How to Start Affiliate Marketing (The #1 Resource for Beginners)
Let me show you how to start affiliate marketing. Step by step.
I’ve used this strategy to sell products worth millions of dollars.
In this guide, I’ll give you my best niches, templates, tools, and much more.
After reading this guide you know exactly what to do and what it takes to become a successful affiliate marketer.
If you prefer a video, you can watch it here.
Otherwise, let’s jump into it!
Step 1: Understanding Affiliate Marketing
Let’s start with what is affiliate marketing.
Quick definition
Affiliate marketing means getting compensated for recommending third-party products.
This can be clothes, software, movies, and whatever people buy online.
Affiliate marketing happens through special links called affiliate links.
You can add those to your blogs, social posts, and YouTube videos.
The success is based entirely on performance.
- If you generate no sales, you will earn $0.
- If you generate 100 sales, you will earn 100 compensations (also called commission)
A commission is typically 5–50% of the price of the product.
For example, a 10% commission on a $50 product means you earn $5.
This is a good marketing model because:
- It keeps the affiliates pushing—no sales equals no revenue.
- Companies don’t have to pay upfront for marketers who might not bring customers.
It’s a safe, scalable, and very easy-to-implement marketing strategy anyone can sign up for.
Example
Let me show you a concrete example of myself doing affiliate marketing.
For example, here’s my affiliate post that makes about $500 per month:
If you open the post and scroll down, you’ll see this “Top 3 Picks” section:
These are affiliate links.
If you click the first link, you will land on a page like this:
Nothing too interesting yet... But if you take a closer look at the URL of this page, you can see something odd in it:
The end of the URL has a part that says?via=artturi-jalli.
That part is my unique affiliate tracking ID.
(By the way, if this sounds technical, don’t worry. This all happens automatically. It’s just good to understand how it all works.)
Whenever someone clicks my affiliate link, the affiliate ID tells the product owner that I referred the customer. That’s how they can compensate me every time I bring someone in.
Pretty cool, huh?
The best part is that now I can share this freely.
For example, I could send it to my mates over WhatsApp:
I can add one on YouTube:
Or I can place one in a blog (perhaps the most common way.)
Then any time someone clicks that link and makes a purchase, I will earn a commission.
It’s as simple as that.
So to make affiliate marketing work, you need three things:
- An audience that needs product recommendations.
- A product that’s a good match for your audience.
- An affiliate deal to get compensated for recommendations.
Affiliate marketing is an easy concept. But don’t let this confuse you—it requires hard work.
In affiliate marketing:
- Finding a product is easy.
- Getting an affiliate deal is easy.
- Establishing the audience is freaking hard.
Let's talk about affiliate earnings before I show you how to find products, join affiliate programs, and build an audience.
Commission structures
When you make a sale in affiliate marketing, you will receive a commission.
This is a compensation for your marketing work.
But at least for me, it was surprising how high these commissions can be.
I thought that perhaps you could earn 1–2% per sale amount.
But depending on your niche, the commission might be as high as 50%.
If you get commissions like this, you don’t need many customers to earn a lot.
Speaking of commissions, there are two main types of commissions in affiliate marketing:
- One-time commissions. You get a one-time payment for your effort. For example, you may earn a $5 reward for promoting a t-shirt.
- Recurring commissions. You earn repeated commissions for every month that the customer keeps using a service. This is common in software. For example, on a $20/month software, you might earn $10/month for a customer.
For example, look at this affiliate program:
This program belongs to an online course platform called Thinkific. If you become an affiliate, you can earn up to $1,700/year from a single customer.
Of course, this is an edge case. In most niches, affiliate commissions are one-time, and commissions mere dollars.
But this highlights the importance of choosing the right topics.
- In one niche, your audience might make you $100/month
- In another, an audience of the same size might be $10,000/month.
For example, in the software niche, commissions are often 20–50% recurring revenue.
Who can become an affiliate? Is it for everyone?
Anyone can become an affiliate marketer.
You just need a computer, an internet connection, and a content-sharing platform.
