As someone who, 5 years ago was stuck at a corporate job and skeptical about the possibility of an online business, I am now a proud digital entrepreneur and I am happy to share all my experiences and learnings.

Over the last 5 years, I have started not one but 3 online businesses and I can say confidently that affiliate marketing is one of the best methods you can use to grow a significant and reliable income with zero to no money investment.

What is the cheapest business to start with little money?

I might be a bit biased based on my experience but I wholeheartedly believe Affiliate Marketing is not only the cheapest but also the most profitable business you can start if you have little to no money.

With Affiliate Marketing you get to promote other people’s products and receive a commission whenever a sale is made through your referrals. This means that the work and investment of creating (or sourcing) a product has already been made and all you need to do is share it with other people.

You also don’t need to worry about any logistics, fulfillment, refunds, or even customer service expenses since that is all on the company’s end.

Depending on the methods you decide you use to promote affiliate products you can get started for completely free (e.g. using social media and free platforms) or with little money (by using ads and some paid tools) but I’ll get into more detailed about this later.

Why is Affiliate Marketing the cheapest business to start

It has zero product costs

In any business, some of the main costs are the ones related to developing or sourcing a product. There is usually a minimum of pieces you can order if you want to get it customized with your own brands and even more if you are developing a product from scratch which can get really expensive.

With Affiliate Marketing, the company has already put in the time and money to create the product so you don’t need to worry about any of that.

Moreover, they have also spent money in testing it, optimizing it, and making sure it is attractive for the audience so —if you choose your offers correctly — you can make sure you are promoting a winning product.

It has zero fulfilment costs

Another important cost of business is that of shipping and handling the products along with taking care of customer service and refunds.

Not only does this require money but it can also consume a lot of your time once as you start receiving more and more orders so it would mean you would probably need to hire someone to take care of it.

You don’t need to pay for any tools*

Most businesses require one or more resources for their basic functioning like research tools, websites or landing pages, email autoresponders, etc.

If you are going to start a business and want it to look professional you can not skip those steps but in the case of Affiliate Marketing, the companies already have their whole sales funnel set up so you can simply direct people to their pages and let them do the rest.

Now, while you can get started for free, it is best that you use some basic tools like a simple landing page builder and a email autoresponder which are basically all the costs you’d need to invest in.

You can learn for free

This one might be similar for other types of businesses but all the information you need to get started is one Google or Youtube search away. There are millions or articles and videos you can follow to learn everything for the basics to becoming a super affiliate all for free.

One of those free resources is this article I wrote on How To Make Money with Affiliate Marketing. Additionally, if you want someone to hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do, this is the course I recommend for beginners. It is a great foundation and it only costs $7.

How much does it cost to start an Affiliate Marketing business?

While you can get started for free, here are some of the few tools I recommend investing on plus other optional expenses depending on what method you choose to use.

Recommend:

Landing Page builder:

When you promote an affiliate offer, you have the option to send people directly to the company’s website, but it is better that you send the first to a simple opt-in page and collect their emails.

This is going to help you get more sales and commissions as well as building an email list that you can offer other products to in the future.

If you are thinking this sounds complicated, don’t worry. It might be if you were trying to code a page from scratch but that’s landing page builders like Clickfunnels . make it super easy for anyone without any previous knowledge or experience to a page in a few minutes.

At Clickfunnels costs $97 month is one of the very few tools you should consider and a very cheap cost for starting a business. You can get also get a 14 day free trial here

Email Autoresponder

Together with a landing page builder, this is the only other tool you need to start a cheap affiliate business.

It allows you to send automated email campaigns to follow up with people who didn’t buy the first time they saw the offer. It’ll also help you promote other offers to your email list and make commissions on autopilot.

One of the best email autoresponders I have tried is ActiveCampaign. It cost $9/month and is even cheaper if you pay annually. You can also get a free trial here

On average marketer make $1-$5/month per every email subscriber (depending on the niche) so you should be able to cover that cost pretty quickly.

Total start-up cost with recommended tools: $106/month

Optional

Since there are many ways to do Affiliate Marketing, there can be other conditional costs depending on which method you decided to use.

Below I will outline some of the possible costs from the cheapest to the one that requieres a bigger budget.

Zero Extra Costs: Social Media

The cheapest way to get started with Affiliate Marketing is by using a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, or Pinterest.

In this case, all you need to do is create content that attracts potential buyers and direct them to your landing page or the affiliate offer you are promoting.

Content creation is 100% free and it all takes is that you put in some time and be consistent.

Recommended: Top 10 Ways To Start Affiliate Marketing Without A Website

Cheap start-up cost

Other cheap ways to get started with Affiliate Marketing is by creating a blog or a Youtube channel.

These alternatives are also really cheap since they focus on content creation, which again, is completely free. You do need to put in some time and work into it but it is one of the best ways to create a business with little to no money.

Here are some of the costs associated with start an affiliate marketing business with a blog or Yotube Channel:

With a blog:

• Hosting: $2.95/month
• Domain: around $20/year or free with Bluehost

Recommended: Blogging For Beginners: How To Start A Blog TODAY And Succeed

With a Youtube channel:

There are no necessary costs associated with starting an affiliate marketing business on Yotube. You can get starting with just your phone but if you were to invest in some basic equipmente, these would be some of the expenses:

•  Basic Webcam like the Logitech HD Pro Webcam – $83
• A simple desk microphone like this one – $19.99

Recommended: Youtube For Affiliate Marketing? Step-By-Step Guide To Explode Your Profits

The least cheap option

If you have a bigger budget than a couple of hundred dollars, you can also start your affiliate marketing business using paid advertisement like Google ads, Facebook ads, native ads, etc.

With this alternative, you can get visitors to your offers on-demand without the need to create content so if you have a small budget this is a good way to make profits faster.

Naturally, the goals is for your ads to be profitable and bring back more than the money you spend but there’s always a learning curve and some testing involve before you start seeing profits.

I’d advice for a staring budget of $1,000 so you can be comfortable and don’t need to pause your campaigns by lack of cashflow.

Recommended: How To Use Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing

Do you need to pay to learn?

One important investment of every business than not a lot of people talk about is the money and time entrepreneurs spend on learning essentials skills for their business.

While nowadays, you can learn everything you want online for free, it is also true that the information you find is scattered and with some important gaps.

Naturally, people who have the experience and skills to teach it, have also invested in their own education and businesses so not everyone is willing to share their know-how for free.

Additionally, learning from the wide web can be time consuming and leave you more confused than before since the advice can be conflicting and you won’t know who to follow.

This is why I think investing in a training or a coach can actually save you a lot of money (and time) as a beginner. Find someone who is doing and teaching what you want to do, go ahead and consume all the free content they have. If they are giving valuable advice for free, you can be confident about their paid trainings or mentoring.

When it comes to Affiliate Marketing there are many great coaches you can learn from but this $7 challenge by 8-figure affiliate marketer David Sharpe is one of the cheapest and most thorough trainings out there.

Comparison of cheap businesses to start

While I believe Affiliate marketing is the best business you can start with little money, there are alternatives worth mentioning which you can considered based on your own preferences.

In this section I will explain what other cheap business are worth looking into, how they compare to Affiliate Marketing and who they might be best for.

Selling Digital Products

Selling Digital Products is another business with a low start-up cost since you only need to create the product once and can then sell it forever. You also don’t need to invest in inventory for obvious reasons or all the profits go straight to your pockets.

This is a good alternative and be quite profitable depending on the product you create and how you choose to sell it. Some digital products like courses and masterminds can sell for thousands of dollars.

But you don’t need to go that far if you are just starting out. You could begin with a small product like an ebook, printable or pdf guide so you can get familiar with the process.

The cost of starting a business selling digital products can go from zero if you create the product on your own and sell it in a marketplace; up to $1K approx. if you decide to outsource the product creation and sell it on your own website. (Plus the cost of advertisement to bring customers.)

When compared with Affiliate Makreitng, Selling digital products shares the low start-up cost and the big profits percentage but it has some other downsides.

If you decide to sell your digital products in a marketplace like ebay or Udemy, your price will be limited by the competitions and your profts will be cut by the fee they take. Alternatively if you choose to sell it on your own site, you’ll need to take care of customer services. and refunds.

Also, you will be launching a completely new product into the market so you are not sure if it will sell. Of course you need to do some research and adjust to the market demand but there is always a small risk involved.

I actually love this type of business myself but I think the best approach is to promote proven affiliate offers first. This way you can make money while you grow your audience and learn what works. Then you can create and promote your own products along with your affiliate offers to the same audience.

Recommended: Best Digital Products To Sell

Dropshipping

If you have been wondering about starting a business for a while, you have probably heard about dropshipping.

This methods implies that you create an online store and advertise a product but without buying or holding any inventory. Only when a custoner makes a purchase, you would then go ahead and order the product from a supplier (usually based in China) for a lower price and ship it straight to the customer address.

Since you only buy and ship the product once a somebody places an order, you don’t need to spend any money in stock which is why this type of business requieres little money.

Some of the expenses involved in this type of business are the creation of an eCommerce store ($30/month in software – $500 to have it done for you), product samples ($20-$100), and the cost of advertisement to get visitors to your store ($1000).

While dropshipping can be considering a cheap business to start, you do need to get a budget for ads since that is the best way to get traffic an sales.

Addiitonally, the profits are quite low since you need to pay for the product, shipping, ads and the transaction fees. The average profit of a dropshipping store is 10%-15% so you would need to get $30k in revenue to make around $3k in profits. Not imporssible but definitely not ideal.

Actually, most ‘dropshipping gurus’ make more money from the affiliate tools they recommend such ads Shopify or Woocomerce than what they make from their dropshipping ventures.

Service based businesses

If you have checked other articles for ideas on cheap businesses to start, lots of them have a 30-items-long post for different types of service business businesses that go from dog-walking and house cleaning to a virtual assistant and social media managing.

While service based business have a low start-up cost, at first you’ll still be in the realm of an hour-based payment or selling your time for money which is not an actual scalable business but more of an indepent job.

Eventually, the goal of this type of ‘business’ is that you get enough clients so you can start subcontracting and take on the role of a business owner while you pay others to do the actual services you offer.

The costs of starting this type of business will vary greatly depending on exactly what you choose to do. Offering carpet-cleaning services, for example, will require more equipment than if you were to offer graphic design services.

Regardless of the business-specific expenses, you’d need to invest in creating a professional website ($100 on your own or $500+ if you have it made) plus advertising to start getting clients ($500)

It can still be considered a cheap business to start but it can take some time before you can move from working per hour to managing your own team and making more money.

Depending on the type of service you want to offer, you’ll also need to have the skills, qualifications or permits in the case of off-line business.

Flipping Digital Real State

Flipping real estate requires some big bucks but in the internet era, there are other more affordable and coveted assets you can make money from.

Far from the eyes of users , visitors and followers, there is a growing market where of people buying and selling millions of social media accounts, youtube channels, blogs and domains.

Once an account or website has an audience, it turns into a valuable platform for brands and entrepreneurs to promote their products so there are people whose business is growing accounts and blog to a certain size and then selling them.

While you could also do that, it might take some time and is not necessary since you can simply buy them and then reselling at a better price. In between, you can rent the space for promoted posts, grow the number of followers and make a bigger profit.

The cheapest type of digital real estate you can buy are Instagram accounts and you can get them at a wide range of prices. I would recommend a budget of $400-$500 for starting this type of business and have some cash flow so you are not starting with just one account.

One of the drawbacks of this ‘business’ is that as a beginner, you need to be very careful and learn to differentiate a valuable assets so you don’t get scammed.

Additionally, I don’t think it can be very scalable since you need to put some time into each deal and negotiation.

If this is something that interests you, it can serve as a good way to increase your starting capital before moving into another business model.

Influencer

20 years ago, people would laugh or rolled their eyes at you if you would tell them that you wanted to be an influencer but nowadays it is a well know profitable business.

Influencers make money by creating content in a certain niche and growing a following of people interested in what they have to say. Once they have an audience, they can make money by doing sponsorships, getting brand deals, doing events or even launching their own products.

The most important part of this type of business is the content you create and the image you project so you can get started with no money.

On the downside, it can take a while for you to grow your audience to the point where it makes you a full time income and it can be very time consuming at first but on the long run it can really pay off since you have many ways to monetize your following and your income will continue to grow overtime.

Affiliate Marketing is also an important part of influencer’s revenue that can help you make money at the beginning even if you don’t have any sponsorships yet.

Cheapest Business to Start – FAQ

What is the easiest business to start?

After the cheapest business to start, this is another common question so want to start by saying, starting a business is no easy. It is defitnetly worthy to have freedom over your time and your life but the truth is that at the beginning, you are going to be working more hours that you did at your regular job.

I don;t know any succesful entrepreneur who hasn’t put it the work, time and consistency require to bring a business to life from scratch.

That being said, I think all the businesses mentioned in this article are equally simple and beginner-friendly. I would still advise any of my friends to get started with Affiliate Marketing but if you already have a highly paid skill then a service-based business is also a good one to consider.

Recommended: Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners

What business can I start with $500- $1k?

$500 might seem like a small amount to start a new business but it is not if you have another important asset: time.

In the internet era, digital assets are the equivalent to real state and you can build your won from scratch with zero dollars.

What are digital assets? anything that generates an audience like a blog, a Youtube channel, or a social media page. user’s attention is one of the most coveted currencies and if you have it, turn it into money easily.

If I were to start from zero with zero, I’d begin by creating content and promoting affiliate offers. Eventually this content will generate free traffic and sales that’ll turn into passive income.

If I had an extra $500 or $1k to invest, I’d put it towards ads to start getting visitors to my content and affiliate offers and start making commission faster.

If you want to learn more about this strategy, this $7 challenge will give you a step-by-step guide

How come is Affiliate Marketing such a cheap business to start?

A lit of people are skeptical that you can truly start a sucessfgul busoness with little money so they think there must be some hidden costs or it simply is too good to be truth.

The thing is, you can also start with a big budget and grow your business faster by investing in ads and hiring people to help you. But, if you don’t have the budget you can compensate for it by putting in the time and creating content that gets you traffic and sales.

More importantly, this is all possible because someone else has already invested in creating and the product you would promote along with paying for things like market research, customer service, and logistics.

“I want to start a business but I have no money”

While it is technically possible to start a business like affiliate marketing with no money, the truth is, it is not the best way to do it.

If you don’t have a couple hundred dollars to pay the basic tools you need for the first months, you are gonna be more worried about making money fast and surviving than about more important aspects of your business.

My advice would be to consider freelancing or another side gig first so you can save $300-$500 and start your business from a more comfortable place.

Takeaway

It has never been easier to start a cheap business as it is today. Thanks to the internet anyone can source products for cheap, become a public figure or sell digital goods.

If you are serious about starting a business, money is not an issue. All it takes is some time and consistency.

I started my affiliate marketing business after losing $10k in a different venture so I didn’t have much to begin with but I was able to build a 6 figure business in my first year with nothing but time, consistency and focus.

If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, this $7 challenge is the same one I took. It has an actionable plan that’ll help you get results while you learn.

Selling digital products is one of the best opportunities to make money online and it has never been as easy as it is today.

If you are a writer, blogger, artist, or simply want to start an online business, you only need your creativity, time, and dedication to create your first digital product and turn into a source of passive income.

Selling digital products also means not dealing with inventory, storage problems, gigh start up cost, and many other benefits I will share in this article.

Plus. there are tons of tools and software to help you create your digital products, market them, sell them and deliver with just a few clicks.

Are you ready to find your find digital product idea? Let’s begin!

Benefits of Selling Digital Products

1. Easier logistics

When you sell a digital product, the ‘delivery’ process is automatic since people will simply download the product they bought from a link or a digital file you send. No need for fulfillment, packaging, labels, etc. Which at the same time means you don’t have to invest any time on shipping since it is all automated so you will have a lot more free time to invest in other areas or your business or simply more free time for yourself.

2. No shipping costs

It might seem obvious but when you are running a business for physical products, shipping costs can cut a big part of your profits. If you are selling low or mid-ticket items, shipping accounts for 20%-30% of your costs. In the case of digital products, you have zero shipping costs so that just means more profits and more money to keep growing your business.

3. No Returns / Refunds

Depending on the policy you choose to have, returns and refunds are other processes you won’t have to deal with. Since digital products are downloadable and technically impossible to return, most sellers have a no refund policy/

Alternatively, if you want to offer refunds, you will still be free of problems like products being returned damaged, and repackaging costs.

4. Cheaper start-up costs

Another advantage of selling digital products is that you don’t need to invest a lot of money upfront in stock. If you create the digital product yourself you only need to invest your time and even if you hire someone to do it, it will still be cheaper than buying 1000 items of any product (which is usually the minimum to get your own branding printed).

5. Never run out of stock

This one is kind of obvious but running out of stock is a real issue when you are selling physical products especially when you are just starting out and your cash flow hasn’t caught up with your production times. But you will never have this issue when selling digital products nor you will have to deal with manufacturers, calculate your expected sales and inventory, etc.

6. Passive Income

Selling digital products is one of the easiest ways to create passive income. Since most of the processes can be automated you can set it up and forget about it. Of course, you will still need to take care of the marketing and traffic but you can create a system that collects leads, follows up with them, and closes sales on autopilot. (I’ll show you how later)

7. Easier to scale

Finally, you can scale a digital product to the moon without worry about inventory issues. Once your product is selling, you can simply increase your ad budget or promotional methods in order to reach a bigger audience and make more sales.

14 Top Digital Products to Sell

Now that you are aware of the many benefits of selling digital products, you must be wondering what are some examples of digital products you can sell, how to choose them and create them.

Let’s take a look at what are some of the best digital products you can sell online so you can start planning your first digital venture!

1. Ebooks

When one thinks about digital products to sell, ebooks are some of the first that comes to mind and it is not in vain. Ebooks have an inherent high perceived value, work for any niche or industry, and are some of the most commonly sold digital goods.

If you are a blogger, entrepreneur, or business owner, you have some valuable knowledge and experience to share that can turn into your first ebook. They are a great choice as your first digital product since they sell really well and are easy to make.

While there is already a lot of information out there, a good ebook will offer something people can find for free or in one single place. The nature of the internet is that information is scattered and disorganized so you can differentiate your ebook by offering some actionable steps and measurable results.

Ebooks usually have a cost between $7-$9 which is what people are used to paying. This might not seem like much but if you have a blog or website with some regular traffic it will add up and turn into a significant source of passive income.

Finally, if you want to sell something of higher value in the future, an ebook is a great way to start building a base of buyers who trust you and can later buy your higher ticket offers.

2. Courses

Online courses are another digital product you can sell to share your knowledge on almost any niche and topic. If you are a bloggers, entrepreneur, or expert in any topic, you have a course waiting to be shared!

Courses tend to include several types of media like videos, written guides, and templates and are organized into modules so people can follow along. They require some more time and effort to create but they also have a higher perceived value and can cost anything between $20 to $2000+.

Nowadays there are many online platforms like Clickfunnels and Kajabi that allow you to host and sell your course all in the same place.

You can also use marketplaces like Udemy and Coursera but they take a huge part of your profits and force you to sell your course at a very low price due to the high competition.

If you are interested in selling an online course, make sure to check out my article on How To Sell An Online Course On Autopilot

3. Online Workshops

Online workshops are another way to share your knowledge through a digital product. Compared to courses, workshops cover a more specific topic and they are usually live and include the participation of the audience.

You can sell a workshop for mostly any topic and industry but consider that there are lots of free webinars and free videos available so make sure your workshop offers enough value and information that is not easily found so your audience feels compelled to assist.

A great thing about workshops is that they don’t they much time to produce and you can continue to create new ones on similar topics once you know what your audience likes. You can also sell the replays for a cheaper price than the live version and turn it into an evergreen source of income.

You can use a platform like WebinarJam to sell your online workshops, collect payments, send reminders, and host the live event.

4. Memberships

A membership site is an online space where users get access to exclusive content by paying a monthly recurring fee. This is a great way to create a steady recurring income but it also requires more work on your part to keep members engaged and keep adding more content every month.

Membership sites can include a mix of other types of digital products since they usually give members access to courses, workshops, live training, and community among other things.

You can create an online membership in platforms like Kajabi or Clickfunnels where you can upload all your content and restrict access for only paying members. You can also add a private Facebook Groups to your membership to encourage more interaction between members and increase your membership value by creating a community of likeminded people that others want to join.

5. Photography

If you enjoy taking pictures and have some decent editing skills, you could turn this passion into a profitable digital product.

Literally, every industry and company out there needs images for their online and offline materials and they are willing to pay good money for quality pictures.

You can sell your photos in most stock sites like Getty Images, Shutterstock, and iStock where they pay between 25 and 45 cents per image or sell them on Etsy where images are prize $10-$15.

Another way is to create your own site and specialize in a certain niche and type of pictures. Haute Stock and Creative Market, for example, are two sites that focus on feminine pictures and they charge $30/month and $15/picture respectively.

6. Videos

Statistics also say that 87% of marketers use video as part of their promotional strategies and at the same time the consumption of video content online grows every year. On Facebook alone, there are 8 billion video views per day.

In conclusion, video is a great digital product to sell and will continue to be for a long while.

Depending on the type of content you product, you can sell your videos on stock sites like Uscreen and Vimeo.

If your content is less commercial and more artistic you can also promote it yourself through social media and have people support it through platforms like Patreon.

7. Printables

As the name suggests, printables are any type of artwork or graphic design that you can sell online so people can then customize and print.

If you are a graphic designer, printables are some of the easiest and fun digital products to sell.

Some common types of printables are invitation cards, birthday and holiday decorations, calendars, meal planners, worksheets, games, etc.

You can sell your printables on sites like Etsy and Creative Market or if you have your own blog you can use SendOwl to sell and deliver your printables automatically.

A great factor about printables is that they are quick and easy to create so you can produce as many as you want and once they are done you can sell them forever.

8. Swipe Files

Swipe files are basically templates that include a proven and successful formula for a certain task. The purpose is to help buyers save time and avoid them the learning curve by letting them ‘borrow’ your own experience and expertise.

Swipes files are more common in the digital marketing space for things like email templates, and sales letters but you can create them for other niches if you have a proven formula that others can benefit from.

The great thing about putting together a swipe file is it’s so easy that you could probably make it in just a couple of hours.

Some swipe files and templates you could sell are:

• Email sequences
• Sales Letters
• Social Outreach
• Website Pages
• Advertising Blueprints
• Webinar Blueprint
• Speeches

9. Graphic Design Templates

If you are a graphic designer, besides selling printables, you can also create templates for graphic elements to be used digitally such as fonts, textures, illustrations, and more.

Plus, you don’t even need to be a professional designer since nowadays there are tools like Canva and Picmonkey that are very intuitive and easy to use so anyone can create their own design to sell.

Some common graphic templates you can sell are:

• Social Media Graphics (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)
• Slideshows
• Logo Templates
• Fonts
• Patterns
• Branding Templates

10. Music or art

If you are a musician or artist, it can be hard to find a way to monetize your talent while you work on your career but there are some options you can explore when it comes to digital products.

If you make music, you use platforms like Songtradr to sell digital products like ringtones, and music for tv, films, and advertising. You can also use social media to grow a following and use platforms like Patreon to have your fans support you while you create exclusive content for them.

In a similar way, if you are an artist, besides physical merch, you can turn your art into digital downloads for web elements, phone wallpapers, and e-cards.

11. Software

It is no secret that the software industry is booming and shows no signs to stop. With companies around the world expected to spend around $503 billion on enterprise software in 2020, this is one of the most promising digital products you can sell.

Software can be any type of product or service that is powered by code such as web and mobile apps, website themes, games, plug-ins, etc. If you have any coding skills or have an idea for a solution that can help any industry, then definitely consider selling software.

One inspiring example of the value of unique software is entrepreneur Garrett Gee who sold his mobile scanning app Scan to Snapchat for $54 million. Not a bad deal.

If you are interested in selling software but are not a developer yourself, you can check marketplaces like CodeCanon where you can buy ready-made software with private label rights. This way you can take care of the marketing and selling without any of the coding.

12. Products as a Service

The internet has made the line between products and services to get blurrier every day since you can sell for example a logo which before used to be considered a graphic design service but now it is also a digital product. Luckily, consumers don’t care about these technical differences.

Selling a productized service is similar to an hourly agreement where you are selling your time in exchange for a specific outcome or result. The difference is mainly how you sell it since the consumers are buying the end result and the service-in-a-package experience where they don’t have to deal with the process, negotiation, etc.

You can do this by setting a fixed price for your services e.g. $500 for a website, or you can do it on a case-by-case basis where you determined the price based on the specific requirements of each client.

BrandBuilders for example is a productized service that offers Affiliate and Ecommerce Done-for-You sites for a fixed price.

Under this method, you can turn any services or skill into a marketable and scalable product in any niche. Some other examples of products sold as services are:

• Websites and funnels creation
• Audio and Video Editing
• Legal and Financial services
• Graphic Design services
• Lead Generation, etc.

13. Coaching

If you are an expert in your field and are confident you can help someone get the results they want, you can offer online coaching as a digital product (or productized service).

Coaching has a high perceived value since it involves 1-on-1 time and personalized advice which is often missing on courses or workshops.

You can also use coaching as a way to put your method to test, get testimonials, and build your online authority. This way you can create your own course in the future and those have results to back you up.

More importantly, if you are going to offer coaching, make sure you can really deliver on your promises and help your clients achieve their goals. Otherwise, instead of building a good reputation, you can create a negative one.

If you have no online presence as a professional, it is a good idea to create blog or social media page where you start sharing your knowledge and build a following of people you trust you and can potentially hire you as a coach.

14. Affiliate Products

Do you want to sell digital products and make money online but don’t want to create your own product? No problem, you can sell affiliate products and earn a commission for selling other people’s courses, books, etc.

Affiliate Marketing is a model where you can promote digital (and physical) products of any kind and industry and make a commission for every sale you make.

There are lots of affiliate networks you can join such as Clickbank, MaxBounty, and Sharesale where you can choose between their many offers and start promoting digital products.

This can be a very profitable method if you know how to choose the right products and audience. If you want to learn more about it, make sure to check out this video about High-ticket Affiliate Marketing.

How to Sell Digital Products?

Once you have chosen what type of digital product you want to sell, you will reach the question of ‘how to actually sell a digital product’. So, in this section I will tell you about the different methods you can use and which one I consider the best.

1. Sell your digital product on a marketplace

The first option for selling your digital products is to use an already established marketplace. For most types of digital products, you’ll find one or more of them that you can use. E.g. Etsy for printables, Udemy for courses, iStock for photography, etc.

The main benefit of using a marketplace is that there is already a significant audience looking for that type of product so you don’t need to worry about promoting, getting traffic, etc. Once you upload your product, there is not much else you need to do.

However, there are also some drawbacks to using these platforms. In the first place, there is naturally more competition since you will be listed among other vendors and similar products so it will be harder to differentiate yourself.

The competition also affects the price that you can sell your product for. If all other vendors are selling a similar product around $20, it will be almost impossible to sell yours if you want to price it at $100 so you are kind of tied to the price range others are using.

More importanly, all these platform have their own rules keep the customers emails to themselves and could close your account if they thinki you have broken any policy.

While it could be a good place for a quick start, I do not recommend it if you want to have full control of your income and build an scalable business.

2. Sell your digital product on your own platform

If you are serious about selling your digital product and turn it into a passive income that replaces your current job and more, I recommend using your own platform to do it.

This way you will have full control of the entire process, you can set up your prices freely and can build a long term business since you will be building an email list of your own clients.

This route involves a little more work but nowadays there are many tools and software that you can use to host, sell, and deliver your digital product even if you don’t have any experience.

Here are some key factors you will need to sell your digital product independently:

A blog or landing page

The first thing you’ll need in order to sell your digital product is a ‘place’ where you can tell people about it, explain what it is about, showcase its features, benefits, etc.

If you are a blogger you already have a platform to promote and sell your digital products as well as some hopefully loyal and happy readers.

In this case, you can promote your digital products in your blog posts (where is relevant), as well as your home page, sidebar, and banners, and you can use a tool like SendOwl to receive payments and deliver your digital product.

If you don’t have a blog, there is no problem, you can use a simple landing page to present your digital product and tell people how amazing it is and why they should buy it.

You can use a drag-and-drop page builder like Clickfunnels which is really easy to use, has ready-made templates, and where you can also collect payments and deliver your product.

A freebie or lead magnet

A lead magnet is a free item you offer your potential clients with the goal of capturing their emails and start building your trust and authority.

Lead magnets are often used for mid and high ticket products so depending on what you are selling and its price you can decide if you want to use it or not.

Regardless of that, even if you are selling a $7 ebook, a freebie can help you build your own email list of people that are interested in your niche and whom you can then offer this and other products you create.

Make sure to check out this article later If you want to learn more about how to create a lead magnet to grow your email list of potential buyers.

An email sequence

Creating an email sequence to sell your digital product is the best ways to maximize your sales. Marketing statistic show that most customers need to ‘hear’ from your 7 to 8 times before they are ready to make a purchase so this is a great way to build trust and convert more lead into buyers.

This is why I also recommended offering a lead magnet since is the best way to capture emails of potential buyers.

One method that has proven to converts really well for me is to offer a 5-day training via email as a lead magnet. This way I combine both the freebie and the email sequence.

Over the course of the 5-day training, I make sure to deliver great value to inspire my subscribers’ trust and their curiosity to keep learning from me. Then when I finally present my digital product on the 6th day they are much more likely to buy from me than they were 5 days ago.

A step by step guide

Selling a digital product is one of the most profitable and passive business you can start and while I hope I have given you a clear understanding of what you need to do, it’d be impossible to cover every part of the process in just one article.

Everything I know and that has worked for me to sell $30K in digital products over 6 months, I learned in this 30-day challenge. If you are serious about creating a 6 or 7 figure income with your digital product, I couldn’t recommend it enough.

It is taught by Russell Brunson himself, who has built a $360 million business selling software and ebooks and his team of 7-figure business owners.

Click here to learn more about the challenge

Digital Products to Sell | FAQ

1. What kind of digital products can I sell?

You can sell any of the digital products I have mentioned in this article such as ebooks, courses, workshops, memberships, photography, videos, printables, swipe files, music, art, productized services, coaching, software, and affiliate products.

2. How do I choose a digital product to sell?

Some important factors to consider when choosing a digital product to sell are:

• Consider creating a digital product to sell on a niche that you are familiar with so it is easier to be aware of the audience’s needs and the current offer.
• Consider choosing an evergreen product that can be sold long-term, year-round, and that doesn’t need constant updates.
• Do some research around the product you want to create, is there something similar in the market? Can you make it better?
• If you don’t have any experience selling digital products, consider creating a simple one first such as an ebook, this is a better way to learn about the process without too much risk.
• Talk to people in your niche about your product idea and gather their opinions.

Takeaway

There are many types of digital products you can sell depending on your interests, skills, and expertise.

But regarldless of the digital product you choose to sell, this is one of the easiest and lower-risk business you can start today.

What do you think about these digital products? Which one would you like to sell?

Let me know in the comments I’d be happy to help you get started!

Facebook is the biggest social media of them all so is natural that brands, marketers and entrepreneurs like yourself to want to use it to reach their their audiences, get some of that juicy traffic and turn them into paying customers.

If you have been asking yourself these questions, then this article will help you clear up all the doubts and show you what you should and should not do to be successful using Facebook ads for affiliate marketing.

Plus, I will tell you how I lost $2,000 with Facebook ads so you can avoid making the same mistake.

Facebook ads for Affiliate Marketing: What You should know before starting

Before we get started with the step-by-step guide to create a profitable affiliate campaign, let’ get some doubts of the way and mention some key factors that will help you set yourself up to success.

1. Facebook Ads and Affiliate Links

Affiliates, especially newbies, often wonder if they can place their affiliate links directly on their Facebook Ads.

The answer is yes BUT you shouldn’t . While technically there is nothing on Facebook advertising polices that prohibits it, things are different in practice.

Most campaigns with affiliate links are often disapproved automatically, and the ones that get approved initially, end up getting cancelled anyway, which is worse because that can also get your account banned.

So, how does one use Facebook ads for Affiliate Marketing?

While you can not include your affiliate links directly as the destination URL of your ads, that doesn’t mean you can’t use Facebook ads at all.

In fact, it just means you get to do it properly and in a more profitable and safe way: using your own landing page.

2. Using a Landing Page for Facebook Ads + Affiliate Marketing

Creating a landing page that exists in between your Facebook Ads and your affiliate link will allow you to use Facebook Ads without any issues and without putting your account at risk.

A landing page is a simple stand alone page where you will direct your Facebook Ads to and where you will place your affiliate link so you can direct people to your offers.

Below is a visual representation that explains it better that words can do.

Besides allowing you to use Facebook ads for affiliate marketing, using a landing page gives you many other benefits such as:

• Allows you to grow your email list while you make money
• Increases your profits short and long term
• Allows you to automate your selling and create passive income.

I will explain how to create a landing page easily and quickly later on the article so don’t worry if you have never done it before.

3. The money is on the follow-up

Did you know that the average consumer needs to ‘hear from you’ 7-8 times before they make a purchase?

This is why expecting to make a profit from people who visit your offers for the first time is setting yourself up for faillure and dissapointment.

People who get into affiliate marketing with a get-rich-quick mentality, want to cut corners and think that by sending traffic to their offers and they’ll start making money.

While it is still possible to make a profit from what is known as ‘cold traffic’, most of your sales will not come from there. In the contrary, most sales come from retargeting and following up with people who already saw your offers which is why you don’t want to ignore this piece.

Now let’s look at how to create a Facebook ads campaign for Affiliate Marketing the right way and make the most money with it!

Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing Guide

In the following guide, I will cover how to set up all your affiliate campaigns including your Facebook ads and landing page.

I will explain the Facebook Ads first and then the landing page since that is the order in which users will experience it but I suggest reading through it all once and then start by creating your landing page.

1. Set Up You Facebook Account

Note: if you already have your Facebook Business Manager and Ad Account set up please skip to the next section.

If you don’t have a Facebook Ad account follow the next steps to get started:

1.1: Set Up Facebook Business Manager

The first step to being able to run a Facebook ads campaign is to create a Business Manager account

• To begin, go to the Business Manager home page and click Create Account. (Facebook changes the interface quite often so it might look a bit different)

• Next, enter your business name and email to set up your Business Manager account. When you’re done, click Next.

• Enter your business details in the next form. You’ll also need to choose whether you’ll use this Business Manager account to promote your own business or to provide services to other businesses (like an agency). When you’re done, click Submit.

• Check your email for a message with the subject line “Confirm your business email.” Within the message, click Confirm Now.

1.2 Add your Facebook business page

Once you have created your Business Manager account, you’ll need to add your Facebook Business Page. This page will the one you will use to run your ads so make sure that the name and profile picture are related to the affiliate offers you will promote.

If you haven’t create your Facebook Business Page yet, you can follow this guide and come back here to add your page to Facebook Business Manager when you’re done.

To add your Facebook page to Facebook Business Manager:

• From the Business Manager dashboard, click Add Page.

• Then, in the pop-up box, click Add Page again.

• In the next window start typing the name of your Facebook page in the text box, select your Facebook page and click Add Page.

• Your page is now added to the Business Manager!

1.3 Add your Facebook Ad Account

Next, you need to add or set up your Facebook ad account. If you don’t already have a one, here’s how to set it up.

• From the Business Manager dashboard, click Add Ad Account, then Create Account.

• Enter your account details, then click Next.

• Finally, Indicate who will be using the ad account (on this case is your own business), then click Create.

Note: You can only create one ad account right from the start. Once you are actively spending money in your first ad account, you will be able to add more based on your advertising spend.

1.4 Add your Payment Method

Before you can start running any ads, you’ll need to add a payment method to you ad account by following the next steps.

• Open Business Settings.
• Click Payments.
• Click + Add.
• Enter your payment information.

• Click Continue, to save your payment method.

Note: You can not delete your payment method without adding another one first. If you have entered multiple payment options, you can choose which one’s primary and you can also delete the others.

You are now ready to create your first Facebook Ads Campaign for Affiliate Marketing!

2. Create your Facebook ads for Affiliate Marketing

Before we start creating your ads, is important that you know that the structure of a Facebook ads campaign has three levels:

• The campaign level: here you will choose the goal of your campaign. Facebook has 11 different objectives you can choose from but the one you’ll be using more are Traffic or Conversions.
  
  When you selected a goal, Facebook will then optimize your ads so they are shown to users who have historic tendency to perform those actions based on Facebooks data.

• The ad set level: here you will you define your targeting strategy by choosing audience characteristic like location, gender, age and interested. You can also create a budget, set a schedule and choose your placements.
  
  All the ads that you create for this ad set or ‘ad group’ will share the same targeting and budget strategy. This means that if you want to compare how two or more different audiences perform, you need to create two or more separate ad sets.

• The ad level: here is where you will choose the media you will use for your ads (images or videos), text, links and call-to-action button.
  
  In every ad campaign is important that you use several different media option so you can eventually learn which type of media, videos and text works best for your audience.

2.1 Create your first affiliate marketing ad campaign

• From your Business Manager Dashboard, click Business Manager on the top left and choose Ads Manager

• Under the Campaigns tab, click the green Create button.

• Choose your campaign Objective. Now this is when thing get interesting since there is not a rule or unanimous opinion on what’s best.
  
  If you use the Traffic objective Facebook will show your ads to people who click on lots of ads and if you use the Conversion objective it’ll show your ads to people who are most likely to perform that conversion, such as purchasing of your product.
  
  To put it another way, with Traffic you can get clicks for cheaper but with Conversion you get a ‘better’ type of audience.

• There is no doubt that the Conversion objective is the best to make sales BUT some marketers think that you should begin with Traffic and only after you make some sales, change to Conversion.
  
  When you are just starting with Facebook you don’t have any data yet in your pixel about who your typical buyers are. This is why some argue that by choosing Traffic first you can get cheaper visits and ‘warm up’ your pixel.
  
  Others think that it is best to choose the Conversion objective from the beginning since then those who visit your page will are more likely to buy from you anyway.
  
  The final choice is yours but I have found the Conversion objective to work best for me in 80% of cases so that is my recommendation. You can also create two different campaign and compare which one performs better for your offers and audience.

2.2 Create your adset

• After selecting your campaign objective, it’s time to create the ad set. At this level, you will choose what audience you want to target, the placements (e.g. timeline, side bar, messenger, etc.), budget and dates.
  
  The target is one of the most important parts of your ad sets and finding audiences that convert for your offers is the first step to a successful campaign.
  
  Start by setting up the location, gender and age of your audience based on the affiliate offer you will promote.

• This will also depend on the conditions is the affiliate offer and where is it available. If it is available worldwide, I’d start with the 4 main markets which are United States, UK, Canada and Australia.
  
  The gender and age will also be determined by the affiliate offer. Some programs will even provide you with some data on their buyers’ demographics.

• The next step is called Detailed Targeting. Here you will have the option to select different interests and behaviors as a way to segment the audience you want to target.
  

• You can choose between generic interests such as ‘fitness’, ‘cooking’, ‘languages’ or you can also use brands in your niche who you think your audience might be interest in. This way Facebook will then show your ads to people who have shown interest in such topics or brands in the past.
  
  You can also stack up or exclude interests, this is where your imagination and craft as a marketer will come to play. For instance, you could choose to target people who are interested in both meditation and yoga, but exclude people who are interested in hot yoga.

• On the right column, Facebook will show you the size of your audience based on the targeting you have set up. You want it to be at least 2 million (or close) so you can play around with your interests until you get there.
  
  Create at least 5 different adsets so you have more opportunities to find a winning one.
  
  Pro tip: Make sure to uncheck the option that says “expand interests when it may increase conversion at a lower cost’. It messes up with your targeting and never in a good way.

• Next, choose your ads placements. There is a lot of option here including Facebook and Instagram feeds, stories, in-stream ads in videos, etc.
  
  In my experience the best performing placements are feed and stories so if you have no experience with Facebook ads I would advice to choose between those. Keep in mind that you need a different size of images/ videos for each placement.

