How to Start Affiliate Marketing and Make a Full Time Income!

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Learn how to start affiliate marketing right from home! See how I was able to create a realistic 4 figure monthly income through affiliate marketing.

Are you tired of “Get Rich Quick” schemes that promise you the world but end up delivering nothing?

Are you sick of signing up for MLM companies and trying to sell overpriced products to family and friends?

Are you tired of trying to make money doing things like online surveys and making mere pennies an hour?

Good news is you don’t have to do any of these things to make money! I finally found a system that worked for me and now I’m making a four figure income each month!

And do you want to know what the best part about this is?

The best part is…

I make these types of commissions every month without having to leave my house. I can work from anywhere in the world, as long as I have my laptop and an internet connection.

My question to you is…

Do you want to get results like this? Do you want to learn how to make money on the road? If you do, then you’ve come to the right place. 

Keep reading because I’m going to tell you exactly how I make a full-time income from home (even though I do still choose to go to work every day – choose being the key word!).

Read: 15 Qualities of an Entrepreneur

To start off with, I want you to know that I’m just a regular person like you. I’m not some reality TV star who had a huge audience to tap into, and I didn’t have rich parents or a rich husband to bank roll my online business.

If you’ve been searching for ways to make money from home for a while, you’ve probably come across lots of different scams, “get-rich-quick” schemes, or people who promote an “aspirational” lifestyle and promise you can attain the same thing by working just an hour a day from your cell phone. 

Here’s the truth – the vast majority of those sorts of promises are false.

I know from experience that it’s impossible to make $5000/month in just 30 days with no experience, working 1 hour a day from your cell phone. 

It’s actually a huge pet peeve of mine when I see people making those sorts of false or unrealistic claims. And the truth of the matter is, the reason they’re making unrealistic claims is because they don’t actually care about helping you achieve your goals, they just want you to part with your hard-earned money.

As you can see from the screenshots of some of my commissions above (which are 100% real, btw) I’m not going to create some fake “$150,000/month income report” and tell you that I made that much working 1 hour a day.

I know how much your hard earned money means to you, so I’d never blow smoke up your ass just to get you to part with your money.

Instead, my mission is to show you how I REALISTICALLY created a 4-figure a month income completely from home!

Ok, so let’s talk about exactly how this business works.

Here’s How I Make 4 Figures Online Every Month…

It’s not multi-level marketing, drop shipping, online surveys, teaching English, data entry, customer service. You don’t have to drive to people’s houses and do home parties (or any parties at all, for that matter) and you don’t need thousands of dollars to get started.

The business is called affiliate marketing.

The best definition of affiliate marketing is by Pat Flynn:

“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”

This might sound a bit vague so let me give you a couple of real life examples so that you fully understand the concept.

Real Life Example #1 – Ebates

Have you ever used Ebates to get cash back on purchases?

Did you know that they have a program where you can refer your friends and if they place an order you make money?

You might not have realized, but that is affiliate marketing. You got paid for recommending a service to someone else.

Real Life Example #2 – Groupon

And what about Groupon? Who hasn’t used their app to get some great deals?

If you invite your friend to sign up with Groupon, you can get a $10 credit.

If you’ve ever referred a friend to any product, service or app and received a credit or commission when they joined, then you’ve had a small taste of affiliate marketing already.

Now you might be thinking, sure – but I don’t have hundreds and thousands of people to invite to shop with Ebates or Groupon, so how can I possibly make more than few dollars here and there?

Don’t worry about that. You don’t have to be sharing your affiliate links with your family and friends!

The above examples were just to give you a brief overview of how affiliate marketing works and how you might already have some experience with it.

The Best Thing About Affiliate Marketing…

One of the best things about affiliate marketing is that once you’ve got your website and systems set up and running, you can continue to make affiliate commissions and get paid whether you’re “working” or not.

I love logging in to my computer in the morning and seeing that I made hundreds of dollars while I slept.

“But I Have No Idea How to Build a Website”

You might be thinking to yourself, “this sounds great but I have NO IDEA how to build a website.”

I understand. The thought of building your own website can sound pretty overwhelming, especially if you’re not tech-savvy.

But guess what? Building your own website is NOWHERE near as hard as it used to be.

Back in the “olden days” you used to have to be a whiz at things like HTML and CSS, but not anymore.

These days, you don’t even need to know a single line of code to be able to create a beautiful, professional looking website.

And you’ll learn exactly how to do that if you follow the right process.

Learn how to start a blog with just a few simple steps. Even I can do it, and I am not technical AT ALL! 

ORRRR…you don’t even need to have a blog to start affiliate marketing (although I do recommend it for the best results). You can learn how to do Pinterest affiliate marketing to get started right away!