The content-sharing platform can be:
- YouTube channel
- Medium.com blog
- WordPress website
In fact, I do them all:
However, getting accepted to affiliate programs varies across industries. This is important to understand before you choose your content platform.
- Some affiliate programs automatically accept you.
- Some review your content channels manually.
- Some require you to have your own .com website.
In fact, creating a website never hurts. I recommend starting one as soon as possible—no matter which platform you’re planning to use.
For example, the Amazon affiliate program requires you to have a website.
If you don’t have a website, build one by reading this guide:
For example, if you plan to do affiliate marketing related to tennis, you’d better start a tennis website.
A website acts as a “proof of professionalism.” It gives the affiliate company confidence in your marketing effort. Instead of having 1,000 random people join, they’d much rather have 20–30 well-chosen members.
How to become an affiliate?
To become an affiliate marketer, just sign up for an affiliate program.
You will find these programs by searching them on Google.
Once you find a program, all you need to do is fill in a simple application form.
It usually takes less than 2 minutes.
However, finding actually good affiliate programs can be a bit of a hassle.
Usually, it’s easy: Type your product followed by “affiliate program” on Google.
However, not all companies run affiliate programs (or they might have hidden those from the general public.)
Here are some reasons why this might happen:
- Companies believe affiliate marketing leads to fake reviews that hurt their reputation.
- Others don’t have the time and money to operate those.
- Some don’t share affiliate sign-up forms publicly. You need to use the product first to find the affiliate program.
Due to problems like this, a big chunk of companies don’t run affiliate programs.
Thus, finding a promotion-worthy product with an affiliate program can be tricky.
Tip: See what your competitors recommend. The top picks are usually products with affiliate programs. This is my favorite strategy.
The affiliate treatment varies
Once you join different affiliate programs, you will find a huge difference in engagement.
Some companies are passive. They never reach out to you, they don’t care about your reviews, credentials, websites, and such. They’re running the whole affiliate thing on autopilot.
Other companies are active. They might reach out to you to have a strategy session. They’ll send you materials, analyze your performance, and support you along the way. Also, they might kick you out for inactivity.
For example, last week I had an awesome call with my partner from The Multiverse AI:
Inactivity is not an issue when you’re getting started.
But it starts to bother you once you don’t get paid, something breaks, or you lose your affiliate access.
For example, I was once kicked out of an affiliate program that earned me $1,000 a month. It took three months to get back in and all they said was “Sorry, our systems thought you were a bot.”
Now that you understand how affiliate marketing works, let me show you how to become the next top affiliate.
Step 2: Choose a Niche
The most important part of affiliate marketing is choosing your niche. This is the topic around which you will create content.
This is big because it’s directly related to how you will perform.
If you promote VPNs to a tennis audience, you won’t see any sales.
But if you promote tennis shoes and rackets to a tennis audience, you will do much better.
Avoid most niches
You might imagine that a successful affiliate marketer can make any topic or niche work.
But that’s not the case.
Let’s be honest: Most topics are bad.
Even the most lucrative topics on paper might turn out to be impossible to compete in.
After years in the business, here’s how I see it:
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned marketer, most topics won’t work anymore. This is because:
- There’s too much competition.
- There are no affiliate programs.
- There’s no audience.
- You can’t gain enough expertise about your topic.
In other words, do careful research before you choose your niche.
An ideal niche
In an ideal world, your affiliate marketing niche should be something where you have:
- Passion
- No competition
- Huge commissions
- Tons of affiliate products
- Expertise
- Lots of experiences
But in reality, it’s never like that. Instead, you need to strike a balance between these.
The best niche is software
To save you from all the hassle and headaches, let me introduce you to my favorite niche: Software.
Software is good because you have:
- Lots of products to write about
- Trendy new AI products with little competition
- 20–50% recurring commissions
- An easy way to gain experience with the products
- Low entry barrier
I make most of my affiliate income through software recommendations. More specifically, I write product reviews like this. (More about those in just a bit.)