• Next, set up your budget and schedule. You can choose between a daily budget or a lifetime budget. I would advice starting with $20-$30/day per adset so you can get some significant data and can get rid of the adset that are not performing well at the end of the day.

2.3 Create the adverts for your affiliate offer

Now for the moment we have all been waiting for: creating your very first affiliate ads. This is where you will choose the images (or video), headline and body text.

You can choose between and existing post or creating a new advert. For the purpose of this article let’s assume you don’t have any posts yet so we will create a new ad. (Which is what I recommend doing anyway).

• Choose the type of ad you want to create. Facebook currently offers 5 different formats for adverts, which also change depending on the objective of your campaign.
  
  The most commonly used are single image and single video so I would suggest starting with one of those.

• Once the format is selected, you need to add the images or video and the copy. These elements will play a huge role in determining your ads performance.
  
  A very important factor to consider is to keep to make sure there is congruency along your ads, landing page and affiliate offer by using the same message, colors and images. This way the user can have a seamless journey and won’t be distracted wondering if they have landed in the right place.

• Upload the images or videos you want to use for your ad. Be sure that your ad’s media fit Facebook’s ad specs—otherwise, they could be blurry, cut off, or rejected.
  
  You can also check for the recommended specs on the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

• Next, write your ad copy, including your headline, description, and Call To Action (CTA). Once you complete the fields, you can see how your ad will look with the live ad preview.

• Finally, you will need to add the website URL where you want to direct your ads. Since you can not use your affiliate links here, you want to use the URL of your landing page.
  
  In the next section, I will show you how to create your landing page and then you will have the URL ready to paste it in your ads.

3. Creating a landing page for your affiliate offer

As I mentioned before, you can not direct your Facebook ads to your affiliate links so this is why we will use a simple landing page to serve as a ‘bridge’.

Now for this page, you can really let your imagination run, try different things, angles, images, videos, etc.

But if you are just beginning, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The best way to test an offer is with a simple page and an intriguing message that incites that visitor to want to know more.

3.1 Creating your first affiliate landing page

Nowadays there are many drag-and-drop builders that you can use to create a landing page in a few minutes without the need for any coding or design experience.

For the purpose of this article, I will use Clickfunnels which is what I use for all my landing pages. I particularly like that it has an automated email feature that allows you to follow up with visitors who didn’t buy and recover a lot of sales on autopilot.

The first thing you need to do is grab a free 14-day trial in Clickfunnels.

• Once you have created your account, go to the menu at the top, click on the Clickfunnels Button and select funnel.

• Click on Build New Funnel and on the next tab choose “Collect Emails”. Clickfunnels will create Landing Page that collect emails and a Thank You Page (you might not use this one since you will redirect visitors to the affiliate offer)

• On the left column, you will see what page you are editing and you can now choose between hundreds of templates that Clickfunnels has available so you only need to customize them according to the affiliate offer.
  
  When I am first testing an offer I like to use a template with a video screenshot like the one below so I’ll show you an example of how I’d do it.

• Once you select the template, click on the edit button and it will open the page editor

• To edit an element simply click on it and you will be able to edit change the text, colors, margins, etc. You can also add another element from the menu on the right by simply clicking on it.

• This template already has a button included where you’ll want to add your affiliate link. To edit the button, click on it and it will open the settings. Here you want to choose the button action to be ‘Go to website URL‘ and add your affiliate link as the destination.

• Once people opt in with the emails and click on the button, they’ll be taken to the affiliate offer and if they make a purchase you will receive a commission.

• Below is an example of a landing page I created for an offer for Diabetes. As you can see my bridge landing page is very similar to the offer page. You want to make sure there is congruency along the visitors’ journey so there are no doubts or distractions.

3.2 Get more sales and profits on autopilot

Now that you have your landing page and ads running, it’s time to create your email sequence to follow up with those who opted in but didn’t buy.

When I first started with affiliate marketing I made the huge mistake of leaving this for ‘later’. I created my landing page, started running ads, and boom! sales started to happen. I was ecstatic but couldn’t find a way to be profitable.

I was spending more money on ads than what I was earning on commissions. I thought I just needed to get better with Facebook ads so I continued to drop money trying to lower my cost per purchase and find the perfect audience.

I lost $2,000 and was ready to call it quits before I remember what I actually implemented what they had taught in the course about the follow-up sequence. I was then able to turn the table around and start making a profit in a few days. Moral of the story, don’t be like me. Set yourself up to make money from the beginning.

So, how do you actually set up a follow up sequence?

• Click on the Automation Tab of your landing page

• Click on Add New Email

• Get your affiliate skills into practice and write your Follow Up email. The goal is to remind people about the offer and invite them to finalize their purchase.
  
  Here, you can include your affiliate link directly so they are taken straight to the offer and can make the purchase.

• You also have the option to add an Email Delay based on the time they opted into your page.

• I usually set up my follow up sequence for 1 hour after, the next day and 2 days after.

• As you can see all this process is now automated so you can make a passive income while you sleep or do something else.

Note: Clickfunnels email automation is limited with the standard plan. if you want to sell other affiliate products to the people on your list and generate a passive income for months and years, it is best to get an email autoresponder like Active Campaign. This way you can create sequences that last for as long as you want, track results, do a/b testing, and anything else you can imagine.

4. Track and optimize your Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing campaign

Last but not least, once your ads start running and you have some data about how all the pieces are performing, is time to evaluate your results and optimize them.

Even if you are making sales and getting profits, there is always room for improvement and a little extra margin can mean thousands once you scale your campaign.

Some factors you want to check when optimizing your campaign are:

• Your ads CTR (click to ratio), the better your click to ratio, the cheaper your clicks, and hence, the cheaper your cost per purchase. Yo optimize your CTR you can try different images, and copy variations.

• Your ads CPM (Cost Per Mil) meaning the cost per 1,000 impressions. If this is too high it will increase all your other costs and make it harder to be profitable. CPMs vary depending on the niche but I try to find Facebook audiences with a $10 CPM maximum. Try different targets to find the ones that work best for you.

• Your landing page Opt-in Rate, meaning what percentage of people who visit your landing page put their emails and visit your affiliate offers. In a similar way to improve your opt-in rate, you can try different headlines, images, and colors.

Note: You can see this in your Facebook Ads Manager and Clickfunnels Stats Tab respectively.

Once you have a good profit margin, you want to increase your ads budget so you can naturally make more money. But Facebook is quite jumpy so it is best to increase it slowly and gradually so it doesn’t mess up your results.

Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing Summary

Since this is a thorought and extensive guide, let’s review the key parts to make sure you have a clear idea:

1. To use Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing you need to use a landing page.
2. You can create a landing page easily using a drag-and-drop builder like Clickfunnels
3. You can be as creative as you want with your landing page or keep it simple but you should always keep it congruent to your affiliate offer page.
4. Most of the sales won’t come from first-time visitors so it is essential to be profitable to have a follow-up email sequence.
5. Once you are running your campaign, it is important to keep track of your results and optimize every step of your process to increase profits.
6. The best part about using a landing page is that you are building your own email list while you make sales and money.

Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing Pros

• On-demand immediate traffic.
• No need for a website, blog or content creation.
• Can be done with just a landing page.
• Works for a wide variety of niches.
• Can reach almost any demographic.
• Highly scalable

Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing Cons

• Has a learning curve.
• You need to invest money.
• You can lose money while you learn.
• High competition and ads costs
• You can’t use direct linking.

Facebook Ads for Affiliate Marketing FAQ

Can I promote ClickBank products on Facebook?

Yes, you can follow the steps I teach in this article to promote Clickbank products with Facebook Ads. You can not use affiliate links directly but you can do it by using a landing page as explained above.

Can I use Facebook ads for affiliate marketing?

Yes, you can use Facebook ads for affiliate marketing. However you can not place your affiliate links directly on your ads so you need to use a landing page or bridge page ‘in between’ your ads and your affiliate offers.

Can I use Facebook ads for Amazon affiliate marketing?

While you can technically follow the same strategy I share to promote Amazon affiliate products, the commission rates are so low that it would be impossible to make a profit. I would suggest using Facebook ads for products with a commission of at least $20.

Check out this video to learn more about High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing

Takeaway

Facebook ads can be a powerful and profitable platform to run your affiliate marketing campaigns but they do take some time and money to master. If you have some money to invest and want to start making some sales quickly, then Facebook ads are a great place to start.

The best part about this strategy is that you are practically being paid for building your email list which is the ultimate money-making asset. Check out this article to learn how to make the most money from your list with affiliate marketing.

Then you have come to the right place!

The truth is, most people outside the digital marketing sphere don’t even know blogging can even be a sustainable and scalable source of income. And to be honest, I don’t mind since that just means less competition and more opportunities for me us.

While you can make money with almost any topic, some niches are undoubtedly more profitable than others so it is key to choose the right one that alings with you goals from the beginning.

Besides, is not only the right niche that matters but having the right strategy on how you are going to monetize it and convert your readers into loyal fans and buyers

Once you finish reading this guide you will know exactly how to choose and validate your blog topic, as well as the best ways you can use to monetize it from day 1.

Blog Niche: What is it and why is it important?

In the blogging world, your blog’s niche is basically the topic you decide to focus on.

It can be broad as in ‘Travel’, ‘Fitness’ or ‘Relationships’ or be more specific as in ‘Travel with Kids’, ‘Fitness for Moms’ or ‘Breakup Advice’.

When you are first starting out, it is best that you ‘niche down’ by choosing a more specific topic. This will help you build your authority and start building a community of loyal readers.

When someone finds your blog and see that you cover a topic that they are interest on but also 10 more than they don’t really care about, it is unlikely that they will subscribe or come back.

On the other hand, if they see that all your articles are on topics related to the reason they found you on the first place, they’ll definitely want to stay updated and know more from you.

Additionally, niching down will also help you ranked faster by Google which is one of the main traffic sources for bloggers. In order for you to start ranking for certain search terms (keywords) one of the key factors is for them to see you as an expert in that field.

If you choose a too broad niche there’ll be literally thousands of topics for you to cover and you will have written 200 posts and yet haven’t even covered 10% of it.

Besides, if you choose a smaller niche, once you have managed to position yourself and are getting some consistent traffic, you can expand and cover other related topics without issues.

How do blogs make money?

In order for you to pick the best niche for your blog, it is important that you understand all the possible ways in which you can monetize it

. This will make it way easier when you are trying to narrow down and pick your blog’s topic.

Here are some of the main ways in which bloggers make money:

• Ad Placement: Adding ads in your blog is one of the easiest monetization methods to implement. You just need to apply to Google Ad Network (or other) and after you are approved you can start earning from every impression and click.

• Affiliate Marketing: another way you can make money is by promoting affiliate products. You can do this by creating reviews, tutorials, etc. where you include links for certain products or services. If your visitors click on those links and end up buying something from that company, you receive a commission.
  
  In this blog, for example, I include affiliate offers for hosting, software, and other tools that help bloggers and entrepreneurs.

If you want to learn more about this monetization method make sure to check my article Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers for a detailed guide.

• Selling your own products: creating and selling your own products is a great way to make money from your blog since all the profits go straight to your pockets. From pdf guides to ebooks or online courses, there is no limit to what you can offer when you know your audience and their needs.

• Freelance writing: While this is not money made directly fro your blog, s lot of bloggers use writing gigs as a way to support their blogging journey at the beginning. Once you have some blog posts, you already have a portfolio that qualifies you as a writer and an expert in your field. Plus, the more you write the better you get at it so it’s a double win.

• Partnerships: Once your blog starts growing along with your authority, you will be able to make money through brand partnerships. This means they will pay you to create content, post it on your blog, share it on your social media channels, etc.
  
  While it can take some time to reach these type of deals, well-stablished bloggers can make 5 to 6 figures solely on brand partnerships.

• Coaching / Consulting: Similarly to partnership, once you have gain a reputation in your field, you can offer your services as a private coach or consultant. This is another example of how blogging can serve as a platform to grow your authority and give you access to opportunities you wouldn’t have had before.

Recommended: How much do bloggers really make?

Blogging niches: Types of blogs to make money

Before getting started I want to mention that this is by no means a complete list since there are literally thousands of niches, sub-niches and approaches you can choose to make money blogging.

So, think of this a guide of broad blogging topics that you can use to get inspired and start finding your money-making blog niche.

1. Personal Finance

We live in a capitalist world where most adults don’t truly know how to make money, save money or stay of out debt. This is why the personal finance niche is one of the most profitable (and also most competitive).

But don’t let this discourage you since there is a huge audience and interest in this topic. If you can niche down or find a unique approach to it, you can definitely make some good money with it.

Personal Finance Stablished Blogs:

• SmartPassiveIncome makes $160,000/ month
• Making Sense of Cents $1,500,000/ year
• NerdWallet currently worth $500 million

Monetization methods:

Since people in this niche are looking for financial help, they won’t be able or interested in buying a high-ticket course or digital product.

If I were to start a blog in this category, I would focus on affiliate marketing including debt settlement, loans, and credit card offers. There are many great offers that pay between $30-$50 per lead so people won’t even need to buy anything so you can get a commission.

Also, once you start getting some consistent traffic, you can make a decent income from simply placing ads in your blog since there is a lot of demand from advertiser to reach these audiences.

Niche ideas:

• Personal Finance for College Students
• Personal Finance for Single Moms
• Personal Finance for Retired People
• Personal Finance for Entrepreneurs
• Personal Finance for Digital Nomads

2. Health & Fitness

People will always look for ways to feel and look better which is why this category is also very popular and profitable. It is also very competitive but don’t let that discourage you since there is always a unattended audience or new approach you can take.

When it comes to health & fitness the topics include different types of exercise, bodybuilding, weight loss, and specific diets.

Health & Fitness Stablished Blogs

• Healthline (Undisclosed but more than $100,000 based on visits)
• Avocadu $30,000/month
• EasyLivingToday $40,000/month

Monetization Methods

There is no limit to the methods you can use to make money in this niche. Contrary to the personal finance niche, there is no obvious limitation so you can promote high ticket affiliate offers or even create your own products and courses.

People are always willing to invest when it comes to their feeling and looking good so if you can gain their trust and put a good offer in front of them, they’ll be happy to purchase it.

Niche ideas:

• Weight Loss & Gain for women, men, pregnancy, post partum, etc.
• Weight loss and diets. (Be careful not to choose a trending topic since it might be gone as fast as it appeared).
• Food & Supplements. e.g. veganism, detox, low carb, gluten-free, diabetic.
• Workout types e.g. CrossFit, functional, seniors, yoga.
• Fitness Gadgets
• Fitness Equipment

3. Food

One requisite to make a niche profitable is to have an audience that is passionate about it and that is definitely the case with food and cooking.

The great thing about this niche is that there are a lot of sub-niches you can get into and differentiating yourself is easier since your unique recipes will do that for you.

Stablished Food Blogs

• Pinch of Yum $100,000+/month
• Sally’s Baking Addiction $50,000/month
• MidwestFoodieBlog $10,000/month

Monetization Methods

In the beginning, most food bloggers make a majority of their income from ad placement. Since most people who come to a recipe site are not looking to buy anything, affiliate revenue is less common.

Sponsored posts and partnerships are also a great way to make money as a food blogger once you have gained some traffic and reputation.

Additionally, launching your own digital product with recipes is a great way to turh the casual visitor into a paying customer.

Niche ideas:

• Recipe blogs
• Food or drink tasting blogs
• Cookbook review blogs
• Healthy eating blogs
• Cuisine-specific
• Location-specific
• Sustainable cuisine

4. Travel

*2020 Update: COVID has hit the travel industry, including bloggers, pretty hard but it doesn’t mean this is no longer a profitable niche in the long term. Building a blog and getting some traction takes some time so you can still get started in this niche until and gain some time until travel returns to normal level*

Travel is a trillionaire industry so you can imagine that there are a lot of opportunities to make money with a blog in this niche. People are traveling more than ever and with the expansion of remote work, that will continue to increase.

This niche is as big as the world itself since you can focus on specific countries or regions, types of travellers based on demographics, interests, etc.

Stablished Travel Blogs

• NomadicMatt $70,000+/month
• The Blonde Abroad $1M in 7 years
• OneStep4ward $1M in 3 years

Monetization Methods

As a travel blogger, you have many options to make money. From affiliate offers like insurance, plane tickets, and accomodation to sponsored content for hotels and travel operators.

Additionally, travel bloggers also make some money creating their own travel guides or photography presets to make pictures ‘insta-worthy’.

Niche ideas:

• Travel for solo women
• Travel fashion
• Budget Traveling
• Luxury travel
• Adventure travel
• Travel for families
• Travel for foodies
• Experiential travel
• Region-specific
• Location-specific

5. Fashion and Beauty

Fashion and beauty blogs emerged in the 2000s and are here to stay. While the first bloggers that appeared in that time have achieved now celebrity status, there is still room for you to start today and still be successful.

When it comes to this niche, yourself and your style are part of the content so it’ll be easy to find your own approach and audience.

Since the industry is very visual, it is common for bloggers to use another platform such as Instagram or Youtube to grow their following and direct traffic to their blogs.

Stablished Fashion and Beauty Blogs

• WeWoreWhat – Net worth $4 Million
• Rumi Neely – Net worth $1 Million
• The Blonde Salada $8M/ year

Monetization Methods

Fashion and beauty bloggers main income sources are sponsorships and brand partership. Depending on the engagement, bloggers charge $1-$2 per 100K followers for a blog post and social media post.

But don’t worry, even if you are just starting out you can promote affiliate products for fashion and beauty brands and then move towards sponsorship as your blog grows.

Some bloggers in this niche have even launched their own products with or without a brand behind them which can defitnely be a great source of income if you have built a loyal following.

Niche ideas:

Your niche in this case will be focused on your own style but you can also choose to target specific audiences such as fashion for moms, fashion for plus-size women, etc.

6. Technology

Technology products are not cheap and new models are constantly being launched so consumers are used to buying and replacing their gadgets fast.

This makes it a good niche to make money but it also means you would need to create content more frequently that in oher industries and your articles will have a shorter expiration date.

If you have no problem with that, then this is a profitable niche to consider.

Stablished Technology Blogs

• WireCutter – Made $150 Million in 5 years
• TechCrunch: $2.5M per month
• Gizmodo: $325,000 per month

Monetization Methods

The main revenie source for blogs in this niche is affiliate income from people buying the porducts theyy review or recommend.

While these numbers might seem unreachable, it’s important to consider than most of these blogs have been around for more than ten years.

While you might not make a million in your first year, you can definitely hit 6 figure in your second year if you follow the right strategies.

Niche ideas:

• Processor
• Cameras
• Speakers
• Smartphones
• Audio & Video
• Smartwatches
• Car Accessories
• Security
• 3d Printing

7. Sports & Hobbies

Wherever there is a passionate audience, there is a profitable niche and so is the case when it comes to sports and hobbies.

When people are very interested in an activity and want to get better at it, they are willing to invest in themselves whether that is in equipments or in courses.

Stablished Sports & Hobbies Blogs

• SucculentsAndSunshine – $200K per year
• TheSkiGirl: 6 figures per month

Monetization Methods

From promoting affiliate products to creating your own digital offers and courses, Sports and hobbies blogs have many opprotunites for monetization.

Creating a membership is also a good idea since people like to connect with others who shared similar interests and it gives you the opportunity to create a passive recurring income.

Niche ideas:

• Golfing
• Skiing
• Tennis
• Fishing
• Paddle boarding
• Sailing
• Photography
• Djing
• Gardening
• Crafting

How to choose a profitable blogging niche?

Now that we have reviewed some examples and ideas of profitable niches, let’s go over how you can choose and validate your own to make sure you can make money with it.

1. Start with your experiences

It is a good idea to start this process by making a list of all the topics you have experience in, including your studies, current job, hobbies, the way you spend your time, your family, the place where you live, etc.

Do not filter yourself yet, at this point we are just trying to make gather all your possibilities. You can also go around your house or town and write down topics that spark your interest.

Note: You don’t need to be an expert in this topics —unless you are talkinh about health or laws which Google takes very seriously. But in most case when people go online they are not looking for advanced knowledge. They are looking for someone who has done the research for them as has organized the information so they consume it easily.

2. What are you truly interested in?

Then, go over your list and mark only the topics you are truly interested in and would want to explore further.

Not everything you have experienced with is something you want to pursue. You might not even be too interested in your current profession or day job and it wouldn’t make sense to change a job you don’t like for blogging about something you don’t like.

Think that you are going to be writing, reading, and breathing this topic for years so try to leave only the topics you see yourself enjoying for a long time.

For example, I love traveling but when I started my first blog (not this one) I realized if I made it about travel then it would become my job and it would not longer be a hobby. Every trip I would take I would have been more concerned about gathering data and creating content than on enjoying it so I decided to skip it.

At this point, you can also add a topic you have no experience with but have always wanted to explore. Creating a blog includes a lot of research so this could be a great opportunity for you to learn something while you share it with your readers.

3. Get specific

At this point, you probably have a list of broad topics so is time to narrow down your focus and make them more specific niches.

For example if you have ‘Fitness’ in your niche, make it more specific by adding who would be your target audience, what type of exercises would you cover, etc.

Or if you want to talk about entrepreneurship, is it about freelancing? starting a business? social media? etc.

4. How will you help?

Now that you have those more specific topics, let’s find out if there is a problem or need you can help solve.

Figuring out if there is an audience you can help and how is an essential step to validating your niche’s profitability.

To continue with the previous example, let’ say you are thinking about freelancing.

A person from this niche would research topics like how to get clients, how to create a portfolio, how to send invoices, etc.

They would also have problems like not having a day job and being too tired to work in their projects, clients refusing to pay, not having a health insurance, etc.

Try doing this for the niches in your list and see they also have some problems and needs you can help with.

Hint: Problems and need don’t need to be super serious, they can also be something like “they need to know what are the best running shoes for beginners”.

Additionally, you might let your imagination run in the background with some ways you could monetize this type of blog.

5. Volume & Trend

Another important factor to validate your blog’s profitability is making sure there is enough and steady interest in that niche.

Here are some ways in which you can do that:

Go to Ubersuggest and do a search for some of the narrow down niches you wrote down. This is going to help you evaluate if there is a high volume of people looking for information about this topic.

For example if we talk about the weight loss niche, it is expected that it will have a huge search volume.

But that is just for comparison, now we want to look at the specific niches you are consider. For examples in the weight loss industry, one sub-niche could the ‘weight loss juicing’ so we’d go ahead and search for that keyword to see the search volume.

Try a few variations and related topics in each niche to get a more accurate idea on whether your niche is valuable

See how many searches are done per month in very specific keywords. If you find a few that still have a good search volume, you’ve hit the jackpot.

6. Check for competition

No matter how good you are at coming up with niche ideas, if there is money on it, there’ll be someone else who has thought of that first.

Which is why finding competitiors in your niche is a good sign!

You don’t want to reinvent the wheel here so going into a niche with zero competitors is not a good idea. It can only mean that there is no audience for that topic or the niche is not selling well online. Both enough reasons to not pursue it.

A simple Google search about your niche idea will help you find out some of the main competitors.

If you have done a good job of narrowing down your niche you shouldn’t find huge corporate blogs as your competition either since that’d mean it is a very competitive niche and you’ll have a hard time getting some piece of that audience.

By following these steps you will be able to find a validate a profitable niche that you are also passionate about. For more ways of finding your niche and what mistakes to avoid, make sure to check out my article on How To Start a Money Making Blog

Other factors that influence a blog’s profitability

While choosing the right niche is undoubtedly the first step to making sure you are on the right track to creating a profitable blog, there are other factors that you should consider to guarantee your success as a professional blogger.

1. Choose a professional platform

If you want to make a full-time income and more blogging, you should approach it as professionally as you would do with any other job or business.

This includes choosing a platform that allows you full control of your content and monetization.

While there are some free blogging platforms like Blogger, you can not place ads and are restricted in many other ways.

My recommendation and what I tell all new bloggers is to go with a self-hosted WordPress blog using a reliable hosting provider.

I have been using Bluehost for more than 6 years and I am very happy with the quality and customer support.

Check out Bluehost plans from just $2.95 per month

2. Create a Traffic Strategy

Your blog can be amazing but if you don’t have a way to get visitors in, you will be making around zero dollars.

The Holy Grail of internet traffic is organic traffic that happens as a result of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This means that you optimize your content by using the right keywords and other strategies in order to get ranked in Google’s top results.

If you managed to do this succesfully, you can get passive organic traffic while you sleep, cool huh?

However, SEO can take a while to work and it’s not the only traffic strategy you can use. There are bloggers whose main traffic source is Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or another social media.

These are less passive methods but also work faster so you might want to consider a combination of SEO for the long term and Social Media for the short and mid-term.

If you want to learn more about SEO and how to do rank for your desired keywords check out this article later.

3. Provide Value

I have mentioned this before but I’ll say it again, if you want to make money blogging you must see it as a business where your content is your product and your visitors are your target audience.

You wouldn’t expect to be successful in a business with a mediocre product. In the same way, bloggers who are making big figures are those who have gone above and beyond to help their audience and provide content that they wouldn’t find elsewhere.

Aim to provide great value through unique and thoughtful content that helps your audience and they will become avid readers and customers.

4. Have a Monetization Strategy in Mind

Last but not least, you don’t need to have a course ready to launch or a list of affiliate programs you will use before starting dut do have an idea of how you plan to make monetize your blog before investing all your time and effort into it.

Start considering it since the beginning and keep an eye open to see what your competitors are doing.

Finally, do not limit yourself to one strategy only, bloggers that earn the highest profits are those who have diversified income streams.

Blogging Niches That Make Money | FAQ

How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging?

It depends on how much time you are putting it as well as your traffic and monetization strategies.

As a general rule you should see your first year of blogging as the builiding phase where you will not make much money for the first 6 to 8 months.

If you have produced some good content and are getting traffic from either SEO or other sources, you can expect your income to start growing in month 10-12 and continue to increase over time.

In other words, if you are able to commit during the first months, you will see long term rewards.

Check out this article to find out how much bloggers of different niches and experience levels are making.

Are blogs still profitable?

The short answer is yes, there might be some more competition than 10 or 20 years ago but there are also more people online and more niches to cover.

It is not hard to make money blogging If you put in the work and follow the recommended strategies.

It is not a get-rich-quick scheme but it can replace your current income and more.

Why do blogs fail?

While each case is different here are some reason why blogs can fail:

• They choose a niche that is either too saturated or where there is no money to be made.
• They don’t know how to get traffic
• Their content sucks
• They have good content and traffic but don’t know how to monetize it.
• They give up too soon because they failed to get rich after 4 months.

Where do I start?

Are you ready to create your own profitable blog but don’t knwo where to begin? I have some articles that will guide you step by step into create your own money-making blog.

Starting your blog for beginners: Read this to learn everything from getting your hosting to choosing your blog’s domain and creating your first post.

Make Money Blogging: Read this to learn all the monetization and traffic strategies you need to guarantee your blogging success

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers: Read this to learn all about Affiliate Marketing, how to find the best programs, get approved, and create affiliate content that converts.

Pinterest for Bloggers: Read this to learn everything about this untapped traffic source and how to use it to explode your traffic during your first months as a blogger.

Takeaway

As you can see, there are many types of blogs and niches to make money as well as as many possibilities for monetization.

If you want to get started with yout own money making blog, the best advise I can give you is to start now. Every successful blogger will tell you that making money blogging will take time, so the sooner you start the sooner you can start seeing results.

Treat your blog like a real business and it can change your life as it did for me.

You might be making sales and having profits but if you are not strategically turning visitors into leads and leads into buyers, is like you are playing blindfolded.

But don’t worry, in this article I’ll explain why a Lead Generation Funnels is so crucial to any business and how to create one that brings leads in on autopilot.

What is a Lead Generation Funnel?

Funnels are way simpler than marketers make them sound and this case is not the exception.

A lead generation funnel is a 2 or 3 step website that has the unique goal of capturing visitors’ emails by offering them a free item known as “lead magnet” in exchange.

The term ‘funnel’ references the fact that there are more people at the ‘top’ who are the visitors and only some of them will get to the other side and become buyers (or in this case, leads).

Funnels are based on the premise that customers follows a purchase journey from the momenet they become aware of their needs and your offer until they are ready to buy.

There are a few different models and theories on this customer path and the marketing steps that accompany it. However the most relvenat point is that a potential buyers needs to hear from you a few times and come to trust you before they even consider buying from you.

This is why sales funnels and lead generation funnels are so important. Because once you collect a visitors email you can build a relationship with them, manipulate and optimize that journey in your favor.

Additionally, lead generation funnels are the first steps into qualifying a potential lead. If someone is not interested in your free lead magnet they will most likely won’t be interested in your paid offer either. So it is a way of filtering and reducing your audience to spend your marketing efforts in those who will generate a return on investment.

Do you need a Lead Generation Funnel?

To put it simply, YES! Generating leads is among the most important activities in sales and marketing. Every business needs paying customers and in order to get them, it first needs leads.

Even if you are already making sales without a lead funnel, you can still benefit from one to automate and scale your process, make more sales, and in consequence, more money.

Here are some of the reasons why your business needs a Lead Generation Funnel:

It helps you narrow down your products and services

If you are just starting out and haven’t yet defined who your perfect customer is and what is the perfect offer for them, a lead funnel can help you do it.

When you first create a funnel and a lead magnet you are going to have to be very specific with the problem you are going to help them solve. If you create a lead funnel and it starts converting really well it means there is an opportunity to explore service around that need further.

On the contrary, if you make a lead magnet for a problem you thought was a good idea yet it doesn’t work very well, you know you need to change your approach. Testing and optimizing with a lead funnel is easy and you can quickly change directions. Without one, you could have spent lots of time, energy, and money pushing an offer that had no audience.

Additionally, you can start a conversation with your leads and ask them directly how you can best serve them which already gives you a huge advantage over your competitors.

It makes the selling process easier

When you use a lead generation funnel, you can “warm” your customer, build a relationship and show your authority until the point where they are practically asking how they can work with you or buy your products.

“People don’t like being sold to but they do like buying”

This saying illustrates why funnels are so successful. People are always looking for solutions for their problems and are willing to pay for them IF and WHEN they decide you have what they need.

A lead funnel allows you to do exactly. You get to provide value first and present your offer as a natural consequence to continue to help them once you have earned their trust.

It lets you focus on what you like doing

As an entrepreneur or business owner, you want to spend more time helping people and creating more content and less time prospecting or pushing your product.

When you have your lead funnel in place, you can focus on what you do best and let the funnel do the rest.

Regales of the platform(s) you use fpr growing your audience and generating traffic you only need to direct them to your funnel and it will do the rest.

It guarantees long term success

Generating leads for your business won’t only help you make sales now, but you’ll be growing a list of people to whom you can sell forever.

Did you know that every email subscriber generates on average $1-$2/month and up to $5 on some niches? That’s why companies don’t mind spending up to $20 to get someone on their lists.

Besides the short term benefits and sales, getting leads for your company is the best way to ensure you are successful in the long term.

It protects you and gives you freedom

Collecting leads for your business means you will have an asset of your own that you have 100% control of.

On other platforms like social media you don’t control the traffic, even you are getting a good reach now, the algorithm can change at any time and you coudl stop getting views. Ir if you are doing paid ads, you account could get banned and you’d lost all your data.

In a similar way, if you are using SEO to brinf traffic to your site, Google’s algortihm can also change and your traffic could drop dramatically.

These are all things that don’t happen so often but they definitely happen. This is why building your own email list in one of the safest things you can do for your business. You own your list 100% and even if one email software company were to close to the account you could simply move to another one.

Additionally, when using social media or paid ads you are at mercy of their limitations and terms and conditions, there are certain things you shouldn’t say and you don’t have complete freedom to market your business. This is also fixed by collecting your own leads since you can say anything you want (within reasons) in your email campaigns.

How To Create a Lead Generation Funnel?

Now that we have talked about the importance of collecting leads and how can it impact your business, let’s explore how exactly you can create your own Lead Generation Funnel easily and quickly.

Before we dive deep, its important to understand the main elements that it has:

• Lead Magnet: is the free item or “freebie” that you’ll offer visitors in exchange for their emails.
• Funnel: this includes the Opt-In Page where visitors will be presented with your lead magnet as well as the Thank You Page.
• Email Sequence: This is the email campaign(s) you will send you collected leads in order to nurture them and convert them into buyers.

Now lets explore each one in detail….

1. Create your Lead Magnet

Naturally, the first and most important part of a lead generator funnel is the lead magnet. Your conversion rate, as well as the type of visitors you will attract, will depend hugely on it

How to create the perfect lead magnet to attract your audience? There are a few key factors you can consider:

• It is quick and easy to implement. You want your lead magnet to be something your audience can take action on and see results fast. This way they’ll get immediate satisfaction and will be more willing to take the next step with a paid offer.

• It is really specific. This relates to the previous point but it’s important that you focus on one specific problem or pain point your audience is facing. If you try to go too broad you won’t be able to provide a quick solution and the value of your lead magnet will dilute. People don’t put too much value on free stuff so they are most likely to take prolonged action on something they have paid for than on something free.

• It is part of the bigger problem your paid product solves: Your lead magnet will help you pre-qualify your potential customer for your paid products or services. So it should be something that your perfect audience will be also interested in.
  
  Let’s say for example your paid offer is a 12-week fitness program, you could your lead magnet a 1-week challenge. Or if you paid offer is a Social Media Management service, you can make your lead magnet a free pdf guide on 10 tips to create a social media profile. The point is that you can later introduce your offer as a natural next step in their path to solve their problems.

Some examples of attractive lead magnets are:

• Mini Ebook
• Ultimate Guide
• Checklist
• Spreadsheet
• Workbook
• Recipes / Meal Plan
• Case Study
• Webinar
• Cheat Sheet
• Polls, Quizzes, and Surveys,
• Video Course/ training
• Resource list
• Free trial
• Discount
• Free consultation

If you don’t want to create your own lead magnet, you can also find ready-made one on places like IDPLR.com or have one made for you on Fiverr for a great price.

2. Create your Funnel Pages

Once that you have your Lead Magnet ready is time to create your actual funnel so you can begin capturing emails. It should consist of two pages:

a. Opt-in Page

This is also known as landing page since it is where people will “land” after clicking on whichever traffic source you are using (more on that later).

On this page, you will present your lead magnet in the most attractive and efficient way possible. The goal is to encourage visitors to give you their email to get access to it.

Your opt-in page should be simple and direct and only contain a few key elements:

• Headline: This is the first the will see when they land on your page. It should present the benefits of your lead magnet in a direct and enticing way. A good formula to follow for your headline is “Discover how to [Result] in [Timeframe]Without [Thing You Hate Doing]”.
  
  Check out this article later for more Catchy Headlines Ideas.

• Lead Magnet Mockup: This is optional but having a physical representation of your lead can help make it more tangible and increase its perceived value.

You can create your own lead magnet mockup easily using one of Canva’s templates. If rather pay someone else to do it you find some very affordable designers on Fiverr.

• Benefits: Present a few key benefits they will achieve by downloading your lead magnet. Remember to focus on something that is easy to implement and that delivers quick results.

• Email Form + Call To Action: Last but not least, invite people to opt-in with their email and use a clear call to action button. Make sure this part is above the fold, meaning it is visible without them needed to scroll down.
  
  The least information you ask, the better so try going for the email only or include the name if you consider it essential.

b. Thank You Page

After someone decides to opt-in to get access to your lead magnet, they should be taken to your Thank You Page. Naturally, this is where you’d place a Thank You message but there is a couple of other things you should consider:

• Deliver your lead magnet: You can include a link here so people can download your lead magnet or you can choose to only send it via email.

• Tell them what to expect: You can use this page to tell your subscriber what they can expect from you. Will you send them valuable information, promotions, discounts? etc. You should be emailing them frequently so this way they are a little bit more predisposed to open your emails when they land in their inbox.

• Offer an upsell: If they have already opted in to your lead magnet why not use this opportunity to start offering a paid product? some of them will choose to buy it and those who don’t will already have in mind that you have more to offer in the future.
  
  You can do this by placing an order form in the Thank You Page or by presenting the offer and including a link that takes them to a checkout page.

• Link to your other channels: If you don’t want to present an offer yet, you can still use this page to drive traffic to your other platforms whether than is your blog, social media, or website.

How to design your lead funnel? What Software is best?

If you are wondering how to create the pages themselves, there are many drag-and-drop builders you can use that require zero design or coding experience.

I personally create all my funnels and pages in Clickfunnels. It is very easy to use and you can have a page ready in minutes.

It also has lots of templates based on the type of page you want to create e.g. opt-in page, thank you page, check out page, etc.

You can import a Lead Generation Funnel template with one click and simply tweak it for your own copy, logo, and images.

If you want even more options then Russell Brunson, the owner of Clickfunels, has a library of perfect Lead Generation Funnel Templates you can get when you buy his $7 book – Lead Funnel Swipe Copy.

Just tick the box for the upsell on the order page – very good value.

3. Create your email sequence

Once you start collecting leads, you want to nurture your relationship with them so you can convert them into your paying customers — which is the ultimate goal of getting leads in the first place.

This is usually done through a series of preplanned emails called email sequence or email campaign. This is the part where automation happens and you get to see sales coming in without you doing anything.

The first email you should send is the one that will deliver the lead magnet immediately after they opted in on your landing page. After that, you should start your email sequence with the purpose of introducing yourself and your products or services.

One very famous and effective email sequence you can use is a “Soap Opera” sequence. It is called that way because it uses a little bit of drama to hook people in and leaving them wanting to hear more.

Ideally, your email sequence should be like this:

• Email 0 Welcome: Lead magnet delivery email

• Email 1: Set the Stage: This is where your first and best chance to create a connection with your prospects and leave them wanting more. One way to do so is by mentioning you have a secret that has given you great results and you will share it in the next emails

• Email 2: High Drama: Now that your prospect is hooked it’s a good idea to start with a backstory. Think about the hardest time in your business growth where you might have almost failed, except for one thing. You want them to realize they are going through the same problem, but somehow you’ve found the solution.

• Email 3: The Epiphany: At this point, your readers are hooked and want to learn how you overcame your problem and found a way how to succeed. This is where you present your epiphany and link it to your product. E.g.: I realized I needed to automate this process with a software…” They can now start to see the value of your product.

• Email 4: The Hidden Benefits: Now that your readers have an idea of your offer, you need to help them understand all the different ways that they can benefit from it. You can now add your link so they can make a purchase.

• Email 5: The Call to Action: In the last email of this sequence, you can add a compelling offer with a sense of urgency. Alternatively, you can add a couple more of emails to this sequence with a time deadline reminder and even a last-minute deal.

That concludes your first email sequence that should result in your leads turning into buyers! You should continue to stay in touch with your subscribers on a regular basis sending not only offers but also valuable content.

How to set up an automated email sequence?

You can use an email autoresponder to send your email sequence on autopilot every time you collect a lead.

I have tried almost every email software out there and nothing compares to ActiveCampaign. You can create every automation you can imagine and it is really easy to visualize and integrate with your funnel.

You can separate contacts based differect criteria like if they open an email or not, if they clicked on your offer, bought one of your products, etc.

They also offer a free 14 day trial without a credit card required so you can try it out without worries.

4. Send traffic to your Lead Generation Funnel

Now that you have your high converting funnel and email sequence in place, is time to send traffic and get those leads coming!

When it comes to traffic, There are organic and paid source, like SEO, PPC ads, Facebook ads, YouTube, TikTok, etc.

If you already have a platform like a website/blog or social media account where you are getting significant traffic, you can definitely start using them to direct people to your funnel landing page.

If you don’t have a audience yet, you can use paid traffic sources like Facebook, Google or Youtube Ads.

Each one has its own benefits and withdrawals but the best is to start with one that you are more comfortable with and stick with it until you have master it. Paid traffic takes some time to optimize so if you don’t stick with one long enough you won’t get to the results parts and will end up losing money.

