Affiliate Marketer’s Checklist For Beginners

This is a beginner’s checklist for those new to Affiliate Marketing. It was created to help you on your path to running your own business. It is not an all-inclusive list, but our team tried to make it as comprehensive as possible so that the road is not so bumpy. 

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Determine Your Niche

Figuring out your niche is the first and most important part of affiliate marketing. You will need a topic to write about for your new website. Your website needs a direction and eventually a plan, but it all starts with finding your niche which you will want to laser focus on.

Start with writing down your hobbies and things you are passionate about.

Is there anything on that list that you could write about from now into the foreseeable future?

Examples of Niches

Electronics

Making Money Online

Education

Travel

Fashion

Cooking

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Determine Your Target Audience

If you have not already you need to choose your target audience. Who is your target audience? What is their level of education? Income? Where do they hang out online? What are their pain points? How can you solve/ help them? Basically, Who are you writing your content for?

The ideas listed above are niches, but they are too broad, and you will need to narrow them down. Consider different age groups, location(s), or the needs of a specific demographic. This is called “choosing your target audience”.

Examples of many possible targeted niches that you can draw some inspiration from are as follows:

Electronics for Kids

How to Make Money Online For College Students

Education For People With Special Needs

Women Who Travel

Fashion For Girls Ages 2-4

Cooking / Recipes For Diabetics 

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Setup Hosting

This is self-explanatory, but it means you need somewhere to house the site. We use Wealthy Affiliate hosting, but you could use Bluehost, Siteground, Godaddy, etc, or any other website hosting service. The site will still be under your control even though you are not housing it yourself.  

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Setup Your Website

We use WordPress through “Site Build It” on Wealthy Affiliate for ours, but you can set up the site however you see fit. There are many informational posts out on the web that teach you how to create a website with your preferred platform.

We suggest looking for posts that match your preferred method ie WordPress, Wix, Shopify, etc. Many tutorials are available on youtube to assist with detailed information that may be platform-specific to help you on your way.

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Determine How To Monetize Your Site

There are many ways to monetize your website, such as renting ad space on your site, affiliate programs, or even direct sales. Be sure you know what options you plan to use when you get started. This will make the process of creating your monetization plan a much less painful endeavor. 

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Create A Content Plan

You need to sit down and map out your site. What topics will you be writing about? What keywords are you going to be using?

Use our free, done for you, content planner on Google Docs to make things easier.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-T3pz3mrC1dlFvoqnmaoz5pmpB8WwRF3OPlQ9x_AE6I/edit?usp=sharing

You will need to click the link to go Google Docs then click “File”, then “make a copy”. 

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Create A Monetization Plan

Next, you will want to brainstorm how you are going to monetize your website. Will you be using just affiliate programs? Maybe you will want to eventually rent out ad space on your site. It is necessary to plan these things before you get started. There are many programs you can apply to and with luck, your site will become very profitable.  

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Create First Content

The first content on your website should be a privacy policy page, an about me (or us) page, and an affiliate disclaimer page. This will be the legal content for the site and will be the framework from which you build your future success so be sure that it is all filled out correctly and is presentable.

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Create More Content

Now you need to create between 25-30 informational posts about your niche. This can be done through how-to’s, reviews, and typical informational posts, but the content needs to be a minimum of a thousand words for many of the search engines to pick it up.  

Be sure that you have optimized your site for SEO and try to follow through by using your keywords when completing your content.

Search Engine Optimization helps your article to get indexed and ranked in the search engines so this is very important for organic traffic.

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Sign Up For The Right Affiliate Programs

Now that you have the core of your website up and running, it is time to find and apply to affiliate programs. But which ones? Well start by searching for stores that you know are in your niche. Find out if they have affiliate programs. Then try typing “your niche” + “affiliate program” in a search engine like Google.  

You will have to evaluate each program individually. You will want to know

1. How and when do you get paid.
2. The commission rate
3. The terms and conditions
4. cookie duration (if applicable)

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Conclusion

This affiliate marketer’s checklist for beginners is a roadmap for your business’s success. It has an easy-to-follow blueprint for the initial stages and development of your business website. Make sure you utilize the free content planner as it will make creating content much easier. Have a plan and take action. This is the only way you will succeed.

Speaking of succeeding, subscribe to our email list for alerts on new content to help grow your business. Plus there are a couple of free goodies you can only get through subscribing!

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