This is hands down the best niche right now—especially thanks to all the AI software that’s just popping up.
If it’s not software, make sure to select a niche that has demand and where the audience is people who are ready to buy.
This is the only way to make affiliate marketing work. It also makes it easier to create content and attract your audience.
Finding the Perfect Niche
If you don’t want to choose software as your niche, let me show you how to find a good one.
1. Ask AI
Ask AI tools (like ChatGPT) for affiliate marketing niches for a beginner.
But don’t choose one of these yet. If you do, there’s still a 99% chance that the niche is not good (at least not good for you.)
Use the AI-generated niche ideas as your inspiration and as a rough guidance. You still need to do the research and work to filter that list.
Don’t rely on AI in business ideas. It repeats what others have already said. If those ideas worked, people wouldn’t share them, and the AI wouldn’t know about them.
2. Avoid broad niches
As the next step, filter out all broad niches. These are topics that are super competitive and covered beyond limits.
Some examples of broad niches include credit cards, crypto, trading, medical, and so forth.
If you choose one of these, you’re biting more than you can chew.
Think about a niche like Fitness.
In the Fitness niche, a good blog post idea could be “Best workouts for beginners.”
There you could promote a fitness program and earn passive income.
But the problem is that there are millions of posts and videos about it already.
Yet only 10 or 20 of those posts make any money.
Worse yet, those are mostly established names like popular influencers or notable fitness companies.
In other words, there’s no way to stand out as an individual creator.
Long story short: Don’t go for a broad niche.
Avoid topics like cryptos, travel, fitness, or trading. Instead, narrow it down heavily.
3. Mind the trends
When you start going through your list of niches, think about trends.
You can even use a tool like Google Trends to find insights into how your topic is performing.
Consider a topic like “AI”. It’s booming right now. You can see this on Google Trends:
The above graph shows that people are doing more and more AI-related searches.
This is one of the best niches for content creators right now.
On the other hand, let’s take a look at something like DVD rental:
This industry has come down steadily for almost 20 years.
Avoid niches like this.
Obviously, you don’t need Google Trends to know that DVDs are out. But in some other niches, the trend might not be as obvious.
Also, keep in mind that the newer trend, the better the chances for you to succeed.
For example, I’ve made most of my money in the AI software niche.
This is such a new niche that no key players exist yet. I’ve seen that even bad blog posts and videos with no edits do great numbers. This is because no other content exists yet.
But trends die down too.
You’ll see the most consistent results by choosing an evergreen niche. Something that has stayed relevant and consistent over decades.
The only problem with evergreen niches is that there’s a lot of competition and you’ll see results slower.
It’s all about that balance.
4. Make you get paid good
Then, whenever you consider a niche, make sure there are affiliate programs that:
- Pay good
- Accept new members
- You can join easily
To this end, use Google.
Type in your niche (or something related to it) and follow that with “affiliate programs.”
Go through these lists carefully. Open up the affiliate program landing pages and analyze them carefully.
Pay attention to the product pricing and commissions.
Then, run some basic calculations for each niche.
Example 1.
Let’s say you’re thinking about Disc Golf as your niche.
Before you choose this niche, it’s important to do the numbers to make sure you don’t waste your time.
Here’s an example calculation just to give you some direction on what to pay attention to.
Let’s start by checking how many disc golfers there are.
That’s 4,000,000 players.
Then, let’s assume that 10% of that actively follows disc golf content on the internet.
That’s 400,000 players.
Let’s assume that 10% of these players buy something disc golf-related every month.
That’s 40,000 players.
Then, let’s take a look at some disc golf affiliate programs on Google:
For example, Infinite Discs pays 10% commissions for each cash payment.
Then, let’s look at their store.
That’s a lot of products…
But let’s assume all the purchases are discs (because 90% of them probably are.)
So let’s find out a typical pricing for a disc:
That’s about $20.
With a 10% commission, that is about $2 per sold disc.
If 40,000 players are buying, that’s $80,000 in commissions.