If you want to learn more about the best traffic strategies for your Lead generation Funnel and your business in general, I definitely recommend this FREE BOOK by Clickfunnels creator Russell Brunson. You only need to pay $7.95 shipping.

5. Track and Optimize

Once your traffic is sending prospects to your opt-in page you can seat back for a minute and appreciate your funnel bringing leads on autopilot.

But you should also take a look at your statistics and strive to optimize them so you can bring more leads for less money.

All the tools I have mentioned along the post allow you to see the stats of every part of your funnels and emal sequence so you can know exactly how each piece is performing and where it could use some improvement.

Some statitics to look at are:

• If you are using paid ads, its click through rate, conversion rate and cost per lead. This will tell you how good your images, copy and targeting are.

• In your funnel: your opt-in rate and conversion rate if you include and offer in your thank you page. You can split test any element of your pages with just one click on Clickfunnels so you can improve your statistics continuously.

• In your email sequence: your open rate which will depend on your subject line and your click through rate on your links which will depend on your email copy. In ActiveCampaign you can also split test your emails to see what performs best.

Lead Generation Funnel FAQ

How do you make a lead generation funnel?

To create a lead generation funnel that brings qualified leads on autopilot, follow the steps outlined in this article:

1. Create your Lead Magnet
2. Create your Funnel Pages
3. Create your email sequence
4. Send traffic to your Funnel
5. Track and Optimize

What is lead generation marketing?

In marketing, Lead generation is the process of capturing the contact information of potential clients. This leads are then nurture with the goal of converting them to paying customers.

What is b2b lead generation?

B2B lead generation is a business model in which companies take care of the lead generation process with the goal of later selling those leads to companies in a certain niche or market.

Takeaway

Automating your Lead Generation process is the first step to grow your business and continue to improve your sales and profits. You can not grow a business without sales and you can not sales (efficiently) without leads.

This system will allow you to get qualified leads from on autopilot, nurtured them, and converted them into paying customers 24/7.

If you want someone to take your hand while you launch your fist lead generation funnel, I can not recommend this 30-day challenge enough. Even after 10 years in the digital marketing world, I got amazing value from it. And if for any reason you don’t like it, you can get a full refund back no question asked.

While some affiliate programs allow you to use your links directly, a landing page is necessary to use most paid ads platforms, optimize your profits, and build a long term business.

As a new affiliate, it can feel like a lot to do before you can actually send traffic to your offers and start making money. But thanks to the many tools available nowadays, creating your affiliate landing page can be easy, pain-free and a huge difference in your earnings.

Why create an affiliate landing page?

Here are some of the main reason why your affiliate campaign needs a landing page and the benefits it will offer you:

1. Access to massive audiences

With over 2 billion users each, Facebook and Google are the biggest online platforms you can use to advertise and send traffic to your offers.

However, neither of them allow you to use affiliate links directly on your ads. This means that If you don’t use a landing page for your affiliate offer, you are missing out on a lot of traffic, opportunities, and money.

Additionally, once you create your landing page, you will have an advantage over other affiliates who haven’t done it yet and don’t have access to these platforms.

2. More conversions and profits

Did you know that it takes an average of 6 to 8 times after a customer “hears” from you before they are ready to make a purchase? This means that if you are using other paid ads to send people directly to your affiliate links you are basically wasting money.

People that click on your ads can be interested in the offer but won’t buy it the first time they see it. This is why by not collecting their contact information you are missing out on a lot of sales and dropping money on ads without the proper return on investment (ROI).

By using a landing page, you can collect their emails and follow up with them for free as many times as you want. Additionally, you can use a ‘pixel’, which is a small piece of code you place on your page, to be able to know who visits it and retarget them with your ads.

3. Long Terms Business

I hate to say this but if you are using ads to send people directly to your affiliate offers, you don’t have a long term business. Your social media or ad account could get banned any day and you’d be left with nothing.

In order to build a sustainable business that can overcome that type of challenges, you need to have your own assets. On the digital world that can mean your own platfrom as a website, blog or landing page, a Youtube channel or an email list (among others).

When you create a landing page for your affiliate offers, you are not only able to collect emails and follow up with your subscribers for that one product; you can send them other related offers for years.

Additionally, your email list future-proofs your business, social media account can get shut and platforms can change their algorithm reducing your reach but nobody can take your email list away from you.

4. Optimization

A crucial part of running a profitable campaign is being able to know track the results you are getting and improve the parts that are not working.

Without a landing page, you are sending traffic straigh to the merchants page where you don’t have any control. Of course, if the offer is not converting you will notice after a while and will stop promoting but not without having lost money on ads.

On the other hand, if you use a landing page you have full control over it and can a/b test the different elements to improve the conversions. In that case if the offer you are proting is not selling you can change to another one but already have an optimized page and contacts to send your new offer to.

Additionally, your landing page will help you “pre-frame” the customers and can improve the conversions of the affiliate offer.

How to create a landing page for your affiliate marketing campaigns?

Now that you know why a landing page is essential for your business, let’s explore how to create one in the most simple and efficient way.

1. Choose the type of landing page

A landing page is a general term to define a standalone web page where a visitor “lands” after they click on a link. But, landing pages can have different structures, functions and goals. Here are some of the main types of landing pages used for affiliate marketing.

Bridge Page

A bridge page can also be described as a ‘click-through’ page since its only function is to redirect people to the affiliate offer. Affiliates often use this type of page for Facebook or Google Ads where you are not allowed to use affiliate links directly.

In this case, your only goal is to get people to click on your button or affiliate link. For this reason, you want to make this page really simple and obvious to avoid distractions. You also want to make it look similar to the merchant’s page, this way so visitors don’t get confused and know they are in the right place.

Below is an example of a simple bridge page created for a Clickbank affiliate offer. I created this one in less than 5 minutes using Clickfunnels but you can use any landing page builder.

Note: this is just an example to show you how simple it can be to create a bridge page that can spark the curiosity of your visitors. But remember that it is your job as an affiliate to know your audience and test what works well for you.

Adittionaly, if you place your Facebook or Google Pixel in your bridge page, you can then retarget those who visited but didn’t purchase. Retarget ads have a higher rate of conversion since the audience is more targeted and they have already learned from your offer and shown interested.

If you are more of a visual learner, this is how your affiliate landing/bridge page would work in that case.

Opt-in Page

The second type of landing page you can use is an Opt-in Page, also known as Squeeze Page. If you are serious about your affiliate business and want to improve your sales and profits, this is the type of affiliate landing page I recommend.

Besides allowing you to use paid aids for your affiliate offer, the main goal of this page is to collect your visitor’s emails. This way you can follow up with those who didn’t buy and reap all the amazing benefits I mentioned above.

In order to motivate visitors to give you their emails, you’ll need to offer them a “lead magnet” or “freebie”. I’ll detail more on lead magnets on the next section but put simply, a lead magnet is a free item or service that you give away to your audience in exchange for their emails or other contact information.

Additionally, you will be building an email list of highly targeted subscribers for your niche to whom you can continue to send offers for a long time, assuming you also send them valuable information to keep them engaged and they don’t send you to their junk folder.

Below is the map of how your affiliate landing page would work in this case. As you can see, you have many more opportunities to sell your offer and to make a sale, in consequence. You can also use retargetting ads but since you have collected the emails, it makes more sense to use that to contact them for free.

Which bring us to other next step…

2. Create your lead magnet

(If you decide on using a bridge page without collecting emails, you can skip this section but I’d still advise you to read it since you might want to implement this in the future.)

If you have chosen to do an opt-in page, how do you choose and create a lead magnet?

Your lead magnet needs to be attractive enough so your audience is happy to give you their email. Naturally, it needs to be related to your final offer so you know the audience who opts-in will also be interested in your paid affiliate product.

Some examples of lead magnets are:

• Free pdf guide: This is probably the most common and also the easiest to create. While simple, it can still be very valuable for your audience if you know their needs and can create something that solves one of their problems.
  
  For example, if the affiliate offer you are promoting is a weight loss program, you could create a pdf guide with “10 tips to lose 3 pounds in 1 week”. Naturally, people who are interested in your pdf guide will also be interested in the affiliate offer.

• E-book: ebooks are another lead magnet with great perceived value. They don’t need to be too long though, you can make an ebook of 10-15 pages, and, as longs as it delivers the promised solution, your audience will be satisfied.
  
  Let’s say you are promoting an affiliate offer for a course on relationships, you could make a free ebook about “How To Use Dating Apps”. The goal is to make the affiliate offer a natural consequence or the next step to follow after getting the lead magnet.

• Quizzes: if you can create an interesting and fun test related to your offer, it can become a very attractive lead magnet. People are naturally self-centered and like to learn about themselves which is why quizzes from Buzzfeed and similar pages are so popular.
  
  In this case, you can present the quiz and leave the opt-form form at the end. This way, when they are asked for their email, they’ll be more interested in knowing the results so the chances of them providing their emails are higher.
  
• Case Study: If you are promoting a course you have taken yourself and that you have gotten great results with, creating a case study explaining how you achieved it, can be a very attractive lead magnet.
  
  Let’s say for example you are promoting a course on Facebook Ads, you can create a case study on how you used Facebook Ads to generate 10X more revenue. Then you can make the connection and redirect your audience to the course where learned those strategies.

•  Checklist: This type of freebie has proven to be one of the best converting ones. They are direct, concise, and give the user actionable steps to follow. Plus, they are easy and quick to create.
  
  If for example, you are promoting a Travel Insurance offer, you can create a checklist on things to make sure you have packed for your next trip. You could even include the affiliate link for the travel insurance as part of the list as an extra way to promote it.

• Plan/Planner: If you are in the wellness or fitness niche, a planner can be a valuable lead magnet for your audience.
  
  If you are promoting a fitness challenge or a diet program, you can create a 5-day meal plan for them to get started with their journey and don’t need to worry about what to eat every day.

• Spreadsheet: can be used to create all kinds of useful resources. Especially if you are in the personal finance niche, you could create a spreadsheet to help people organize their budgets, save and pay off their debts.
  
  There are many debt relief offers that even pay up to $35 per lead so simply by collecting emails you could be making commissions.

Other lead magnet ideas include audiobooks, recipes, webinars, templates, workbooks, reports, and infographics, among others.

Your lead magnet is a key piece of your landing page and a big part of your conversion rate will depend on it. Some factors to consider to make sure you are in the right part with your lead magnet are:

1. Promises one tangible solution: it should help them to solve one specific problem easily and quickly.
2. Quick to digest:  pdf guides, videos, and cheatsheets work the best since people perceive them as something they can understand and apply instantly.
3. Perceived value: people know their emails are valuable so you want to present your lead magnet in a way that shows high value as well.

How to create your lead magnet?

If you don’t want to create your own lead magnet, you can use pages like The PLR Store and buy books and other types of digital content that you can use for your own business. You can also hire someone on Fiverr to create and brand a lead magnet for you.

3. Design your affiliate landing page

Once you have you lead magnet chosen, it’s time to finally create your affiliate landing page.

If you are no a designer nor a programmer, don’t worry, there are many ‘drag-and-drop’ builders that you can use to create your landing page in minutes without any prior experience.

My favorite option (and what I recommend to my clients) is Clickfunnels. !It’s a simple, drag-and-drop landing page builder that’s designed for beginners. PLUS, you get a 14 day FREE trial to test it out. Click here for a FREE 14 day trial of ClickFunnels!

But, the choice is up to you! There are lots of great alternatives out there.

That being said there are a few key elements to consider when designing your affiliate landing page:

a. The headline

When your visitors come to your page, you have about 8 seconds before they decide to stay or leave. Your headline is one of the first things they’ll see and in which they’ll base that decision you want to make very direct, simple and persuasive.

There is no need to overcomplicate it, your headline should communicate what benefit or solution they are going to get by getting your lead magnet. Here are some effective headline formulas you can use:

•How to [Result] in [Timeframe]Without [Thing You Hate Doing]
•[Number] Quick Tips to GettingEasy [Result]
•The Fastest Way to [DesiredOutcome]
•The [Number] Biggest MistakesYouCan Use When [Action]
•[Number] Hacks to [DesiredOutcome]
•How to 3x [Desired Outcome]With This Little Known Secret
•[Number] Easy Techniques to Become [Desired Outcome]
•[Number] Beginner Strategies to [Desired Outcome]
•[Number] Things That All[Specific Audience] Shouldn’t Do
•Discover How You Can [DesiredOutcome] in [Timeframe]
•The Ultimate [Type Of LeadMagnet] to [Desired Outcome]
•How to [Action Verb] A [DesiredOutcome]

Recommended: 147 Catchy Headlines To Claim Your Readers Attention

b. Opt-In And Call To Action

Probably the most important part of your landing page is the opt-in form. Make sure your is visible ‘above the fold’ (meaning people don’t need to scroll down to see it) and include a clear and concise “Call To Action” in the button. E.g. “Yes, Send Me The Free Guide Now”, “Click Here To Get Instant Access”, etc.

With Clickfunnels or any other drag-and-drop builder, you can insert an opt-in form and start collecting emails instantly with just a couple of clicks.

c. Lead Magnet Mockup

Including a mockup of your lead magnet gives it a higher perceived value and makes it more tangible for your audience. You can create one easily using Canva or you can hire someone from Fiverr to do it for you.

d. Testimonials

If you have any testimonials or success stories using on people getting good results using this lead magnet then this is a great opportunity to include them. They work as social proof and help your build trust with your audience.

This is not essential but if you don’t have any testimonials, you can also ask a colleague or friend to check your lead magnet and give you an honest opinion that you can use.

e. Benefits

In this section, tell your visitors what benefits they will get by downloading your free lead magnet, what problem are they going to solve, how is that going to impact their life or business directly, is it going to save them time? money? Are they going to feel better? etc.

Remember to keep it direct and concise, focus on one specific win they are going to get, and focus on how easy it will be to implement.

f. Introduce yourself

This part is not mandatory but it is a good idea to introduce yourself, tell them how you can help them and mention you will be sending them other tips and resources if they opt-in. This way they remember you next time you send them an email and are more likely to open it and to not makr it as spam.

It also serves to position yourself as an authority in the industry. If you are an expert in a field they are interested in, they are more likely to take your recommendations on this and other products you endorse.

g. Final CTA

Finally, you can include a summary of your lead magnet with a CTA button. It can have an extra opt-in form in this section or you can set up the button so it scrolls up to the opt-in form at the top.

This is an example of how your affiliate landing page can be structured. You can also download this template here if you have a Clickfunnels account or otherwise it’ll redirect you to create a free trial first.

4. Deliver your lead magnet

Once visitors opt into your landing page, it’s time to deliver the promised lead magnet!

Regardless of what landing page builder you are using, you can set it up so the lead magnet is delivered automatically to their emails once they subscribe.

If you are using Clickfunnels, you would go to the Automation Tab, click on “Add New Email” and in this case choose “Everyone” since that means everyone who opted in.

You can use the same email where you deliver the lead magnet to tell them about your affiliate product or you can create a separate email sequence for that purpose.

Additionally, you can choose “Add a New Action” and add them to your email list so you can follow up with them about this and future affiliate offers you promote.

5. Redirect to your affiliate offer

Besides sending the lead magnet, when someone opts-in to your landing page you also want to send them to your affiliate offer.

You can do this by:

a. Redirecting them to the page when they click the opt-in button
b. You can create a Thank You Page to confirm their subscription and use it to present the affiliate offer.

The second option required one extra step but it’s better since it gives you one more chance to present the offer and improve the chances of conversion.

If you decide to use a Thank You Page as it is recommended, here is what your visitors’ journey would look like.

6. Create your email sequence

Congratulations! You are now sending traffic to your landing page, collecting emails and making some sales. But it’s your email sequence what hold the power to multiply your conversions and profits.

As I mentioned, the majority of people won’t buy the first time they land on your page which means most of your sales will come from your email sequence.

I use Active Campaign for all my email automations and so far is the most complete email software I have tried and integrates seamlessly with Clickfunnels. You can get a free trial of Active Campaign here.

What should you write on your emails?

A good idea is to begin with a soap opera sequence which is a type of welcome email sequence that uses a story to capture your readers’ attention.

It helps you create a bond between you and your new subscribers that makes them more interested in what you are going to send them next.

A soap opera email sequence is a series of five emails sent on 5 consecutive days that go as follows:

• Email #1: Set the Stage
• Email #2: High Drama
• Email #3: Epiphany/Breakthrough: Product
• Email #4: Hidden Benefits
• Email #5: Urgent CTA

If you are familiar with the niche and products you are selling, you can easily write a story that your readers can relate too.

This is only one example you can use for your emails but there are many other email sequences marketers use. If you want to learn more about copywriting, templates, and email marketing then this book is the best you will find out there.

7. Test and Optimize

Last but not least, optimize your landing page to increase your sales and profits!

Even if you’re seeing some success with your landing pages, you can always improve them further with additional split-testing.

Software like Clickfunnels allow you to create a split test with one click so you can make changes one by one and see which version performs better.

You want to be continuously testing and optimizing your landing pages since that can be the difference between a non-profitable and a profitable campaign or a 15% vs a 30% profit margin. Once you start to scale your business, that can mean thousands of dollars lost (or won).

Landing Page for Affiliate Marketing FAQ

How do I create a landing page for affiliate marketing?

You can use Clickfunnels or other landing page builder to create your affiliate marketing landing page. Depending on your preferences, you can also choose between a simple bridge page that doesn’t collect emails and an opt-in page that does collect emails.

For a detailed guide follow the steps outlined above.

How do I use Clickfunnels for affiliate marketing?

You can use Clickfunnels to build your affiliate landing pages and at the same time if someone clicks on the Clickfunnels badge on your page and start using the software you get a commission for their membership.

Recommended: Clickfunnels Affiliate Program: Make Money And Win Your Dream Car

Can I use my Facebook page for affiliate marketing?

Yes, you can promote your affiliate products on your regular posts but you can not use affiliate links on Facebook ads. This is why it is important to create a landing page for your affiliate offers if you want to use Facebook Ads.

Recommended: How to do Affiliate marketing On Facebook

How do I create a landing page without a website?

Technically, a landing page is a stand-alone website and you don’t need another website to create a landing page. You also don’t need a hosting since most landing page software help you easily create and host landing pages without any design or coding experience.

Recommended: Top 10 Ways To Start Affiliate Marketing Without A Website

What is an affiliate landing page?

An affiliate landing page is a page you use to sell your affiliate products or send traffic to them.

How do I get a CPA landing page?

The difference between CPA and other affiliate products is that you get paid for action such as email submission or app download but the process for creating a landing page is the same than for other affiliate products.

Can I post ClickBank links on Facebook?

You can post Clickbank links on your personal or fan page but you can not use Clickbank links on Facebook ads. This is why it is important to create a landing page for your affiliate offers if you want to use Facebook Ads for your Clickbank affiliate offers.

Takeaway

A lot of affiliates want to create a landing page for their campaigns to be able to use paid ads. While that is a completely valid reason, a landing page can also help you build your email list and guarantee a long term sustainable business.

With the help of the steps described in this guide, you can create your landing page done in no time and be ready to start making money online!

But I wasn’t always a ‘blogger’, in fact, I remember sitting in my old corporate job and seeing an ad that said something like ‘Write to Live” showing a picture of a guy somewhere tropical…I am almost certain there was a boat as well.

At that point I had been a copywriter for almost 10 years working in ad agencies and companies so I thought “wait, I write for a living but how come I am in an office and not on a tropical beach“.

I checked the ad’s page and it was (shockingly) about blogging. That was the first seed. Unfortunately (for my past self) the whole thing seemed too complicated so I closed the tab and forgot about it.

A couple of years later I still wasn’t feeling the corporate life so I decided to start a side business with the hopes of achieving the almost mythological “geographic independence”.

Long story short, I tried a couple businesses like dropshipping and Amazon FBA but it always felt like I was trying to put out one or three fires and didn’t have a sustainable business.

Until I realized what all the people I was learning from —and that seem to be doing quite well— had in common: they had an audience.

So it hit me, if I wanted to build a long term business/hustle/online career I needed to do the same. Lots of Youtube videos and a couple of courses later, I started my first blog and never looked back.

Types of bloggers

Before exploring the benefits of blogging, it is important to mention that not everyone who blogs does it in the same way or with the same purpose. Here are the main type of bloggers:

• Professional bloggers: This is the person whose main job is blogging or even those who are building their blogs with this purpose. Logically, since blogging is such an important part of their lives, the benefits are also more significant.

• Recreational bloggers: are the ones who use blogging as a way to express their hobbies and passions. They care more about being part of a community and sharing a message than about the financial or professional benefits.

• Guest Bloggers: are those who are recognized as experts in their industry and because of that can be invited to write articles occasionally. For them, blogging is just a small part of their professional career and a way to continue to establish their authority.

What are the benefits of blogging?

For those unfamiliar with the world of digital marketing, the benefits of blogging can be hard to imagine

1. Share Your Hobbies And Passions

Blogging can be a great way to invest your time and energy around the thing you like whether you want to do it for as a hobby or with the goal of creating a revenue source in mind.

Creating a blog around something you are passionate about is a great opportunity to share what you already know, learn more about it, and express yourself.

The best part is that you don’t need to be an expert or have all the answers. Great bloggers are open about their experience and are happy to share with their reading what they are learning about and bring them along the ride.

If you have ever read a blog about something you are passionate about and have feel identified with the writer, you know how cool it is to find someone to relate to, even if that person is a blogger you just discovered who lives miles away.

Which leads me to the next benefit…

2. Create Community

Blogging can help you connect with people who are interested in the same topics as you and who you can create a community of like-minded people with. You can collaborate on projects, help each other out or simply enjoy being able to share your passions.

Additionally, you will belong to the worldwide community of bloggers of all existing niches. In the same way, professionals of other industries recognize each other, next time you meet another blogger you’ll know you both share similar experiences, wins, and challenges.

3. Help your audience

Helping your audience is not only a benefit but it is essential if you want to become a successful blogger.

If you create valuable content with that goal in mind, your reader will trust you and want to come back to read your new articles automatically.

Moreover, they’ll be happy to check any products you recommend since they know you have their best interest at heart.

In one level or another, we all want to create a positive impact and influence and blogging is an easy and accessible way to do.

4. Support a cause

Not everyone blogs as a hobby or a carreer, many people start blogs as a way to share their political or ethical opinions and hopefully, inspire a change.

Information is power and sharing your point of view as well as valuable resources can help other people get on board or at least learn more about the topic you believe in.

5. Improve your writing and marketing skills

Much of the success of a professional blog lies in your ability to write articles that sell, whether that is an idea you are presenting, your own authority as a blogger, or a product you are promoting.

This is a highly valued skill that can be useful if you are a marketer, copywriter, entrepreneur or if you want to continue making more money with your blog.

While it might not come naturally for you at first, the best way to improve it is to continue to write, publish and study what is working and what is not.

6. Make money

I am not going to lie, when done properly, blogging can be a great way to make money online with almost zero investment and risk.

It sure take some time and effort but, in my honest (and biased) opinion, it is one of the most sustainable online business you can start.

It is more common, especially for people unfamiliar with the online makreitng, to see blogging as a hobbie and not as a business. However, when it comes to digital era, platforms and audiences are the equivalent of real state and with a blog you get to have both.

You do not need to know much about selling online to start your own money-making blog if you create good content that brings people in, there are many ways in which you can choose to monetize it.

Recommended:

• How To Start A Money Making Blog
• How much do Bloggers Make
• Beginners Guide To Starting Your Own Blog

7. Geographical Freedom

If you are someone who doesn’t like the office life, becoming a blogger gives you the freedom to decide where you want to work and how to organize your time.

I am not going to say you’ll be working 4 hours a week, at least not at first, but blogging does give you the freedom to work on your own schedule and from wherever you want. Whether that is your home office, a coffee shop, your bed, or a coworking space in Bali.

I know some people enjoy the structure and company of working in an office, but for most of us entrepreneurs, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

So, if you are looking for a bit more freedom to be at home, travel, or invest in other passions, blogging can be a great way to achieve it.

8. Be Your Own Boss

Another benefit of blogging professionally is becoming financially independent and being able to decide if you want to keep your 9-to-5 of you want to devote full time to your blogging business.

If you are reading this, it is very likely that you have an entreprenurial mind and would rather be your own boss than working for somebody else.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, there’s a lot of people who prefer the security of working for someone else; but if you have been wanting to leave the corporate life for a while, starting a blog can help create your own online revenue and work on your own terms.

9. Many ways to monetize it

Continuing with the benefits of blogging to create an income, a great one is that there is not one or two, but many ways you can make money with it.

You can place ads and get paid by views, you use it to promote affiliate products, create your own products or services, promote other business, get sponsorship deals, make paid promotional posts, get a writing gig, or even sell the whole blog for more than 10X its monthly income.

As you can see, the options are abundant and are limited only to your creativity.

10. Scalability

There is no limit to how much your blog can grow. Ok, perhaps there is one but unless you are in a very tiny niche, the limit is on the millions of visitors per month. This means there is also no limit to how much your revenue can grow.

The more articles you publish, the more traffic you’ll get. And the more traffic you get, the more money you can make.

At the same time, not everyone wants a blog with 10 million visits/month. If you want a more passive income, you can grow your blog to a certain size and once you are happy with that, you will be able to spend less time on it.

If you keep it updated and do not stop publishing completely, it will continue to generate revenue.

11. Low Investment and Risk

Creating a blog is practically free which, in comparison to other online business models, makes it the one with the lowest investment and risk possible.

On the other hand though, you do need to put some time and effort into it. But that is how most business work, you either need to have some money or some time to invest.

So, if you want to dedicate a few months to build a long term business with zero capital, that is one of the great benefits of blogging.

Additionally, there is almost no risk involved if you follow the right steps. In, the worst-case scenario, you fail at bringing enough traffic in, but in even in that case, you can fix it by improving your research and creating more content so nothing is lost.

12. Becoming an Authority In Your Niche

Whether you want to grow and online business or want to build your reputation in your field of work, creating a blog or writing as a guest blogger, are great ways to show your knowledge and position yourself as an expert.

Publishing well-researched articles that offer great value to the industry, will eventually get you noticed by those in the same niche and earn you recognition as an authoritative source

13. Earn More Exposure

In a similar way as the previous point, once you start blogging frequently whether it is on your own blog or as a guest in established sites, will help you get more eyes on yourself and your work.

All blogs must have an ‘About Me’ page or section where you can share about yourself, your experience and also the services you can provide.

Depending on your niche, you can provide coaching or consulting and it can become a big part of your income but having a blog to back you up is the first step for it.

14. You can sell a product or service

Creating your own product or service is one of the best ways to make money online. Especially digital products since you only need to create them once and then you can sell them forever with almost zero costs.

A lot of bloggers (myslef included when I first started) are skeptic about creating their own products and wonder if anyone would even buy from them. But the answer is yes! If you focus on creating good content for your readers and understand exactly what they need, there is no one better than you to create a solution to their problems.

You can start with something small like a short ebook, a pdf guide, an online consultation, it’ll depend a lot on your niche. But once you get more confident with the results you won’t want to wait to create your next offer!

15. Build Your Portfolio

If you are a copywriter or an aspiring one, you know you need a portfolio of samples to just be able to apply for most jobs.

On the other hand, getting your work published can also be challenging if you have no previous experience.

In this scenario, creating your own blog is a great way to not only build your online portfolio but to also improve your skills as you continue to practice.

Next time you want to apply for a job whether it’s your first one or a better opportunity, you will have lots of samples to show. Plus, having your own blog shows a bigger vision and commitment than simply sharing your samples in a pdf.

16. Become a Published Author

In today’s day and age, you don’t need to wait for anyone’s approval or financing to become a published author. In fact, you technically become one since the day you publish your first blog post.

So, If writing a book is in your plans, becoming a blogger is like a fast pass for it. You are building an audience, growing your authority, and getting credibility in your niche.

When you are ready to bring your book to life, you will already have people interested in buying or even publishers willing to offer you a deal.

17. Passive Income

The term passive income has been used so poorly that people associated with a very probable scam.

But the thruth is, passive income is not a get-rich-quick 4-hour-week scheme. It only means you put in most of the work first and the business can run with less involvement needed in the future.

This can be the case for blogging. If you wish to create a passive income from it, you can spend the first year building up some solid content with good SEO and monetization methods, and then you can sit back and let Google do its magic.

Once your traffic starts growing, so will your revenue and boom… you can enjoy some passive income!

However, most bloggers prefer to keep growing and working on it since the hardest part is over and they are seeing the fruits of their work which motivates them to do more.

18. Free traffic

If there is something every one business needs is traffic, which basically means people coming to your website or blog.

Traffic methods can be split in two main one: free and paid.

When it comes to a blog, we created content based on the searches people are making on google so then we can appear on the search results and get —yes— free traffic.

The better the content (and the resarch) the most likely we are to get some of that precios free organic traffic.

We know have a consistent flow of highly targeted people looking to solve their problems and willing to read our recommendations.

19. Collect Emails

“The money is on the list”

Every marketer ever

An email list is a highly valuable asset for every entrpeneur, blogger or business. So much that companies are willing to lose money first in order to get an email because they knwo they will make much more than what it cost them to get it.

On average businesses earn $1-$2/month per email subscriber and it goes up to $5 in some niches, which is why brands can spend up to $20 on ads for just an email.

But as a blogger you won’t need to do so, you can capture your visitors’ emails through an opt-in form or by offering something free in exchange.

Once you have their emails you can use them to bring them back when you publish a new article helping you get extra free traffic and you can also email them to promote your own products or affiliate offers.

Additionally, there are also lead generation companies who will buy your list if you decide to do so.

20. Get Immediate Feedback

Writers and companies need to wait for months or even years to launch their products into the market and see how the consumers react.

A blogger on the other side has an immediate source of valuable criticism at its disposal with every published post.

Once you have an established audience, you can use your blog to get your reader’s opinion on a new product you are thinking of launching, your future book, or even about the blog itself.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for opinions on the blog comments or to conduct a small survey. There is no better way of knowing what your audience wants than to actually ask them.

21. Learn In-Demand Skills

Blogging requires more skills other than writing. As a new blogger, you are basically an entrepreneur and will discover along the way all the different pieces that need to work together in order for your blog to be successful.

Some of those include keyword research, search engine optimization, a little bit of graphic design, another bit of WordPress, Social Media and email marketing among others.

You don’t need to be an expert in any of those before starting but you will definitely learn them along the way and not only will they serve for your blogging purposes but those skills are highly in demand and will open many doors for in-demand jobs or gigs that you couldn’t do before.

22. Stay Up To Date With Your Niche

When you are publishing content constantly, you will be researching and learning about the latest developments in your industry as well as what your competitors are doing.

This is why blogginh is a great way to stay updated on your niche or profession since your readers expect nothing but well researched and timely information.

Additionally, some time-sensitive articles will need to be updated periodically so you will not only learn about new topics, but you will know if there’s been an important development in most aspects of your niche.

23. Network with the Experts

Having your own blog can help you get access to famous people in your niche you’d never get to meet otherwise.

If you are preparing an article where it is relevant than you mention them, you can contact them and see if they’d be willing to answer a quick question or even if they don’t you can still quote them on something the have taught and share the article with them.

In most cases, they’ll be happy to share the article on their social media and you”ll gain some exposure at the same time.

24. Market Your Business

If you have a business and it doesn’t have a blog yet, you are missing out on a lot of traffic and opportunities.

A blog can reach a lot more people than a regular website and you have a better chance of building a relationship with your readers and gaining their trust.

When it comes to the buying process, customers go through several stages before being ready to buy. This is why a blog —along with a sales funnel— can help you move them forward on their purchase journey by providing the information that eliminates their doubts.

25. Build Your Professional Network

Whether you want to blog professionally or use it as a way to grow in your career, doing it can allow you to connect with other people in your industry and expand your professional network.

Having the right connections is essential in most markets and it can help you propel your career forward, get better opportunities, or be a part of cool projects you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

Blogging Benefits | FAQ

What are the disadvantages of blogging?

The disadvantages of blogging will depend on what type of blogger you are and what are your goals but here are some of the main ones related mostly to professsional blogging.

• It takes time and effort
• It takes some time for your articles to rank
• You need to create a lot of content if you want to be successful which can be a disadvantage if you don’t like writing.
• You need to have self-motivation and self-disciplines since there won’t be anyone cheering you up at the beginning
• People will think it is not a real career (half-joke/ half true)
• No instant gratification (bye dopamine)

How do I start blogging?

Check out this article on Blogging For Beginners and you’ll have a step-by-step guide.

What should I blog about?

If you are wanting to blog as a hobby then definitely do it about something you are interested in.

If you are wanting to do it in order to make money you should choose a topic that you have knowledge in but that also has the potential to generate revenue.

In that is your case make sure to check out this guide on How To Start A Blog To Make Money to learn how to choose a profitable niche

Benefits of Blogging | Takeaway

The secret is out, blogging has many amazing benefits IF you are willing to put in the work.

For better or worse, blogging is not for everyone, or otherwise, the competition would be too fierce. But for those of us who think that the benefits outweigh the challenges, blogging can definitely change your career, life, and mindset.

If there is something I wish you would take from this article is that if blogging is something you want to do, start now (and thank me later).

Congratulations! Selling an online course is one of the best ways to make money online while spreading your message and helping your audience.

A lot of coaches, creators, and experts in differents areas can create amazing courses in a matter of days but get stuck on the marketing and sales aspect.

If that is your case, then this article is for you. I am going to share the step by step guide on how to sell your online course on autopilot by using sales funnel.

This way the funnel will do the selling part for you and you’ll be able to focus on sharing your knowledge and continue to create amazing content that attract and grow your audience.

Why a sales funnels is the best way to sell your online course?

https://affiliatesmind.com/digital-products-to-sell/If you have ever tried to sell an online course without a sales funnels you have probably been in one of these two scenarios (or maybe both):

a) Uploading your amazing course, the fruit of your hard labour and years of experience into a marketplace and being forced to sell it for $10 and getting only 50%.

b) Spending thousands on dollars on Facebook Ads to get hundreds of visitors yet making only a couple of sales.

If you have experienced that, you are in the right place. I’ll tell you how to sell your course on your own and make more money than what you decide to spend on ads (if you do).

You see, the mistake a lot of entrepreneurs and creators make is that they think because their course is great it will sell, but they are missing a key point.

In the same way, you won’t buy a great house just because you saw an ‘On Sale’ sign, people won’t buy from you just because you put an ad in front of them.

Potential customers need to be ‘filtered’ and ‘nurtured’ before being ready to buy, and that is what sales funnel do.

Their whole purpose is to gain your audience’s trust and ‘move’ them through the purchase stages. From being a first time visitor becoming aware of your offer to a ready-to-buy life-long loyal customer.

They “warm them up” through smaller commitments and provide enough value to earn their trust and prove you can help with their problem.

They also allow you to have a higher conversion rate than a regular website and build your email list while you sell your course. This way, you can promote other offers after they buy your course and sell different products to those who didn’t buy it.

Additionally, you can use the same platform to host your course in a membership area so it is all fully automated and you can simply bring people in and let the funnel do the rest.

Step-by-Step Guide to Selling an Online Course

There are many different types of funnels that you can use to sell your course, from webinar funnels to survey and application funnels.

But what I’m going to teach you today is what I have proved over and over to work best when it comes to selling a course: a free email course funnel.

Note: This guide will focus on the selling part and not on how to create the course but if you don’t have your course yet, it will still be beneficial for your creative process to understand how online selling works.

Ready? Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create a free mini course

The first step to selling your course is to get qualified leads inside your funnel. This means getting the emails of people in your niche who it can help to and who will potentially buy it.

The best way to do this is to create a lead magnet and offer it in exchange for people’s emails. Lead Magnets can be of many different types including pdf guides, videos, spreadsheets, etc.

I am sure you have seen everyone plus their moms have a free ebook and while I don’t have anything against those but in most cases, they don’t deliver any real value. People don’t simply want something because it is free, they want a solution to their problems so that’s what you need to come up with.

Think of one specific problem you can help your audience fix and create a simple course that can be delivered in 5 emails.

The cool thing about ta mini-email course is that it combines a high perceived value of the course with the selling potential of an email sequence.

This way you don’t have one but 5 chances to provide value, gain your subscriber’s trust and prepare them to receive your offer.

If you are thinking ‘I want to sell a course not give away one for free’ I get it, it might seem a little bit counterintuitive but I guarantee you that by doing this you will NOT lose any sales. All the contrary, this is one of the highest converting practices you can use to turn your leads into paying customers.

How to create your free offering? Think of one specific problem you can help your customers with that is related to your paid course.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, actually, the simple the better.

• Is your paid course about manifesting the life of your dreams? make a free offering on how to manifest a new job by using affirmations.

• Is your it about becoming debt free? make your free offer about creating a monthly budget

• Or is your paid course about becoming an influencer? make your lead magnet on how to grow an Instagram account.

To try to keep it simple think if your lead magnet can be used in the following sentence: [problem]? Fix it by learning [lead magnet offering].

Step 1 recap: Create a free course offering that you can send in 5 emails. Solve on specific problem of your potential audience.

Step 2: Create an opt-in page for your lead magnet

After you decide on what your lead magnet or free mini course, you need to create an opt-in page to offer it and collect people’s emails.

While this is a free course you still want to get the best opt-in rate possible since every subscriber increases your chances of making a sale and improves your overall profits.

Especially if you use paid ads to get traffic, every metric will impact your final cost per lead and cost per purchase.

So, how to create the best opt-in page for your free course? It is actually easier than you think. Here are the main elements you need:

1. Attention-grabbing headline that mentions what problem this course is going to solve for them.
2. Short list of benefits so they know what to expect.
3. Clear Call to action visible above the fold.

You can include some extra testimonial or screenshots of results if that is something that you have or would apply to your course but with the first 3 elements, you have yourself a solid opt-in page.

Below is the template I use for most of my opt-in pages as well as my clients’. As as you can see, it is very simple when it comes to design yet with the right offer and text, I always get a 15%-20% opt-in rate.

Actually, I have actually found that more elaborate or fancy designs don’t have any impact on the conversions so I’d advise you to keep it simple unless of course you are a designer and need to show off your skills.

You can create a page like this one with any drag-and-drop funnel builder Clikcfunnels or Karta. They are both great and allow you to host your course and connect your pages to a membership area I just find Clcikfunnels to be a bit easier to use.

You can download this template by clicking here and simply replace it with your course details. if you don’t have a Clickfunnels account it’ll give you the option to get a free 14-day trial.

Here are some other examples of opt-in pages for free courses you can use as inspiration.

• Free 5-day Course For Pregnancy Exercises

• Free 5 day course for setting up a website

Step 2 recap: Create an opt-in page for your free course. Keep it simple and direct while focusing on the problem you will help them solve. You can use the sample funnel builder to create this page and host your course.

Step 3: Turn leads into paying customers

Now that your opt-in page is ready to bring you new unlimited leads, it’s time to deliver that amazing-value course and turn those subscribers into paying customers.

This is when you’ll deliver your free course during the first 4 days and will offer your paid course on the 5th day.

This option works best, as the emails are long enough to get provide some great value, yet short enough to where you can keep engaged the entire time.

Plus once you have created it, it will continue to sell on automatic all day every day. You can do this by connecting your funnel to your email software (CRM) and it will send the emails to every people that opt-in to your course.

I personally use Active Campaign since it integrates easily with Clickfunnels and their automation is the best I have found out there. But if you are using other email software they will also be able to do it.

The structure of your email sequence should look something like this:

• Day 1 — Intro, overview, lesson 1
• Day 2 — lesson 2
• Day 3 — lesson 3
• Day 4 — lesson 4
• Day 5 — offer

The first 4 days will be dedicated to your providing value and the lessons should move them closer towards your offer but without any hard selling.

You can start to mention your course day 3-4 but is not until day 5 when offer your paid course. You should still offer some value at first so they don’t bounce right out but after that, should explain your full offer and how you can help them.

