I am always asked this question “How can I get started in affiliate marketing?” especially from those who have heard of the advantages of becoming an affiliate marketer (especially when they read about how lucrative affiliate marketing is) and are raring to go, but yet they do not know how to get started…

What I’m going to share with you in this post is a simple, step-by-step guide (there are 5 simple steps in total) to help you get started in affiliate marketing without you needing to spend a single cent to make your first dollar online.

Getting excited? Let’s begin…

 
Step #01 – Choose Your Niche

I know many people are telling you that the make money online niche is the most profitable niche on the Internet and that you should go into it. This, however, is not true in my personal opinion (especially if you are a complete beginner who knows nothing about making money online).

The reason is because if you know nothing about making money online, then how are you going to provide the information to help others do so?

If you are just starting off, what I would strongly suggest is that you go into an area where you are interested in or have a good knowledge about. The reason is because if you are working on an area that you are interested in or have a good knowledge about, chances are that you will have no problems in sharing information about it, and at the same time helping like-minded people.
 
 
Step #02 – Setting Up Your Website

After you’ve chosen your niche, the next step is to set up your website (don’t worry, it’s nothing difficult at all to do so).

The easiest way to set up your first website is to sign up for a free blog at Blogger.com. The following is a screenshot showing you how Blogger.com looks like:

All you need to do is to click on the “Create A Blog” button, follow their simple step-by-step, point-and-click instructions, and you can have a blog set up within as little as 5 minutes (I shan’t elaborate on how to set up a Blogger blog here, as it is really simple to set one up).
 
 
Step #03 – Locate Products & Services To Promote

This step would require you to search for products and/or services that you can promote as an affiliate. To locate for such products and/or services, all you need to do is to search Google using the following key phrase:

affiliate program

Let’s say if your interest is in dog training, and you are looking for products and/or services on dog training that you can promote as an affiliate, you’ll then search Google for the following:

dog training affiliate program

The following screenshot are some of the results that’s returned by Google when I conducted a search on the key phrase “dog training affiliate program”:

What you need to do next is to visit each site that’s listed, take a good look at it (along with the products and/or services being sold) and ask yourself this question “Will I buy this product/service from this website/merchant?”

If your answer is a resounding yes, then you should go ahead and sign up to be an affiliate for the particular product and/service. However, if you are not convinced with the website or the benefits that the product will bring, then move on to the next website (because if you are not interested in the product and/or service offered, chances are that others will not be interested as well).
 
 
Step #04 – Write Articles For Your Blog

After you’ve signed up as an affiliate to promote products and/or services that caught your eye, next you need to write articles for your blog (with your articles centered around the products and/or services that you are promoting).

Let me give you an example here – You’ve just signed up as an affiliate to promote this dog training product (and one of its benefits of this product is that it will allow you to potty train your dog within the next 72 hours).

What you need to do here is to write articles related to potty training of your dog, and at the end of the article, tell your readers that you’ve discovered this product that will help potty train their dog within the next 72 hours (and here’s where you attach your affiliate link to the dog training product that you are promoting).

You may also want to write an article to review the product and/or service you are promoting. I’ve written a post titled “How To Write A Product Review” showing you how you can write a complete, and unbiased product review easily.

In case you are wondering how many articles should you post onto your blog, my personal advice would be that you write and post 1 article every single day to your blog.
 
 
Step #05 – Traffic Generation

This is, I must say, the most important of all 5 steps – The reason is because in order for you to be able to generate sales from your blog, people must know of its existence. If no one knows about it, then you are not going to be able to get any sale from it (no matter how professional or informative your blog is).

Therefore, traffic generation is very important – Get it right and you’ll receive huge targeted traffic to your blog, and you’ll be able to get the all important sale (and commissions into your bank account) that you’ve always been waiting for.

There are 2 types of traffic generation strategies – Free as well as paid. For the start, I would recommend that you make use of free traffic generation strategies (so that you will not burn a hole in your pocket even before you make your first dollar online).

There are 5 free traffic generation strategies that I would highly recommend you to use to start getting targeted traffic to your blog and you can read more about it in another post that I’ve written on “Free Traffic Generation Methods“.
 
 
 
I’ve just listed down 5 simple steps that you can follow to get started in affiliate marketing with no upfront spending. As long as you follow these 5 simple steps closely, I can guarantee you that you will be able to generate your first dollar online very soon.

Once you’ve managed to generate a considerable sum of money from your first blog, its time to move on to create your 2nd blog (in another niche), 3rd blog, and so on, to multiply your online income.

That’s all for today – Now’s the time for you to start taking action to apply what you’ve just learned in this post.