That is not a lot. The whole disc golf affiliate marketing industry is just $80,000/month.
If you now became one of the biggest disc golf influencers and you managed to get 1% of the pie, that would be just $800/month.
That’s just $800/month for years of grinding really hard.
This suggests that disc golf is not a good affiliate marketing niche.
Of course, these numbers aren’t exact and some additional research would be good. But this gives the ballpark.
5. Ask this question on every niche
When you consider a niche, ask yourself this question:
“Do I want to create the best content about this niche for years to come every day?”
This is important because to make a sale, your content needs to be the best.
- No platform promotes the second-best content.
- No search engine ranks pages with the second-best answer.
You need to build the highest building on the block. That’s the only way to stand out.
If you’re not interested in your niche, it’s tough to turn yourself into one of the top voices in that space. So please, be careful with this.
With affiliate marketing, your goal is to make your niche a better place. You need to become an expert and a trusted resource in that space.
Tip: Feel free to experiment with niches. Just don’t expect to see results by doing that. It takes a lot more than just a handful of content. Instead, experiment to see if you like the niche or not. Then stick with something that you truly find interesting enough.
6. Analyze competition
My favorite way to validate a niche is by analyzing the competitors.
The goal is simple: Find people at your skill level who are doing well in your niche.
If there are none, that’s a red flag!
Example: LearnWire (a YouTube channel)
Let me show you an example.
I found a channel called LearnWire on YouTube.
He is doing AI software reviews by sharing his screen and showing how the products work.
Simple yet effective concept, isn’t it?
With just 500 simple videos like that, he has over 1,5M total views.
On the surface, it looks like a dead channel because most of his videos get 500–2,000 views.
But as it turns out, this channel is a goldmine.
Let’s do the math.
One thing I noticed is that most of the popular videos are less than 2 years old. So let’s say this channel has had 1M views in the past year (based on the 1.5M total.)
Also, it seems this channel shows affiliate links in every video description:
Based on my experience, we can assume that 10% of the viewers click these affiliate links.
That makes about 100,000 affiliate clicks a year.
If we assume that the conversion rate is 2% (industry standard on content like this) we can assume that he makes 2,000 sales a year.
Let’s also assume that every customer he brings keeps using the paid plan for 10 months.
That’s 20,000 months in paid plans in total for 1M views.
If an average plan costs $10/month and the commission is 30%, that’s $3 per month per referred plan.
That makes 20,000 x $3 = $60,000 in a year.
So this channel makes about $60,000/year (or at least has the potential to do so.)
That’s big because producing videos like this is not hard. In fact, I could see myself doing the same with little to no practice.
And that’s what you should look for.
Channels or blogs that are thriving with work that you could do.
Anyways, based on my research, it seems that AI software is a good niche even for a beginner.
Alright, that’s it for the maths. Now, let’s continue searching for the niche.
7. Avoid YMYL niches
When you consider a niche, make sure it’s not YMYL.
YMYL stands for Your Money/Your Life.
Here are some examples of YMYL niches:
- Finance
- Medical/Health
- Legal
These are something that you should only target as a qualified expert. These YMYL niches provide information that can impact your audience’s well-being, health, financial stability, or safety.
Also, Google and YouTube have stricter policies promoting content like this.
It’s very hard to stand out in these spaces if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
8. It’s not rocket science
Remember that finding a niche is not rocket science. There’s no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all niche.
I know there’s a lot of new stuff but it all boils down to this:
Find a trendy niche that you care about. Make sure it pays you well and that a beginner can stand out in it. Avoid topics that impact someone’s financial stability, safety, or well-being.
If you remember this when searching for a niche, you’re on the right track.
Just don’t get stuck at this phase. It’s better to choose some niche than not to choose one at all.
Getting started is the hardest part of affiliate marketing. It just requires a lot of experimentation, research, and practice.
Step 3: Choose a Platform
Once you’ve selected your niche, it’s time to choose a content platform.