You want to add some sense of urgency so they feel more compelled to take action soon. After the Day 5 email I have found the following urgency emails to work best:

• Urgency email 1: the course is only open until X.
• Urgency email 2: get $50 off if you sign-up within the next 48 hours

On email #5 and the urgency email, you should have a clear Call To Action button that takes them to the next step: your course sales page. But before…

Step 3 recap: Deliver your free course in a 5-day email sequence. Do not present your course until day 5. When you present your offer, you should include a sense of urgency and follow up with 2 urgency inducing emails.

You can connect your opt-in page to your email software and set the emails to b

Step 4: Your Course Sales Page

If you have done a good job with your email sequence, your audience should be ready to buy by the time you present them your offer.

So a long sales page is not necessary but rather a simple landing page that recaps the course and shows call-to-action that takes them to the checkout page.

Alternatively, If you have another email list of subscribers that haven’t gone through the free course that is a case when you’d want to use a long sales pages since to warm them up and really sell the offer.

Or you can also send them first to the course opt-in page and let them follow the same journey we just outlined.

To summarize, if your leads are coming from a 5-day mini-course, a simple landing page is enough.

You can use the same funnel builder you used for your opt-in page to create your sales page and you can automatically grant access to your membership area to those your buy.

Step 5: Send traffic to your funnel

Once you have completed steps 1-4 you are almost ready to seat back and relax while your automated sales funnels takes cares of the rest.

But there’s just one thing missing: you need to get leads in through the top of your funnel so they can come out the other side as buyers.

There are many ways in which you can do this including free and paid traffic sources.

if you have a significant following on social media then definitely use those to send traffic to yoru funne. As you continue with your content calendar, make a few posts and videos where you direct people to your opt-in page.

If you are using Facebook, Instagram or TikTok you will need to do this constantly since the content has a short expiration date.

In the other side, if you are using Youtube or your own blog, one or two pieces of content can be enough since they will bring traffic for years (once they have ranked).

If you don’t have an audience, do not worry, you can use paid ads in platfrom like Facebook, Instagram and Google.

For both cases the ads and content should be focus on your free course and sending people to the opt-in page. You don’t need to do any selling of your paid course since the funnel will do that for you.

Step 6: Optimize and Enjoy

Congratulations! You have your automated sales funnels in place!

Now what? You can actually take a break and relax since that was some serious work to do and you deserve it.

But after you take your well-deserved break you should monitor your funnel and optimize all the pieces so it can make you more money every time.

To do this you can look at the data that your funnel builder and email software will show in your stats. If you are using paid ads you will also be able to see the statistics of how well they are performing.

Look at your funnel from top to end and continue to tweak and improve those pieces that could be doing better. Here are the main ones to look for:

• Your ads click-through rate: aim for more than 2%
• Your opt-in page opt-in rate: aim for more than 10%
• Your email open rate: aim for more than 20%
• Your emails click-through rate: aim for more than 2%
• Your sales page conversion rate: aim for more than 20%

Recap: Selling an Online Course on Automated With Sales Funnel

Step #1: Create a free email mini-course that solves an immediate problem for your potential buyers. 

Step #2: Create an opt-in page to offer your free course and collect people’s email in exchange. 

Step #3: Deliver your email course to those who opted-in. On day 5 present your paid offer and include a Call To Action that sends people to your course sales page.

Step #4: Create a simple sales page for your course where you present the content of the course since people should be ready to buy after the email sequence.

Step #5: Send traffic to your opt-in page form free or paid traffic sources.

Step #6: Let your funnel run on autopilot, observe the data, and optimize to improve profit margins.

Bonus: keep your subscribers engaged by emailing them at least once a week so you can, later on, sell them a different offer.

Below is a visual representation of how your automated sales machine will look like.

Takeaway

Selling an digital course is one of the best ways to make money online.

However, many experts and course creators don’t know how online sales work so they end up either spending lots of money on ads without seeing much return, or selling their courses in marketplaces that take most of their profits.

Creating your own automated sales funnels is by far the best way to get consistent sales round the clock so you can focus on what your know how to do, producing great content and serving your audience.

It might take some work upfront but once you set it up, this system can bring you money while you sleep for months and years.

Finally, remember that the key to the success of your funnel and course is to always provide more value than expected and really care for your audience so they become life-long loyal fans.

The internet can be a wonderful life-changing resource and you can actually find every piece of information you need.

However, it is usually scattered and overwhelming leaving your more confused than when you first started.

I have written a few blog posts about blogging, monetization, affiliate marketing, and tools. But I notice I haven’t written the beginner’s guide I wish I would have had when I began my blogging journey.

So, here it is. Hope it gives you the clarity and guidance you need to start your blog, whether you are a beginner or have been testing the blogging waters for a while.

My beginner blogging journey

Do not worry, I do not plan on making this post about me but I want to highlight how I chose to begin my blogging journey since I believe it will help you find out if this is for you.

Before I started my entrepreneurial journey, I was a copywriter working on a digital marketing agency where I would write dozens of websites, ads, funnels, and also blog posts every week.

I also learned about all the business models our clients were using and got more and more curious every day about starting my own. (Ok, I also got a bit bored of the 9-to-5-cubicle life and wanted to do find a way out).

Chances are, if you are reading this you have a little entrepreneur inside you looking for freedom and possibilities.

I have now been combining blogging, affiliate marketing, and online selling for almost 3 years and have been able to multiply my old salary 4 times with my 2 niche blogs (without counting this one).

While it has definitely been a challenging journey, I am so happy I started it. The beginning is the hardest part but if you are able to break through doubts and resistance, you can make a living out of blogging and scale it as much as you want. There is no limit to what you can do with a platform and an audience.

Blogging as a business

Before becoming one, I used to think blogging was just something people did for one of two reasons: either fun or reputation.

I knew friends who had blogs about their interest and would just post whenever they felt like and were happy with people reading their posts.

On the other hand, I knew consultants, coaches, and business owners who run their own blogs because it’d serve them to build authority and credentials when approaching new clients. This one was technically supporting their income but it wasn’t a direct source of revenue.

But what I was failing to see was all the bloggers who had built a profitable and almost passive business entirely from their blogs. And that is the type of blogging I practice and the type I want to share with you today.

The thing is having a blog is having an audience, and that is one of the most valuable assets in the internet era.

Put simply, the way people make money is by selling things whether it is products or services (duh, capitalism). And in order to do that, they need people interested in buying them.

If you have an audience you have dozens of possibilities to monetize it. We’ll get to that but before let’s talk about whether you should start a blog or not.

Should YOU start a blog?

Ok, I am a blogger blogging about blogging so I see the irony. However, I have not always been a blogger and I have also read hundreds of articles about it before starting my journey.

So I am familiar with the advice that is being given out there and I believe I can be as impartial as it gets about this.

This are some conditions I think are essential to your success as a blogger and can help you decide it you should start a blog or spare your time for something else.

You should start a blog if:

You are self-motivated

The first few months of blogging are an uphill path and I won’t be doing you any favors by hiding it.

If you decide to begin your blogging journey you’ll be spending the first 6 to 8 months learning the basics and mostly just writing without an audience. It might feel fruitless and you’ll be tempted to quit.

In fact, a lot of people do before they start seeing results. We as humans are used to getting rewards for our work and using that as a motivation to keep doing it.

But with as a beginner blogger you will not get any outside rewards at the beginning and it can feel like you are going nowhere and just wasting your time.

This is what separates successfull bloggers from the millions blogs who never see the light.

You must have the self-motivation to push through the harder part, trust the process, and know that this is a long-term game.

I understand how it can be discouraging to put in the time and effort for over 6 months without results. But creating good content and waiting for it to rank on Google can take up to 12 months.

But you must remember you are not the first one doing this, every blogger has been there and if you stick to the plan and keep publishing you will start seeing the rewards.

You have another income

While part of the goals of creating your own blog is that you will eventually be able to replace your regular job, it will require some time before you can make the same you were doing with your 9-to-5 and of course, scale it to make much more.

If you are relying on savings or do not have a current income, you won’t be in the right mindset or situation to begging and stay on the blogging path.

For better or worse, one of the most essential parts of blogging is putting in the work and being patient while you start getting traffic. It won’t work any faster because you put in more time or because are in a hurry to make money.

If you want are a beginner wanting to become a blogger, make sure you have your finances taken care of so you can create your blogging empire without pressure.

Unless of course, you have no responsabilities or bills to pay for about 12 months.

You like writing (and reading)

This one is a little bit obvious but blogging requires lots of writing (and reading and learning).

So if you dread the idea of sitting in front of a computer for hours writing and researching then do not put yourself through it. The whole point of starting your own blog is to do something you will enjoy or at least can see yourself doing for a while.

Blogging requires lots of other skills like managing, designing, networking, social media, etc. Some people enjoy those more than the actual writing themselves and can eventually outsource the writing part.

However, unless you want to spend money before making money, you’ll need to be writing your articles for the first year.

Even after that, if you will outsource someone to di it after your blog is profitable, you’ll need to review their job and know what they are writing about so you keep putting the best content out there.

You like to learn new things

While most people imagine blogging is a lot about writing —and that is true— there are other skills and processes that go into it and that you will need to learn.

From Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and basic graphic design to Social Media and Email Marketing. Running a blog with the goal of making money is like starting a small business that requires you to step out of your comfort zone and learn something new almost every day.

Surely once you are making money, you can hire someone to help you with the things that you prefer delegating but at the beginning, I suggest trying to learn the basics so no one can scam you charging you more than they should.

You want to be your own boss

Finally, I believe the most important requisite to starting a blog as a beginner is having the desire to be your own boss and having control over your time and life.

I know it sounds a bit cliche but nothing will give you the drive and commitment to put in the work as the pursuit of a bigger goal for yourself. Whether that is never having to worry about money again, spending more time with your loved one or being able to travel the world.

Ultimately, if you do not meet all the previous requirements at 100%, this one will make you find the way.

Beginners guide to blogging

Now that I’ve shared my humble opinion on what it takes to be a blogger, I want to give an overall look at the whole blogging process so you can have a broad idea of the steps you’ll need to follow.

1. Choosing your niche

Your niche is the category or topic your blog is going to be about. Some of the aspects that go into choosing your blog’s niche are:

• Your interests: You need to have some knowledge or passion for the topic.

• The potential: You want to choose a niche with a big enough audience and where you know at least vaguely there are possibilities for monetization.

• The trends: You want to choose a niche that has proven to attract consistent interest overtime as well as one that is not too seasonal or you’ll be left with no business for half the year.

• The competition: undoubtedly, there is competition in every niche especially in those where the money is but if your niche is too competitive I’d suggest ‘niching down’ and choosing a sub-niche with an unattended audience where you can stand out.

Some examples of profitable general niche are:

• Fitness and Weight Loss.
• Health
• Dating and Relationships.
• Pets.
• Self-Improvement.
• Wealth Building Through Investing.
• Make Money on the Internet.
• Beauty Treatments.
• Travel

Inside each of these ones are hundreds of other smaller niches you can (and should) focus on. For example, in the Fitness and Weight Loss niche, you could focus on Keto Weight Loss or Fitness for Moms.

Additionally, do not restrict yourself to these categories. If you have other interests and an idea to monetize them. I know bloggers doing 6 figures niches like succulents (plants) and 3d printing.

For a complete guide on how to choose and validate your niche make sure to check out this article later.

2. Getting your blog online

I’d be lying if I’d say I understand exactly how URLs and servers work but I do know is that if you want your blog to exist online you need two things: a host and a domain.

A host is a server where all your blog content will live and your domain is the virtual address you’ll use to point people towards your blog. This blog’s domain for example is “affiliatesmind”.

There are many host and domain providers out there and they also have similar prices and quality. However, I use and recommend Bluehost for two reasons:

1. It offers a free domain for your registration so you’ll be saving $7-$15 on average plus the trouble of having to connect them if you get them separately.
2. It is the only hosting that connects automatically with WordPress. In simple terms, WordPress is the tool 99% of bloggers use and it is a pain to install it in any other hosting besides Bluehost.

For a step by step guide on how to get your blog set up, make sure to check out this article.

3. Giving it some style

One of the most common mistakes bloggers make is to spend to much time choosing their theme and tweaking all the tiny details possible. Don’t be one of them.

Your blog theme and design is important but you won’t get any significant traffic for months and you will be making better use of your time by creating more and more content. Which is what is going to make possible for anyone to see your blog ultimately.

That being said, there are thousands of themes available but they all have their limitations and unless you know to code, you don’t wanna invest in them.

Instead, I recommend using a lightweight theme like GeneratePress or Astra (the free versions) and getting a page builder like Elementor which is going to give you many more options and features than any paid theme.

4. Installing your plug-ins

Plug-ins are like apps for your blog. They help you do specific things that your theme can’t do without the need for coding.

But they can also slow it down —or worst— be the source for security breaches. So, you want to be very picky and get only the essentials.

These are the plugins I think are 100% necessary:

• Yoast SEO. This is the most important SEO plugin in my opinion!
• Akismet. Protects your blog against spam.
• Wordfence: Protecting your website from hacks and malware.
• Cookie notice. For GDPR compliance.
• UpdraftPlus: backup, restore, and migration WordPress plugin.
• Elementor. Optional, but I love the Elementor builder for my pages.

My preferred way to install plugins is to go to the dashboard and go to “Plugins” > “Add New” and search for the name.

5. Planning your content

Planning your content strategically vs “winging it” is the difference that’ll make your blogger a successfull one.

When choosing what to write about consider that each blog post you make needs to fulfill a purpose. Again, we are building a business here so we are not writing just for fun.

Without going into too much detail, there are many ways in which you can make money through your blog and each blog posts should be target towards one (or preferably more) of them.

• Some blog posts can attract a lot of traffic and make you money through ads
• Other posts can be about an affiliate product you are promoting and will make you money through commissions.
• Others will be teaching something valuable to your audience where you can, later on, offer them a more detailed paid guide or course.
• And others can be to educate and show your expertise in a certain topic to build your authority and your blog’s overall content.

While all the content you will create should have a direction, that doesn’t mean you do not care or give value to your audience. On the contrary, the only way to build trust with them is to overdeliver and then overdeliver some more.

To create a new category, log into your dashboard and go to “Posts” > “Categories” and add them from there. Once you have done that you’ll be able to select easily what category each post belongs to.

If you want to know how to choose the best topics with a higher chance to rank on Google’s top results make sure to check out this article.

6. Introducing yourself

As a blogger, you are the image of your own brand and building trust with your readers is essential for them to keep coming back and wanting to hear more from you.

One of the key ways to achieve this is to create a good “About Me” page. This is where you can tell your visitors your story and experience as well as letting your personality shine through so they can connect with you as a person and not just a blogger.

You can check other blogger’s “About me” pages for inspiration but ultimately, this is a very unique page and only you can decide what to share on it.

It goes without saying but you should keep it professional and light. Consider that some of your readers might be marketers or business owners looking to learn about you for a potential partnership.

You should also create a “Contact Us” page so —well— people can get in touch with you.

To create a new page go to log into your dashboard and go to “Pages” > “Add new“. 

7. Creating your Resource Pages

Contrary to your blog posts which are published chronologically and don’t have a permanent spot on your blog, your resources pages are static Pages with relevant products and recommendations that should always be accessible from your main menu.

Not all bloggers have them but I find that they make your blog more organized and friendly. They also allow you to concentrate all your recommendations in one place so you can keep your blog posts focused on the main topic.

That way, when you write a new article and want to share something about a specific tool or offer, you can link your visitors to those pages and avoid explaining it all again.

It also stops you from filling your pages with affiliate links which, even thought it hasn’t been proved, it’s believed to help with SEO.

To create a new page go to log into your dashboard and go to “Pages” > “Add new“. 

8. Monetizing your blog

Now for the fun part!! As I have mentioned, there are many ways to make money with your blog but they all depend on you having an audience and some good content.

That is is why I have placed these steps here and suggest you start focusing on it after you have created at least 30 articles (and continue on a publishing schedule).

From placing ads to your site to including affiliate links and selling your own products, the possibilities are endless once you have a platform and an audience.

If you want an in-depth guide on how to monetize your blog check out this article later.

9. Getting some early traffic

As you might have deducted from this article, the best traffic source for a blog is Google. I trust I don’t need to tell you how big it is so you can imagine why as a blogger, we focus a lot of our strategies on it.

That is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and I explain who to do it in the article mentioned above.

But it is worth mentioning that it can take a while for google to start showing your blog posts so you start getting visitors. For a new blog it can be between 10 to 12 months since the post published date.

This is why we want to start driving traffic from other sources as we continue to create content. There are many traffic sources to choose from like Instagram, Facebook groups, Pinterest, Youtube, TikTok or forums like Quora.

They all have they pros and cons and its own learning curve so I suggest choosing one and sticking with it until you have mastered it.

Blogging is already a lot to do so you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with too many other tasks.

10. Building a loyal fan base

I doubted about writing this point. Putting myself in your place I could feel myself getting overwhelmed with yet another task. And that is how I felt about building my own loyal fan base (a.k.a my email list) when I first started blogging.

Whenever I read an article about the importance of growing my email list I would get anxious and just procastinate on it.

But I must tell you, I wish I would have started sooner. An email list is like a container full of people waiting to read your articles and get the products you recommend. Cool huh?

Additionally, every email subscriber can make you on average $2-$3 per month besides helping you bring traffic to your new blog posts.

However, learning how to blog plus setting up an email autoresponder can be a bit too much at once so I recommend you get all your blog set up, and once you have a regular posting routine take a day to set up your email subscription form.

With Elementor it’ll take you a few minutes to create a subscription form and connect it to an email software like Active Campaign, which makes it super easy to create email sequences that run on automatic so you can continue to focus on blogging.

11. Get on the right side of the law

Do you know those boring legal pages all blog have links at the bottom? No? I am not surprised. I’d actually be surprised if you knew about them because there is nothing there for 99.9% of visitors.

The fact is there is a law called GDPR which stands for ‘general data protection regulation‘ and is a part of the EU law on data protection and privacy. it is also the reason why you have maybe seen banners about ‘cookies’ on some pages.

This law applies to all European citizens so Even if you aren’t located in the EU yourself, a portion of your future visitors will. Which means your blog has to be GDPR compliant.

This is also essential if you plan of placing ads on your site since most ad networks have it as a requirement.

To make sure your blog is approved by the European privacy law, you should have a Privacy Policy page as well as a cookie popup so every new visitor is made aware of the fact that you collect cookies.

By the way, if you are wondering if or how are you collecting cookies if you never knew about it, these are some features that use cookies:

• WordPress, or any other blog or content management system
• Google Analytics, or any similar website analytics program
• Google AdSense and/or AdWords
• Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social media “like” buttons or plugins
• A shopping basket/cart

So, the answer is probably yes.

12. Taking it step-by-step

If you have come this far on the article, I hope you are very excited and a little bit scared. They say that’s how you know something is worth pursuing and that is how I felt about blogging when I first began.

It can also be a bit overwhelming to think about all the little pieces that you need to put together which is why I suggest you to take it step-by-step. Set up a schedule for yourself and focus only on the task at hand.

It can be tempting to try to control all the details and plan far ahead but the truth is, the process is quite straight forward and it has been proven thousands of times. The best you can do for your future self is to create good quality content and then some more.

13. Do not sweat the details

Last but not least, do not get too concerned if your first blog post is not as perfect as you want it to be or your homepage layout doesn’t make you cry of excitement.

Your writing will get better with practice as well as your skills with everything else. And no, if one visitors come to your blog without it being perfectly ready they probably won’t notice.

I’ll say this once again but you want to put 90% of your time into creating high-quality-monetizable-content. That is what is going to bring people in and allow you to start seeing the rewards of your work.

You can also tweak your blog to perfection when you are getting significant traffic.

Beginner’s Blogger Guide FAQ

How much can a beginner blogger make?

This obviously depends, but in my experience and the people who have followed similar approaches to blogging as mine, you can be sure you’ll make zero dollars for the first 6-7 months and then you can make between $500-$2000/ month for the rest of the first year.

It keeps getting better from there si the trick is to stick with it.

For a more in-depth question on how much can bloggers make, you can check out this article: How Much Do Bloggers REALLY Make? 

How much does it cost to start a blog?

Blogging is one of the cheapest businesses you can start but it still has some costs, especially at the beginning.

First 3 month costs:

• Blog Hosting: $110 (averages to $2.75/month with Bluehost discount)
• ElementorPro Page builder: $49 (most value vs paid themes)
• Email Marketing: $15/month (first month free)

Total Expected Costs in the First 3 Months: $174 upfront
Total costs in the next month: $15/month

How do you start a blog for free?

There are some platform that will allow you to start a blog 100% free like Wix or Blogger but these are not self hosted platfroms which means you do not own the content or the blog itself.

They can shut down tomorrow and your blog can be gone overnight. Aditionally they are not good for SEO (especially wix) and have limited features.

When setting up your self-hosted blog you are actually paying for hosting since WordPress is free.

Blogging for begginers: Takeaway

If you are want to start blogging, there has never been a better time than now. Well, they say the best time was yesterday but today is the second best time.

It takes some dedication and consistency but I believe is one of the best things you can do for your future with almost zero investment.

Hopefully, you have another source of income at the moment so you can start your blogging journey without stressing too much about the outcome for the first months.

Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

Youtube is not only one of the second biggest social media channels but also the world’s second-largest search engine with over 1 billion users (2nd to Google, who owns them).

Not only that but also 6 billion hours of video are viewed on YouTube every month. So going back to our questions, yes and yes!

Youtube is one of the best platforms to get started with Affiliate Marketing today and if you already have a channel, implementing Affiliate marketing is the best strategy to multiply your profits.

In this article, we’ll explore why the combination of Youtube and Affiliate Marketing is a match made in money-heaven and give you a step-by-step guide on to stop wasting time and get some of that yourself!

What is Youtube for Affiliate Marketing?

Let’s get started by defining what Affiliate Marketing is so we are all in the same page.

Put simply, Affiliate Marketing is a technique that companies use to increase their sales in which other people can promote their offers and receive a commission in exchange (for every sale).

While not very known to the average person, affiliate marketing is super common. In fact, 81% of brands and 84% of publishers use this tactic as part of their marketing strategy so most of the brands you know most likely have an affiliate program.

So, how does Youtube for Affiliate Marketing works?

Affiliate marketers can use different platforms and techniques to promote their offers. From blogs and forums to social media ads and… Youtube.

Youtube is an ideal platform to promote any product or service. Since it works as a search engine, people who watch the videos are already interested in finding our about one specific product or looking for a solution to a certain problem.

When using Youtube for affiliate marketing, content creators make videos related to their offers and place their affiliate links in the description of the video. This way when people go the link and —some of them— buy it, they get a commission.

You have certainly watched a tutorial or product review where the Youtube has mentioned they’ll leave the link in the description. You might have even bought some through an affiliate link.

Take the video above for example. The YouTuber has created a camera buying guide and has left not one but 6 affiliate links in the description.

If he managed to gain the viewers trust and they got interested in the cameras he recommended, there is a high chance they’ll click on the links and he’ll get a commission for every sale.

In a similar way, Youtuber use product reviews, tutorials, and ‘best of’ videos to redirect traffic to an affiliate landing page.

Some wiser Yotubers will instead direct users to an email sign-up form so they can promote not only those but many other products forever.

Recommended: Create a Landing Page for Affiliate Marketing in 6 Steps

Why should you use Youtube for Affiliate Marketing?

Whether you are a new affiliate marketer trying to choose the best platform for your business or a Youtuber trying to increase your earnings, here are some of the reasons why pairing youtube with affiliate marketing is a winning combination.

• Is free! One of the hardest parts of affiliate marketing is getting traffic to your offers or links. Since Youtube works as a search engine, you can get very targetted traffic of people with high purchase intent to your videos without spending any money on ads.

• Youtube is also a social media platform so if you produce high-quality content you will be benefitted by the engagement people have with your videos. If Youtube notices that viewers are enjoying your content, it’ll reward you by suggesting them to more people and helping your channel grow as a result.

• A lot of YouTubers get into it thinking the ‘main’ way of making money is by placing ads in their videos. However, you need A LOT of subscribers and views to be able to make a decent income from ads. On the other hand, many small channels make from a full-time income or 6 figures a year.

• A video that gets 1M views/month will earn you between $1K and $15K depending on many factors. If you do the same but adding an affiliate offer, that makes you $5 per sale, even if only 1% of viewers buy it, you’ll end up with $50k at the end of the month!

• With Youtube, is way easier to build trust and loyalty with your followers that it’d be with a blog or through ads. You are more likely to create a connection and build a loyal following that’ll be happy to buy what you recommend.

• Last but not least, Youtube allows affiliate links. That is not the case with other traffic sources like Google or Facebook ads and forums. Having the ability to place your link directly in your description is an easy way to get started quickly and send traffic to your offers. Although I’d recommend sending them to an opt-in page and building your email list asap.

How to use Youtube for Affiliate Marketing?

1. Choose your niche

If you haven’t yet started your Youtube channel, you might still be in the process of deciding what should your channel be about.

One of the good things about Youtube is that it works for almost every niche and there is a lot of niches with low competition.

The niches or markets that are the most competitive across the board are those related to personal finances, relationships and health/wellness. That is not to say you should not get into those niches but if you do consider that it will take more time and effort to grow your channel and you should have a unique aproach to the topic anyway.

Some general tips to consider when choosing your niche are:

• Make sure the market has related products and services that you can promote and can generate decent commissions. For example the photography or sports niches can grant you better commission than crafting or recycling to give you an idea.

• Consider that the industry has a consistent and potential interest. This means that it is not too seasonal e.g. skiing and that is also not dying e.g. cigarettes.

• Think of the buying process of the related products. For example, if you would make a channel about hot tubs or saunas, people might click on your links and check the products online but they will most likely go to a store to see them and buy them in person.

• Finally, choose a niche that you like, you don’t need to be super passionate about it but you do need to enjoy it and have some experience with it. Youtube is a long term business so you want to make sure you are investing your time in something that keeps you motivated.

2. Choose your affiliate programs

Once you decide on your niche or if you have already started your Youtube channel, the next steps are to research and apply to the affiliate programs of your choice.

Some brands will manage their affiliate programs independently and some will do it through affiliate networks but the process of applying is similar.

Here are some ways to find what affiliate programs are available for your niche:

• Google “niche + affiliate programs”. This is the most obvious but still worth mentioning options. Start with a quick search and you will most likely find some interesting and popular programs in your niche.

• Check out what your competitors’ are promoting. Browse through Yotube videos in your niche and look out for the links in their description since those are probably affiliate programs you can join.

• If you are familiar with the niche, you probably know some of the brands and companies so you can also try going on their websites and look for an affiliate porgram usually in the links at the bottom of the page.

• Check out the popular affiliate programs and networks. Starting with Amazon’s you will already have a huge variety of products to promote. But also check out Clickbank for digital products and networks like Shareasale, JVZoo, CJ Affiliate, and M4trix, to name a few.

3. Make ‘money-making’ content

While you can technically include affiliate links in any type of videos, there are some that are better to incentivize clicks and purchases as well as for targetting people with high-buying intent.

A product review for example is more likely to attract and persuade people to buy the product than let’s say a ‘day in a life’ vlog where you include some affiliate links in the description.

That being said, let’s explore some of the best types of Youtube videos for affiliate marketing:

3.1. Product Review Videos

While obvious, product videos are definitely some some of the most affiliate-friendly.

You can elaborate on a product’s features, benefits, or disadvantages while providing the viewer with the value they are looking for at the same time and not being afraid of being too ‘salesy’.

When people are looking for a product review is usually because they have the intention of buying it but they want to get some trusted opinions before investing on it so they are often ready to make that purchase.

You don’t need to give a positive feedback of every product you review, you can totally say you don’t recommend a certain product for some reasons and use the opportunity to recommend an alternative product.

3.2. How-To Videos

How-To videos are also a great chance to provide value to your viewers while including a product or service that might help with their needs.

When people are looking for a ‘how-to’ video is most likely because they have a problem to solve and when you tell them how to fix them, they’ll be happy to check out whatever offer you recommend as part of the solution.

From ‘how-to’ lose weight videos while recommending a meal replacement shake; to ‘how-to’ find cheap flights while using an affiliate app and ‘how-to’ decorate your room while including all the product links.

How-to videos work in all sorts of niches.

3.3. Haul/Collection Videos

This type of videos include anything from a ‘shopping haul’ to ‘what I pack for…’ and ‘what’s in my bag’ videos.

As you can imagine, it works better for niches like fashion, travel, makeup, fitness and lifestyle but you can apply to your niche if you have a collection or recent purchase you want to show.

3.4. Favorites/Best Of Videos

This type of videos are really easy to make and attract people with a high purchase intent.

There are some Youtube channels making millions out of this type of videos and some just show pictures of the product with a voice in the background.

Whether you show yourself on camera is not really relevant for Youtube. But you do want to gain your viewers’ trust by including valuable information and taking your time to really learn about the products on the list.

3.5. Unboxing Videos

Similarly to review videos, unboxing videos attract a very specific crowd who is already interested in said product.

While this type of video is very popular, there is also a lot of competition and thousands of ‘unboxing’ videos being uploaded for every important electronic product being launched.

To be able to differentiate from others, make sure to show your personality through the videos and provide extra value that your viewer’s can appreciate.

3.6. Educational Videos

When it comes to affiliate marketing, educational videos can help when the niche or topic is quite complex and information is the main resource people are looking for.

Think of topics like investing, making money online, learning a new language, etc. You can create content that provides great value to your viewers in this context and direct them to a certain app or course where they can continue to learn more about it.

3.7. Gaming videos

This type of videos is obviously specific to the gaming niche but if that is something you are interested in, there are lots of affiliate programs for gamers that you can profit from by streaming yourself playing a game or making a review of one.

4. Make good content

This goes without saying but yes, making high-qualit content is essential for people to engage with your videos, for getting you more views, growing your channel and ultimately making more money.

Here are some tips of how to make content your visitors and Youtube will love:

4.1. Plan ahead

Having a script or at least a structure to follow is a great way to make sure you stay on course and your video makes sense for viewers.

Stay focused on the topic of the video and avoid don’t ramble about repetitive or irrelevant subjects.

You can have an intro since viewers are used to that, but failing to get to the point of your video fast can cause people to leave and Youtube flagging it as bad quality.

4.2. Get decent image and sound

You do not need any expensive equipment to begin with, you might not even need a camera if you plan on doing faceless videos.

But if you plan on filming you should be uploading your videos in at least 720 HD or 1080 HD if possible. Most high-end phones like the iPhone 11, Google Pixel, or Samsun Galaxy S10 can give you that sort of quality.

Even more importantly, you want to be very careful with your sound quality. People might watch a video with low quality but if they can’t heard it well they’ll definitely leave.

Unfortunately, phones tend to do a poor job when capturing sound so if you can, investing in a low-cost microphone like the Blue Snowball will make a huge difference.

4.3. Get some editing skills

Editing is a huge part of what your final product as a Youtuber will be. If you have never edited before, it might be overwhelming to learn while you try to master all these other skills but it is definitely a skill that will be of huge impact on your journey.

You can take advantage of Adobe Premiere Pro 30 day free trial to get some hands-on training or if you rather someone else to do it you can find great editors for a fair price on fiverr.

4.4.Get those clicks

When you first publish a video, Youtube is going to start testing it to see how people react to it. One of the ways they do that is by measuring its CTR or Click Through Rate meaning what percentage of people that saw it in their timeline of results, actually clicked on it.

One of the factors that most impact your CTR is the video’s thumbnail which is basically the cover photo that represents your video. A CTR above 2% is good but of course you want to always aim for more.

To design your Youtube thumbnails you can use Canva which is a free tool with lots of templates. Also make sure to notice what type of thumbnails catch your eyes when you are on Youtube and always continue to test and repeat what is working.

4.5. Get your engagement rate up

Another factor that Youtube considers when evaluating your videos is your engagement rate which includes, likes, comments and sucribes.

When creating a video don’t be afraid to ask your viewers to comments, like and subscribe and even better, make sure to reply to their comments since Youtube also see this as a good indicator.

You can get creative and give them an extra reason to engage like a contest, give away, or just a question they can reply to motivate them to comment. It is shown that videos, where viewers are asked to engage, can definitely increase the rate.

4.6. Post consistently

Last but not least, make sure to keep a consistenty rtyrhm when uploading your videos.

There is no definite answer on how often you should upload but the average seems to be 2 or even 3 times a week for the fastest growing channels.

Whatever speed you decide just make sure you can keep maintain it, it is better to do 1 video a week consistently than do 3 one weeks and none the next.

If you fail to upload on a fairly consistent basis, your subs and views will drop and the competition will eat into your portion of the pie.

5. Optimize your content for traffic

Unfortunately, making good content is not enough to get viewers on your videos. You need to work with Youtube’s search engine and algorithm to make sure you succeed.

Here are the main ways of getting traffic to your channel and videos:

5.1. Organic search

Organic search is exactly what it sounds like, it refers to the results that appear when people look for something directly on Youtube’s search bar.

Appearing on the top results comes down to factors like how competitive the topic is and how optimized your video is for those ‘keywords’.

Keyword Research

The best way to make sure you have a chance of ranking for a certain keyword is to use a keyword research tool. There are a few out there but I personally like TubeBuddy. It is a free chrome extension you can use to see how competitive a topic is.

When you go into the app you can type in a keyword and it will show you a result like the one below.

The regular result will tell you how competitive that topic is. They also have a paid version where you can get a ‘weighted’ results specific to your channel but the free one still works to give you an idea.

You obviously want to go for a keyword with a score ‘very good’ or more but at the beginning, you can go for ‘good’ ones if you have a new channel.

If that is your case you’ll also have better results when going for ‘long-tail keywords’ which is a fancy name for longer search terms.

E.g. you’ll have more chances to rank for ‘How to use Youtube for affiliate marketing for beginners’ than for ‘Affiliate Marketing Youtube’ because logically, the more specific a topic is, the less competition there’ll be.

Once you have chosen your keyword, you need to use it on your video’s title and tags as a way of ‘telling’ Youtube what your video is about.

5.2 Subscribers

After Organic traffic, the best way to get viewers to your videos is to grow your subscriber base.

Every time you release a new video, your subscribers will be notified and see it in their subscriptions tab. They will also see it in the home page so even if you didn’t rank for a specific keyword with that video, you have the chance of all your subscribers watching it.

Your subscribers will become your most loyal fans and will be excited to watch your next videos. They will also trust you and be happy to check out whatever product or service you recommend.

5.3 Youtube related videos

Remember all the tios I mentined about creating good content with high ctr and high engagemtn rate (if not, feel free to go back to the prebious section).

Well, Yotube uses those indicators as a sign your content it good and therefore, it will keep people on their platform which is ultimately what tehy care about.

Yotube makes money though ads and the more time people spend on the platform, the more ads they’ll be shwon and the more money they’ll earn.

So if Youtube thinks your videos can help them achieve that, they’ll start showing them on the related videos and user’s timelines.

5.4 Social Media and forums

While optional, you can also get traffic to your videos from other platforms like social media and forums.

You can create an account for your channel and use it as a way to promote it and bring extra traffic. This will require extra time and effort so only do it if it will not cut down on the time you could be using to make new content.

You can get enough traffic from the sources previously mentioned and once you are making some money you can always hire someone to help you with social media.

5.5 Email list

Any entrepreneur or content creator will tell you how important it is to build your email list. Without exagerating, It is the most valuable asset you can build to future-proof your income.

And email list guarantees you can bring people to your channel even if Youtube decides to change its algorithm or in the very unlikely case they decide to s=hut down your account and you need to start from scratch.

Unfortunately on Youtube you do not really own your content or subscribers since it is also hosted in their platform so building your email list from the beginning will not only help you bring traffic to your new videos but you can also use it to promote affiliate. offers directly.

6. Promote your affiliate links

Finally, when promoting your affiliate links, you want to do it discreetly so that it doesn’t feel spammy but also making sure that the viewer will actually notice them.

You can place the link your video description while making sure to mention it in the video or you can also use some image overlays when you talk about certain products but I prefer the description in most cases.

While Youtube doesn’t have any policy about affiliate links, it is best that you put a simple affiliate disclosure next to your links so your users know you are being transparent. After all, you are giving them value and the cost of the offer is the same for them.

When possible, see if there is a discount available you can give them since that will incentize them much more to buy through your links.

Pros Of YouTube Affiliate Marketing

• Massive audience: With over 1 billion users and growing fast, Youtube has a hungry audience waiting to consume content and buy.

• Video is king: It is estimated that by 2019, 80% of all content online will be video. It also has one of the highest engagement and conversion rates which means that not only will you get tons of views and profits but those will continue to grow over time.

• Lower competition:  contrary to blogs or websites, there are lots of niches with still low competition and opportunities to build a massive audience if you can get in early with some quality content.

• Works for all offers: Outside of a few no-go niches (gambling and adult offers), you have the freedom to choose and promote any offers you want especially if you have built a loyal audience and have established yourself as a non-spammy, high-quality channel.

• Can build a loyal audience: Since you can create a close relationship with your followers, people who like your videos can “subscribe” to your channel will be hungry for any new content you publish.

• Faster results: While it does take some time to see your channel and views growing, it is definitely faster when compared to building a website or blog. With Youtube, you can start getting views and sales in your first month and see a significant growth by month 6. In comparison, it can take double or more in the case of a blog.

Cons Of YouTube Affiliate Marketing

• Content creation: It takes time and dedication to create interesting and engaging content but at the same time it is also a bigger entry barrier that weeds out those who are not willing to put in the effort.

• Niche-specific challenges: Depending on your market, your content will be easier or harder to produce. For some niches, you will only need to screen-record your computer, while for others you’ll have to show a hands-on training on how to repair a bike. This also means the easier niches, will usually have higher competition.

Youtube For Affiliate Marketing | FAQ

Youtube For Affiliate Marketing | Takeaway

Using Youtube for Affiliate Marketing is a winning strategy.

Not only you can make much more money than through ads but the contet you create will make you money for years and usually it continues to grow over time.

This is as close as. it gets to passive income. You can literally out a couple of hours to create a video and it can generate sales for 3-4 years without any extra work required

Video is the future and there is no better time to get started than now.

Do no waste more time trying to get it all perfect at the beginning. Your first videos might not be perfect but they can still bring on views and sales and help you learn as you go.

Finally, make sure to build an email list since you don’t want to rely only on Youtube’s platform and algorithm. Your list will allow you to diversify your traffic, future-proof your business, and sell to your audience when the time and products are right.

While blogging can be seen as a hobby for some, is it ‘worth it’ all the time and effort it seems to take?

As someone who has tried and succeeded on different ways of making money online, I’ll share why blogging is still one of my favorites.

Furthermore, we’ll reveal the details on how much bloggers make at every stage of their journey (and what you can expect), why some blogs fail, and to make sure you don’t.

How much do bloggers make?

The real answer to how much do bloggers make is… it depends.

I think when people ask this question they are probably trying to figure out if blogging is something they want to invest their time in which, as a blogger, I can definitely understand.

However, as much as I would like to give you a straight answer there are many factors blog’s earnings, such as:

• Its niche.
• How old it is.
• How much traffic it gets.
• Its monetization methods.
• How large their email list is.

This means there are bloggers out there who make zero dollars while others make six figures a month.

So, I think understanding the keys that make some blogs successful vs others is as important as knowing how much they make.

With that said, let’s explore the numbers we do have on bloggers’ incomes.

What do we know about how much bloggers make?

• Glassdoor reports that the average blogger salary is over $32,800 per year, based on 88 anonymously submitted salaries.

• In a survey of 1,500 Problogger readers revealed 63% made $0 – $99 per month. 17% made more than $100/month. 16% made at least 5-figures annually, and 4% made 6-figures a year. (Considering that Problogger teaches new bloggers I would say most of the responders were just starting out).

• One of the most common ways in which blogs make money is through ads, which make you around $0.01 – $0.25 per page view. This means that a new blog with 1,000 pageviews a month can make $10-$25 and turn into $1,000 – $2,500/ month when reaching 100,000 pageviews a month.

