How To Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money

If you do it right, affiliate marketing can make you money while you're on the beach, in the mountains, or even sleeping. I would know, I've been doing this for years.

I started my first affiliate marketing blog 10 years ago with just $40 and no idea what I was doing. Now, he's making six figures and I only have to work a few hours a week to make it work.

In fact, this affiliate site receives over 100,000 visits per month from Google:

In this article, I will teach you How to begin affiliate selling with (almost) no cash. I'll share how I did it and what you'll be able to do to induce started nowadays.

 

how to start affiliate marketing with no money

How does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing is the process of promoting someone else's products or services and generating a commission every time someone makes a purchase after clicking on your affiliate link.

For example, if you post a blog post or YouTube video sharing the best pet hair vacuums and someone buys a product you recommend after clicking on your affiliate link, You are paid a share of that sale.

It's a great business model because you have almost no overhead and don't have to manufacture, ship, or handle customer service. You get paid to market cool stuff.

 

Can You Extremely Begin Affiliate Selling With No Money?

The only way to get started with affiliate marketing for no money is to get an affiliate link and start sending it to people you know. While it's possible, it's not scalable and won't make you much money unless you're constantly networking.

Instead, the most successful affiliate marketers create a website and social media channels to drive traffic to their affiliate links. While social media accounts are free, a website costs a few bucks.

Specifically, you will need to purchase a domain name and website hosting. A domain costs you about $3 to $7 for the first year, and hosting starts at $2.75 per month (paid annually, that's $33).

So you'll need at least $36 to get started by the time this post is published.

 

How to Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money

If you have $36 and want to try this business model, I've given you five easy steps to get started in affiliate marketing:

Step 1. Find a Distinct Segment or a Decent Affiliate Program

The first and most important step is to figure out what you want to talk about and in other words, promote your niche.

Your niche can be anything from a hobby to a lifestyle interest. Like dogs? It can be a niche. Interested in cryptocurrency? possible place. You get the idea.

Choosing a niche is one of the most difficult parts of affiliate marketing. You should choose something that you don't mind creating content for years to come. It takes time to build the authority and brand awareness to turn this into a full-time business, so don't be afraid to spend some time here.

Now, there area unit a couple of ways that to decide on your niche. You can choose a niche you're already interested in, or you can search for good affiliate programs first and build your niche on those programs.

Finding good paying affiliate programs with quality companies can be difficult. You will usually find good products with low commissions (2%–4%) or bad products with high commissions (20%+).

But every once in a while, you'll find a high-quality product with a high commission rate. And if you do, it might be worth building your space as a base. Getting high-paying affiliates is much better than just promoting Amazon products.

There is nothing wrong with creating an Amazon affiliate website. However, don't expect to make a lot of money from it unless you have a lot of traffic and sales.

So yes, it is worth looking for a better affiliate program.

The best affiliate partnerships are built by building a direct relationship with the brand you want to promote and negotiating a private deal.

So where do you find good affiliate partners?

Think about the things you already enjoy and look for your favorite products or services in those niches. See if any of these products have an existing affiliate program. If not.

You can conjointly realize potential affiliate programs by finding out "[your niche] affiliate programs" on Google. You'll often find lists of brands that have affiliate programs, as well as program details.

 

Step 2. Decide on the Traffic Channel

One of the biggest mistakes I see beginners make (and have made myself) is focusing on creating content for too many traffic channels at once. They create accounts on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest, all while managing their blog, which is pretty much it.

Each of these channels takes months or years to learn and build an engaged audience. And each of these can fill enough time for a full-time job.

Instead, pick one or two major traffic sources (my favorites are YouTube and Google because they can drive recurring organic traffic) and get really good at them.

Yes, you can have one account per channel. Sure, you can easily share your blog posts on them. But focus and create most of your content on one channel, then use another to support that channel.

Organic traffic from search engines like Google is one of the best ways to earn passive and recurring affiliate income. It takes time to be told the abilities and acquire to page #1 on Google. But SEO is worth learning in the long run because it gives you traffic every time someone searches and finds your content.

One of my sites received over 100,000 hits from Google in a single month without me creating or promoting a single piece of content for an entire month:

YouTube is similar in that it is also often used as a search engine, making it another great source of return visitors without the need to constantly create and promote new content.

Of course, the traffic channel you choose depends on your own preferences and your location. Some niches are much more competitive than others on search engines.

If you find keywords with low to medium difficulty, this may be a sign that Google is a great source of traffic for you. If not, you may want to consider a different source of traffic, to begin with.

 

Step 3. Create Impactful Content

Regardless of which platform you choose to focus on, you'll need one thing to be successful:

Great content.

Your content should be so good, so interesting, and so engaging that people are eager to consume and share it. Whether it's videos, photos, or blog posts, the only way to stand out in this crowded marketplace is to make your content really good.

This doesn't necessarily mean you need the highest quality camera or the most attractive website. In fact, what makes great content varies by niche and platform.

But in general, your content needs to be good at one of two things:

1. Amusing
2. to inform

If you can inform and entertain people, you will do well with affiliate marketing. This can mean great storytelling, in-depth research, or excellent presentation of information.

Of course, getting traffic from Google will be very different from Instagram or TikTok. The intention is different: one platform is used for learning, the other for entertainment.

Creating amazing content for Google requires a lot of research:

• Keyword research
• Investigate search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Watch videos and read forum posts
• etc

Then you need to organize this research in a way that is easy to understand, well-written, and suitable for search engines. The goal is to create something that is better than what already ranks on page n. 1 for your target keywords.

 

Step 4. Promote Like Crazy

Remember how I told you to focus on one channel for traffic?

What I really mean by this is to focus on creating content for one channel. You can still use other channels to promote this content.

• Interact with others in the forums.
• Build relationships with others in your niche and similar niches.
• Comment on other people's videos and content.
• Do cold email outreach.
• and more.

 

Step 5. Scale Up

Once you find a traffic channel that works, you can work to expand your efforts. Double down on content and promotion methods that work and eliminate those that don't.

At this point, you might consider hiring a writer, video editor, or social media manager to help you maximize your time.

Places like UpWork and Fiverr can help you find an assistant for a relatively low cost. Finding the right person can take several jobs. But once you do, they will save you time and make the recruitment process efficient.

To give yourself the best chance of landing a high-quality worker, choose only those with good reviews.

However, don't just look at five-star review averages and assume they're good. Please read some recent reviews to make sure they are not fake purchased reviews.

And there you have it: five steps to start affiliate marketing with basically no money.

 

Final Thoughts

It is possible to start an affiliate marketing business with no money, but there is a huge learning curve and it requires original thinking and out-of-the-box thinking.

With enough determination, you can build a business that generates passive income while you spend your time on hobbies, relaxing, with family, or whatever else you want.

READ MORE:

Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: Your Getting Started Guide (2022)

Amazon Affiliate Marketing: How to Become an Amazon Associate to Increase Income

What is Affiliate Marketing? A 2022 Guide to Getting Started

What is Pay Per Click (PPC) Management?