The “easiest” options with the consistent results are:
- Medium.com—a free blogging platform
- YouTube.come—a free video platform
- WordPress blog—a paid personal blog
You can choose multiple platforms at once, but that’s going to multiply the work required, so I recommend sticking with one.
Now let’s take a closer look at the platforms and discuss the benefits and drawbacks.
1. Medium.com Blog
My absolute favorite place to start affiliate marketing is on Medium.com.
Instead of paying for a domain and a hosting plan, you can join for free and start posting affiliate content.
Signing up only takes a minute and it’s free.
In case you’re new to Medium.com, it’s like the “YouTube for blogs.” It’s a website full of bloggers and blog posts.
The reason why Medium.com is good for affiliate marketing is because Google also loves Medium.
For example, take a look at this Medium post that ranks on Google:
This post is about the best AI headshot generator tools. It makes me about $500 per month because it ranks high on Google. Yet the post is only 1 month of age.
This is big!
Usually, it takes a long time for Google to rank your affiliate content. But on a platform like Medium, you might see great results in just a week or two.
I could show you around more but I don’t want to make this guide overly long.
To find a complete course on Medium, check my free 100-minute minicourse on YouTube:
Of course, with all the benefits of Medium come the drawbacks.
Here’s a table that summarizes it all:
I highly recommend Medium as your first platform for affiliate marketing. It’s where I started with awesome results.
2. YouTube channel
The next affiliate marketing platform is YouTube.
Instead of writing blog posts, here you can make affiliate videos. (More about the exact strategy later in this guide.)
Very similar to Medium, YouTube is a reputable website that Google tends to rank high in the search results.
Even if you published a video today, it might start getting passive traffic from search engines in days.
That’s the key to “passive income” that everyone talks about.
On top of this, YouTube is easy to get started with. Just sign up and start uploading videos.
But similar to Medium.com, YouTube has some drawbacks that you need to be aware of.
- For example, you can’t control what YouTube recommends and what they don’t.
- Also, making YouTube videos as a first-timer might be a hassle because of the editing skills and equipment that it requires.
Here’s a table that summarizes the pros and cons of YouTube:
(I haven’t yet created any YouTube affiliate marketing courses, but generally, the idea is the exact same as with blog posts. Just in a video format.)
3. WordPress blog
The absolute best affiliate marketing platform is a WordPress blog.
This means you build your own site with your custom .com domain name.
In other words, you’re the captain of the ship and the sole owner of your business. You can customize and scale up your website in any direction freely.
Once you’re big enough, you can even sell your site.
However, the problem with WordPress blogs is that it takes time to see results.
For example, my most recent site took over 3 months to see the first 100 visitors per day.
This is because there’s no built-in audience on a brand-new website.
- On Medium.com or YouTube, you might make your first sales in just a month.
- But on your own WordPress blog, that will usually take 6–12 months or more.
If you’re not 100% sure you want to start affiliate marketing, I highly recommend testing it on YouTube or Medium first. Once you get the ball rolling you can start your own website.
Here are the pros and cons of a WordPress blog:
Step 4: Creating Content
To become a successful affiliate marketer, you need an audience.
To build an audience, you need content.
But not just any content.
You should create content that solves problems for your target audience.
But with all the different content types and formats available, it can be hard to pick one.
So let me make it easy for you. As an affiliate marketer, you should only create content in one of these formats:
- Roundups: Compile a list of best products in a category.
- Product Reviews: Write a detailed review about one specific product.
- How-to Guides: Create a guide to solve a problem in your niche.
- Comparisons: Compare different products to help users make buying decisions.
- Alternatives: List and review alternatives of a popular product.
This applies to both blogs and videos. You can do the same content types in either format.
Next, let me show you how to actually produce content of each type.
1. Roundup reviews
In affiliate marketing, “a roundup” refers to a list of the best products in a product category.
Here are some examples of roundup content:
This is the key content type of affiliate marketing. I make 90% of my income with these.
The idea is to list and review the best products and then place your affiliate links to each.
People who read posts like this are very close to buying. They’re looking for information with credit cards in their hands.