• Email lists are another important asset bloggers use to create their income. Depending on the niche, making $1-$3 per month per email subscriber is a realistic projection.

• If you add other monetization methods, it is realistic to make $500 – $2,000/ month in your first year, $5,000-$10,000/month in your second year, $10,000-$20,000/moth in your third year and $50,000+/month in your fourth year.

How much are ‘successful’ bloggers making?

To give you an insider’s look at the true income potential of blogging, I asked professional bloggers to share how they successfully monetize their blogs. I think it’s important to set realistic expectations, so you’ll see all types of bloggers at all income levels on this list.

I included an approximation of each blogger’s income based on the information they provided or from the income reports available on their sites.

The Ski Girl

Niche: Sports (Skiing)
Approximate income: Currently averaging six figures per month and on its way to to hit seven figures in the next six months
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing through Amazon.

I must admit I was surprised when I learned how much this site was making with affiliate links only, especially considering skiing is a seasonal niche.

Recently, Amazon reduced its affiliates’ fees significantly, which must have impacted the blog’s income. Thankfully, that can be easily fixed by moving to other affiliate programs with better fees.

Making Sense of Cents

Niche: Personal finance.
Approximate income: $1.5 million annually
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, online courses, sponsored partnerships, advertising

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner managed to position her blog into the competitive niche of personal finance by adding a personal perspective in every post and sharing her journey from debt to financial freedom.

She claims it took her around six months to make $100 because she wasn’t focused on monetizing it at first. She then went on to make her first $1000 a month after one year of starting and went to earn $5,000 a month a few months after that.

In the last couple of year, she has made 1.5 million annually.

The Wayward Home

Niche: Nomadic and alternative living
Approximate income: $3,000 to $6,000 a month
Monetization strategies: Sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and advertising

TheWaywardHome is in the nomadic niche which includes super trendy interest such as off-the-grid living, van life, RVs, and boat living.

Despite the niche being in such high interest, it is a bit hard to monetize. People interested in this lifestyle are often looking to cut down expenses and won’t but a van or RV from the internet.

However, Kristin Hanes, the founder, has managed to monetize the blog through ads, sponsored posts, and affiliate links for renting sites and accessories.

The Ways to Wealth

Niche: Personal finance
Approximate income: $15,000 per month
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing and advertising

The Ways to Health is another successful blog in the personal finance niche. Its founder, R.J Weiss who applies his expertise to write about legitimate side hustles, money-saving tips, and investment tips for beginners.

The blog’s primary source of income is affiliate marketing with some of its main products being insurance and investment services.

Amazing Me Movement

Niche: Personal growth and self-improvement
Approximate income: $3,000 to $5,000 monthly
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, e-books, advertising, sponsored posts, and coaching services

Amazing Me Movement is a great example of a successful blog in the personal growth niche. This market can be hard to monetize since there is not many affiliate products or services out.

However, Iva Ursano, founder of the blog, has used a variety of monetization methods to turn it into a profitable site that is aligned to her coaching services. She currently makes $3,000-$5,000 monthly.

She has more than 145,800 thousand followers on Pinterest which definitely helps to direct traffic to her blog.

A quick look at google search volume around this niche shows it is filled with opportunities and has very low competition when it comes to SEO.

Survival Life

Niche: Survivalist / ‘Prepper’
Approximate income: $1,000,000 per month
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, and selling their own products.

SurvivalLife.com makes 1 million dollars a month in the ‘prepper’ or survivalist niche. It was created by Ryan Deiss and the DigitalMarketer.com team who attribute its success to having treated it as a business since the beginning.

They sell survival knives, outdoor gear, battery cell phones, wilderness survival kits, and more. Contrary to other bloggers who sometimes are afraid to upset their audience by being too ‘salesy’, SurvivalLife takes every chance they have to promote whether it is on the blog itself, their making list, or their Facebook.

Pinch of Yum

Niche: Food / Recipes
Approximate income: $60,000 per month
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, digital products

I’m Lindsay, the founder of Pinch of Yum, used to be a 4th grade teacher with no digital marketing knowledge. She started the blog with the hopes of creating a side income and has now grow it into a six-figures-a-year business.

She makes her income through affiliate marketing, ads and selling her digital products around food blogging and food photography.

Together with her husband she also started a (paid) community called Food Blogger Pro where they place to teach people everything about —yes— food blogging.

Digital Photography School

Niche: Photography
Approximate income: Millions a year according to Copyblogger.
Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, Courses, Presets, Ebooks

Digital Photography School is definitely an authority in its niche with over 500,000 subscribers, and 5,000,000 monthly site visitors.

While it has taken its founder, Darren Rowse, years to get there, it is onky an example to the potential a blog can have over time.

Most of the income of Digital Photography School now comes form its own products including courses, ebooks, and presents. It even has its own Affiliate Program in which other people can promote those products in exchange for a commission.

Nomadic Matt

Niche: Travel
Approximate income: $65,000 a month
Monetization strategies: Affiliate Marketing, Ads, Courses and EBooks

Matt Kepnes, the founder of Nomadic Matt, started the blog after an 18-month trek around the world that make him realized he wanted a job that would keep him traveling.

Thanks to great timing, good SEO and a few viral posts, the site began to take off after about a year. After 2 years, the blog was bringing in $50,000 to $60,000 a year from e-books, sponsored posts and affiliate marketing,

He continued to develop his travel courses, increased his affiliate revenue, and regularly launched new products.

By 2013 (year 5), the site was bringing in six figures. Now, Nomadic Matt has 1.5 million visitors a month and grosses about $750,000 year. He has three full-time employees and lots of freelancers. He also co-owns a hostel in Austin, Texas.

Camper Report

Niche: RV Camping
Approximate income: $8,000 a month
Monetization strategies: Mostly Ads

Note: While most of the previous sites have 6+ years of being created, I wanted to show you an example of a site that is only 3 years olds so you can see what is completely attainable in the mid-term.

CamperReport is one of the niche sites created by Ricky and Jim (IncomeSchool founders).

The most impressive thing about this blog is that they wrote 35 articles on the site and let it ‘sit’ for about a year. By that time it was bringing in 100,000 page views per month which is what allows them to make around $8,000 a month of very passive income.

They also started a Youtube channel with just a few videos that are now over 500,000 views, which helps drive traffic to the blog.

What methods do bloggers use to make money?

One of my favorite things about blogging is that there is not one, but MANY ways to make money AND the opportunities keep growing once your blog does so.

Here are some of the most common ways in which bloggers monetize their platform.

1. Placing Ads on your blog ($0.1 – $0.25 per page view)

Having ads on your blog is one of the easiest and quickest ways to start making some money.

Since Ads are paid based on views or click, you might not make much at the beginning but it will add up as your traffic grows.

Depending on how many visitors you have per month you will have the option to work with different advertising networks.

a. Google Adsense ($0.01 – $0.05 per page view)

Google Adsense is Google’s ad platform and the easiest way to monetize your blog if you are just starting out.

On the good side, they don’t have a requirement for a minimum amount of visitors so you can start working with them right away.

On the bad side, they have probably the lowest fees when it comes to CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPC (cost per click).

But no other networks will acept you will less thank 10 visitors a month so it is still better than nothing.

I recommend getting started with Google Adsense as soon as you have a few blog posts up and then switching to another platform once you get consistently 10k visitors/month.

b. Other Advertising Networks ($0.10 – $0.25 per page view)

Once you have reached at least 10,000 page views per month, you will have the chance to work with other networks that can offer you better fees such as Ezoic and AdThrive.

At the moment of writing this article, Ezoic only requires 10,000 page views per month which is amazing since I have seen people tripe ad their income when switching to them after been on Google AdSense.

AdThrive is another great Advertising Network but they require at least 25,000 page views per month. Some people have reported getting better fees when switching to AdThrive and others said their results were Ezoic were actually better so they went back to it.

The results will change depending on your niche, blog, and posts so I recommend trying them both as soon as you meet the requirements.

2. Affiliate Marketing ($1-%500+ per commission)

Affiliate Marketing is a very common method that bloggers to generate revenue. In fact, according to a 2018 survey with 150 bloggers, Affiliate Marketing was their most common source of income.

Put simply, Affiliate Marketing means a blogger promotes another company’s product or service and receives and commission for every sale that is made thanks to them.

Review posts, tutorials, and ‘best of’ articles’ are some of the ways in which bloggers tend to promote their affiliate products.

Contrary to plain ads, the point in being successful at ‘promoting’ an affiliate product is to create valuable content around it, find out how would it help the audience and focus on serving them rather than selling.

In the above picture for example, you can see how Nomadic Matt casually place his affiliate links as a ‘reminder’ at the end of most of his posts in a way that actually helps the reader and condenses all the importan steps they need to take.

Now every time someone click through those links an make a booking/ purchase, he will get a commission.

In this other example of Digital Photography School, all of the models in this ‘Best of’ article are affiliate products and the blogger will get a commission for every sale.

The commission rates can go from 1% up to 30% or even 40% for some digital products like courses and memberships.

Amazon used to be the most popular affiliate program since it has products for almost every niche but it recently slashed his commission to less than half so I am sure bloggers will be migrating to better alternatives.

3. Selling their own products ($1-$1000+)

Another popular way for bloggers to make money is to sell their own products whether it be physical products in their niche or digital products such as courses, ebooks, or memberships.

At first, most bloggers are skeptical about people buying anything from them but if you are doing a decent job as a blogger you don’t need to make a lot of selling.

Your readers are already interested in the free content you are putting out there. This means they have probably come to trust you and will, most likely, be interested in your paid offers.

In the image below you can see an example of the blogger of Pinch of Yum who is making money by selling a Food Photography Course.

Or the blogger at AmazingMeMovement who is selling her own Self Development Book.

Lots of bloggers promote ‘low-ticket’ products at the beginning as a way to create more trust with their readers.

But most of them also have a complete sales-funnel set up so when someone buys these products, they continue to promote bigger, more expensive offers via email. This ‘back-end’ or ‘high ticket’ offers usually range between $299 and $1999.

4. Sponsored Content ($50 – $1000 per post)

Once your blog starts to grow, you will also have the chance to sell sponsored content. This means a company will reach out to you and pay you to publish a post about their brand or product.

Sponsored posts can pay between $50 to $1,000 depending on your blog’s popularity and niche. These prices are average just for publishing the post but you you can always offer to write it yourlsef and negotiate a much higher fee.

Besides sponsored posts are often really crappy or have crappy links included which Google and your audience will notice. So that’s an extra reason to rewrite them yourself.

While it might be tempting to go ahead and accept every sponsored post you are offered, you must be careful with how often you publish them. Google doesn’t like when blogs that do a lot of sponsored content so it could get you blacklisted and prejudice your traffic.

5. Social Media Promotion ($500 – $3000 per promotion)

Yes, bloggers are paid to post on social media…and yet you were doing it for free all this time.

While you might need to grow your blog to at least 100k visitors per month before you can leverage this type of income, once you do, you can easily get paid $500 for a tweet.

This is of course considering you have a social media account that is dedicated exclusively to your blog and niche and has a significant amount of followers.

In that case, you are considered an influencer or expert in your niche and you can definitely make money promoting products or services on social media. The bigger your following the more money you can get paid.

There are some niches where this type of promotion is most common such as travel and fashion. Bloggers with big Instagram followings can make at least $5,000 per month from promotions only.

6. Brand Partnership ($1,000 – $30,000)

The same way brands will be interested in paying for social media promotions, they will also want to create partnerships to promote their products through your blog.

Partnerships can look a hundred different ways depending on the brand or product but as your blog grows, you want to be prepared and create packages on how you can help their brand reach your audience AND vice versa.

Contrary to sponsorships or paid posts, a partnership involves both parties actively helping each other. In this case, partnering with the right brands can help you grow your audience since they will share your content and email their followers about you as well.

Furthermore, working with big brands means they have big budgets so don’t be afraid to negotiate. If a brand is reaching out is because they want to work with you and are probably expecting the negotiation part.

7. Freelance Writing ($300 – $1,000 per post)

Last but not least, blogging is writing, and not any writing but expert-level writing.

The truth is, once you start growing your blog you will become an authority and an expert in your niche. (Which means you should be writing about something you know or about something you like enough to be learning about in the process)

So the more your blogs grows, the more of an expert you will be, and the more you’ll be able to leverage that expertise through freelance writing opportunities.

Every company and oublication out there is producing content constantly and they are often looking for niche experts to write for them.

In fact, many new bloggers do freelance writing gigs as a way to supplement their blogging income at the beginning. You can get paid $300 per blog post and up to $100 for longer pieces like white papers or reports.

Even more, it can help grow your authority as an expert in your industry and build your portfolio.

These are just some of the most common ways in which bloggers make money. There are many more like coaching or consulting which you can do once your blog gets really big. The main benefit of creating a blog is that you are building a platform and an audience so you can then choose and get creative about your monetization.

Best tips to make money blogging

Now that you know how much bloggers can make and what are the different methods they use to make their money, pay attention to the following keys so you can create your own profitable blog.

1. Blogging will not make you money fast

There, I said it! Are you still here? Good! Because even though blogging won’t make you money fast it doesn’t mean it won’t make you good and sustainable money. (which is must say is my favorite type of money)

While some people will pass on blogging because they are looking for a short term solution, that just weeds them out and leave more room for people with long term mindset.

Having that clear from the begginning is the most important pice since the first months will be the hardest. You’ll have to put a lot of time and effort and won’t see results for a while but if you are expecting it you’ll be able to push through and enjoy all the fruits of your labor.

Once your blog starts growing and the snowball starts rolling, the rest is easy, you’ll see results and you’ll naturally keep going.

2. Your niche is key to how much you can make

As I have shown in the article, there are bloggers making 5, 6, and 7 figures in every niche out there. However, it is undeniable that some niches have more potential for monetization than others.

For example, a blog about plants can maybe make as much money in its first 2 years as one about insurance. However, the first one might hit a cap after that and have a harder time increasing its income. Whereas the second one will probably continue to grow along with its income for the next 6-7 years.

It comes down to factors such as audience size, monetization methods, and the typical buyer journey. People are muss lees likely to buy plants online than to buy insurance. Plus, with a blog about insurance, you can get larger affiliate commissions, bigger advertiser fees, and sell products for more money.

In conclusion, you want to So pick a niche that you are really interested in (this will help you stick with it) and that can ALSO make you money.

How To Pick The Right Niche To Make Money Blogging

Here are some of the most profitable blog niches:

1. Personal Finance / Insurance: $0.02 – $0.25 per pageview, $0.50 – $6 per email subscriber per month
2. Product Reviews: $0.01 – $0.15 per pageview, $0.25 – $5 per email subscriber per month
3. Travel: $0.01 – $0.10 per pageview, $0.50 – $4 per email subscriber per month
4. Fashion: $0.01 – $0.10 per pageview, $0.10 – $4 per email subscriber per month
5. Home Decor: $0.01 – $0.05 per pageview, $0.10 – $4 per email subscriber per month

These are some of the least profitable niches:

1. Music: $0.01 – $0.03 per pageview, $0.10 – $1 per email subscriber per month 
2. News / Politics: $0.01 – $0.02 per pageview, $0.10 – $2 per email subscriber per month (requires LOTS of content daily)
3. Cooking / Gardening: $0.01 – $0.03 per pageview, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month
4. Home Improvement: $0.01 – $0.03 per pageview, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month
5. Toys / Games: $0.01 – $0.03 per pageview, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month (works very well on Youtube thought)

3. More content, more money

As a blogger, your content is your main product so the only way to get more readers, more view, more sales, more anything, is to create more of it.

Especially at the beginning, you want to be publishing 2-3 blog posts a week for the first 8-10 months. It might seem like a lot of upfront effort but remember than one single blog post can make you money for years and years. That is the closest to passive income than it gets.

Of course, if you don’t have the time to do so do not let that discourgae you from starting. You can still make it at a slower peace, it’ll just gonna take more time to take off.

The good thing is that after you start getting some income you can hire freelance writers to help you and devote your time only to the main articles or to the marketing part of your blogging business.

4. Do not be afraid to promote to make money

Some bloggers are afraid to come too ‘salesy’ so they will try to not promote their offers too ‘obviously’ in an attempt to not scare their readers.

As longs as you are consistently providing value through your content and expertise, it is ok to sell. People won’t leave your blog because you mention a product or send a promo email.

If you believe in the products you are promoting and trust that they might help them someway, then, by all means, be direct about it. People are always looking for solutions to their problems so if you have one you are making them a favor.

5. Diversify your revenue sources

One of the difference between bloggers who make 5 figures a year and those who make 6 or 7 is now many income streams you have.

If you settle with ads and affiliate products then your income will eventually hit a cap. Or it might grow a little month by month as your traffic keeps growing but if you keep adding more income sources like your own products, partnerships, etc. you can escalate your revenue much faster.

6. Always be growing your email list

I can’t tell you how many times I heard this advice and thought ‘well yeah but I have more important things to get done before’. I am sure I am not the only one guilty of this. As an entrepreneur trying to juggle a lot of urgent things, creating an email list never looks so urgent in comparison.

However, it is. Your email list will be your most important asset you have as a blogger.

They’ll be the ones coming back and continue to read every post you publish, sharing them on social media, buying your affiliate offers, and also your own products.

Google could change its algorithm making you lose your ranking and Facebook could ban your account yet you’ll still be able to contact them FOR FREE.

You can get your blog hacked and you could rebuild your traffic and authority through your email email.

You can send an email an make thousands of dollars in hours if you have a well nurtured email list.

The average revenue per email subscriber $1-$3 per month!! If you have a list of 10,000 subscribers you can make up to $30,000 off that list every month!

The email marketing platform I recommend is Active Campaign. They offer a free 30-day trial of their service. Make sure to check out this article to learn How To Create a Profitable Email List.

7. Make Blogging work for the lifestyle you want

Some bloggers want to grow millonaires businesses, other just want to replace their income to have more free time to spend with their family or travel the world.

If you have already reached your goals and want to cut down on the time you put in your blog, then don’t feel pressured to keep on working. You are allowed to sit back and enjoy what you have created.

Whether you want a mostly passive income or a booming empire, you can design and build your grow to be it. It is the best part of having your own platform.

How Much Do Bloogers Make | FAQ

How much do bloggers make per post?

In the case of an sponsored posts in which bloggers are paid a one time fee, the rates will depend on the amount of visiotr per month the blog has.

Here are the approximate rates based on the blogger’s number of monthly impressions:

• 10,000 to 50,000 monthly blog impressions: $175 to $250 per post
• 50,000 to 100,000 monthly blog impressions: $250 to $500 per post
• 100,000 to 500,000 monthly blog impressions: $500 to $1,000 per post
• 500,000+ monthly blog impressions: $1,000 to $5,000+ per post

However, as we have mentioned before, sponsored posts are only one of the ways in which bloggers make money.

A regular blog posts can bring anything from $100 to $1000+ per month (for years) depending on the amount of traffic it brings, the affiliate links it contains and how many email subscribers the bloggers got thanks to that post.

How long does it take to make money blogging?

While this again depends on a lot of factors, it is realistic to say you’ll probably not make anything from your blog for the first 6-8 months.

If you put in the time and publish at least 40-50 articles in those month that time, you can start making $500-$2000 by month 9-12.

By your second year you should be making an average full time income.

Why do some bloggers fail?

In my experience, there are only three reasons why bloggers fail.

1. They gave up too soon. Some bloggers start with the right foot but don’t have the stamina to push through the first few months. They might publish 10-20 articles and stop there which is not enough for Google to start ranking them. If only they have made 10-15 articles more, they could have start seeing the results and could have keep going.

2. They made very bad choices. A quick Google search can take you to an article like this where you can learn what sort of niches are good to make moneyHowever, there are people starting blogs on dying industries or niches that are almost impossible to monetize which fill obviously lead to them failing.

3. Their content suck. If you choose the right niche and do not give up too soon, you can still fail if your content sucks. As a new blogger, you want to to choose your topics wisely and create content that Googles likes. Make sure to check out this article later to exactly how to do that.

Are there any risks in starting a blog?

The risks are very low compared to the potential benefits and also compared to other businesses.

Honestly, starting a blog is not hard, it only requires commitment and patience. I’ve seen people with no prior experience creating profitable blogs in many different niches.

In the worst case scenario, the risk would be you ‘wasting’ a couple months of your time because you failed to do it long enough to reap the rewards.

How much does it cost to start a blog?

The only two essentials tools you’d need to spend on are a domain and a hosting which if you use Bluehost will come together and will cost you around $106 for 3 years. I don’t know about you what I don’t know of any other business with such a low investment.

If I want to start my own blog to make money, where do I begin?

Start right here! This article will take you to step by step from validating your niche, to getting your domain and host and choosing the topics for your first posts.

How to Start a Blog to Make Money

Takeaway | Making Money Blogging

If you came here looking for an answer on whether or not you should start a blog to make money I hope you found it!

I am a bit biased since blogging is one of my favorite ways to make money however I do think it is not for everyone. Blogging takes time and dedication and it is definitely not a get-rich-quick-scheme. However, it is one of those cases in which your efforts are always rewarded.

There are certainly other ways to make money online which can give you faster results butt hey also involve more money investment and higher risks. So it all comes down to your personal preferences.

If you think blogging is for you I’d encourage you to start today. Truste me, you’ll wish you had started sooner.

Treat your blog as a business from the beginning and never stop testing and adding new ways to monetize it. As you have seen, there are many ways to do it so it’d be silly to not diversify and use as many as you can.

The more ways you use to make money with your blog, the more money you are likely going to make.

Over time you can turn your blog into a really profitable business that gives you the freedom to live life on your own terms.

The first year is the hardes but if you can push through it, not only does it get easier after the first year, but start making a lot more money!

Read Next:

• Blogging For Beginners: How To Start A Blog TODAY And Succeed
• Starting A Money-Making Blog (2020)| Dos & Don’ts | Step By Step Guide

Making money as a teenager might have some extra challenges than making money as an adult such as having no start up funds, no experience, and not being able to take any job.

However, thanks to the internet millions of people make money online and grow their incomes, starting from zero at any age and from anywhere. So let’s get started!

How to Make Money As a Teenager?

In this article I want to split the money-making methods into two different sections:

#1 Exchanging time for money
#2 Not exchanging time for money, a.k.a passive income.

They are pretty self-explanatory but basically approach #1 means someone hires you to do a certain task, for a certain time period, and they pay you an agreed amount of money, usually hourly based.

Unless you come from a business-oriented family or have gone to a really progressive school, this is the way most of us were taught to make money by our parents and schools.

As a teenager, the variety of hourly based jobs is somehow limited but we will explore the best options available later on the article.

On the other hand, approach #2 means using a method for making money where you don’t exchange your time for money. Usually, these methods require you to put the most time and effort upfront but have the benefit of being more scalable since they are not tied to the hours you have in a day.

Are you ready to make some money? Let’s get started with the options!

Approach 1: make money as a teenager by exchanging your time for money

In this article you won’t finds options such as babysitting, selling your old stuff, or getting a part time job. I want to assume you already have those in mind so let’s go ahead an explore some other less traditional ways you can start making money.

1. Make money by taking online surveys

This one you have probably seen in every teenage-money-making list but it is still one of the most common and easiest ways to make money with almost zero requirements.

While it is a quite simple method, you need to be careful with the sites you used since there are a lot that are a scam and will never pay you.

However, there are still several legitimate websites out there where you will get the chance to answer surveys related to teens. All you have to be is at least 13 years old to participate. 

Your earnings will depend on the activities you get to do and the time they take. As a reference, a 5-minute long will get you a dollar or less and it increases with longer surveys.

Some companies also have activities like watching videos which will earn you 10 cents per minute of video. You won’t become a millionaire with it but it adds up and can get your needs met.

Here is a list of legitimate sites you can try: 

• InboxDollars
  Rewards: Cash, gift vouchers
  Minimum to cash out: $30
  Average rate/survey: $0.50-$10.00

• MindSwarms
  Rewards: PayPal cash
  Minimum to cash out: None
  Average rate/survey: $10-$50

• SurveyJunkie
  Rewards: Points system that converts to cash and e-gift cards
  Minimum to cash out: $10 or 1,000 points
  Average rate/survey: $1-$3

• Toluna
  Rewards: Points used to purchase gift cards and PayPal cash
  Minimum to cash out: $10 cash or 30,000 points
  Average rate/survey: 15 – 15,000 points depending on the length of the survey

To make your survey taking more efficient, sign up to all the websites mentioned above and do it with a new email account.

This way you won’t get the emails mixed up and won’t miss the notifications when a survey for you is available.

2. Make money as a teenager by freelancing online

Another great way of making money online as a teenager is by offering your services in freelancing sites.

If you are thinking you have no skills you could get paid for, do not worry. Some of the most sought-after ‘gigs’ in the online freelancing world are skills you could pick up in a couple of days if you put your mind to it.

When I first started making money online, freelancing was one of my main income sources and I was doing it with skills I taught myself by watching youtube videos such as logo design, video editing.

Take a look at the ‘logo design’ gigs for example. People are charging anything from $5 to hundred of dollars for a logo and there are tools out there that allow you to create one from scratch without any previous skills suchs as Wix Logo Maker.

The good thing about online freelancing is that, contrary to methods like taking surveys, you’ll get paid in cash 100% of the time and you will be able to increase what you charge as you get more experience and reviews.

Websites like Upwork and Fiverr are some of the biggest freelance platforms where you can start earning some money.

Some of the best freelance skills that you can easily learn include:

• Logo design (you can use Canva for any graphic design)
• Youtube thumbnail design
• Voice-over for videos
• Video editing for social media ads (you can use Kapwing for all video editiing).

Of course, I recommend you browse on all the other gigs being offered and see if anything else catches your attention. Most skills you can learn online with a simple google search.

At the beginning, you want to keep your price at $5 so you can appear on searches when people look for the cheapest gigs. Once you start getting more reviews and growing your portfolio you can increase your prices.

3. Make money as a teenager by doing translations

If you know a second language, congrats! you have another great source of income.

Many people earn their living and make full time incomes by translating and there is nothing stoping you to do the same as a teenager.

The average rate per word is 0.8 to 15 cents, depending on the type of document to be translated, the language combination, the amount of work involved, the subject matter and the deadline.

There are many sites where you can freelance as a translator, including general freelancing sites such as Upwork and Fiverr but here are some of the most popular translation agencies you can try:

• Genqo
  Site visits/month: ~370,000
  Methods: PayPal only
  Payout fee: 1.5% on top of PayPal’s withdrawal fees

• OneHourTranslation
• Site visits/month: ~270,000
• Methods: PayPal, wire, Payoneer mastercard
• Payout fee: None for regular payouts; varies for early payouts 

• Unbabel
• Site visits/month: ~320,000
• Methods: PayPal, Payoneer (in countries where PayPal is not available)
• Payout fee: According to PayPal/Payoneer terms

• TextMaster
• Site visits/month: ~160,000
• Methods: PayPal, Payoneer
• Payout fee: According to PayPal/Payoneer terms

If you want to explore doing translations as a way to make money, I would recommend signing up for as many of these agencies as you can as well as creating your translation gig in Fiverr and searching for translation proposals in Upwork.

4. Make money as a teenager by doing transcriptions

Did you know you can make money by typing? It is a legit work and you can make as much money as time you can dedicate. (It always helps if you are a fast typer)

Some of the benefits of doing transcriptions online include having flexible hours and being able to do it from wherever you are. These are great because you can put in more hours and increase your income whenever you have some extra free time.

Generally, you can expect to get paid $0.75 cents to $1.50 per audio minute for transcription services but it changes depending on the website.

Some websites will ask that you take a transcription test that they will provide themselves to evaluate the accuracy of your transcript compare to the audio.

The following sites offer a variety of online transcription jobs for qualified individuals:

• TranscribeMe
  TranscribeMe is one of the trusted online transcription sites. Beginners need to complete a thorough assessment to be accepted as freelancers. If you’re lucky enough to be among the ones who pass, you can start getting jobs instantly. TranscribeMe will pay you at least $0.79 per audio minute for good-quality work.

• TigerFish
  TigerFish is known for flexibility and friendliness towards the needs of their transcribers. They have their own transcription style guide that you are required to understand and you can only start working after you have successfully passed a test. Earnings are about $8-$16/hr

• Scribie
  Scribie is an ideal platform if you don’t have lots of experience. They usually give you less time to complete the tasks but that also means you’ll be able to complete more jobs in total. Their rate is set at $10 per audio hour flat fee which may seem low compared to other sites but they also offer bonuses and a promotions based on the quality of the work.

• Fiverr and Upwork.
  We have mentioned these sites before and while they are not specialized in transcription they are always a good place to consider when looking for any type of freelancing work, including transcriptions.

If transcription sounds like something you’d like to make money, I’d recommend checking the sites mentioned and apply to them all. Since the majority have a test you want to have the most opportunities of qualifying and starting to get jobs.

If you are not feeling quite ready yet, you can also use the tests as a way of practicing. Try taking them a few times without submitting them until you feel more confident with your skills.

5. Make money as a teenager with Amazon MTurk

Amazon Mechanical Turk, or Mturk for short, is a platform where you can earn money by completing quick, menial tasks posted by researchers. The tasks include labeling images, taking surveys, transcribing receipts, etc.

The dashboard below is what you will find when logging in to MTurk. You will see a list of all available ‘HITs’, who they’re offered by, the deadline, and the pay.

Some ‘HITs’ take 10 minutes and pay-out $1 (a $6/hour pay rate) while others take 5 minutes and pay $0.10 ($1.20/hour).

Can you get rich with Amazon MTurk? not really but the earnings will add up and is a good method to have as an emergency plan.

6. Make money as a teenager by being a Social Media Manager

You? a Social Media Manager? Well, social media does come naturally to you right?

Nowadays, having a social media presence is essential for any business to stay relevant, no matter how big or small.

Big companies have entire teams in charge of everything digital-marketing-related but small businesses usually have a couple of people in charge of everything and could use some help with their social media presence.

If you know any small businesses in your area (cafes, coworking spaces, pet shops, or even entrepreneurs) do not hesitate in reaching out to them to see if they are in need of a social media account manager.

Your tasks could involve scheduling their posts, taking pictures for their feed and stories, and replying to their dms among any other ideas you have depending on their business.

If you have a friend or family member who has a small business, you could even ask to help them for free to have their profiles as a sample to show your prospects.

With teenagers being 100% natural at everything online, chances are they’d be pretty happy to have someone as tech-savvy as you helping them!

7. Make money as a teenager by working in customer service (16+)

If you are over 16, working as a customer service representative is also a great chance to make some money.

While not all companies will hire people under 18, there are still some that do, especially those who are looking for customer service reps to work from home instead of having to be in an office or commercial location.

The job usually consists of duties like answering customers about the products and scheduling appointments.

Companies provide their employees with the necessary training and they will have an online service manual that you can use to learn about the company and its services and products.

One of the main companies that hire teenagers as young as 16 as customer service reps is U-Haul.

You can check right here here for any open job listings.

If you get a job with them, you would be performing tasks like taking calls, answering questions, and monitoring your customers’ experience through the process of truck/storage/transport facilities.

On average, U-Haul pays its online customer service assistants anywhere from $7.00-8.50/hour. That’s not bad consider you can do it from the comfort of your own home and don’t have to spend on gas.

If you are polite and like working with people, this job could be a great option for you.

8. Make money as a teenager by teaching English online (16+)

In case you didn’t know yet, having English as your native language is a powerful money-making skill. In fact, many adults make a full-time income by teaching English while traveling the world.

While not every English teaching company will hire teenagers, some like SameSpeak will accept you if you are over 16.

Working for SameSpeak is not complicated. As a coach, you’ll be asked you talk with the students for half-an-hour sessions conducted via Skype.

Since the idea of the program is to make it possible for the students to communicate, you’ll be able to use conversational English to help them practice their skills.

SameSpeak will provide you with information for each chat session and give you detailed instructions on what specific things the student you’ll be chatting with needs to work on.

SameSpeak pays $10 for every half-hour session which is not bad at all for 30 minutes of chatting. The company uses PayPal and so before you apply for a coaching position make sure to create an account and make sure you’ve verified it.

After you have earned a minimum of $100, the money will be deposited into your account each Friday.

Approach 2: make money as a teenager by creating passive income

On this section I want to give you options on how can you make money as a teenager that are not limited to how much time you can put into it.

The concept of passive income doesn’t mean you won’t have to put time into it, but rather than after the initial effort, you will be able to earn money even when you are not working on it directly.

These options have more of an ‘entreprenurial’ / business angle which might seem a bit more overwhelming and less ‘safe’ than pay-per-hour methods.

However, if you find them interesting I invite you to try them out, and hopefully, you will discover a new way to make money on your own terms.

I don’t think one is every to young to start creating their own wealth and I often wish I had started way earlier than I did.

1. Make money as a teenager by selling your art

If you have an artistic vein in you (or want to develop one for the pursuit of money), you can make some good earnings by selling your art online.

Many artists make a full-time income by shaping their creations in objects that people want to buy such as t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, cards or even prints.

To do this there are two steps you need to follow:

a. Grow your audience

Before getting on the selling piece, you want to make sure to grow an audience of people who enjoy your art and will buy anything you have to offer.

You can do this on any social media but in this case, I’d recommend Instagram since it is a visual social platform.

Start by creating an Instagram account solely for your art where you post content of your pieces along with your creative process and even pieces of your personal life.

Make sure to post consistently (at least once a day) and to use hashtags that are relevant to your account. You can also follow similar accounts and interact on the comments so you can start growing your followers.

Every 3 or 4 ‘non-salesly’ posts, you can make a post that is strictly focused on selling your products and telling people how to get them. (more on this on the next section)

b. Get your art printed

To get your own art into objects that people can buy, you can use what is known as ‘Print-On-Demand’ services. These are platforms that allow you to sell your own custom designs on their various types of products.

All you have to do is upload your designs to their templates to create your products. You can then set up your own prices and get your links so you can send people to buy them.

And boom, once someone buys it you get your payment (minus the fee).

Some of the best Print On Demand platfroms you can use are:

• Teespring
• RedBubble
• Printful

Keep in mind that this is not a method to make money fast but rather a long term plan. It can take up to a month of consistently posting and creating before you start seeing your first sales but once you learn the process it is just a matter of rinse, repeat, and scale.

2. Make Money as a teenager by selling services

This alternative would be the equivalent of having a service-based agency and subcontracting freelancers. Except without the agency part.

We have already seen that there are many freelancing sites with talented people offering their services for a wide range of costs.

On the other side of this question, there are thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners who are in need of those services but do not use these platforms.

So, why not be an intermediary between the two of them and make a cut in the process?

Here is what you’ll need to do

• Create a Facebook profile dedicated to this purpose or pimp yours to make it look nice and professional.

• Join Facebook groups where people are likely to be looking for help. Eg. groups for entrepreneurs and business owners in different markets.

• Stay alert to posts asking for help with tasks such as logo designs, website creation, article writing, etc. These are the most requested serices and there is also a lot of offers available in the freelancing sites.

• Once you find someone looking for help, get in contact with them and offer your services. Meanwhile, make a quick check on Fiverr to get an idea of what a freelancer would charge and add a fee for your commission

• Once you close the deal with the clients you can go ahead and hire the freelancer.

• Send the job requirements according to your client needs and once is delivered make sure to review and ask for any necessary revision.

• Deliver the job to the client, get paid and take your cut.

In case if you are wondering if this is morally correct I would argue than it is. It is literally what any agency in the world does and the freelancer receives more work and gets paid what they would normally do.

3. Make money as a teenager by becoming a meme Lord/Lady on Instagram

How would you like making money by sharing memes all day? If you nodded enthusiastically then pay attention because you will like this method.

If you ever wondered what do meme accounts get for sharing content all day, it is money, the answer is money.

Well, technically they don’t get money for sharing memes BUT for having an audience and ‘renting’ it to advertisers.

Almost all of these accounts do promotional posts for brands among all their regular content, and they get paid pretty well for it.

The rates of a promotional post are determined by the account owner and they vary by niche, amount of followers and engagement so is hard to get an estimate of how much you could make.

To get a general idea these are some of the fees I have received from some accounts:

• 5k-10k followers = $20 to $70 per post
• 10k-100k followers = $70-$300 per post
• 100K – 500k = $300-$500 per post
• +1M followers = $500+

And some of these account are posting ads every day so don’t tell me it is not a legitimate business.

Of course it take some time to grow your followers and engagement (how much of your follower are real and interact with the account) but the return on you time invest can be totally worth it.

You can have a general meme account or focus on one specific target such as students, women, men, fitness, gaming, etc.

You can also do the same with niche accounts that do not necessarily post memes. You can choose to focus on other content such as videos of pets, makeup, crafts, etc. The possibilities are endless and you can have as many accounts as you can manage!

2. Make money as a teenager by flipping Instagram accounts

Flipping Instagram accounts is the new flipping cellphones. Except you don’t need any cash to get started.

Instagram accounts are digital assets that you can buy and sell with the purpose of making money and, of course, ending up with a better, bigger account in the process.

If you are starting from scratch, you would need to create a new account and put some time and effort into growing it so you can then sell it and get money to keep investing.

The point is that when you buy a new account you, you look for one that is ‘cheap’ for the number of followers and engagement it has. This way you can keep it for a while, grow it, sell promotional posts (see method above) and sell it for more than what you paid. Rinse and repeat.

There are websites you can use to buy and sell accounts but I would recommend doing it directly with the account owner since they will take a fee otherwise.

To do this you can start by looking for other accounts in your niche and simply message them via dm or email to ask if they are interested in buying. You’ll need to message several accounts to find buyers and they usually take a couple of days to reply so don’t get too worried about it.

Finally, when you find a buyer make sure they pay via Paypal so you are both safer.

3. Make money as a teenager with Youtube

Another great platform to make money as a teenager is starting a Youtube Channel.

If you are wondering what could you possibly make a Youtube channel about, do not overthink it. There are people out there making lots of money with videos about everything from makeup and games to puppies and trains (trains video are strangely popular and the reason is still a mystery to me).

So, if you’re someone who would enjoy making videos regularly, start now! While Youtube videos can take some time to rank and start getting views, they have a snowball effect and your channel will get bigger and bigger with time.

One of the main ways Youtubers make their income is by having ads placed in their videos. The average Youtube channel makes anywhere from $1-$20 per thousand views, so the earnings can really stack up.

Also, it seems to be a theme than some of Youtube’s highest earners are kids and teenagers. Ryan Kaji, an 8-year-old kid who reviews toys, topped the list for the second year in a row with an income of $26 million.

Which you had started yesterday right?

4. Make money as a teenager with Affiliate Marketing

To put it simply, Affiliate Marketing means you promote a company’s product and receive a commission in exchange if a sale if made thanks to your referral.

Affiliate Marketing is a widely used strategy and basically, every company out there has an affiliate program. In fact, it is one of the most popular methods to make money online. Youtubers, bloggers, and influencers use it, and you can make money with it too.

Consider Affiliate Marketing as a long term business, you probably won’t make money on your first day but once you get the hang on it and your audience grows, you will be able to grow your income as well.

It is a multi millionaire business and there are month long courses about it so it would be hard to condess all the possibles angles and strategies you could use.

However, you don’t need to learn them all and, as a teenager, it is better if you don’t. Most of them will take years and big investments so let’s focus on the methods you can actually put into practice to start making some money.

Here are the basic steps you will need to follow to make money as an affiliate:

a. Choose your niche

Your niche is the category or market you will be focusing on. It can be anything from fitness, games, diet, fashion, travel, relationships, etc.

I would recommend it is something you actually like and have some experience with. Knowing the audience, their likes and need, and how the brands and influencers ‘talk’ will be an advantage to create your own content.

b. Choose your affiliate offers

Your affiliate offers are the products or services you will choose to promote.

Once you choose your niche there are a few ways you can go about to find the best affiliate offers:

• Do a quick google search for “niche + affiliate programs” eg. “”gaming affiliate programs” or “weight loss affiliate programs”

• Check out youtubers, bloggers and influencers in your niche to see what products they are promoting. Those are very likely to be affiliate programs.

