I make a commission from purchases made through links in my posts, at no extra cost to you. Read my disclosure for more information.
Do you want to learn more about how to make money online? Before I got started with my blogging and affiliate marketing, I did months of research on how to make money online. I always want to learn how something works or learn more on what it is about before moving forward with a decision like this. Since you are reading this blog post you are just as curious too.
I want to help others learn by sharing what I learned and I will update my posts as I learn more on this topic. When I first starting writing about how I learned to make money online. I didn’t realize it was going to turn into a blog series. I will put these additional links in the posts below. Here is the path I took to make money online and your path might be different than mine.
How To Make Money Online In 8 Easy Steps For Beginners
- Choosing Your Blog Niche
- Do A Google Search On That Niche To See How Popular It Is
- Create A Blog About That Topic
- Create Social Media Accounts To Help Promote Your Blog Posts
- Decide If You Want To Manual Post On Social Media Or Use A Tool
- How To Get Signed Up With Affiliate Marketing Programs
- Know The Rules That Comes With Affiliate Marketing Online
- Insider blogger Tips You Should Know
Choosing Your Blog Niche
A niche is a topic. For example: rock climbing shoes, hot sauces, handbags, etc.
Your niche is the topic you write about on your blog or focus your affiliate strategy around. It will be the reason people come to your blog for help or information on that topic. This means, you not only need to be knowledgeable in your chosen niche, but you also need to enjoy writing about it. You don’t have to know everything about that topic but you will have to be will to learn more about it. While you can change or add to your niche down the line.
Want to learn more about “What is a Blog
Niche?” Check out this blog post!
Do you want help in finding your niche? Click the image below to get my free Niche Checklist to help you find your Niche!
Still, feeling a little lost in finding your Niche!? Don’t feel bad, I had the same struggles when I create my first blog too. I have a system that can help with discovering your niche. Do you want to learn more about this step-by-step process in more detail? Click here to learn more about Starting a Blog That Pays system. I have used this system to help countless other women with discovering their niche and I would love the opportunity to help you too!
Do A Google Search On That Niche To See How Popular It Is
This will also help you see if there are blogs and websites about the topic. You can check out what these blogs and websites say about the niche or topic you have chosen. You will want to check your niche topic out in Google Trends to see what the traffic will be like. –> https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
Let’s say, for example, you want to do a blog healthy eating centered on keto, and you want to blog about it. You want to be sure you will get a big enough audience for your topics, Healthy eating, and keto. You will need to know how big the competition is out there for your niche.
To begin your research, type in “keto” on Google Trends. This will reveal how many people are looking into that keyword. Google Trends will display a graph that shows the increase or decrease in interest over a certain topic of time. You will want to avoid topics that are based on fads, they will have a dwindling interest in Google Trends. Building a blog around a fad is sure to fail and I don’t want you to fail.
Create A Blog About That Topic
You will want to have some blog posts written (5 at the minimum) before going live with your site. You will want o to create a post people can’t wait to read. How do you do that you might wonder? It starts with an eye-catching headline. The purpose of your headline is to get your audience’s attention. It makes them interested and curious enough that they will eager to click on your awesome post.
Remember the intent of creating your posts is to help your reader with their problem. It needs to provides a solution to their problem with a product or service you recommend. The reader will not trust you if you did not truly help them. It’s not about you, it is about them and their problem. It will also help if you can share your personal experience or story with that problem and how you solved it.
Want to learn more about “How to start a blog?” Check out this blog post!
In it I give you resources, to help you get your blog off the ground. The post also covers affiliate marketing with a blog.
Create Social Media Accounts To Help Promote Your Blog Posts
Start with one or two social media platforms, you can always grow from there. Connect your blog to your social media accounts. These social media accounts will help you get traffic to your blog. I would suggest starting with Pinterest.
I cover more on this, in the “How to start a blog for beginners?” post.
Decide If You Want To Manual Post On Social Media Or Use A Tool
You will want t0 promote your posts on your social media accounts. However, manually posting your content at the right time of the day can be inconvenient and tedious! This is where a tool like Tailwind comes in handy. I use Tailwind to help me streamline my social media presence. It helps me schedule my post out without all the headache of manually posting.
Want to learn about Tailwind and what it can do for you? Check out this Tailwind post!