Your roundup acts as a missing link between the customer and the seller.
Now, let me show you how to create a roundup post.
First of all, starting a blog post or video from a blank piece of paper is intimidating.
Instead of doing it this way, you need a proper content template.
Here’s one I use for roundup posts:
Tip: Nail two things at once: First, create a roundup. Then use it as your video script and publish on YouTube.
To access my full roundup content template with instructions, tips, and tricks, sign up for this free course.
Anyways, when you create roundups or any other affiliate content, mind the audience.
Solve a problem—don’t sell.
Instead of using sales strategies and language, you can just be yourself in the reviews. This makes it easy for your audience as well as for yourself.
Please keep these in mind:
- Create experience-based useful content only.
- Show yourself using the products either by showing video clips or taking images of the products in action,
- Make every word count. Cut out all the jargon.
- Don’t use AI. It can’t use the products and share experiences.
Creating good affiliate content takes a lot of time. It requires years of hard work before you get to enjoy the fruits of the labor.
Let’s move on to the next affiliate content type.
2. Product reviews
A product review is a detailed video or a blog post that reviews a product.
Some examples of product reviews include:
The idea is to show yourself using a product and being as honest as possible.
The goal is to help the audience decide if they should buy.
If the reader is convinced of the product, they can use your affiliate links to complete the purchase.
This is something I’ve done here for example:
Just don’t overdo the linking. Don’t spam links everywhere.
- Leave 5–10 of them in your blog content.
- Or if you have a video, leave a link in the description and your top comment.
Similar to the roundup content, you need a template for your product reviews to save time. Here’s the one I use:
Remember, the point of a product review is to provide value to your audience.
The only way to do this is by showing them what they can expect as a customer.
It doesn’t help to just list the features or ratings. There are millions of resources doing that already. (Heck, you can even do that with ChatGPT.)
The money is in the “My Experience” section. There you should show yourself using the product and share honest takes on it.
If you don’t share experiences with the products, no platform will promote your content. The gurus won’t tell you this but this is the reality.
3. How to guides
How-to guides are a powerful way to do affiliate marketing.
The idea of a how-to guide is to solve a problem for your reader by using a product you’re affiliated with.
Then you can casually show yourself using the product in the guide with your affiliate links. This leads a portion of your viewers to click one of the links to buy from you.
Some examples of affiliate how-to guides include:
But to make this work, the product must be a great fit. It can’t be something over-priced or useless.
For instance, demonstrating how to create a text document with a service that costs $20/month instead of using Word is stupid.
Your audience can sense biased affiliate content from miles away.
- Just because they find your content doesn’t mean they’ll trust it blindly—especially if they don’t know you.
If you write a how-to post, solve a problem and do it in an easy and actionable way.
Also, don’t just write text but show yourself solving the problem too.
I don’t have a template for a how-to guide because those vary from topic to topic.
Just keep it short but at the same time make sure to cover the entire topic. Use a lot of images and visuals to make it count. Don’t just rely on text—that’s what even the AI can do.
Here’s a great example how-to guide I’ve made:
4. Comparison content
Another common affiliate content type is a comparison between two products.
Here are some examples:
The idea is to take two popular products, test them, and compare them against one another.
The power of this content type lies in the fact that people are once again close to making a purchase.
They know about Product A and Product B but aren’t sure which one to choose.
This is a great chance to make affiliate income.
- Test both products.
- Create a comprehensive review that compares them.
- Slip in affiliate links.
- Profit.
If the reader is convinced, they can click your link to complete a purchase and you will earn your compensation.
To create comparison content, I recommend using the following template:
- Start the content by listing the key differences (and commonalities.)
- Review Product A (use the review template from earlier.)
- Review Product B (use the review template from earlier.)
- Summarize by mentioning the key difference and the winner.
You can use the product review template for the individual product review sections.
Mention things like: “This feature doesn’t work as well in Product A.” or “Unlike Product A, Product B offers this for free.”
Just help your audience and you’re good to go.
5. Best-alternatives-to content
Last but not least, we have the best-alternatives-to content.
