How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Faster

Real-Life Case Studies

A Success story

Some years ago, I started my first affiliate site. At that time, I didn’t know any traffic source other than Google. So, I had to find a niche that could easily rank in Google search results. That was “digital marketing guides” after strict research. Then, I used SEMRush to research several keywords on it. I imagined a target audience in mind and selected valuable search terms related to the audience. When searching the keywords on Google, there were no strong competitors.

Then, I created different personas for each keyword to write unique articles for each. For example, I wrote two articles on the best digital marketing books for beginners and the best books for advanced digital marketers related to the keyword ‘digital marketing books’. I wrote more articles like these and published them one by one on the site.

I used just basic on-page SEO techniques to help search engines index my pages properly.  At that time, I didn’t use any social media platforms, email marketing, and link-building strategies. I just wrote quality articles, inserted relevant affiliate links and published them regularly keeping the audience engaged.

First, I earned Rs. 1035 after six months as an affiliate commission from Amazon. It’s without AdSense earnings. I joined some other affiliate programs and inserted their affiliate links in my next articles. I found increasing my affiliate earnings month after month. After one year, my daily website traffic was more than 10,000 and my monthly affiliate income was above Rs. 15,000 and increasing.

What is the success mantra behind this story? I tried to find a unique low-competition niche. Then, I wrote quality content tailored to the audience from my own experience after I learnt their interests and paint points. So, it was easier to rank high in Google and drive organic traffic to my site.                                            

Lessons learned from top affiliates

Every successful affiliate marketer uses a unique strategy to stand out from others. I am the same type. You can apply the common strategies other affiliates use, but you can’t succeed until you have your own working plan that other affiliates don’t use. It means to see what they are doing and find out a marketing gap.

However, these are what I learned from top affiliates:

• Consistency: Every successful affiliate maintains a regular schedule for content creation and marketing efforts. You should also do it. Publish valuable content regularly in the interest of your audience and look for any challenge to solve.
• Quality Content: It means content that solves their problems, relieves their pains and makes their life happy. So, create content prioritising these values to your audience and then promoting products.
• Continuous Learning: A strategy once worked may not be effective these days. Always learn the latest industry trends and adapt to new strategies. For example, artificial intelligence has become a norm today. So, learn AI and leverage AI.
• Trust: If a book you recommend satisfies readers’ interests, it builds long-term trust with them. They will believe your recommendations and buy what you recommend. But, don’t recommend a product if you don’t know exactly. In this case, write a review comparing the features of similar products and let the readers choose.
• Income Diversification: Don’t rely on a single affiliate program. For example, the Amazon Associate Program is good for most affiliates (especially beginners). But when you have an issue with it, your affiliate income will be risky. So, work for more affiliate programs instead of a single program.