• If you are familiarized with the niche, think of what products and brands you’d like to promote and do a quick google search to find out if they have an affiliate program.

Note: digital products like courses or memberships usually have a higher commission rate than physical products. Clickbank is a great affiliate network where you can find digital offers for almost any niche.

c. Promote

Finally, once you have chosen your niche and offers, you need to share and promote them so you can start making money.

You can do this through any platform but the ones I recommend the most are:

Instagram: Create an account dedicated to your chosen niche and start growing your followers by posting relevant content. Eg. if you chose a pet training program, post videos of pets doing cool tricks and tell people they could teach their dog similar stuff by checking the link in your bio.

Suggest Read: Blogging On Instagram: Beginner’s Guide To Making Money

Youtube: In a similar way, create a Youtube channel and post videos that relate to your offer. For example, If you choose a weight loss offer, you can share tips, transformations, and reviews and always place your affiliate link in the description and invite them to check it out.

Pinterest: create an account with boards and pins related to your offer. Let’s say you join the booking.com affiliate program. You can then post nice pictures of hotels in popular vacation destinations and get a commission if people book their stay through your link.

As you can see, Affiliate Marketing has a huge money-making-potential and the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be making some serious income.

Recommended: How to make money with Affiliate Marketing

What to do with your money as a teenager?

You probably started on the path of making money because you needed it for something specific or maybe you just wanted to be more financial indecent.

If you have already achieved your initial needs and are not really sure about what to do with your hard-earned money, take a look at the following options:

Treat Yourself

Really, you deserve it. Going out of your way to starting making money on your own is something to be proud of. Not a lot of teenagers are doing it (and even some adults).

That’s why once you start making some consistent money you need to remember to reward yourself. Take some time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.Go out and buy something you’ve been wanting for a long time or treat a friend to some nice dinner.

Just don’t go too crazy on it!

Reinvest in Your Business

If you have started some of the hustles above like selling your art of starting a Youtube channel, there is always something you can invest in to make your business better.

You can get a logo made, invest in some shout outs for your brand or buy some video equipment.

Whatever it is, putting money back into your business will help it grow and will help you stay motivated and invested in it.

Save it

You don’t need to invest all your earning back into your business. Actually, experts advice you always put aside some part of your income for saving no matter what.

Having money to invest and being debt-free and two of the principles of wealth creation and financial freedom.

Plus, if you ever want to make a big purchase (business or not business related), you’ll need some money saved in the bank for it.

Invest it

If you’re 13 or 14, investing might seem complicated and don’t make much sense at the moment.

However, the younger you start, the bigger your advantage. How you ask?

Let’s say you invest $1,000 when you’re 15 with no additional contributions. With an 8% return rate, by the time you’re 45, you’ll have $10,062.66 just from interest. That’s your money making money without you doing anything.

If you do the same but start at 20 instead of 15 by the time you’re 45, you’ll have $6,848.48. That’s $3,214.18 less just because you waited 5 years.

You can always ask your family to help you set up and investment account.

Final tips on making money as a teenager

Hopefully after eading this list you are feeling more optimistic and excited about all the possibilities availbale to you to make money.

Some people will tell you that you should not worry about it in your teenage years but I believe one is never too young to start learning about how money (really works) and start building your own wealth.

The best part about starting early is that you are already way ahead of the curve and can take some time to try different things and find the perfect match for your personality.

To finalize, I want to leave you with my best tips for you to enjoy and make the best of this journey:

1. Have Fun
Try choosing jobs and methods that seem exciting and that you actually look forward to doing. This is not the time of your life to settle for a boring job.

2. Cultivate your mindset
Growing your wealth is not easy and they will be hardships along the way. It is important that you cultivate an optimistic mindset and that you have a vision for what you want to achieve in the long term so you are not easily brought down by any obstacle.

3. Surround yourself with like-minded people
The people you spend time with will impact your habits and the way you see the world. Try to surround yourself with friends that have the same goals as they will understand and support you.
Do the same with your online content, follow accounts that inspire you in social media, and unfollow those that do the opposite.

4. Have fun
You don’t need to get rich off your first side hustle. Have some fun with it and choose stuff that you enjoy doing. This is not the time of your life to settle for a boring job.

5. Learn from your mistakes
You will be making lots of them and they are only a sign that you are learning something new. Sounds easier than it is but try not to get discouraged and apply what you have learned to improve your work.

6. Have a great work ethic
Even when you’ll be working for yourself in most of these options, do your best to be impeccable with your work and always do your best to deliver something you can be proud of.

7. Start Now
Trust me, you’ll be thankful that you did.

Conclusion

99% of people will read this article and do nothing. They will read a few more next year and the year after that but never take action.

Unfortunately, reading articles won’t make you money. You need to actually take action if you want to take control of your financial destiny.

It might seem overwhelming and tempting to just close the tab and come back to it later. But as I hope you have learned, the only regret you might have if you start now is not having started sooner.

Here’s what I recommend you do:

1. Pick one thing on the list. Just one. And commit to it.
2. If you don’t like it, come back to this list and move on to the next one that catches your attention.
3. Keep going until you find something you enjoy.

The biggest thing you have at your advantage is time. I talk to people who are starting online hustles in the 40s and 50s and all they wish is they have started at your age.

Plus, you might find something you become super passionate about and discover you want to pursue it as a full time job.

Maybe you discover you enjoy something on this list that you thought you would’ve hated. Or you find out you are really good at something you would have never tried.

So, what are you waiting for? now is the time to start creating your financial independence and better future now. 

With over 500 million blogs and 2 million blog posts being published everyday, blogging is definitely not what it was 10 years ago. It requires some time, dedication, and strategy to make sure you are going somewhere and not spinning your wheels in vain.

That being said, it is completely possible to start a blog and make money with it. It is also one of my favorites ways of making money online.

While it is not a get-rich-quick-scheme (read that again please), it is a great long-term strategy and an almost zero-risk one.

It requires very little money investment and, as longs as you put in the work and follow the right advice, it is practically guaranteed your blog will turn into a passive and scalable source of income.

How to create a money-making blog

There are different pieces and processes that you need to consider when creating your money-making-blog.

If you are new to this it all might seem a bit overwhelming but, in this article, we’ll go into all the steps and tips you need to follow so when you are done reading it you have a complete understanding of what you need to do to create a successful blog.

These are the 5 main aspects to consider when it comes to starting your blog:

• Market research: how to choose a niche with growth and monetization potential.

• Technical aspects: all the details of what you need to be able to launch your blog online such as hosting, domain, themes, etc.

• Monetization: All the different ways to monetize your blog, tools, programs, etc.

• Content Creation: what topics to write about, how to create blog posts that make money, etc.

• Traffic: How to get eyes on your content so you can actually make money of it.

Now let’s get started!

I. Market research: choosing a profitable niche for your blog

Choosing the right niche is the first and most important part of creating a successful blog.

While there are hundreds of niches out there and you could technically make money in almost any of them, there are some key things to consider when choosing the one with the most money-making possibilities.

1. Seasonality

As the word implies, seasonality refers to how the changing of seasons through the year impact a certain niche.

If you have the chance to choose any niche, you will do a lot better by choosing one that brings you money year-round vs. one that only brings you money for a few months.

Think fishing vs. yoga, fishing interest is probably very high during the summer months and has a significant drop during winter.

Whereas yoga maintains a similar interest through the whole year.

You can use Google Trends to do quick search on your potential niches and see how the interest changes over time.

Note: These ‘niches’ are too broad to even be considered so take them just as a symbolic example.

2. Historical Trend

Besides seasonality, you should also considered how evergreen a niche is. An evergreen niche is one that will sustain or grow its potential over time whereas a non evergreen niche is one that is losing interest or has been a trend that will eventually die.

Remember that blogs are long-term businesses so if you go for a niche that is trending at the moment but has no evergreen potential, it might have died by the time your blog has managed to get ranked on google.

This, for example is what a growing niche would look like

On the other hand, this is what a trend looks like. Probably not something you want to focus your efforts on.

There are also niches that are not necessarily a trend but show a slow and steady decline on interest. I wouldn’t advice going on these either unless you have a new approach for it you know will maintain or grow over time.

3. Your own interests

You are probably already sick of hearing this but, blogs are a long term commitment so you want to choose a niche you really like. It can be something you have some knowledge and expertise on it or something you like it enough to want to learn all about it.

There is no point in choosing a niche that looks promising money-wise if you will drop it halfway because you couldn’t find it more boring.

With all the niches and monetization possibilities, you can definitely find something you like and can commit to that can make you money at the same time.

4. Niche ‘down’

Niching ‘down’ means narrowing down your niche to target a more specific audience. This help you plan your content easier and also gives you a higher chance at ranking on Google search result for those specific terms since you will be seen as an authority in the determined niche.

Niching down can mean going from “travel’ to ‘budget travel’, ‘traveling with kids’ or ‘traveling in Russia’.

Once you have positioned yourself and gained authority in that niche, you can always expand your blog to cover broader topics so don’t be scared thinking you will run out of topics or won’t be able to grow any further.

5. Competition

Some competition is good, it means there is people making money on that niche. However there are a couple niches where it can get too competitive and hard for you to ever rank.

In general, I would advice to stay away from the personal finances and weight loss niches. Unless, of course, you find a unattended audience or a different approach that would enable you to take a piece of that pie.

I am not saying it wouldn’t be possible to make money on those niches but competition is fierce and most likely, the positioned blogs are pumping a lot of money into new content constantly, so it will take you years to catch up with them.

6. Search Volume

As you might suspect, blogs’ best source of traffic is google so you want to make sure there is enough search volume in your related keywords (search terms) to bring significant traffic to your posts.

You don’t need to know how many searches are for every topic you will possibly talk about but you want to have a general sense that there is enough search volume.

You can use the chrome extension Keywords Everywhere to check on the main search terms in your niche. After installing the extension just type your niche topic and check the volume for it and the related keywords.

You want the search volume for the main terms to be over 10,000. That way you know there is enough interest and you should be able to find topics with enough search volume and not too much competition so you can rank for.

7. Monetization

We will go into the monetization piece later but, when choosing your niche, you want to have a general idea that there are people buying stuff related to your niche, preferably online.

For example, the niche ‘bathtubs’ can check all the previous boxes but if you think about the buying process, the chances are people will get online to do their research and then go to an actual store to buy their bathtub making it impossible for you to get any commissions on it.

II. Technical aspect: Creating and launching your money-making blog online

Getting your blog to exist in the cyber world requires you to:

• Purchase your hosting (think of it as your blog’s house)
• Get your domain (your blog’s name and identity)
• And install WordPress (your blog’s content creation platform).

Putting all of these together is actually simpler than it sounds since Bluehost makes it all completely seamless. Just follow the next steps and you will be able to launch your blog easily.

1. Get your hosting

You want to choose a reliable hosting provider. The one I use and recommend is Bluehost, their customer service is top-notch and they give you a domain for free so you don’t have to worry about getting it somewhere else and then connecting it to your host.

Bluehost is also the easiest host to connect with WordPress (which we will use as a platform) so if you don’t have a host yet, I definitely recommend going with them.

Head over to Bluehost’s site and click ‘Get Started Now’

It will then give you the option to choose between a basic, plus, or primer plan. For now, I would recommend getting the basic plan since that is all you need for your blog.

Later on, if you decide you want to create another blog you can always upgrade your account for a couple dollars extra a month.

Bear in mind that Bluehost (and all hosting companies) will charge you at least 12 months in advance but the longer you choose to pay for, the cheaper it will be and t is the only expense you will need to make.

After choosing your plan, they all for some personal information to create your account.

2. Choose your domain

Once you have given your account details, you’ll be taken to set up your domain. If you already have one you can set it up at that moment but if you don’t you will get it for free for the first year with your hosting

Your domain name should be simple and easy to remember, preferably two words max and including your niche main search terms. Of course most domains you will first think will be taken but not overthink it and try to find a variation that is available.

Always go for .com since it will make a big difference when it comes to getting ranked on Google searches.

You will then be presented with the ‘Package Extras’ where you’ll want to uncheck everything. You don’t need those for now and you can always get them later.

The only additional service I would recommend is called domain privacy which will prevent you from getting tons of spam email.

When you register a domain, your name and contact information go into the domain registry which is public. With Domain privacy the host puts their info in the registration so you can keep your info private.

Finally, create a password to access your Bluehost account and boom! your account is now set up.

3. Install WordPress on your domain

If you followed the previous steps successfully, setting up WordPress is incredibly easy since Bluehost does it automatically for you.

When you log in to your account after creating your password, you will be asked to choose a free theme for your blog.

If you are unsure about which theme to choose don’t worry, you can change it as many times as you want later.

After choosing your theme, you will be shown the following message

This means WordPress has been installed along with your theme. When you click in the ‘Start Building’ button you will be taken to the WordPress dashboard where you can start customizing your blog and creating your content.

If you have any problems with any of these steps, Bluehost has an excellent technical support and will help you get it fixed right away. You can contact t via the chat
button on their website or call their support number at any time.

In the same way, if you already had a Bluehost or other hosting account and don’t know how to install WordPress on your new domain, your host provider will be able to walk you through the steps.

III. Monetization: All the possible ways of making money with your blog

If you ever thought of blogs as simple hobbies or wondered if bloggers even made money, then you will enjoy this section.

There is not one but many methods you can use to monetize your blog and you get to choose as many as you want, the more the better.

1. Affiliate Marketing

This is probably my favorite method to make money with blogs. To put it simply, affiliate marketing means you promote products from certain companies and receive a commission for every sale made through your referral.

To be able to promote a company’s products, you need to apply to join their affiliate program. After approved, you will receive your ‘affiliate links’ which you can then place in your blog when promoting those products.

If a visitor clicks on your links —which takes them to the product’s website— and decides to buy them, you get a commission for that sale.

Now that you know how it works, you are probably noticing that every blog you have ever visited uses affiliates links. Actually, every link in a blog is most likely, an affiliate one. Even the ones in this blog of course.

Check out this example on an article for ‘Best Cameras for beginners’ where all the highlighted elements are affiliate links.

‘Best of’ articles are pretty obvious on their selling purposes but you can use affiliate links in reviews, how-to articles and pretty much any blog post as long as you provide value to your reader.

A good way to find what affiliate offers would be available in your niche is to check out other blogs in your category and see what products they are promoting. There is a 99.9% chance those are affiliate programs.

For a detailed guide on Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers, including how to choose the right programs, how to get accepted, and how to promote your offers, make sure to check out this article.

2. Selling your own info products

Selling your own products is another great way to monetize your blog. If you are wondering what could you even sell or why would anyone buy from you, don’t worry, I am sure most bloggers have gone through that at some point.

The truth is, as a blogger, you will become an expert and an authority in your niche. You will have the information and knowledge your visitors are looking for and, over time, you will grow to know your audience and its need even better.

So, what could you sell? it could be anything from a pdf guide, to an ebook, a consultation, or a video course.

You can start with something small and start seeing how your audience reacts and continue to improve your offers over time.

When you start doing your research and writing your articles, ideas will come to you on how you could help your readers even further through some in-depth valuable information or hands-on advice you wouldn’t just put in an article.

But be careful to nowt withhold information with the hopes they buy it from you. One of the keys to getting your readers to want to buy your info products is to offer them your knowledge and help first so you can gain their trust.

The following is great example of a blog called ‘Travel Fashion Girl’ selling packing guides for different destinations. Simple but valuable info product.

3. Sell ads on your blog

Selling ads is probably one of the first and most common monetization methods bloggers use. However, compared to affiliate marketing and selling your own products, ads tend to bring a lower percentage of income for most blogs.

There are 3 main type of ads you can place on your blog:

• Text Link Ads: A text link is a few words with a link that goes to a product or service that you are promoting. This type of ad is usually paid per click vs. an affiliate link where you are paid by lead or commission.

• Banner Ads: A banner ad is simply an image that when clicked, takes the user to a recommended product or service. You have surely seen them in every website and blog.

• Network Ad Script: This is a piece of code from the ad network that you place on your website. It reserves a place on your website that will then be populated with ads served up from the network.

Technically, banner ads and network ad scripts will look the same in, the difference is that in the latter one the network will rotate the ads as they find appropriate.

There are different ad network that you could work with and they all offer different cost per view and per click.

However, the ones with the better rates like AdThrive and Ezoic have a minimum requirement of monthly visiotrs you need to have to be able to apply.

I would recommend starting with Google AdSense since they have no minimum requirements and then switching to Ezoic as soon as you hit 10k views per month.

4. Sponsored Content

As your blog grows and you begin to have more visitors and recognition, you will also have the opportunity to create sponsored content for brands in your niche.

This could look like a post about a new launch, a review of one of their current offers, or a tutorial teaching your readers how to do something with one of their products.

If you are interested in working with a certain brand, you can begin by creating content about it with affiliate links so that later on you could approach them about a sponsorship potential and they see you have been sending them potential customers for a while.

IV. Content Creation: Writing money-making articles for your blog

Now that you know the main ways to monetize your blog, let’s talk about the most important piece of your blogging journey and what will allow you to make any money in the first place: your content.

That’s right, to make money with your blog you need an audience, and to have an audience you have to create content that they are searching for and that they’ll be able to find online.

This means that you need to write content that is high quality, has enough search volume, and is optimized for SEO (search engine a.k.a Google) so that you are able to rank in the top results.

So how do you achieve this?

1. Start with ‘response posts’ on low competition keywords

Response post, as the name suggests, are short posts of 1200-1500 words that answer a specific doubt your audience might have and that hasn’t yet been answered by another blog.

To find potential topics you could write about, you can start by typing questions your audience might have on Google and see if someone has already written about it. You could also check the related searches at the bottom of the results and do that same with those.

Another great way to come up with ideas for response posts is to use the website Answerthepublic. Here you simply type one topic from your niche and it’ll show you all the related queries that have ever been made online about it.

Take for example the keyword ‘weight loss’ (not one I would recommend going for). But to use it as an example, you put it on the website and it’ll show you a result like the following one giving you hundreds of ideas.

You would then need to go on google and search for them to make sure they haven’t been answered yet, (or have been answered poorly).

Finding those ‘gaps’ on questions that haven;t been answered yet will allow you to rank easier on google since there is technically no competition.

Bear in mind that this specific questions might not have a big search volume but the purposes of this post is to get Google to start ‘trusting’ you by ranking you for low competititon keyowrd so they can later on ‘trust’ you with more competitive ones.

I would recommend starting with around 10 response posts and then moving on to the next step.

2. Go for higher volume – low competitions keywords

Once you have done some response posts, you should go for topics with a higher search volume than can bring a significant amount of traffic to your blog.

There are different tools you can use to do this research like semrush, ahref and ubersuggest. I actually use most of them and like to compare and complement the results, but if I were to choose the one I use the most it’d be ubersuggest.

Here is an example of what to look for when doing your research:

1. Search volume: You want the search volume to be above 1,000
2. SEO Difficulty: This is how competitive and difficult to rank for the keyword is. You want the SD to be 20 to 30 maximum.
3. Domain Score: This is how google quantifies the authority of the ranked sites. If all the results have a DS of 60+ I would stay away from that keyword. On the other hand, if some results have a DS of 50 or less, you have a higher chance of ranking as a new blog.

3. Create a better resource

Finding a keyword with enough search volumen and not too much competition has won you half of the battle. But to have a real chance at ranking at Google’s top results you need to create a better resource to what is already out there.

After doing your keyword research with one onf the tools mentioned, go to google and take a look at the results that are ranked 1st and 2nd. Now go ahead an create something better.

Bear in mind that on ‘Google’s eyes’ longer usually equals better which makes sense. A more in depth, complete resource of 3000-3500 words has a lot more chances of ranking than a shorter, simple post.

So take your time and make sure the content you create is better and more complete than your competitors’. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you, remember that this is a long-term business and a good post can rank in Google and bring you passive income for years.

4. Make content that sells

Finally, when choosing your article you want to have in mind how you are going to monetize them. Is is a review for an affiliate offer? are you teaching your audience how to solve a problem while using one specific product?

Some of your content can bring you money through affiliate sales, other part can do it by bringing traffic that adds to your monthly views, and other can be related to an info product you have created.

Yes, you want to provide value and help your audience first, but make each piece of content you create will help your overall goals.

V. Traffic: Make money by bringing more eyes to your blog

Last but not least to the money-making-blog equation is…traffic. We have already touched on this subject throughout the article but let’s take a deeper look at how to optimize your traffic strategy and what traffic sources you can leverage.

1. SEO

SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization, meaning the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Or to put it simply, trying to rank at the top of Google’s results.

With over 3.5 billion searches per day, there is no better traffic source than Google. Getting your blog post to appear on the first search result will guarantee a constant influx of traffic without you needing to do anything else.

This is why we direct all our effort to choosing ‘rankable‘ keywords and creating the best content possible. By putting all the time and work upfront, you have more chances of creating a passive and free source of traffic and hence, income.

After doing your best with the research and writing, you get to do a lot of waiting. Ranking in Google takes time especially for new blogs, which can be discouraging.

New blog posts can take between 9 to 14 months to reach their full traffic potential so keep in mind and don’t stop producing more and more content since it is the only key to make your blog grow.

2. Social Media

In parallel to optimizing your content for SEO and waiting for it to rank, you can use one of the many social media platforms available to start getting some traffic and, at the same time, showing Google you are a legit blog.

There are many social media platforms you could use such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok, and probably many more that will come.

Do not get overwhelmed and waste your time by trying to master them all. Just choose one that you feel most comfortable with and focus on building a community or following where you can start sharing your articles and getting some early traffic to your blog.

3. Email List

If you have ever heard the phrase ‘the money is on the list’, I hate to say it but…it is true. Growing an email list of your own is one of the greatest assets you can have to make money online.

Most bloggers and entrepreneurs procrastinate on doing it and end up missing out on traffic and sales.

At the beggining, having a simple opt-in form where people can sign up to your list can help you bring back readers by emailing them every time you publish a new article.

And on the long haul, you are building a list of highly targeted people that will be interested in any product you want to promote, affiliate or your own.

Make sure to check out this article on how to create your own list to explode your online income.

4. Forums

Finally, forums like Quora and Reddit are great platforms where you can start sharing your articles to get some early traffic.

You could also connect with other content creators in your niche to do guest posts and help each other grow.

Be mindful that these sites have some serious policies to avoid spammers so make sure to provide value and add to the conversation instead of just posting your links everywhere.

Takeaway

Starting a blog to make money in 2020 is completely possible but it is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

Blogging is a long-term business and when taking seriously can turn into a highly profitable passive source of income.

The only thing most bloggers regret is not having started sooner so save yourself some remorse and start your blogging empire today!

Not sure if blogging is for you? Check out my beginner’s blogging guide!

While some new affiliate marketers try to use other methods to avoid creating their websites, it is still one of the best models out there.

In this article I am going to show you why creating your own website for Affiliate Marketing is a great long-term strategy to build your passive income.

We will explore the best affiliate websites out there and how much they are making as well as some of the advantages and disadvantages of each model.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Before we go into the details of creating your own profitable website for Affiliate Marketing, let’s take a quick look at what exactly is Affiliate Marketing. (If you are quite familiar with it, feel free to skip this part).

To put it simply, Affiliate Marketing is a marketing strategy in which ‘affiliates’ promote a company’s product in exchange for a commission for every sale that is made through their referral.

In the world of digital marketing, affiliates use different techniques and platforms to promote their offers such as email campaigns, social media, and of course, websites.

Do you need a website for Affiliate Marketing?

This have to be one if the most asked questions new affiliates make and the answer is NO.

You don’t technically need a website for Affiliate Marketing in the same way as you don’t technically need one to make money online.

You can go around it and use traffic source that allow you to link directly to the affiliate offers but is a short-term ‘technique’ that will cause you long-term losses.

Having a website for your affiliate business means you can build an audience, optimize your conversions, build a mailing list, get organic traffic, etc.

So a most accurate answer would probably be, you don’t need one but you WANT to have one for long term success.

Benefits of using a website for Affiliate Marketing

• Creating your own website is the easiest way to build up trust and a good reputation which is essential to promote affiliate products. People are more likely to trust your recommendations if it looks like you know what you are talking about and they relate to your content.

• If you create valuable content that helps people with their problems, you will attract visitors who are ready to buy and will take your suggestion. The conversion rate on blogs and websites with content is much higher than that of PPC or social media ads.

• It allows you to easily build your email list of highly targeted prospects that you can use to further grow your business by sending traffic back to your site and promote other offers in the same niche.

• It is one of the cheapest ways to get started with Affiliate Marketing. I will detail the costs later on but, compared to other platforms and traffic sources, websites rely mostly on organic traffic generated by SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so all you will need to invest in are the costs of setting up your hosting and domain.

• Passive. Income. The coveted gem of the entrepreneur world is so misunderstood and misused that some people doubt it is possible. Well, building your own affiliate website is one of the legit ways to create it. After the time and work it needs at the beginning, it can become a recurrent source of revenue with very little managing.

Con’s of using a website for Affiliate Marketing

• Creating a website and gaining some traction takes some time upfront compared to other promotional methods. It is a long-term strategy, not a get-rich-scheme.

• If you are new to online marketing, you are going to need to learn a couple of skills but luckily there are platforms that are very intuitive and beginner-friendly.

Types of Affiliate Marketing Websites

Most (successful) affiliate website can be categorized in 5 types:

• Affiliate Marketing Blogs
• Affiliate Marketing Review Sites
• Affiliate Marketing Price Comparison Sites
• Affiliate Marketing Novelty Product Sites.
• Affiliate Marketing Discount Sites

While every model is very different from the other, what they have in common is that they offer some value to the visitor that is not found elsewhere or directly at the company’s site.

Providing value instead of trying to push a sale is key for affiliate marketing. The quote ‘people like to buy but don’t like being sold to’ works great for this case.

When people come to your site looking for a review, a discount, or a comparison, they already have the intention to buy so you just need to give a useful resource so they trust you enough to follow your recommendation.

Let’s take a deeper look at each type of affiliate marketing website:

1. Affiliate Marketing Blog

Using a blog for Affiliate Marketing is one of the most common website models. This site itself is a blog, which means it is an informational website where articles revolve around the same niche.

Building a blog with the goal of monetizing it through Affiliate Marketing takes some time and upfront work but it is worth it considering what some affiliate blogs can make over time.

Affiliate blogs promote their offer by creating relevant and useful content around them. This way they are helping visitors solve a specific problem or question while including a recommendation of a product that can benefit them.

In order to build a long-term relationship with your visitors so they trust your recommendations, it is essential to be transparent about your affiliate offers and only recommend products you would use and know will benefit them.

Some affiliates prefer to keep their blog ‘link-free’ and only promote their offers via email but nowadays it is common to do both. As long as you are providing real value, your readers will be thankful to hear your recommendations.

Pro’s of Affiliate Blogs

• They are a great way to build authority and trust which is key to promote your affiliate offers and have a good conversion rate.
• By offering free lead magnets related to the topics you are talking about, you can build a highly targeted email list quite easily.
• You can create reviews and ‘how to’ articles that result in easy commissions.
• Assuming your content is good, you will get organic traffic from search engines which means you won’t need to invest in ads or other forms of paid traffic.

Con’s of Affiliate Marketing Blogs

• It takes time to research your niche, create great content and start ranking on Google. For the first few months it will be mostly an output of work with no much to show for but after 8-10 months you will start to see the fruit of your labor.
• When first starting, you’ll need to create your content based on how competitive is your niche and the keywords you can rank for. That means not every article you write will bring you commissions bit it will help bring traffic and in consequence grow your chances of conversions.

Examples of Affiliate Marketing Blogs

1. Making Sense of Cents

Making Sense of Cents is in the competitive niche of personal finance yet has managed to stand out and build a $100,000 monthly revenue.

Michelle  Schroeder-started her blog without any knowledge of Affiliate Marketing. Her original goal was to share her personal story of how she managed to pay off her student loan and build a location independent life just by making intelligent money-related decisions.

She has now expanded her focus and covers more topics on the ‘Make Money Online’ niche as well.

By helping her visitors with tips on saving, becoming debt-free, and creating financial freedom, she makes 70% of her income by promoting different products and offers in these niches.

2. Nomadic Matt

Created by Matt Kepnes, the blog ‘Nomadic Matt’ is in the travel niche, a highly competitive but also a highly profitable one.

While it is now one of the biggest travel blogs making $750,000 a year, Kepnes started from zero as everyone.

The blog was launched in 2008 and by 2010 was generating $50,000 to $60,000 a year mostly from e-books he had written, sponsored posts and a little bit of affiliate marketing.

Now, Nomadic Matt has 1.5 million visitors a month, and grosses about $750,000 year, 70% being from Affiliate Marketing.

Nomadic Matt offers its reader unique and valuable content in the form of travel guides, tips, and recommendations for people who wishes to follow this lifestyle.

Its main affiliate offers are hotels, flights and travel insurance which allows him high earnings per visitor.

How to create your own Affiliate Blog?

Are you ready create your own affiliate blog? Congrats! Here is what you will need to do next:

1. Pick your niche

Most niches can be monetized through Affiliate Marketing. You don’t need to know the exact offers you are going to promote but you do need to have a broad idea of the type of programs you could join as an affiliate and make sure there’s enough demand in the market.

2. Get your host and domain

Choose a reputable hosting like Bluehost. It is the one I use and setting up WordPress is way easier than with other hosts. They’ll also include your domain for free so you won’t have to get it somewhere else and then go through the process of integrating it.

3. Create your content

You can use tools like ahref to do research on what topics and keywords to target. As a new blog, you need to go for keywords with easy or medium difficulty to have more chances to appear in the top results of Google.

You also want to choose topics with at least 1k in search volume so they have the chance of bringing significant traffic to your blog.

Creating content is the best investment you can make on your blog and the only one that will guarantee you results.

Finally, make sure to take a look at the current results on google and make your content is better than theirs so you actually have a chance to out-rank them.

4. Build your email list from the beginning

I am not sure why, but most new affiliates procrastinate on the task of building their email list. It is as if they think they to be big enough or have a certain amount of visitors to start collecting emails.

However, the truth is, visitor #3 on your blog doesn’t know he is visitor #3 so you want to have a subscription form in place from the start.

I have tried several autoresponders and none compare to Active Campaign. Get a 14-day trial here to increase your traffic and income.

2. Affiliate Marketing Review Sites

Review sites are probably the most common type of Affiliate website. There was a huge spike of them with the creation of the Amazon Affiliate Program and until recently, it was still one of the main monetization methods they would use.

As the name says, these websites are dedicated entirely to create in depth reviews of products in an specific niche. Their content is top notch and it is intended to provide unmatched value to its visitors in order to build trust and authority.

Pro’s Of Review Sites

• By creating high-quality content that your readers can trust, they allow you to build a long term brand that’s recognized by the niche’s audience.
• Visitors become long-time readers since you will be constantly putting out content about new launches and products in the category.
• It can be expanded to cover new categories and products so there is no limit to how much you can make with them.
• Content can be trendy so it can draw traffic from social media and forums.

Con’s Of Review Sites

• They need constant updating of new products to stay relevant, more in some niches than others. For example a review site about smartphones will need a lot more updating than one about strollers since they tend to stay in force for longers.
• To be able to create high-quality content and reviews you need a lot of knowledge and experience in the market.
• They are very competitive so it can be hard to establish yourself and rank against sites that are older or have already some authority.

Example of Affiliate Marketing Review Sites

The Wire Cutter

The Wire Cutter is one of the biggest review affiliate websites for electronics, gadgets and consumer goods.

It was started by Brian Lam, the former editorial director of Gizmodo, in 2011 and in its first five years, the company generated $150 million in revenue from affiliate commissions.

The site is known for reviewing products through strenuous and innovative tests and focusing on incessantly on finding the best product in each category.

In 2016 the site was bought by The New York Time for about $30 million.

How to create your own Affiliate Review Website?

1. Pick your niche

You can use Google Trends to make sure your niche is evergreen and is not in decline.

2. Get your host and domain

Choose a reputable hosting like Bluehost. It is the one I use and setting up WordPress is way easier than with other hosts. They’ll also include your domain for free so you won’t have to get it somewhere else and then go through the process of integrating it.

3. Get your theme

Choose one created specially for review sites like this one.

4. Create your content

If you are an expert in the niche, then you can create the content yourself. On the other side, if you are not so familiar with it, you should consider hiring writers that are in places like Upwork or Freelancer.

5. Get some traffic in

Besides waiting for organic traffic you can get some traction by creating social media account in Facebook and Pinterest and start sharing your articles. You never know when one of them can go viral.

Make sure to build your email list from the beginning so you can let people know when you have a new or updated review.

A 14-day trial of Active Campaign is available here to increase your traffic and income.

3. Affiliate Price Comparison Website

Price Comparison Sites are very common in the travel niche for products like hotels, flights, and insurance.

As the name says, these are the type of sites visitors use when there are different companies selling the exact same (or a very similar) product or service and they are looking for the one with the best offer. Think of websites like Trivago, Tripadvisor, Skyscanner, etc.

The price comparison site will feature all the options and redirect to the seller webpage when the visitor clicks on the button (containing the affiliate link).

But creating a successful price comparison site is not only about showing the price. You need to offer real value and information like detailed comparisons, special deals, and additional content not found in the retailer’s site.

Despite the fact that these sites can be VERY profitable, there isn’t that much competition or outstanding examples outside these markets. It might be because they are a bit harder to create on the technological site.

Pro’s of Price Comparison Affiliate Sites:

• You need to invest less time creating content like articles and reviews so it is a good idea if you don’t like writing.

• Litte competition outside some markets (insurance, credit, travel, technology, etc).

Con’s of Price Comparison Affiliate Sites:

• Since they have less content by nature, they are harder to rank in search engines. It can be countered by getting traffic from blogs, forums, and social media.

• Very hard to get into the already established markets like flight, hotels, credit cards, insurance.

• You will need to differentiate yourself by offering value and additional content in order to create a reputable and memorable brand.

Examples of Affiliate Marketing Price Comparison Sites

1. Skyscanner

If you have ever looked for a flight ticket, you have probably used Skyscanner. The site was founded in 2001 by 3 university graduates with the main focus of helping users saver money on their trips.

They continued to do that for years while making a LOT of money until 2016 when they were acquired by Ctrip, the largest travel company in China, for $1.9 Billion.

Thanks to their blog content with hundreds of detailed travel guides, they get most of their traffic from Google. This goes to show that having great content is key to rank any type of website if you are aiming for organic traffic.

2. Nerdwallet

Nerdwallet is a hybrid of review site, blog, and price comparison site but for this example we will focus on its price comparison part.

Despite being in the financial products nice, one of the most competitive, they do an amazing job and have managed to get top ranking for most of its keywords.

They offer comparisons for everything from credit cards to mortgages to insurances.

They also do have a great interface with visually appealing and user-friendly comparisons of every feature relevant to the consumer.

How to create your own Affiliate Price Comparison Site?

1. Pick your niche

You don’t need to compete in the big markets to be successful. While that would required some expensive coding to create a personalized theme, you target an untapped niche and get started with the basics.

2. Get your host and domain

Choose a reputable hosting like Bluehost. It is the one I use and setting up WordPress is way easier than with other hosts. They’ll also include your domain for free so you won’t have to get it somewhere else and then go through the process of integrating it.

3. Set up your theme

You will need a specific theme like this one for a price comparison site. You will also need this comparison plugin for your site to run.

If you are confused just by reading this you can always hire one of these Fiverr gigs to have someone do it for you.

Or if you wish to see a detailed step by step make sure to check out this video

4. Offer Value

Focus on giving extra information and tips your audience would find useful and not in selling the option with the highest payout. .

5. Get some traffic rolling

Get people to sign up to your list by offering to notify them about the best new deals every week.

You can get a 14-day trial of my favorite email software here. At the same time, reach out to the top blogs, forums and social media groups in your niche to start networking with them and get some early traffic.

4. Novelty Product Sites for Affiliate Marketing

As the name suggests, this type of sites work by featuring a collection of unusual, attention-catching, weird and usually usuelless products that most people will never want to buy.

The focus of these sites is not to find the a-bit-weird but somewhat-buyable products. Their purpose and the way they get famous is by finding the weirdest, I-should-share-this-on-social-media ones.

Of course, they make a lot of money because people end up buying some of these products but in order to build their reputation and have people coming back they focus on having the more random and weirder products first.

Due to the nature of the products people are inclined to share them giving the sites a natural viral effect. People don’t visit wanting to buy the latest “weird” invention, they do because they want to be entertained and find something cool to share with their friends.

Pro’s of Affiliate Novelty Product Sites

• They have a viral nature that promotes visitors to share the product, allowing for most of the traffic to happen on autopilot.
• It requires less content creation. If you don’t like writing, this model is ideal since all you need to write is a couple sentences for each product description.
• A limitless supply of ideas. Thanks to random inventors of the world, you will never run out of weird products to publish.
• You won’t need to “sell” your links since people will get naturally curious and buy the products just by their novelty factor.

Con’s of Affiliate Novelty Product Sites

• There are some big and already established sites in the general ‘weird-products-niche’. However, there are still lots of sub-niches with no competition you could explore.
• It can be difficult to get traffic at the beginning so building your social media audience is essential.
• The buying intent is low so you required more traffic to get sales.
• You need to differentiate yourself from other sites by niching down or finding unique products.

Examples of Affiliate Novelty Sites

1. ThisiswhyIambroke

This Is Why I’m Broke (TIWIB) is the biggest player in this type of affiliate site. It was created in 2011 by Adam Freedman who had previously struggled to make money online with many failed ventures (Source).

By 2019 the site was making $40k/month from affiliate commission alone. I am sure Adam is very glad he didn’t gave up when he didn’t succeed in his first attempt.

It was NOT the first one in the category but it was the first one to focus on making its user experience more engaging wit features like infinite scrolling and added humor in the descriptions.

They select products carefully to make sure they are truly weird ones and add an extra touch of randomness with the distribution of what products are shown next to each other.

2. Shutupandtakemymoney

This site is similar to the previous one but has managed to gain a lot of traffic and popularity thanks to its catchy name inspired by this viral meme.

Other similar websites in the general weird- product are marketdudeiwantthat.com and www.walletburn.com, or Mommyiwantthis.com and BornCute.com in smaller niches.

How to create your own Affiliate Novelty Product Site?

1. Pick your niche

While it is not impossible to gain a piece of the pie as a general site, you’d have to do something really original to stand out among the established players.

If you can find a unique new angle then definitely go for it. Otherwise find a sub-niche among the thousands still untapped ones.

2. Get your host and domain

Choose a reputable hosting like Bluehost. It is the one I use and setting up WordPress is way easier than with other hosts. They’ll also include your domain for free so you won’t have to get it somewhere else and then go through the process of integrating it.

Pick an unforgettable domain like the examples mentioned to make sure it is memorable and “brandable”

3. Get some traffic rolling

Build up your social media profiles and traffic through Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. The first two work great since they are visual platforms.

Get people to sign up to your list from day one. This is essential for a site like this to continually drive traffic back to the site, show people new products, and keep them coming back.

You can get a 14-day trial of my favorite email software here. At the same time, reach out to the top blogs, forums and social media groups in your niche to start networking with them and get hopefully get featured.

5. Affiliate Marketing Discount Sites

As the name implies, Affiliate Discount or also called Coupon sites, offer discount codes you can use when buying products and services online.

They make their money by showing you the discount code and getting you to click on their affiliate link to go to the retailer and use it.

While in the last years, coupon sites have proliferated there’s very few worth mentioning outside of the big markets and retailers. RetailMeNot.com is the biggest player in the industry with a net worth of $1.8BN (Source).

Whilst the big players have a monopoly on the markets of technology, fashion, travel and beauty, there are still lots of untapped niches you could take over.

Pro’s Of Discount Affiliate Sites

• You don’t need to create a lot of content on content so it is a good idea if you don’t like writing blog posts or copy.
• As long as you are getting the user the discounts, you are giving them content that is going to make them satisfied and happy to come back.
• Works for almost any niche.
• Outside of the main industries (fashion, travel, technology, etc) there are a lot of opportunities for niche coupon sites.
• A lot of sites that are currently ranking high for google searches are infested with junk links. This means that if you can get links from popular websites you have a high chance of taking the rankings.