How To Get Signed Up With Affiliate Marketing Programs
To make money from your blog and social media accounts you will want to sign up on an affiliate marketing programs. I have a master guide on these high paying programs for bloggers and I detail how it works.
Want to learn more about “High Paying Affiliate Programs for Bloggers”? Get this guide for yourself!
Becoming an affiliate is fairly easy. You don’t need a ton of page views or followers to be approved by most companies. So even if you are a brand new blogger with a brand new blog, you can still be a successful affiliate.
If you want to learn how to set up your blog the right way step-by-step, I would suggest using the Start a Blog that Pays Method. It is an easy to follow guide and workbook.
There’s no need to wait until you have a bigger following, you can (and should!) monetize and start earning affiliate income. I earned my first affiliate sale in my first 2 weeks of having my blog up. It will take time to build financial momentum if you monetize correctly. Some bloggers were able to replace their day job income in as little as 2 years with blogging. It is possible but it takes hard work, patience, and dedication to make it happen.
Know The Rules That Comes With Affiliate Marketing Online
Then you will need to be aware of the FTC rules on disclosing, that you use affiliate links. (This is required in the USA.)
For example, if you are going to use Pinterest for affiliate marketing, you will have to follow this FTC rule.
Pinterest Affiliate Link Disclosures
The most important rule you need to remember when adding affiliate links is to mention that it is an affiliate link. In your pin descriptions, Pinterest urges you to always disclose that it is an affiliate link and affiliate networks require it. You can write this within your description or use #affiliate, #Ad, or #afflink at the end of your description.
This needs to be done to follow affiliate network rules and abide by FTC regulations. Failure to do so can get you banned from Pinterest. If you pin goes to a post that has affiliate links then you don’t need to use the #affiliate, #Ad, or #afflink.
You will have to check with the other social media platform’s policies on their affiliate marketing rules.
I want to learn more about the FTC rules on affiliate links. Check out this blog post!
Insider blogger Tips You Should Know
Very few sites will tell you that when you do affiliate marketing you will need to consider dealing with taxes. I know taxes are not a very popular topic but something you need to be aware of. I cover that information in more detail in another blog post. (This will apply to you if you are in the USA.) Want to learn more, check out this blog post!
Have questions about taxes? Get help with Nolo’s tax products.
I am not a financial adviser, legal adviser, or a tax professional! The other resources I have found, that were open about this topic are legitimate affiliate marketing training courses. This is only been from my experience, and you can take it with a grain of salt.
Want to learn more about affiliate marketing courses? Check out this blog post!
In that blog post, I give reviews on different affiliate marketing training programs that I did research on. I am not going to recommend a training program that I wouldn’t take myself. Some of them I have already taken the training and have been able to implement what I have learned to my business.
A good affiliate marketing training program will teach you that to make money online you have to put time and money into it. If someone tells you that you don’t have to put in time and money into it. They are lying to you and it is a scam!
I hope I didn’t scare you off from starting your own blog or make money online from affiliate marketing. I just want to provide honest information for your consideration. These are the thing I learned from months of research on how to make money online. I also use affiliate marketing in my blog post too.
Still, feeling a little lost in when it comes to blogging!? Don’t feel bad, I had the same struggles when I create my first blog too. I have some free templates and checklists that can help you with getting past everyday blogging hurdles. Do you want to learn more? Click here to get your free templates and checklists.
Other helpful related posts about blogging …
How To Start A Blog In 8 Easy Steps
How To Choose Your Blog Niche?
Resources to Start Your First Blog
How To Make Money Online
7 Making Money Online Tips: Legal Issues You Should Know About As A Blogger
11 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid That Can Cost You!
Does Google Penalize For Keyword Stuffing and How It Hurts Your Blog’s SEO
How Do Bloggers Make Money Online? The Real Truth!
Why You Are Not Making Money with Amazon Affiliate Program? I Will Reveal Why!
Which Affiliate Programs Should You Choose?
The Best Tools for Affiliate Marketing
I make a commission from purchases made through links in my posts, at no extra cost to you. Read my disclosure for more information.
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How To Make Money Online In 8 Easy Steps For Beginners
Do you want to learn more about how to make money online? Before I got started with my blogging and affiliate marketing, I did months of research on how to make money online.
I didn’t even know this was possible until I saw your post on Pinterest!
I hope the post was helpful to you Morgan. Let me know if you have any questions.