How To Start Affiliate Marketing

You’ve got a couple options (really you have a ton, but these are my recommended options). You can learn how to start a blog on your own (like I said, it’s not hard) and take a class on affiliate marketing, or you can join a community like Wealthy Affiliate to help you get started step by step.

I’ve used both methods, and think they are both wonderful methods. Here’s a little more about your options.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a premium class developed by Michelle Shroeder-Gardner to help reader learn the ins and outs of affiliate marketing.

Read the complete review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

If you decide to start a blog on your own, I HIGHLY recommend taking this class to learn about affiliate marketing. Michelle covers a wide variety of topics and really gives you the step-by-step on how to create a successful affiliate marketing campaign.

The course is $197, and worth every penny in my opinion. I am a huge believer in spending money to get your business up and running. I don’t think you should buy all the classes out there, but some are incredibly valuable.

BUY MAKING SENSE OF AFFILIATE MARKETING FOR $197 NOW

Michelle earns over $100K per month from her blog, with a large percentage of that being from affiliate income. Now, you probably won’t start out this way, but I just want you to now what the possibilities are. They are endless if you’re willing to put in the work!

There are 6 modules with extra bonus material at the end, which ends up being over 30 lessons! It’s a huge amount of information and incredibly in depth.

Below are some of the topics she discusses in the training:

• What is affiliate Marketing?
• How to Find and Apply to Affiliate Programs
• The Rules of Affiliate Marketing
• How to Convert Readers
• Strategies to Promote Affiliate Links

If you haven’t started your blog yet, learn how to get your blog started first. You can also learn about some different affiliate programs to start out.

If this class sounds like it’s for you, You can buy it now for $197.

Wealthy Affiliate

The second option is to create a free account with Wealthy Affiliate.

This site offers the tools and support to start an affiliate website. You can get started for free and see if it’s something you’d like. Unlike Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (which is an online training class), this is a community of people all doing the same thing as you.

There is a lot of support and information available to help you get started. If you decide to sign up for the premium membership, you get full access to everything the site offers!

Once you’re inside, you’ll find all of the training, tools, resources and support you will need to build your own successful affiliate marketing business.

You’ll learn things like:

• How to build your own website without having to learn code
• How to choose a profitable niche
• How to get targeted traffic from Google
• How to promote affiliate products so you can make passive income
• Plus a whole lot more…

Frequently Asked Questions – Wealthy Affiliate

1. Are There Any Upsells in Wealthy Affiliate (I HATE THEM!)

Don’t worry, I’m not a fan of a million upsells either.

There are only 2 levels of membership inside Wealthy Affiliate – the Free Starter Membership and the Premium Membership.

Free starter membership: Completely free, no credit card needed.

Premium membership: $49/month or $359/year. (You can get your first month for only $19 when you join through my link and upgrade within 7 days.)

2. Are There Any Hidden Fees?

Aside from your premium membership, the only other thing you will have to pay for is your domain name.

You do get 2 free subdomain names with your Wealthy Affiliate starter membership (which will looking something like this yourdomainname.siterubix.com). However, if you’re serious about making money via affiliate marketing, then you should purchase your own domain name rather than using a free subdomain.

The good news is, domain names are very cheap. A domain name usually costs around $14/year and when you’re a member of Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll get your web hosting for free so the only “added cost” is your domain name.

3. How Much Money Can I Make?

This is entirely dependent on the amount of time and effort you have to put into your business. Everyone’s situation is different, so I’m not going to assume you have the same amount of time as I do (or don’t!)

What I will say is this:

Wealthy Affiliate is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not a “plug and play” or “done for you” online business.

Wealthy Affiliate will teach you exactly how to build your own profitable affiliate marketing business, but the amount of money you make is entirely dependent on you, your hard work, dedication and abilities.

4. How Long Will it Take to See Results?

Again, this is entirely dependent on you. Like I said in the previous answer, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

I’m not going to sit here and make false promises to you that you’ll be making 10k/month within 3 months.

I’m just pointing you in the direction you s​​hould take if you want to learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business.

In Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is an awesome way to get started making money online. It can be incredibly lucrative if you’re willing to put the time and effort into it.

There are different approaches you can take when learning how to start affiliate marketing. If you’re looking for more of a hand-holding, community style approach, Wealthy Affiliate is a great option.

On the other hand, if you prefer to venture out on your own, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a wealth of information.

I’ve used both and love both options. I would highly recommend either as you get started on your journey.

Do you have experience with affiliate marketing? Have you used either of these resources to get started? Comment below and let me know what your experience has been!