Con’s Of Discount Affiliate Sites

• The big markets are saturated but there are very few niche coupon sites around.
• They rely on traffic from search engines mainly since people tend to only seek out coupon codes just before purchasing.
• You would need to develop additional features to diversify the traffic and don’t rely only on Google.

Examples Of Discount Affiliate Sites

1. RetailMeNot

RetailMeNot is the biggest player in the category making $210 million a year. Not bad huh?They have grown to feature discounts in the markets of fashion, food, travel, electronics, beauty and home.

They also have an app now which would be something to consider for a second phase if you are planning on starting your Discount Affiliate Site.

2. TravelCoupons

A site that niched-down into the travel market is TravelCoupons.com, offering same-day hotel deals. They also have an app with location recognition that shows the deals near to you so it seems like the app trend is a constant among the coupon sites and something worth considering.

How to create your own Affiliate Discount Site?

1. Pick your niche

There is a lot of markets to target without having to compete with the already established players.

Go for a niche with high demand and high prices so people are always on the hunt for a promo code. It could be anything from flights, web hosting, sports, hobbies, hotels, etc.

2. Get your host and domain

Choose a reputable hosting like Bluehost. It is the one I use and setting up WordPress is way easier than with other hosts. They’ll also include your domain for free so you won’t have to get it somewhere else and then go through the process of integrating it.

A catchy domain that relates to your niche will also make it easier for visitors to remember it and come back.

3. Get your deals

Make a list of the best coupons deals to start featuring on your site. Even if you don’t get a commission yet, this will start bringing customers and help you create a relationship with the retailers.

You can use Smash Deals and For Me to Coupon to find out the latest deals.

You don’t need to add much content besides the coupons themselves but adding a few blog posts could help bring people organically to the site.

4. Get some traffic rolling

Since ranking on Google takes some time, you’re going to have to come up with alternative strategies for early traffic. You could try targeting niche fan pages through Facebook ads and sharing codes in Facebook groups and forums where your potential user hangs out.

Get people to sign up to your list from day one by offering to send them daily deals. You can get a 14-day trial of my favorite email software here.

At the same time, reach out to the top blogs, forums and social media groups in your niche and share your deals with the potential of getting featured.

Conclusion

There are 5 main types of affiliate marketing sites. There might be new models appearing out there but these have shown to be the most successful over time.

By following their recipe and improving on their weak factors, you could create your own millionaire successful site.

The one thing all successful affiliate sites have in common, no matter the model, is that they provide some sort value customers wouldn’t get by going to the store directly.

Either by helping the customer make a decision, giving them information, entertaining them or saving them money with a discount, caring for your user goes a long way in affiliate marketing.

What do you think of these models? Is there one you are going to try or maybe already have? Let us know in the comments!

As a member of the Clickfunnels’ Affiliate Program, I am going to share how you can sign-up and start making money yourself. You will also learn about the Affiliate Bootcamp, the One Funnel Away Challenge and the Dream Car Award, all part of Clickfunnels’ Affiliate strategy.

Clickfunnels’ affiliates are very loyal and when you hear about the program it might sound too good to be true or leave you wondering if it is even legit or a pyramid scheme. As a one-time-skeptic myself I will reveal why I think this is one of the best programs out there if you are in the digital marketing niche.

Clickfunnels Affiliate Program

How does Clickfunnels affiliate program work?

The Clickfunnels Affiliate Program works by giving affiliates the chance to promote the Clickfunnels software —along with their many other products— and paying them up to 40% of all one-time sales and recurring commissions.

Programs with recurring commissions are the most sought-after by affiliates since they allow you to literally create a source of passive income that will continue to pay you for years after you achieved that first sale.

This, combined with the many front-end offers that Clickfunnels has available, make it easier for you to attract customers and get them ‘inside’ Clickfunnels through different low-risk low-ticket offers.

After that, they take care of upselling the customer and you keep receiving the commissions for all the products they buy for life. That’s it, once a customer signs up for any Clickfunnels product through your referral link, you receive a commission for all the following products and subscriptions they buy.

On the technical side, every affiliate receives a unique link that allows Clickfunnels to track which sales came from which affiliate. The link contains a piece of code —also known as cookies—that is installed in the visitor’s device for life so you get all of those commissions. (unless they accidentally clicked on another link before making their first purchase)

How to become a Clickfunnels Affiliate? (in 2020)

In February 2020, Clickfunnels changed the rules of its affiliate program. While before you could simply join and —once accepted— get access to promote all offers, now the conditions are different.

New affiliates need to meet one of these conditions to be approved:

• Join the One Funnel Away Challenge or
• Prove that they have made over $10k in commission with other affiliate programs.

While this might discourage some, the reasoning behind it is making sure that all Clickfunnels affiliates know what they are doing and are equipped to succeed in their affiliate business.

The One Funnel Away Challenge (OFA) is easily worth 4 figures but the price is only $100. The OFA is a 30-day course on how to launch your first funnel and be successful with it. It is lead by Clickfunnels’ most accomplished coaches AND it also gives you access to the Affiliate Bootcamp, one of the best Affiliate Marketing trainings out there

.

Use the following steps to join the Clikfunnels Affiliate program, receive a 30 day trial and make the most of it:

1. Join the One Funnel Away

Register at onefunnelaway.com. If you have created a previous account for a Clickfunnels 14-day trial before, make sure to use a different email so you can access a 30-day trial this time.

2. Apply to become an affiliate

Go to whatsyourdreamcar.com and create your affiliate account. When going through the application form it will ask if you have already taken or joined the One Funnel Away Challenge so that’s why you should do that step first.

3. Create your Tipalti Account

Tipalti is Clickfunnels payment supplier so you will need to create an account with them in order to receive your affiliate commissions.

Go to this link to create your Tipalti account

If you are not given the option to create a new account but only to log in, don’t worry, just email support@clickfunnels.com and they will send you a direct link for you to create your account.

4. Start your Clickfunnels Free Trial

I recommend leaving this step for last so you can make the most of your free trial. When you go through the One Funnel Away Challenge, they will let you know it is time to start your free trial around week 2 so this is the best time to create it.

As an affiliate, you want to make sure to completing the OFA Challenge and Affiliate Bootcamp. The knowledge you will get from there will be key to determine your success.

Also, if you start your trial during the One Funnel Away you will get the chance to increase it for up to 30 days, long enough for you to start making money with it and let the software pay for itself.

Why promote Clickfunnels as an affiliate?

1. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly Recurring Revenue is the unicorn of Affiliate Marketing. It means that when a customers signs up for the Clickfunnels Software —which is a monthly subscription— you will receive a commission every month for as long as they keep it.

If you haven’t noticed by now, it is a big deal.

Creating and growing your monthly recurring revenue is the closest it gets to having a truly passive income. Not that it is the ideal but if, for any chance, you can not work on your business for a month, you can still count on receiving your affiliate commissions.

On the other side, if you continue to work and increase your sign-ups, your income will continue to grow month after month.

Also, if you plan to use paid ads, MRR means that the lifetime value of your customer is exponentially higher, hence, you can invest more in ‘acquiring’ a customer vs. the competition.

2. Commissions up to 40%

In February 2020, along with the new rules to become an affiliate, Clickfunnels changed their commission structure and now it has 4 tiers of affiliates:

1. Badge Commissions: 20%

This is for the people that use Clickfunnels for their business but haven’t apply to be an affiliate. If they decide to keep the ‘made with Clickfunnels’ badge in their site and someone clicks on it and decides to sign-up they’ll get 20% of commissions.

2. Front-End Affiliate: 40% Commission on front-end offers

This is the level of affiliate you will be as soon as you are accepted into the program. At this tier, you will have access to promote Clickfunnels front-end offers and get paid a 40% commissions.

While you can not promote the Clickfunnels software or trial directly, you will still receive 20% of commissions for any of your customers that end up getting the monthly subscription.

Oh, and as a Front-End Affiliate, you also received 100% commissions of the One Funnel Away sign-ups. Pretty cool right?

3. Open Affiliate: 30% Commission on SAAS plus 40% on front-end offers

After you have earned $1,000 Commission in a calendar month, you will be eligible to apply for the “Open Affiliate” level. In this tier, you get access to promote the Clickfunnels software through the free trial and receive 30% commissions.

You also continue to receive 40% on front end offers.

4. Qualified Affiliate: 40% Commission on SAAS plus 40% on front-end offers

Last but definitely not least, open affiliates who maintain 40 unique ClickFunnels paid user accounts on a monthly basis can apply to become “Qualified Affiliates” and have all their commissions increased to 40%.

The lowest Clickfunnels plan is $97 a month, which means you will earn between $19.40 and $38.80 every month for each customer you refer. Now, imagine having 100 customers under you. That’s a whopping $3880 of passive income a month and enough to replace a day job for most people.

On top of that will earn an additional 40% for sales of any related products. Clickfunnels has programs such as Funnel Scripts and Funnel University each with their own funnels and high ticket offers. You don’t need to worry about selling them, Russell will take care of that once you’ve referred the customer to ClickFunnels

It might sound a little bit discouraging to begin with a lower percentage of commissions but compared to many other programs a 20% of commissions is still on the higher end. Instead of letting this discourage you, let it motivate you to scale up to the highest affiliate tier and start getting that 40% MRR.

3. Sticky Cookie

ClickFunnels’ affiliate program uses what is called a sticky cookie. This means that when your link is clicked by a customer, it will put a cookie, or a little piece of code, on their browser to connect that person with you as an affiliate. That way, any purchases they make will be linked to you and you’ll receive your commissions.

For example, if you promote the free book Traffic Secrets, you’ll make $1 when a customer purchased the book. But if the same customers after reading the book decided to purchase the software, you would also earn a reoccurring commission every month from that same customer.

How cool is that? To help you understand sticky cookie better, here is a video from ClickFunnels Team.

4. High-converting Front-end offers

If anyone has mastered the art of creating high-converting offers and funnels is Clickfunnels founder, Russell Brunson.

He is the creator of the ‘value ladder’ concept, a process in which customers are brought ‘into’ the funnel through a low-value low-risk offer and are progressively ‘up-sold’ into higher ticket items as they gain trust and receive value.

Russell’s books DotCom Secrets and Traffic Secrets are great examples of front-end offers you can promote. All they have to do is pay for shipping and handling and they get the book for free.

You can then trust Russel to do the rest of the work up-selling them and converting them into lifetime customers.

5. Company Reputability

Clickfunnels Affiliate Program is great thanks to its offers and commissions but it is also a solid company that you can trust and invest your time in.

Clickfunnels has been on the market since 2014, it is currently worth $360 million and has 70,000 users. More impressively, the company was entirely self-funded by well-known marketer and entrepreneur Russell Brunson and it’s been endorsed by businessmen like Robert Kiyosaki and Tony Robbins.

That makes it a trustworthy long term business for you and makes it easier to promote it to your prospects.

6. Marketing Materials

Besides the training Clickfunnels provides its affiliates through the One Funnel Away Challenge and the Affiliate Bootcamp, it also offers a complete library of marketing materials for you to use when promoting the offers.

All offers you are allowed to promote according to your affiliate level have available banners for website, images for social media posts and email swipes so you can simple copy and paste them in your email campaigns.

7. Clickfunnels Culture

Clickfunnels users and affiliates are loyal to the company not only for all the benefits we are mentioning but because they have created a sense of belonging and common purpose. For those who work closely with the brand, Clickfunnels is a symbol on entrepreneurship and financial freedom.

After Clickfunnels, other funnel builder companies have been created, but none that compares to the community Clickfunnels have created. They have a very active Facebook group with over 250,000 members (and growing) and a separate Facebook group for Affiliates with over 60,000 members.

They also run an annual event called Funnel Live Hacking Live with over 4,000 attendees where the Two Comma Club Awards are presented.

The 2 Comma Club Award is another important puzzle of Clcikfunnels’ culture. It is the prize for those who make 1 million dollars through a single funnel. It has no monetary value but it is a symbol of hard work and success and, being honest, it must be pretty cool to go on that stage and be recognized for your merits.

To the date, there are over 200 members who have received it which goes to prove you could be one of them too.

8. Dream Car Contest

One of the most exciting parts about being a Clickfunnels Affiliate is the Dream Car Contest.

As an affiliate, you are automatically enrolled in the contest and each month as new members sign up using your affiliate link, you’ll get closer and closer to earning your dream car.

You’ll notice in your dashboard the total number of people who you’ve referred that qualify towards your dream car with a Corvette progress bar:

As soon as you get 100 active ClickFunnels members subscribed, you qualify for your Dream Car and will receive $500 USD/month towards your car payment (as long as you stay above 100 active ClickFunnels members)

When you hit 200 members, you will start receiving $1,000 USD per month towards your dream car payments, for as many months as you maintain that amount of members (or more).

9. You keep your members’ emails

Clickfunnels is the only affiliate program I know where you get to see and download the emails of all the members you have referred.

Most companies are very protective of their users’ emails because, you know “the money is on the list‘, is not such a famous saying for nothing.

By having access to your members’ emails you get to follow up with them and offer additional support and material that might help their success and make it more likely that they stay using the software.

Furthermore, you can also offer them complementary products like email software, branding, link tracking, and even eventually your own course or coaching.

How to make money with the Clickfunnels Affiliate Program?

As you might have seen throughout the article, there are multiple offers and tools that you can use to make money with Clickfunnels and —after learning the basics —you will most likely end up perfecting your own unique strategy.

Here are some of the main ways you can get started making money with Clickfunnels:

1. Become a Clickfunnels Builder / Strategist

One of the benefits of going through the One Funnel Away Challenge as part of becoming a Clickfunnels Affiliate is that, after completing it, you will be qualified to help potential members strategize and design their funnel.

This way you can help business owners by creating their sales funnels and getting twice the benefit: getting paid for building the funnel and signing them up as a Clickfunnels member under your referral

.

You don’t need to have any previous experience, during the OFA Challenge you will learn the basics of sales funnels, offer creation, copywriting and traffic strategies. Remember that most entrepreneurs are self-taught and know that the best way to master a skill is by practicing it.

Another tool you will learn is ‘funnel hacking’, which is the process of analyzing other sales funnels used by the best in that category and applying their best practiced to your own funnel to make it more effective.

This way you get to model what is already working but adding your own knowledge and adapting it to your client’s business.

You also don’t need to master all the skills of funnel building, you can partner with other affiliates and dedicate to what you do best, whether that is mapping out the funnel flow and strategy, doing the copywriting or crafting an amazing design.

2. Educate others on Clickfunnels

A great way of making money as a Clickfunnels Affiliate is finding ways of how Clickfunnels can solve certain problems for entrepreneurs and business owners and educating them on the solution.

You can do this via a blog, a youtube channel, a Facebook group or your own contact network. The key is to identify a group of people who could benefit from the software and present it as part of the solution to an ever-present problem in their business.

Whether it is how to generate leads, start a dropshipping business, sell a course, etc. All niches could benefit from a sales funnel, you would just need to choose one and provide them with value and solutions (including Clickfunnels as a part of it).

For more ideas on How To Make Money With Clickfunnels make sure to check this article

3. Shared Funnels

Shared funnels are one of my favorite features of Clickfunnels, it basically means that any funnel that you build in your account, has a link that you can use to share it with someone else.

The cool part is that this link contains your affiliate id so if this person does not have a previous Clickfunnels account the link will take them to the sign-up page. If they decide to create an account so they can use the shared funnel, they’ll become one of your signed-up members.

The ways you can use this feature to make money with Clickfunnels are limitless, you can create templates for a certain niche and offer them as in incentive for them to sign up, include them when teaching people how to perform certain task or even sell them in the Clickfunnels Marketplace.

4. Paid Ads

If money is not a problem, you can also try paid ads in platforms like Facebook, Google, Youtube, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Each platform is different and it has its own learning curve so, if you are new to paid ads, I would advise focusing on one at the time until you have mastered it.

When using paid ads, (and in general) make sure to be compliant with Clickfunnels allowed practices for affiliates.

You can not send visitors directly to your affiliate link so this is where affiliates get creative and use different strategies. Some common tactics are to send visitors to an opt-in page with a free downloadable, a quiz, or a video, or review and, from there, redirect them to the Clickfunnels affiliate link.

This way you also get a chance to collect their emails and follow up with them for a higher chance of getting them to sign-up.

Frequently Asked Questions About The Clickfunnels Affiliate Program

Conclusion

The Clickfunnels Affiliate Program is one of the best out there, with the generous monthly recurring commissions, as well as the chance of getting your dream car, the system is really worth a try. Especially if you’d like to be part of that prestigious 2 Comma Club.

However, all those rewards come with competitiveness. If you want to beat the competition and become the next super affiliate, you’re going to need to get creative and focus on one product and one traffic source at the time.

Be confident and optimize continually but do not switching strategies whenever you see someone else having success with a different tactic.  

Are you ready to become a ClickFunnels super affiliate?

<< BECOME A CLICKFUNNELS AFFILIATE TODAY >>

Hopefully this article gave you a good understanding of ClickFunnels Affiliate Program and how it works. If this sounds like something you might be interested in promoting then go ahead sign up here for to being your affiliate journey.

If you take it seriously, ClickFunnels’ 40% recurring commissions can replace your full-time job. But you are probably in it for the car too, so visualize yourself and share in the comments what dream car will you lease when you hit your first 100 active ClickFunnels subscribers?

I am an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. I receive referral payments from ClickFunnels. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.

Yes! it is all possible!

Some people view Pinterest as a home for recipes and decor inspiration, which is true. But it also is a great place to make money online for many reasons.

Why is Pinterest a great place to make money online?

• Pinterest is a search engine which means you can get really targeted traffic and be in the face of people who are already looking for what you are offering.

• Contrary to other search engines like Google and Youtube, it doesn’t take as long to rank for your desire keywords. It can take up to a year to rank on Google and a couple of months of consistently uploading new videos to rank on Youtube.

• At the moment Pinterest allows using direct links to affiliate offers which is not possible on Facebook, Instagram or Google Ads. This can help you start making some money without a blog or site BUT it is not the safest or most profitable long-term strategy (I will explain why in the article).

• Depending on your strategy, the costs of getting started with Pinterest can be as low as zero. Compared to the thousands of dollars people spend on ads to get targeted traffic, Pinterest is an untapped gold mine so try not telling too many people about it

Ways you can make money on Pinterest

I. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is definitely my favorite way to make money online, including making money on Pinterest.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Affiliate Marketing, it basically means you promote other companies’ products and receive a commission for every sale that is is made through your referral.

To better explain how Affiliate Marketing works, let’s see what are the steps to follow to become an Affiliate Marketer:

Step 1: Choose your niche or industry

For the case of Pinterest the industries that work the best are wellness, fitness, food, decor, fashion, beauty and travel.
These are just some examples but if you are interested in a different niche, it is a good idea to check Pinterest for content that is being created and shared on it.

Step 2: Choose and research your Affiliate Programs

Once you have your niche selected, go on Google and search for ‘niche + affiliate programs’ (replace the word niche for your own, eg. travel, fitness, etc.).

You will be surprised by all the options so take your time to go through them all, read the reviews and check important facts as the commission rates and cookie duration.

Other ways to find Affiliate Programs are to check blogs in your niche and look for the products they recommend, most chances are those have affiliate programs.

Or if you are familiar with the niche (which you should be), think of some brands you have used and would like to promote. A quick google search will tell you if they also have a program.

Step 3: Apply to the Affiliate Programs

Most programs will have some sort of form and requisites you’ll need to fulfill so you can join. Make sure to apply to a few since not all will accept you and you want to have some backup options.

Although in this article I am going to touch on some strategies to do affiliate marketing on Pinterest without a website or blog, it is important to mention that a lot of programs will ask for a site when you apply. Others will accept a large social media following instead of a website so if you are #instafamous you can try with that strategy.

Some of the most popular affiliate programs that require no website are Amazon’s, Clickbank’s, Ebay’s and Etsy’s. The fact that they are so widely known also makes them more competitive so it is a good idea to research other not-so-competitive offers.

Step 4: Get your Affiliate Links

Once you got accepted for an affiliate program, you will be able to get your own affiliate link. This will be the URL you will use to promote the offers and which also contains your affiliate id to track your sales and commissions.

Boom! You are ready to start making affiliate money on Pinterest . Now we can finally explore all the great ways you can use this platform to create your income:

1. Direct Linking (No website or blog)

As I have mentioned, if you do not have a website or blog yet, you can still use Pinterest along with Affiliate Marketing to make money.

Back in 2015, Pinterest had banned using affiliate links since “spammers were abusing them” but they claimed their spam detection system is stronger now and are back at allowing affiliate links in your pins.

Here is an example of an affiliate pin that links directly to an eBay product.

When clicking on the link it directs you straight to the eBay product page.

In this case, all you have to do is follow the general pinning strategy outlined in the last section and continually test and optimize your pins and offers based on the results you get.

I do not recommend this strategy for the long term since both Pinterest and the Affiliate Program could change their conditions and any time so make sure to check the following options for a better long-term strategy.

2. With a Bridge Page

Also called a Squeeze or Landing Page, a Bridge Page is a simple site that exists in the ‘middle’ of your pins and your affiliate offer.

The main purpose of a Bridge Page is to collect emails so you can increase your profits. A lot of people won’t buy your offer the first time they see it so by collecting their emails you can follow up with them and get them to but eventually.

At the same time, you will be building your email list. A targeted and well-nurtured email list is a highly valuable asset for your business since you will be able to sell them other offers via email campaigns.

In this example, we observe a pin targeted towards weight loss, that lead to a bridge page (in this case a quiz), and after the quiz results, it directs you to the affiliate offer.

Other types of bridge pages include giving away a free pdf guide to invite people to give you their email or if the affiliate offer has a video you can simply use sign up form as a step for them to access the video.

For more options for your bridge page and learning to create an email list for your affiliate offers, make sure to check out this article

So…how to create your bridge page?

Creating a bridge page nowadays is really easy. There are a few landing page builders that are very intuitive to use and require zero design or programming skills.

My favorite one is Clickfunnels since it is not only a landing page builder but more like a business-in-a-box software that will allow you to scale and automate your income.

It has and drag-and-drop builder interface plus the ability to build complete sales funnels, host webinars, create membership sites and accept payments, among others.

You can download a free bridge page template here

3. With a Blog

Blog + Pinterest + Affiliate Marketing = THE BEST combination.

While creating a blog is not for everyone because it definitely requires a lot of time and patience, if you already have one and haven’t implemented your affiliate marketing strategy yet, get ready for a serious profit increase.

Here are the steps you should follow:

• Find your affiliate programs:
  Do your research through Google and other blogs in your niche to find what affiliate offers you want to promote. You want to stick with 3-4 maximum.
  After choosing them, apply to their affiliate programs and wait to get approved. Most programs tend to approve bloggers pretty easily.

• Create your content:
  In order to promote your offers, you can create different types of content in your blog where you recommend the products.
  Depending on your niche, some common options are tutorials, reviews, lists, and problem-solving articles around the offer where you include your affiliate link.

• Pin your content:
  After your content is ready, it’s time to pin! Follow the pinning strategy explained at the end of this article, rinse, and repeat.

Check out this example. When looking for ‘Tulum’ on Pinterest we find a pin called ‘The best hotels in Tulum’. The pin directs us to a blog post with a list of hotels where each hotel mentioned is an affiliate link to a booking page.

For a complete guide on Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers make sure to check out this article.

Other blogging articles:

• Start a money-making blog
• Blogging guide for beginners

II. Print On Demand

If you have an artistic or creative side, another great way to make money with Pinterest is through Print On Demand.

This business model means you sell your own custom designs on products like mugs, t-shirts, and phone cases but, you do it through a supplier that prints and ships the products directly to your customers.

If you are not feeling too artistic you can always have someone on Fiverr do the design for you. Since the platforms provide the templates all you’d need to do is upload the design and start pinning to send traffic to your work of art!

Some of the most popular designs are those with funny phrases, trendy topics, especial occasions and birthday themes for kids. Think unicorn t-shirt for a unicorn-themed party.

There are many POD companies out there but some of the most known include Printful, Printify, Redbubble, Teespirng, and Merch by Amazon (there is an application and waiting list for this one).

III. Promote Your Digital Products

One of the best ways to make money online is to sell your own digital product. Usually, the only cost is that of the advertisement since you’ll be using Pinterest, you will have 100% profits going straight to your pockets.

If you have an Etsy shop or want to sell anything from a one-page-printable to a five-module course or even an ebook, you can use Pinterest to make money and grow your business.

Similar to how I explain it for Affiliate Marketing, you can directly link to your own products or your blog for making sales. It is said that more people are ready to buy stuff on Pinterest than in any other platform

Note: You can do the same for non-digital products If you have an eBay, Etsy or Shopify store but profit margins are usually lower when it comes to physical products.

IV. Promote your services

While Pinterest is more used to sell eCourses, eBooks, and printables, you can also leverage it to sell services such as graphic design, online coaching and consulting and more.

For example, if people are looking for inspiration for a logo they could also be interested in hiring a professional designer to do it for them. Or if someone is looking for tips on weight loss they could be open to hiring an online personal trainer.

To offer your services you can create a pin that when clicked redirects to your “Hire Me” page on your site or a simple Squeeze Page to leave the contact information.

V. Increase your site’s traffic

If you already have a blog or website, you probably know that Display Advertising is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to generate income.

However, since Display Advertisement is based on views, the more traffic your site gets, the more money you will make.

Using the pinning strategy outlined at the end of this article you will be able to increase your blog’s traffic and consequently, your income.

When choosing your ad network, keep in mind that some have a minimum of page views per month you need to reach before getting accepted.

If you are a novice blogger, Google Adsense or Ezoic would be perfect companies to sign up with since they don’t have a minimum of page views.

As you gain more visitors and page views increase, you could then move on to Adthrive or Mediavine which offer a higher RPM (revenue per thousand impressions).

With Mediavine the minimum page views you need to qualify is 25,000 a month and for Adthrive is 100,000.

Nowadays most ad networks will test the best locations automatically, so you don’t need to worry about where to place ads on your site/blog.

Pinning Strategy to Make Money on Pinterest

Now that we have talked about all the different ways you can use Pinterest to make money, I am going to share the pinning strategy that I have used and have been working for me for the past 10 months.

The Basics (Read if you’re new to Pinterest)

• Create your Business Account and install rich pins. (The easiest way to do that is to go through the Yoast plugin as shown in this tutorial)

• Create 10 boards with topics related to your niche using relevant keywords for the titles and descriptions

• Put 10 Pins on each board to begin with (You can add more later on)
• Create a “Best of [Your Blog Name]” board as your first board and fill it with your most popular posts.

• Put any group boards on the bottom (this will happen automatically as you join group boards from now on).

• Edit the covers of your boards (not the group boards). You want engaging clean images for covers- no text.

• Start getting followers by following people in your niche. You want to get 1,000 to begin with. By following up to100 people per day, you’ll get a 5-15% follow back rate

Create The Perfect Pinterest Image

• Make sure your posts (and pins) solve a problem. (i.e. Not “long-distance relationship problems”, switch that to “5 Ways to Thrive in a Long Distance Relationship”)

• Use an intriguing title that appeals to women. (It can be different from your headline as long as you deliver on your title’s promise).

• Make sure that you don’t overdo your branding. Pins can look similar but should be a little different.

• Scroll through a page of pins with yours in the middle, to test if it sticks out.

• A/B test your images for your top 10 plus any post that you think should have done better than it did. (don’t go nuts on this though).

Getting started on Tailwind

• I will start by saying that you will need to invest in Tailwind if you want to automate your pinning and save you so much time.

• Once you sign-up with Tailwind, you will first need to create your board lists. This will allow you to select a certain board list and just save to all of those boards with one single click instead of me having to pin every board individually with my posts.

• Once you’ve completed the above point, you should then move on to sorting out your Pinterest schedule. After some trial and error, I’ve decided that what works best for me is set on 35 pins per day, but it might be worth it to test different amounts yourself.

• If you’d like to set up a schedule, then it is easy enough and Tailwind is actually clever enough to read your data on Pinterest and even optimizes your pins for the best times. 

• This means that there will be some days when your pinning seems to exceed the amount you’d originally set and other days, it won’t reach even half of what you thought. 

Getting started with tribes

• You’ve managed to sort out your own schedule and board list, and now there is only one more thing missing from Tailwind starting journey, and that’s tribes.

• Tribes are definitely important and needed if you’re serious about building your Pinterest. Although, don’t be naïve and think that your pins are going to go viral with Tribes.

• Every pin you decide to share, you should re-pin one back. It seems really simple, but if you imagine yourself with a tribe of 100 members, all of those members could pin the same image. This then means that you’d pin someone else’s and get no re-pins of your own image.

• The best tip I can give any new tribes is to be active. Stay as active as you possibly can. You’ll find that bloggers will support bloggers more if they are active and take part in things involved in the tribe. 

Monthly Maintenance

• Once a month go through and delete underperforming pins. Any pins that get less than the group board average.

• While you’re there deleting pins from your source boards, keep an eye out for any pin that’s doing well enough to be moved into your top ones.

• If you consistently pin your best pins and they get higher repins than your less popular pins…. You’ll get more repins and more clicks from them.

• While this system has led to a lot of success for me, you have to constantly be testing out new ideas and making small changes in order to always be improving.

Takeaway

There are numerous ways of making money with Pinterest and most of them required little to zero investment. That makes Pinterest a perfect opportunity to start and whichever online business you choose to create.

It can take some time to create some momentum and optimize your pinning strategy but once you start seeing your traffic and profits grow, it will be so worth it!

Creating content and building an audience is essential for affiliate marketing and whether you are an stablished blogger or you are just starting out, you are already one step ahead of the rest.

I’ve been blogging for 4 years (on 3 blogs) and affiliate marketing represents 70% of my income so I might be a bit biased. But, I believe affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for any blogger to build a scalable online income and monetize your blog even without a lot of traffic.

If you are not taking advantage of affiliate marketing yet, you are leaving money on the table but don’t worry.

In this article you will learn:

✓ Why Affiliate Marketing is the best way to monetize your blog

✓ How to get started with affiliate marketing no matter how long you’ve been blogging

✓ How to choose the best affiliate programs for your blog

✓ How to create content that turns your readers into buyers.

✓ How to optimize and scale your affiliate income

1. Bonus: Selling your Own Products

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers

1. What is Affiliate Marketing

To put it simply, Affiliate Marketing is a marketing strategy in which affiliates make an agreement with a brand to promote their product and receive a commission in exchange for each sale.

It is a convenient deal for both sides since you get to promote monetize your traffic, platform, and followers without having to create their own product, invest in inventory or dealing with customer service.

In a similar way, the brand gets a huge benefit by reaching a new targeted audience without much work on their side and only having to pay you when a sale is made.

When compared to other sources of leads, blog visitors are great potential customers for companies. The fact that they are reading your articles shows that they are already aware of their needs or problems and activelyy looking for a solution. They have gone on Google type their search and land on your article.

As a blogger and affiliate, you have the power (and responsibility) to help them find a solution and recommend a product or service that you think it will help them. If you can provide value and earn their trust and they will be happy to follow your advice.

The above is an example of an article where I teach how to create a landing page and recommend the software Clickfunnels which is what I personally use so I am happy to promote it as an affiliate.

Assuming the product or service you are recommending is truly good and helpful, most of the work is done, all the company needs to do is have a good landing page and a competitive offer.

It is estimated that 81% of companies around the world have affiliate programs which prove how effective affiliate marketing is and how important affiliates are for the merchants.

2. How does affiliate marketing work for bloggers?

For a blogger, the affiliate marketing process looks like this:

As a blogger, this is what the affiliate marketing process would look like for you:

• Based on your blog niche and topics, do some research, and choose a program you want to promote (more on how to choose the best programs later).

• Apply to join the affiliate program. For some programs, it is a requirement that you have a blog, website, or at least a big social media following. For some beginner affiliate marketers, this can be an obstacle but as a blogger, you are most likely to be approved for any program you apply for.

• When you are accepted you will be able to get your affiliate links which are used to track your referrals. When someone clicks on your links a small piece of code is saved on their browser for a specific time depending on the program. This way when they make a purchase the commission is attributed to you.

• Finally, you create some articles where you can include the affiliate offer in a relevant way that helps your audience. I’ll explain more about the types of artciles and how to help your conversion later on the article but in short that is how affiliate marketing for bloggers works.

• Bonus: You go ahead and enjoy your earnings!

2. Why Affiliate Marketing is The Best Way to Monetize Your Blog

✓ It helps you monetize your blog even with a small audience

One of the benefits of promoting affiliate offers on your blog is that you don’t need to have a lot of visitors in order to make a decent income.

Other moentization methods like placing ads on your site, require you to have at least 50k page views/month to make a significant income. On the other hand, with affiliate marketing, you get to promote high ticket commission where you can make the same income or more with fewers visitors.

As a new blogger this can help you monetize your blog from the beggining allowing you to reinvest, outsource and focus on money generating tasks.

One of my blogs is on a very small niche and only get around 20k visitors/ month but still makes $4,000 in affiliate commissions while it only makes $200 in ads. See my point?

✓ It can become a passive source of income

A passive traffic source is the key to creating a passive income and a blog is one of the best ways to get free organic traffic.

Contrary to other promotional methods like Social Media or paid ads where you stop getting traffic as soon as you stop posting or paying, with a blog you can get traffic for years after publishing your articles IF you make a good job with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

This means that you can post an article today and make commissions on your sleep or while you are on vacations months after. I know this sounds like a cliche but once your blog is established you can take a week or even a month’s vacation and your income won’t suffer.

✓ Recurring revenue

These are two of my favorite words when it comes to affiliate marketing. Recurring revenue programs means you make a commission every month for as long as your referral stays on the program.

It is common with subscription-based businesses whether it is digital products such as software or memberships or physical products where customers sign up to receive them every month.

But you can find them in lots of different niches like a fitness app, a meal delivery service, insurance, online learning, etc.

With Recurring Revenue programs, you only need to refer your audience to the product once and they will pay you a commission every month the client continues using the product.

Promoting this type of offer means you have a secured income every month as a base to keep growing your business and your earnings have a big potential to multiply month after month.

✓ It is a sustainable long-term business

Many people get into Affiliate Marketing looking for the fastest way to make some money. Spoiler: That is not either the best or even a sustainable strategy.

Luckily, if you have a blog or are in the process of creating one, you are on this for the long-haul and know that it is better to put some time up-front to create a profitable long-term business.

Affiliate Marketing is a great long-term strategy to monetize your blog. It can be easily implemented, optimized and tracked making it the perfect business opportunity for bloggers.

It is also one of the safest ways to promote affiliate offers since it is your own platform and nobody can take it down or ban you overnight as it can happen with a social media or an ad account.

✓ Zero to Very low start-up costs

Affiliate Marketing itself has zero costs. Most worth-while affiliate programs are completely free to join so all you need to pay for is your blogging costs which, compared to other businesses, had super low start up costs.

In the beginning, you only need to pay $2.95/month for hosting and if you get it through Bluehost you also get your domain for free.

Compared to an offline “brick and mortar” business or even other online methods, that’s on the very cheap end

Recommended: How much does it really cost to start a blog?

✓ It helps you serve your audience

As a blogger, your main ‘job’ is to provide value to your audience so they want to keep coming back and become your loyal readers.

Through affiliate marketing, you can help them solve a problem or a need without ruining their user experience like it can happen when you place ads on your blog.

When visitors come to your site after searching for an answer or solution and you have written an article that actually helps them and that includes a product they do the same, you are giving them what they are looking for.

Additionally, some affiliate programs will give you a special discount so you can offer it to your readers so they’ll get that extra benefit too.

✓ You don’t need to be an expert to do Affiliate Marketing through blogging

Another one of the benefits of selling other people’s products is that you don’t need to become an expert in every single topic.

If there is a topic your audience would like to know more about but you are still learning about it, you can promote other’s people courses and acknowledge they know more than you in that particular subject.

Your audience would benefit from your recommendation and you will gain their trust by being open and honest. Just make sure it is always a product/ course you have tried and believe in.

✓ It helps you understand your audience better

As you start promoting affiliate products, you will be able to learn which ones your audience prefers and understand their needs and preference better.

If you were to launch your own product eventually, you will have a good idea of what they need, what is available on the market, and what gaps exist that you can help fill.

How to Find the Best Affiliate Programs for Your Blog

Now that you are aware of all the benefits of using affiliate marketing as a blogger, let’s explore how to actually find programs that can both help you make some good money and also provide value to your audience.

Choosing the right programs is key to get started with the right foot and don’t waste time creating content around a product that won’t bring you commissions.

With so many options out there it can be challenging to narrow them down but you don’t want to make the mistake of promoting too many programs at once and filling your blog with affiliate links .

I recommend choosing a maximum of 3-4 programs to focus on so you can really give them your full attention and creating content worth reading and worth ranking.

Once you have gotten to know your offers well, optimize your content around it and see how your audience likes it, you can adjust, test, and add new offers.

Here are some steps you can follow to find high quality and profitable affiliate programs:

1. Find programs you are interested in

Google Search for Affiliate Programs

One of the best ways to find affiliate programs in your niche is through a quick Google search. There are many bloggers out there who have done the job of compilating the top offers for most niches so there is no point in not taking advantage of that.

You can do a quick google search for ‘Best + Niche + affiliate program’. E.g. Best Fitness Affiliate Programs.

As you can see in the example below you will find lots of alternatives to start exploring

Take not of the programs that catch your attention for the next step where we will go over some important aspects to filter them out and choose your winning ones.

Check what other bloggers are promoting

Another good way of finding affiliate offers for your blog is to check your competitors’ sites. Other bloggers in your niche are probably most likely promoting some affiliate programs and if they have been promoting the same offer for a while, it is because they are getting good results.

If you are familiar with other blogs in your niche, which you should be, go ahead andcheck their mist popular posts to spot the affiliate links. Any product or service that they are linking to, is probably an affiliate offer.

If you want to make sure, you can double check by searching for the ‘comapny + affiliate program” on Google. If they have an affiliate program it should appear on the results.

Use Affiliate Networks

Affiliate Networks are basically platforms that connect companies with affiliates (you).

They help brands reach content creators that can potentially promote their brand and they help you find and apply to more programs in one single place.

They also benefit affiliates by simplifying the application process and making sure they are paid fairly and on time for their commissions.

A lot of companies prefer to manage their affiliate programs thorugh a network so they are not so easy to find through a Google Search. By joining an affiliate network you can find hundreds of affiliates programs you wouldn’t have known otherwise.

You also get information about their average EPCs (earnings per click) that can help you project estimate how much you could make when promoting them.

In the image above you can see an inside look of the ShareAsale where you can filter the programs based on categories and see how much other affiliates are making with their offers. Other affiliate networks you can check our Max Bounty, Clickbooth, Peerfly, and M4trix.

Think of products that you love

Last but not least, you probably already know some products you love and would be happy to promote.

Think of all the tools you currently use and maybe even the courses you have taken. Most chances are they have an affiliate program.

You can veryfy it by seraching ‘Company + affiliate program’ or going to thei webiste and scrolling all the website to the footer where the affiliate or referal program link is often found.

As an added bonus, with this method, you can promote products you already use and can simply share your experience with your audience.

What to look for in an Affiliate Programs for your Blog

Once you have done your research and found some affiliate programs that you are interested in, it is important to be selective and choose the programs with more advantages and opportunities to monetize your blog.

Here are some key factors to consider when choosing an affiliate offer:

1. Quality & Reputation

One of the most important aspects to consider is that the affiliate product or service you choose to promote is that it is actually valuable and will deliver on what they offer helping your audeince with their problems or needs.

The better the offer, the more value you can provide your readers and the more they will trust you with other recommendations.

A quick Google search for the product’s review will show you if it has a generally good reputation or if you should skip it and move on to the next one.