Here are some examples:
This type of content is essentially just a roundup.
The idea is to take a popular product and list useful (cheaper) alternatives to it.
This content is powerful because it targets people that are close to buying.
You can use the roundup template from earlier to write an alternative post. Just remember to explain why each product makes it a good alternative. This can be a separate section for each product.
Step 5: Disclose Affiliate Links
When you do affiliate marketing, you need to clearly “reveal” it first. Otherwise, you’ll land in hot waters.
An affiliate disclosure is required by the law.
If it’s a blog post, you can add a short disclaimer like this at the beginning:
For example, you can use a disclosure like this:
“Disclaimer: This post is reader-supported. It has affiliate links at no cost to you. I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.”
The same goes with videos (or any other type of content.) In videos, you can leave a disclaimer in the video description.
Please, be careful with this. You need to have one any time you get paid for including a product in your content.
Step 6: Learn the Right Content Philosophy
Affiliate marketing is not selling. It’s about helping a buying audience make a purchase decision.
The only way to do this is by recommending products you have used.
This will give your viewers tremendous value because they can see another customer use the product. This also saves their time and money.
Sadly, you’re not the only one doing affiliate marketing.
If you review a product chances are that hundreds of others have done the same. Thus, it can be hard to stand out.
That’s why your content needs to be the best—best by a mile.
You need to build the tallest building on the block.
This might sound hard. But with affiliate marketing, being the “best” is actually easier than you thought.
Being the best does not mean:
- Using fancy words
- Showing flashy images
- Having crazy edits
- Being a good salesperson
- Knowing about sales psychology
None of this is relevant.
All your readers care about is that they find the right products to solve their problems.
To be the best,
- If your competitor has reviewed 5 products, do at least 10.
- If your competitor shows 3 alternatives, show at least 5.
- If your competitor shows 3 use cases of a product, show 10.
Share as much useful information and insights as possible. Use as many images as possible.
Create content for humans, not for robots.
No platform or search engine will promote content that’s not the best—at least not in the long run.
I love do software reviews. Instead of having to buy products worth thousands, I can sign up for free trials (or arrange those) and test the products on the spot. I highly recommend software for your affiliate marketing niche.
Step 7: How to Find Affiliate Topics
All right, I’ve covered almost everything.
But one thing is missing: How to find affiliate content topics.
As I’ve mentioned before, you shouldn’t write about random topics. Instead, you should write about topics that lots of buying people are searching for.
Luckily, you don’t need paid tools for this. Just use Google’s data.
So open up Google, and type in “Best” followed by your niche (or something related to it.)
For example, if I want to write an AI software review, I’ll type in “Best AI” and see what Google recommends.
These suggestions are not random guesses.
Instead, they’re related to Google’s data on what people are searching for and what they’re most likely going to type.
In other words, these are sought-after topics you should cover.
Feel free to refine your searches. For example, instead of doing “Best AI…” I can do “Best AI tools for…”
This shows me even more affiliate content ideas.
These are good for blog posts as well as YouTube videos. You can actually do the same on YouTube too.
Heck, you can even use Google Trends:
When you create content about these topics, get creative with the title.
If your topic is “Best AI tools for students,” it doesn’t have to be your title. Platforms like YouTube and Google analyze your content and they will find the right audience for it.
For example, instead of “Best AI tools for students,” do something like:
- I increased my GPA with these 5 amazing AI tools
- I tested these 5 AI tools as a student
This adds originality and personality to the titles.
Especially if you’re writing about a topic that has been covered millions of times before, it might make sense to use a bit more creative title.
Step 8: Sign up for my free masterclass
If you want to start an affiliate marketing blog (like most who start affiliate marketing) make sure to check this free masterclass.
In this masterclass, I teach you how to start a successful blog. In the full course, I will show you step-by-step how to start a website, how to write blog posts, how to monetize, and stuff like that.
Also, the main value-add comes from the fact that I work closely with my students :) This is something you don’t want to miss. See you there!
