported successful the news; they flipped their site, and there’s impervious connected a marketplace similar EmpireFlippers).

Dodgy, low-quality, oregon scam products

It’s tempting to beforehand a merchandise conscionable due to the fact that it offers precocious commissions. But you’ll beryllium damaging your estimation if you extremity up promoting subpar, low-quality, oregon worse, products that don’t exist.

For example, My Top Tier Business (MTTB) was a merchandise that galore affiliate marketers utilized to promote.

In 2018, the FTC charged MOBE (the genitor company) with fraud and halted the full business. Some of the salient affiliate marketers for that institution were even charged. MOBE yet settled with the FTC.

So, arsenic overmuch arsenic possible, you’ll privation to debar promoting unspeakable stuff. Here’s however to debar the dodgy ones:

• Check if the affiliate programme is genuine. Find retired if the institution is legit, the affiliate managers are existent people, and if they’ve really worked with different affiliates. If you cognize anyone who has participated successful the program, inquire them for their review.
• Test the product. You should already be doing this anyway, but you’ll beryllium amazed however galore affiliate marketers don’t. Using the merchandise besides helps with E-E-A-T, which is important if you trust connected hunt postulation for your affiliate site.
• Choose reliable and reputable affiliate networks. These networks volition assistance curate products that are authentic.
• Prioritize your audience. The simplest way, though possibly not the astir lucrative, is to beforehand lone products you’ve utilized and judge in.
• Trust your gut. If you consciousness thing is disconnected astir the product, adjacent if you can’t explicate it tangibly, don’t beforehand it.

Convinced that affiliate selling is worthy your time? Here are the basics to get you started:

1. Choose your niche

A niche is your country of focus. For example, portion it’s not my thought of fun, your website could beryllium each astir vacuum cleaners.

An perfect affiliate niche has 4 qualities:

• High-paying affiliate programs
• High postulation potential
• Low competition
• A taxable you’re funny in

How bash you find a niche that matches each four? Here’s one way:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Enter a taxable you’re funny in
3. Go to the Matching presumption report
4. Add an Include filter for words similar “best” and “review” (the reason: Most affiliate sites marque wealth from articles targeting keywords similar “best [products] oregon [product name] review”)
5. Add a Lowest DR filter for a maximum of 30

Looking astatine the report, we tin spot that the niche we’re funny successful (“vacuum cleaners”) is simply a decent niche because:

• There are keywords with bully postulation imaginable and debased difficulty. For example, the keyword “best vacuum cleaner for carpet” has a TP of 7,500, a debased KD of 11, and a debased DR website already ranks successful the top 10.
• Vacuum cleaners are mostly not cheap, truthful affiliate payouts tin beryllium significant.
• There are plentifulness of affiliate programs around, specified arsenic Amazon Associates and even Dyson.

I’ll permission it up to you to determine if you fulfill the last prime of involvement successful vacuum cleaners.

2. Decide connected your platform

While you tin bash affiliate selling connected immoderate level (e.g., YouTube, TikTok), I urge gathering a website and focusing connected hunt motor optimization (SEO).

This station lists 8 reasons wherefore SEO is important, but the biggest 1 is that hunt postulation is passive and consistent. This is important due to the fact that accordant postulation translates to accordant clicks connected your affiliate links.

3. Find affiliate programs to join

The easiest affiliate programs to articulation are Amazon Associates and those from big-box retailers similar Target. You tin besides find programs connected fashionable affiliate networks similar AvantLink, ShareASale, and Commission Junction.

If you already usage a product, spot if they person an affiliate program. If they don’t, inquire if they would beryllium consenting to physique an affiliate narration with you.

4. Create high-quality content

You already cognize what contented you request to make from your niche research. For example, for our hypothetical vacuum cleaner site, you’ll decidedly privation to make contented astir the “best vacuum cleaners,” “best favored vacuums,” “dyson cordless vacuum review,” etc.

Make definite you’re actually testing these products and not simply copy-pasting from different articles. In their Helpful contented guidelines, Google explicitly states that’s what they’re looking for:

It’ll beryllium casual to make articles for those topics and telephone it a day. But that’s not enough. One reason: Links. They’re an important Google ranking factor, and successful the existent world, you’ll find it hard to get different websites to nexus to specified pages (also known arsenic “money pages”).

For that reason, you besides privation to make different types of content. These could beryllium linkbait oregon informational content.

In fact, erstwhile I interviewed Dustin Christiansen, the laminitis of Territory Supply, years ago, helium told maine that was his affiliate site’s content strategy:

[…] we besides bash a batch of contented that isn’t related to products oregon affiliate selling astatine each - similar hiking and camping guides that see the champion locations to research successful antithetic areas. These articles are research-intensive and we effort to find writers who unrecorded successful oregon research the areas we constitute astir truthful that they person real, close worth for our readers. We bash truthful overmuch much than conscionable product-based contented that I deliberation it helps find an assemblage that a batch of affiliate sites mightiness miss out on.

One speedy mode to find informational topics to people is to participate your niche into Keywords Explorer, spell to the Matching terms report, and power the toggle to Questions.

Eyeball the database and people the topics that are applicable to your site.

Learn more

Want to larn much astir affiliate marketing? We person tons of resources, truthful cheque them out:

• Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: What It Is + How to Succeed
• Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners
• How to Create a Niche Site That Earns 4 Figures a Month successful 6 Easy Steps
• How to Build a Successful Amazon Affiliate Site (Step by Step)
• How to Become an Affiliate Marketer (5 Steps)