2. Conversion and follow up

As a blogger an affiliate, it is your job to create great content that help your audience and at the same time pre-frames them for the offer you are promoting. But, once they click the link and leave your blog, there is no much you can do.

This is why it is key to choose a company that has not only a good offer but also a good landing page and sales funnel in place.

Most customers won’t buy the first time they see the offer which is why it is important that the company has a follow-up system where they collect the visitors’ emails or retarget them with ads so that they can close the sale in the following days or weeks.

You can visit the brand’s website and check if they have an strategy to collect emails and if you start to get their ads on your social media afterwards. These are good signs that a company is not leaving sales on the table and you can be more confident sending them traffic.

Opt-in forms and exit pop-ups like the one above are also a good sign of a website designed to improve conversions.

3. Commissions

I probably don’t need to tell you this but you naturally want to promote an offer that’ll make your time and work worth it.

When it comes to commissions, there are a few different methods and models you can choose from:

a. High vs. Low Ticket

Affiliate commission can go from $0.10 cents to thousands of dollars. If we were to choose our offers based solely on the commissions, we’d naturally choose the higher one but considering other aspects, each one has its own advantages and disadvantages.

High ticket offers tend to have a lower conversion rate since the buying process is not as impulsive as with lower ticket items. On the other hand, people are used to buying low ticket items every day so there is not that much thought or doubt that goes into those purchases.

Even with lower conversion, you will earn more with 10 commissions of $100 than with 100 commissions of $1 which is why I recommend choosing high or mid ticket offers that pay at least $20 so you can see encouraging results from the beginning.

When promoting high ticket offer, It is especially important that you grow your email, so you can build. relationship with your readers and improve your conversions. If you want to learn more about this, check out my article on How to Create An Email List For Affiliate Marketing.

c. Recurring revenue commissions

Some products and services where the customer pay a monthly fee also offer their affiliate a monthly commissio for or as long as the clients contines to use the product.

They can be found in niches such as fitness memberships, education, software and insurance among the most common but if you have another niche it is definitely worth checking if they are any affiliate programs with recurring commissions.

Even if their monthly payment is not that much, it’ll help you have a steady income that you can count on and increase every month.

d. CPA, CPL and CPC programs

Up until now I’ve talking about CPS (Cost per Sale) programs where you get paid once a sale is made but there are also other type of commissions:

• CPA or Cost per Action programs pay you a commission when a visitor completes a task which is usually filling out a form or questionnaire.
• CPL or Cost per Lead program, pay you when the customer provides their contact information (usually email). These type of programs are popular in the personal finance niche and can pay up to $35 per email.
• CPC or Cost per Click programs (as it sounds) will pay you on a click-basis. This type of program is most similar to placing ads on your website.

4. Cookie duration

When vistors click on your affiliate links, a small piece of code is stored on their browser to track if/when they make a purchase and be able to attribute it to you.

This piece of code is called Cookies and has a different duration on each affiliate program. Naturally, the longer the cookie duration, the better since you have more opportunities to get the commission.

Most affiliate programs have a 30-day cookie period, however, programs like Amazon have a cookie duration of only 24-hours.

This is not a decisive factor but it can help you choose between two programs if all the other variables are similar.

5. Buying process

Finally, another important element to consider when choosing your affiliate offers is what the buying process of the product looks like since not all products people research online are actually bought online.

Let’s say you have a blog about decoration and you see some nice-looking bathtubs on Amazon that would work well for your content and your audience.

Your readers might love them and value your advice but, they will probably want to see it ‘in person; and go to a store where they can do that before buying it.

This might not be the most common case but it is still important to consider it especially with physical products and affiliate programs with short-duration cookies.

How to promote your affiliate offers in your blog

So now that you have chosen your affiliate programs, how do you go about promoting them while providing value to your audience and actually making some commission?

Below are some of the best type of posts and resources you can use to promote affiliate offers:

1. Tutorials or Problem-Solving Blog Posts

One of the best ways in which you can serve your audience while promoting affiliate products is through a tutorial. When people are searching the way for a way to do something, they might not be aware that there is a product or service that can help them do things more efficiently and solve one of their problems.

Make sure you are being authentic and giving them a complete solution where the product happens to be one of the pieces. You want your post to be helpful and offer them value beyond the product.

The idea is that, even if they don’t buy it, they will still be benefited from the information you provided but if they decide to buy it, it will also be a great help to their problem.

For example, the blog post above talks about 6 hacks for losing a muffin top, and in one of the tips they recommend a fat burning supplement linking to an affiliate offer.

2. Product Reviews of Affiliate Offers

Product reviews are some of the most popular type of posts for affiliates due to the purchase intention of those reading them. When someone is looking for a product review it means that they are already aware of their needs and the potential solutions and just need a little more reassurance before making the decision.

Product reviews help people feel like avoid getting buyer’s remorse by making them feel they are making a well-informed purchase.

Creating complete and honest reviews is a great way to win your readers’ trust while promoting your affiliate offers.

You don’t need to make a positive review out of every product or make reviews of only products you are an affiliate for. If there is a product you did not like, you can be sincere about it and then offer a better alternative, which you can be an affiliate for.

3. ‘Best of’ post

Another type of post that attracts readers who are ready to make a purchase if ‘best-of lists’. Once a person is interested in buying a product or service but doesn’t know yet what the options are, they will be searching for ‘best ‘ for example “best camera”, “best dog food”, etc.

When making a “best of” list, I recommend making it very clear which one of the products you recommend and why. Giving readers lots of options without highlighting one of them can result in confusion. They want to be certain of making the right choice and if you don’t tell them which one it is, they can end up looking for reassurance in another blog.

Product Reviews and Best ‘x’ tend to be competitive phrases when it comes to ranking on Google’s top results. This is why it is important to do proper keyword research and choose search terms that you can rank for. Keep an eye on the next section to learn more about ranking for competitive keywords.

4. Resource Pages with Affiliate Products

Another tool you can use to promote your affiliate offers are resource pages. These are different from blog posts since they have a static place in your site and you can often be accessed them through the main menu.

Think of the ‘Products I Use‘ or ‘My favorite Tools‘ pages you can usually see on most blogs. My resource page for example has some of my favorite affiliate marketing and social media trainings.

This helps you have a bigger chance of readers checking out the offers even if they have come to your blog for another reason.

Additionally, it helps you to not repeat the same info about your affiliate products in different posts and simply direct visitors to your resource pages.

5. Banners of Affiliate Programs

On top of the articles and pages, you can create to promote your affiliate offers, another resource is to place banners for your affiliate offers. They will naturally have a lower CLick-through-rate than the links in your blog posts but they can help increase your monthly income.

Bloggers often use Google AdSense or other ad networks to monetize their sites via banners but it is a good idea to test and compare the income of ad networks versus placing the banners yourslef and see which one converts better.

Another benefit is that some blogs don’t get approved for ad networks due to their niche or because they don’t have enough visitors yet which is normally not a problem for affiliate programs.

Most affiliate programs will have banners that you can place in your blog and if they don’t you can always design one that is within their brand and guidelines.

6. Email Marketing

Last but not least, as a blogger, you must be building your email list from the beginning. Your subscribers will be your most loyal fans in the long-term and the one who’ll be most interested in what you have to say and recommend.

If you build a relationship with them by providing value and consistent communication, they’ll also be happy to hear about any products or offers you want to recommend.

On average, marketers make $1-$5/month per email subscriber depending on the niche so if you are not yet building and using your email list. you are losing money. Check out this article if you want to learn more about how to build an email list for affiliate marketing.

How To Get Traffic To Your Affiliate Blog Posts

As a blogger, you know that getting your content ranked on search engines (aka Google) is key to getting consistent and free traffic.

Unfortunately, creating great content is not enough to get visitors so before you spend time and energy creating those awesome posts, here are some key steps to consider to give your posts a greater chance of success.

Use a Keyword research tool

A keyword research tool like Ahref will help you determine which topics you should write about, meaning those you have a chance of ranking for, and which ones are too competitive and are better to leave for now.

If there is something that every blogger needs to succeed, this is it.

There are lots of alternatives you can use including Ubersuggest which has a free version but regardless of which one you use, it is key to not put spend time and effort in vain.

Once you enter the main keyword you are considering writing about, you will get a result showing how diifcult or easy it’d be to rank on Google top results for that search term. If you are a beginner, I’d recomend going for keyword with a score of 30 or less.

Use long-tail keywords

A great way of finding keyword with low competition is to go for what are called ‘long-tail keyword’ which basically means longer search terms.

For example, the keyword “Best Hotels in New York” will be more competitive than ‘Best Hotels in New York for families” or “Best Budget hotels in New York”.

The more specific the search term, the lower the search volume but also the easier it’ll be to rank for.

Note: Try to go for Keywords with at least 1,000 searches/month so you can get significant traffic and sales.

Double check on competition

While you can get a pretty good idea of a keyword’s difficulty by using a keyword research tool, I like to make a final check on my own since sometimes the ranking can be off due to ads betting on that search term.

One of the factors that determines how likely you’ll be at ranking for a keyword is the Domina Authority (DA) of the competitors ranking on the first page.

If you install the chrome extension Ubersuggest, you’ll be able to see all the DA’s of the first page results. I’d recommend looking for keywords where at least one of the results has a Domain Score of less than 50 so you have a chance of ranking.

Tracking and Optimizing your Affiliate Marketing Commissions

Tracking your affiliate commission is key to understand what is working and what is not. Most affiiate programs will give you one link which you can use on all your brelated blog posts, pages, banners and emails.

But once you start getting commissions you will want to learn from which one of your articles, pages, or email campaign they are coming, otherwise you’ll have no way of replicating and scaling your income.

It happened to me with another one of my blogs and I learned the lesson fast. I then learned every other blogger was using a thing called ‘click trackers’ which allow you to create custom links to know exactly where your sales are coming from. I’ve tried a few and while they all do work similarly, I found ClickMagic to be the easiest one to use.

You can set up your links once and then use this data to test different offers and traffic sources to see which one is bringing you more money and know where to focus your efforts.

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers FAQ

How to make money with Affiliate Marketing for bloggers?

If you want to start making money with Affiliate Marketing as a bloggers follow the guide on this article. To sum it up, here are some of the key aspects you should consider:

• If you still haven’t started your blog, make sure to choose a profitable niche.
• Once you have chosen your niche or if you have already been blogging for a while, choose affiliate programs that can help your audience and that pay mid to high ticket commission.
• Create content that attracts readers with purchase intention like reviews, tutorials, and ‘best-of’ lists.
• Make sure to optimize your topics for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so you can rank on Google and get organic traffic.
• Analyze what is working and what is not. Rinse, repeat, and scale.

What is Affiliate Blogging?

Affiliate blogging is the practice of using a blog as a platform for affiliate marketing. With affiliate blogging, you promote another company’s products or services in your blog and when your visitors buy said products, you make a commission.

In order to promote an affiliate offer, you need to join their program and then you receive a link which is used to track your referrals and commissions.

How can I make $1000 a month blogging?

Making $1,000/month blogging is not hard or uncommon but here are some steps you can follow to achieve your first $1k month sooner rather than later.

1. Choose high-ticket affiliate programs. It is way easier to hit $1k with $100 or $300 commission than with $2 ones.
2. Create a lot of content based solely on that one program. If you create lots of posts around similar keywords, you’ll have a higher chance of ranking on Google since they’ll see you as an authority on that subject.
3. Use other source of traffic besides Google. Yes, I still think Google should be your main focus but it can take a while to get ranked so in the meantime use other platfroms like social media. I love using Pinterest for getting traffic to my recent blog posts.
4. Consider using ads. If you have a well-monetized blog post but no traffic yet, you can get visitors using Google paid ads. As long as you are making more than what you are spending, you are golden.

Is blogging profitable in 2020?

Definitely, when people say blogging is dead in 2020 and who even read blog anymore, they are envisioning old web 1.0 or personal blogs on blogspots. I then tell them that every time they search something on Google, they are landing on a blog and their response is “well, those look more like stablished websites”.

So, blogs might not even look the same or work the same way as 10 years ago, but as every other business, content creators need to adapt and create a multi-platform presence so readers can recognize them.

I started my first blog 4 years ago and after 1 year it had replaced and surpassed my corporate job salary. Additionally, creating a blgo is like building a piece of digital real state, it is a great way to build an asset out of nothing and if you want to get some capital, you can also sell them for around 32 times their monthly revenue.

Check out this article if If you want to know how to start a blog to make money.

Bonus: Selling your Own Affiliate Products

Another great factor of Affiliate Marketing is that it allows you to know your audience and what they are interested in buying. This gives you a huge potential to create a digital product that is exactly what they are looking for.

The idea of creating your own product might seem daunting that’s why I recommend it after getting some traction with your affiliate sales. You will be more confident in your skills and will have also built a relationship with your readers.

Let’s say you are a blogger in the Travel niche, after creating posts and content about attractions, hotels, and recommendations, you can easily create and sell a pdf guide to a certain destination or offer a paid subscription newsletter with exclusive travel deals.

Once your product is selling, you can create your own affiliate program and have other bloggers in your niche promote it. The possibilities are really endless once you have a loyal audience!

Final Thoughts

Affiliate Marketing and bloggers are a match made in heaven. If you already have a blog or are thinking of starting one, implementing Affiliate Marketing will bring your blog to the next level.

It can be challenging at the beginning but remember, this is a long term strategy so all the effort you are putting in up-front WILL BE WORTH IT.

The best you can do for your blog and affiliate marketing business is to keep creating content. Do not get too caught up in details like the color or the logo. While there are important, the truth is the more quality content you produce the more chances you have of increasing your income.

Do you have any questions about Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers? Let me know and I will be happy to help!

While the vast majority of people make their income by actively exchanging their time for a salary, passive income means you continue to earn money with little to no daily effort to maintain, once the initial work has been done. 

Passive income streams require an upfront investment and a lot of nurturing in the beginning. But after some time and hard work, these income streams start to build and are able to maintain themselves, bringing you consistent revenue without much effort on your part.

It’s important to mention that the IRS has its own definition of passive income for tax purposes, which only includes income from rental activity or business activity in which the investor does not materially participate.

What Does Passive Income Mean and Why is it important?

“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” Warren Buffet

When I was working my 9 to 5, even one I loved, the thought of being dependent on it to get my bills paid month after month, would overwhelm me. Plus no matter how much I worked or how good my salary got, there was a limit to how much time I had in a day, hence, how much I could make.

I know that is how the vast majority of the world works but, chances are if you are reading this,  you would also like some more freedom and wealth.

Developing a way to generate passive income provides many benefits, like:

• Increases your wealth-building plan
• Creates an opportunity to retire early
• Protects you from a complete loss of income if you lose your job
• It provides an additional source of income when you’re no longer able to work or if you outlive your retirement fund.
• It gives you an opportunity to explore other interests or passions.
• The amount of wealth you can create is not limited by your time.
• In most cases, you can build it and maintain it from anywhere.

Does passive income really work?

Yes! Passive income is not another internet scam, It’s how the rich continue to get rich. When you don’t have money, you can leverage your time and effort to create income streams that will grow into the future. As you accumulate money, you can deploy that money (and even combine it with your time) to generate more and more passive income.

Passive income myths to forget about

If you’re serious about creating passive income you can’t afford to fall for these myths.

1. Passive income requires “no work”?

Passive income always requires something upfront: time or money. However, the idea that it becomes passive after you do the work is what’s attractive about it. Say you spend 6 months writing and promoting a book to enjoy the royalties for the rest of your life.

Doing more work to promote it or create partnerships will boost your income, but there is a permanent element that requires nothing more from you to keep earning you money.

2. “Set and forget”

One of the most dangerous myths of passive income is that you don’t need to do any additional work after the initial set up. While the majority of the work is put up-front, you will still need to do some maintenance or hire someone to do it. Blog visitors expect new content, course buyers expect personalized support, etc.

3. You can get started in a week

If you are unfamiliar with content creation, is easy to assume you can toss together a blog or another passive income source in a couple of days. Actually, creating a source of revenue that will deliver lasting results requires a lot of time and work before you see any profit.

4. One source of passive income will do

Another dangerous myth of passive income is that you can rely in a single source of revenue. While you can definitely create a decent income from a single source, it’s better to diversify your income sources, especially if you’re planning on having these revenue streams replace your current job.

Most chances are, once your first income revenue requires less of your time, you will be hooked and ready to create the next one.

5. Real estate is king

With home and property values increasing at a rapid rate across the country, people are falling for the idea that property management and flipping are guaranteed methods of generating passive income.

In reality, repairs, dealing with bad tenants and other unexpected expenses eat away the income you could generate.

6. You need a business idea

When you read about passive income, it can be easy to get caught up in the idea that you need to become an entrepreneur or buy up property. But for many individuals, passive income means simply by putting money in savings and retirement accounts.

While it doesn’t sound as lucrative as an exciting new business idea, these have a much lower risk can make a big difference in the long run.

7. You need money to make money

Investing in the stock market or starting your own business might sound like it requires a lot of capital. However, you can start investing in the stock market with as little as $1,000 or start your blog for less than $8 per month.

If you don’t have a lot of money to begin, you will need to put up more time, but don’t let that stop you from starting.

How much can you make from Passive Income?

While this is a logical question, it is also as broad as asking how much can a business make.

Before you quit your day job, know that passive income generally won’t make you wealthy overnight. Creating multiple income sources is definitely not a short-term strategy, but it can build some serious money on the long haul. We’re talking anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars—depending on the income stream.

While some people make a great living from one form of passive income, it’s better and more common to have a few different sources bringing you cash.

Choose a few things that sound interesting to you and try them out. Something will emerge that either you enjoy the most or is making the most money. Focus on that thing. Put some time and effort into it, then put some more time and effort into it.

Passive income ideas

1. Try out index funds.

Index funds provide you with a way to invest in the stock market that is completely passive. For example, if you invest money in an index fund that is based on the S&P 500 Index, you will be invested in the general market, without having to concern yourself with choosing investments, rebalancing your portfolio, or knowing when to sell or buy individual companies. All that will be handled by the fund which will base the fund portfolio on the makeup of the underlying index.

2. Make YouTube videos.

You can create videos in just about any area that you like and use Google AdSense to display automatic ads on them. When viewers click on those ads, you will earn money from AdSense.

There is a learning curve and a good bit of work that goes into creating videos, but once a video is done it can become a completely passive cash flow source for a very long time.

3. Try affiliate marketing

This strategy is perfect if you have a blog, website, or want to create one. Once you start getting readers, you can sign up to promote certain products or services on your site and get paid a percentage for sales completed through your referral link.

4. Put your photography skills to work

If you are already passionate about photography, Shutterstock and iStockphoto can provide you with platforms to sell your photos. They may offer either a percentage or a flat fee of each photo that is sold to a site client.

In this way, a single photo could represent a completely passive since it can be sold again and again. The key is uploading a good number of photos and get a sense of what the buyers like so you can do more of that.

5. Become a published writer

There has never been an easier time to publish your own book. This can be a lot of work up-front, but once the ebook is created and marketed it can provide you with a passive revenue stream for years. You can either sell the ebook on your own website, Amazon or offer it as an affiliate arrangement with other websites that provide content related to your ebook.

6. Get cash-back rewards on credit cards.

Did you know there are credit cards that provide cash-back rewards ranging anywhere from 1% to 5% of the amount purchased? If you are not doing this, you are literally losing ‘free’ money.

7. Invest in real estate.

This falls in the category of semi-passive income since an investment in real estate is always at least a little bit of an active venture. Still, once you have a property that is established and fully rented, it’s mostly a matter of managing the property and keeping it performing well.

Additionally, there are professional property managers who can manage your property for you, usually for around 10% of the monthly rent. This professional management can make the investment much more passive but will take a bite out of your cash flow.

8. Invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs).

Think investing in real estate, but in a truly passive way. You can do that through a real estate investment trust. This is something like a mutual fund holding various real estate projects. The fund is managed by professionals, so you never have to get involved.

They typically pay higher dividends than stocks, bonds, or bank investments.

9. Rent out unused space with Airbnb.

Airbnb allows you to rent your residence or part of it to accommodate guests and earn extra money just for renting out space in your home.

How much you will make will depend upon the size and condition of your home and your location. Naturally, if your home is located in a high-cost city, or close to a popular resort, your income will be much higher. It’s a way of earning money on space in your home that might just be sitting empty otherwise.

10. Create an online course.

There is probably something you know that people want to learn about. Why not create an online course and let it make you money while you sleep?

There are a number of ways you can produce and host your own online course. One very simple way is to use a website like Udemy.com. Udemy as over eight million students and is a great way to get your content in front of others for their consideration.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re trying to bring freedom to your life or find a better way of financing your retirement, pursuing a dream of generating passive income isn’t always easy, but it’s far from impossible.

If you are somewhat new to digital marketing you might have heard people talking about Clickfunnels, sales funnels, conversions, and many other terms you don’t understand yet.

Even worse, the last time I checked on google for an answer it gave me quite a few different results which I am sure would leave anyone even more confused about what Clickfunnels actually is.

This is why, as a Clickfunnels user of more than 6 year, I’ll explain in this article what Clickfunnels truly is and why is such a big deal.

What is Clickfunnels?

To put it simply, Clickfunnels is a software that facilitates the building of high-converting sales ‘funnels’ for people with no prior design or programming knowledge.

Clickfunnels is intended to be a ‘website-in-a-box’ solution that gathers all the pieces necessary to create an online business, in one place.

It offers a variety of templates and a simple drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy for anyone of any tech skill level to create sales funnels, websites, landing pages, membership sites, and webinars, among other things.

What are sales funnels?

A sales funnel is one of the core concepts in the digital marketing industry.  It refers to the series of steps that a customer follows since they first come in contact with your offer until their first purchase and becoming loyal customers.

Sales funnels exist in every purchase process whether they have been consciously design or not.

For example, the journey from the first time you see an ad to you going on the product’s website and finally buying it, it’s a sales funnel.

Or you going through a McDonalds with the intention of buying a burger but ending up buying also fries, soda, and ice cream, is also a sales funnel.

The premise of sales funnels is that most customers don’t buy a product or service the first time they come in contact with it but instead, go through a series of steps mentally until they make a purchase decision.

This is why a purposely design sales funnel ‘guides’ them with a series of strategies to facilitate their journey and promote them moving forward towards their first purchase and from there, to bigger ones.

Furthermore, similarly to how you are offered to upgrade your order at McDonald’s, sales funnels use what are called ‘upsells’ and ‘downsells’ to increase the order value and take advantage of the shopping mindset the customer is already in.

From the software standpoint, funnels require a lot of pieces like landing pages, checkout tools, and email software to work together making it complicated for the average marketer or entrepreneur.

In this scenario, Clickfunnels facilities the process by putting all these tools together in its software making it possible for anyone to launch a sale funnel in hours.

Make sure to check out this article later for an in-depth review of how exactly sales funnels work in every stage.

What Clickfunnels IS vs. what IT IS NOT

There seems to be a lot of confusion and misinformation about what Clickfunnels actually is and what it can do for you so let’s take a look at what is truth and what is false.

Clickfunnels IS:

1. Clickfunnels is a software

In its most basic definition, Clickfunnels is a software or more accurately it is a “SAAS” which means “software as a service”. A SAAS means it is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as “on-demand software”.

Put simply, we could say it as software that your rent on a monthly basis and it is hosted in a remote server. So, not one that you pay a one-time fee for and download or install on your own computer.

2. Clickfunnels is a marketing concept

On another level Clickfunnels is not only the funnel building software but also proposes a complete marketing strategy based on the concept of sales funnels.

Rusell Brunson created the Clickfunnels strategy as a variation of the traditional sales funnels model that considers the stages of Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action.

While in the traditional model the prospect goes through these stages without taking part, the Clickfunnels model involves them engaging actively through every step of the funnel.

You build rapport and trust in your customers by starting with small purchases and providing increased value as you present to them increasingly higher-priced offers.

3. Clickfunnels is an Affiliate Marketing Program

Clickfunnels also has a very popular and successful affiliate program were people can join to promote the software in exchange for a commission.

I see a lot of confusion around ‘making money with Clickfunnels’ and I think it stems from affiliates talking about how much they make with Clickfunnels.

This can be confusing from the outside since are not explicit if there are making money by using the software for increasing sales of their business or if they are making money as Clickfunnels’ affiliates.

If you want to learn more about the Clickfunnels Affiliate Program, make sure to check out this article later.

Clickfunnels IS NOT:

1. Clickfunnels is not a traffic source

I hear a lot of people thinking that by building the their sales funnels on Clickfunnels, somehow it will take care of bringing people to it so wanted to clarify it.

Clickfunnels is not a traffic source, it will not generate more traffic than a traditional website. Or even less, some website can received organic traffic from google search if they have done a good search engine optimization (SEO).

If you want to use SEO to bring people into your site, you are better using other platforms since it is not one of Clickfunnels’ strength.

On the other hand, if you build your sales funnels with Clickfunnels you can use any other traffic source to bring people in like social media, ads, forums, etc.

2. Clickfunnels is not an MLM

Another common misconception that I see going around is that Clickfunnels is a ‘scam’ or a ‘pyramid scheme’.

I believe this might come from the fact that Clickfunnels does have an affiliate program as mentioned above and some of the affiliates might have been promoting in in the wrong way or without understanding it clearly.

The way MLM or pyramid schemes work is that once you are in you can get people to join and they’ll be ‘under’ you meaning you’ll make money for recruiting them and for the money they make.

This is not even the case with Clickfunnels. It’s affiliate program doesn’t allow for levels and you don’t make money for recruiting other affiliates.

However some affiliates used to promote it without really understanding what the software could do or was it for so they would just tried to sell the trainings to other affiliates as a way to make money.

This is obviously the wrong direction for affiliates and for Clickfunnels so in 2020 they changed the rules of its affiliate program. It now requires a mandatory training to ensure affiliates are educated and can teach about Clickfunnels to people that really need it.

3. Clickfunnels is not a get-rich-quick solution

Similar to the misunderstanding about Clickfunnels being an MLM, people seem to also think Clickfunnels is a ‘get-rich-quick’ sort of offer.

While yes, you can definitely make a lot of money using Clickfunnels, you still need to put in the work and time.

Clickfunnels can help you set up an online offer much faster, increase your margins significantly and help you create long term success BUT you still need to know your audience, create the right offer and drive the right traffic to it and that will take some time.

What is the difference between Clickfunnels and a regular website?

In this web-driven world, everyone knows you need a website for your business. But you might be thinking, “Why would I need something other than a website?”

Traditional websites often confuse visitors, allowing them to get lost in all the options and leave. They also require you to have a separate:

• Content management system (ex. WordPress, Joomla)
• Web host (ex. SiteGround, Bluehost)
• Page builder (ex. Elementor, Beaver)
• Email autoresponder (ex. MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse)
• Order form
• Shopping cart
• Web analytics
• Other marketing tools

ClickFunnels is everything these tools are, so you can create marketing and sales funnels from the ground up in a unified dashboard.

A funnel is faster and easier to build and can replace and outer-perform a traditional website. It also guides each visitor through the sales process, qualifying leads at each step, allowing you to reach up to 10 times more conversions.

If you are still confused, check out this video explaining Clickfunnels vs. a traditional website.

What are Clickfunnels Benefits?

Now that you hopefully have a clear idea of what Clickfunnels is, let’s take a look are what are some of its many benefits it that users rave about:

1. Clickfunnels is easy to use

One of Clickfunnels’ goals is to facilitate anybody without any prior experience in technology, design, or programming to be able to design sales funnels easily and quickly, and they have definitely achieved this.

The interface and drag-and-drop builder are very intuitive and easy to use regardless of the skill level of the user.

Furthermore, they have tutorials and educational material for every single thing you want to create so if you have any doubts you’ll be able to resolve them right away.

2. Clickfunnels integrates with many apps

While Clickfunnels gathers most of the tools you need to run an online business, there are still other apps and programs you might want to integrate to customize it depending on your business and needs.

Because Clickfunnels is such a big company with more than 6 years in the market, it can be easily integrated with many apps like dropshipping automation, third-party email software, payment processors, and web analytics among many others with just a few clicks.

Other landing page or sales funnel builders are constantly trying to compete with Clickfunnels but this is one of the many benefits that is hard to match.

3. Clickfunnels saves you time and money

If you’d attempt to create a sales funnels from scratch, you’d need to pay an expensive programmer to code all the pieces together. Even if you were happy with the result, it’d have taken a lot more time and you’d need to keep paying monthly fee of many apps.

Even more, if you were to require any changes, the same situation would repeat.

With all the pre-built sales funnels, landing page templates, and integrations available, ClickFunnels enables you to cut down on your most important resources and allow you to focus on your offer and your audience.

4. Clickfunnels has a loyal community

Besides all the cool marketing and technology benefits, my favorite part about Clickfunnels is that there is a sense of community among its users and affiliates.

I attribute it to the strong presence Russell Brunson and his team have among the community. They are constantly communicating with their audience and creating exciting trainings, events and recognitions that keep everybody engaged.

Russell is a self-made millionaire who created the company from scratch so I believe that helps him understand his audience and at the same time, help the users relate and be inspired by him.

Its Facebook group with over 630,000 members is one of the most active I’ve seen and you’ll be able to interact with like-minded people who will be happy to support you.

ClickFunnels Features

ClickFunnels has literally hundreds of features. Take a look at some top ones:

1. Prebuilt Sales Funnel Templates

ClickFunnels library of marketing and sales funnel templates will do the heavy lifting for your business. Whether you need a funnel for a product launch or a membership site, you get access to a lot of proven and tested sales funnels.

The templates are categorized under lead capture funnels, sales page funnels, event funnels, and membership funnels. Some popular funnel templates include sales letter funnel, product launch funnel, 2-step tripwire funnel, invisible funnel, homepage, squeeze page funnel, lead magnet funnel, bridge funnel, survey funnel, and more.

All funnel templates include pre-designed landing page templates — both free and paid — that you can tweak to meet your needs.

2. Drag and Drop Editor

If you want a unique landing page, its intuitive editor allows you to create your own funnel from scratch.

No coding skills required. About 40 free templates are available to customize. If you can use Facebook, you can use Clickfunnels.

3. Share Funnel

The Share Funnel feature allows you to generate and share a link to your funnel. Why should you care?

The ClickFunnels affiliate program allows you to earn some extra cash while selling or promoting a product or service. Others use ClickFunnels to build and share landing pages with clients. With share funnel URLs, you can get up to 40% recurring commission if the visitor joins ClickFunnels using your link. If you ask me, this is one of my favorite features.

4. A/B (Split) Testing

Split testing prevents you from wasting your time and ad budget on poor performing elements or a landing page in general.

After creating a landing page for a product or service, you want to test multiple variations of its elements. You can keep doing this as much as you want and keep improving your conversions

5. Payment Gateways

ClickFunnels allows you to accept payments at the end of your funnel without sending your buyers to a third party. It supports various payment system integrations with PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Android Pay, and more, as well as affiliate programs like ClickBank and JV Zoo.

6. SSL Certification

Have you seen that ‘not secure’ message at the top when browsing through a website? You probably wouldn’t make a purchase there and neither do your visitors. This is why ClickFunnels has made security its top priority ever since.

ClickFunnels makes sure all websites or pages created through it are encrypted to keep both buyers and sellers safe from phishing, identify theft, and other malicious attacks.

The easiest way to tell if a website is safe is through the SSL certificate (URLs that start with HTTPS). All ClickFunnels websites and pages have SSL certificates.

7. Email Automation

ClickFunnels has its own autoresponder on the premium plan, but it also integrates with third-party email service providers for good measure. This makes ClickFunnels a perfect lead generation and email marketing tool. It supports MailChimp, Zapier, Drip, ConvertKit, Aweber, and more.

8. Tracking

ClickFunnels comes with its own analytics tool to track your funnel’s performance, including click-throughs, conversion, opt-ins, and visitors, among others. It also shows you an overview of your audience’s activity right on your dashboard.

9. Multiple Domains

Multiple domains and sub-domains can be connected with ClickFunnels. Whether you want to run a sales offer or host a webinar right off your website, without spending a single dime on premium plugins or themes.

10. Actionetics and Backpack Tool

Available only in ClickFunnels’ premium plan, Actionetics and Backpack are two amazing features of the software.

Actionetics is a marketing automation software that monitors the statistics of your leads as they arrive in your sales funnel. If you are not new to sales and marketing, you definitely understand how crucial knowing your audience, their behavior, and their needs are. As a result, Actionetics can help you better tailor and market your products to your prospects.

Meanwhile, the Backpack tool helps you create your own affiliate program. Whether it is a product or service you are offering, this is quite a nifty tool to propel your business forward.

What can you do with Clickfunnels?

1. Collect leads and grow your email list

The easiest way to get leads for your business is by offering your potential customers something of value in exchange for their email address.

With Clickfunnels, You can do this easily by using one of their Opt-In page templates and offering your visitors and attractive ‘lead magnet’. This can be a free pdf guide, a video series, a special discount, or even a free consultation.

Once you decide on your ‘lead magnet’ you can customize the opt-in page and start collecting emails.

Getting leads of potential customers and growing your email list is an essential part of a successful business. On average, marketers, make $1-$3 a month per email subscriber so it is definitely something you want to start sooner rather than later.

For a step by step guide on how to create an opt-in page, make sure to check out this article later.

2. Sell digital products

Using Clickfunnels to see digital products is a great way to increase your average order value and your conversion rate.

Clickfunnels uses tools like ‘up-sells’ and ‘order-bumps’ to offer the customer other products during checkout. Think of it as the cashier at McDonalds offering to add fries to your orders or the display of products that are often near some stores checkout lines.

The goals is to use to take advantage of the ‘buying’ mindset the customer is. They have already decided they will buy something from you so it is much easier to have them add something to their purchase than it’d be to generate a new one.

Furthermore, by using Clickfunnels you get to capture some of your visitors emails even if they don’t purchase. This way it is much easier to follow up with them and ‘recover’ some of those sales.

All of this strategies can increase your profits exponentially or turn a losing campaign into a profitable one.

3. Sell online courses

Clickfunnels is the ideal platform to easily design a high converting funnel for your digital products such as online courses, coaching, and trainings.

The perfect structure is to create a funnel with

• Opt-in page,
• Front-end offer (low-ticket)
• Middle-end offer (upsells and downsells)
• Back-end offer (high-ticket)

This way you can get people into your funnel with more ease, nurture the leads through email and gain their trust by offering them a low-cost product with great value so they can, later on, trust you with a higher cost offer.

4. Create Membership Sites

Besides using Clickfunnels to sell your online courses, you can also use their membership feature to host your course or materials and give people exclusive access. This is one of the best ideal ways of earning money online through the monetization of your skills.

A membership site allows you to deliver content to your audience where you give access to these contents based on their purchase or relationship with your business.

Creating a membership site with Clikcfunnels is really easy. You can choose between many of the pre-built templates and most importantly, integrate it seamlessly with your sales funnel for an amazing marketing experience.

5. Automate webinars: 

Webinars are a great way to boost your lead generation process, builds rapport, and generate fast sales fast in the process.

They are the ideal environment for selling just about anything to anyone at just about any time of the day. Through webinars, you get the chance to talk to your potential customers in a setting where you have their full attention, can deliver great value, and sell products of any kind.

Witth Clickfunnels, you can create an awesome webinar funnel to increase the number of the registered viewers You can host live and automated webinar using clickfunnels and also integrate your favorite webinar platform with your funnel.

6. Sell affiliate products

If you are an affiliate marketer and you are not using Clickfunnels you are definitely leaving money on the table. If you are promoting a product by sending traffic straight to the affiliate page you are not truly building a business and could lose your income source at any moment.

By using Clickfunnels to create what is known as a bridge page between the traffic course and the affiliate website, you can collect customers’ emails, increase your conversion rates and build a highly targeted audience that will allow you to make money consistently every month.

When you send people to your bridge page an collect their emails you can follow up with those who didn’t buy the first time to continue to use other approaches to promote the offer. This way another group will end up buying and your conversion rate will increase along with your profits.

But more importantly, you can continue to promote other offers in the same niche to the people in your list for years. As mentioned before, the average income per email subscriber is $1-$3/ month so by capturing emails you are building your most valuable asset as an affiliate.

What is the purpose of Clickfunnels?

As an online sales funnel builder, the main purpose of Clickfunnels is to help anyone to easily create sales funnels that improve conversions and profits.

As mentioned above, it can be used to sell any product physical or digital, generate leads, optimize affiliate marketing, create webinar funnels, etc.

Does ClickFunnels really work?

To put it simply, yes! Clickfunnels does a great job at making the proceess of creating a sales funnels easy and allowing you to track, optimize and scale your business.

BUT Clickfunnels is not responsible for a bad offer, bad traffic, or bad follow-up. That is your responsibility and no software or method can fix it.

Although with Clickfunnels analytics, you’ll also be able to see the statistics of your funnel and diagnose where you can make improvements.

Who needs Clickfunnels?

Entrepreneurs, freelancers, coaches, affiliate marketers, bloggers, youtubers, business owners, artists, trainers, realtors, dentists, chiropractors.

Basically anyone with a product or service that is looking to make money.

Can you make money with Clickfunnels?

Of course, you can use Clickfunnels to make money by getting leads for your business, selling your services or products with a better conversion that regular websites, grow your email list or increase your affiliate income.

How does Clickfunnels work?

If you want to learn exactly how Clickfunnels work make sure to check out this article.

Even better, if you want to get started with Clickfunnels and want someone to guide you step-by-step and give you all the secrets to to create your first successful funnel, I suggest you check out the One Funnel Away Challenge.

It is Clickfunnels’ signature training lead the Russell Brunson and his team and it doesn’t get any better than being trained by them who have been making money with Clickfunnels for years in all possible niches.

What can I sell with Clickfunnels?

You can literally seel anything with Clickfunnels but here is. general list of the most common things people sell with Clcikfunnels:

• Digital products
• Online Courses
• Workshops
• Ebooks
• Coaching
• Consulting
• Affiliate products
• Freelance services

Is Clickfunnels “worth it”?

I get this question a LOT and my answer is always YES. Running a website has some inevitable costs whether you decide to run it on Clickfunnels or somewhere else. If we add up all the software and services you need vs. the same services Clickfunnels gives you in one place, the difference is not significant.

But that is not the strongest reason. ClickFunnels would not have become a $360 million company if it wasn’t ‘worth it’ for its users.

ClickFunnels allows you to integrate all major sales and marketing elements to come up with a functional and effective sales funnel. Instead of having separate platforms for your CMS, web host, landing page, autoresponders, and more, ClickFunnels can handle all these for you.

They are also the industry leaders when it comes to high converting sales funnels and landing pages with a huge number of success stories to back them up.

Do you still have questions about ClickFunnels? Let us know in the comments. We reply to all of them!

What is ClickFunnels’ Pricing

Clickfunnels offers two different pricing packages, differing with the number of sales funnels that can be created along with extra features.

The Clickfunnels Startup plan costs $97 a month, while the Clickfunnels platinum plan is a lot pricier at $297 a month.

If you are only starting out, the Startup plan is already a good starting point. The Enterprise plan, on the other hand, has all the bells and whistles of ClickFunnels such as the Backpack tool and Actionetics.

Recommended: Clickfunnels Pricing 2020 | Discounts & Alternatives | Never Pay Full Price

What is an alternative to Clickfunnels?

In my opinion, there are two decent alternatives to Clickfunnels:

Kartra, if you are looking for a similar sales funnels builder with similar features. The interface is a little harder to learn and the prices are quite similar yet they vary by the number of contacts you have.

GetResponse: if you are looking for something simpler and cheaper. It doesn’t have all of Clickfunnels features but, you can create landing pages and have the email software included since their $39 plan. The downside is they charge you based your number of contacts so at some point you can end up paying more than with Clickfunnels.

How can I get Clickfunnels for free?

You can get a free 14-day trial by going to this link. You’ll need to create an account and choose between the Startup plan for $97 per month or Full Suite plan for $297 per month. You can cancel your account at any time before the trial ends and won’t be charged.

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