In this age of working from home and people quitting to be their own boss, there are a lot of people wondering how they could make money at home, over the internet. Well, there are loads of ways, but one of the most overlooked and easiest to get into is an affiliate marketing blog.

An affiliate marketing blog is a blog specifically created for the sole purpose of showcasing products and services for the sake of marketing. You will gain a commission for directing traffic from your site to the brand’s website via a link specific to you and will be paid based on performance.

That’s the jist of the idea but keep reading for our guide on how to do it well. We’re breaking down what it takes to launch an affiliate blog.

Choose your niche

It’s important that you don’t spread yourself throughout the wide spectrum of potential audience members across the internet. If you appeal to everyone you will appeal to no one. The idea of an affiliate blog is you saying to the user “These items and services are specific to you, browse the huge collection of things we think you’d like”, so sticking a product like a new beauty brand on a gaming-specific site isn’t likely to gain a lot of traction.

Which is the other side of this, you want as much of your audience clicking as possible, and that won’t happen if you are showing them products that don’t appeal to them. So, whether you’re selling baking products, running a farm shop or plan on running an affiliate blog to promote sites such as Mr Green betting online, you want to choose a theme and stick with it.

Set up your blog

If you’re new to the idea of looking after a website, you’re in luck. There are a lot of website creators on the internet that will take the work out of it for you. Simply start with a template, fill it with features to make things even more fun and convenient, and focus on making the content.

Create quality content

The concept of what makes quality content has shifted lately. Especially quality marketing content. Big influencers have become untrustworthy and disingenuous in the eyes of users and so smaller creators, again, focusing on a niche for a community, have become the more trustworthy option.

But that isn’t the be all and end all of it. The demand for quality content has gone up. An ad read is considered the lowest of the low, and easy to scan over without taking in the point. Users are demanding more. If you can add the main points of the ad into content of another genre, like a skit, review, projects like a makeup look or recipe, etc. you will not only grab, but keep the audience’s attention.

Start marketing yourself

But before you can market anything, you need to market yourself. It’s easy enough to go into a brand’s website and see that they have an affiliate program, but to sign up you will require a certain number of followers to qualify.

So, for that reason, you might as well get started on marketing your blog as soon as possible. Set up your social media accounts, but don’t just stick to Twitter and Instagram. Find out where your followers tend to hang out in the websphere and start promoting there. For example, people looking at a gaming blog are likely to hang out on Reddit. People looking at a wedding blog are likely to have a Pinterest account. People looking at a book blog are likely to have a Tumbler or Wattpad account. Find where your people are and appeal to their tastes.