Everyone likes Free, and especially if they can start a business for free. Unfortunately, even the best FREE business opportunities are not really free. Even if there is no money out of pocket in the beginning, there is an investment of your time, and your time is worth something. The only question you must ask yourself when considering a ‘free business opportunity’ then is how much time are you willing to invest into the opportunity to make it successful for yourself. But, if money is the only thing holding you back from making money online, there are a lot of opportunities that can generate you an income – and in some instances a very large income – but you must decide if you are willing to invest your time in the same way you would if you had put up a bunch of money to get involved.

SD Ward & Associates is continually reviewing online marketing opportunities for clients, and have several recommendations for great online marketing opportunities that you can join for free under our “Join for Free!” tab to the right of this article; however, this particular article is dedicated to that of getting started in affiliate marketing without having to spend any money to do so. 

The following are five steps are how you can start building a financial future as an affiliate marketing professional. All it will take is your time – a few focused hours a day for a few months – to start generating a growing income without any out of pocket expenses. There is really no better place in the world that an average individual with Internet access can start making money without having to put a single dollar out of their pocket in order to do so.  Let me share briefly how you can go about doing this, and offer you some guidelines that will get you well on your way to building a monthly re-occurring income working from the comfort of your home.

The one business that I know for certain that you can start with absolutely NO money out of pocket is that of building an affiliate marketing business. Affiliate marketing is a really slick way of earning an income from home, and the only ‘investment’ you have is your time. Affiliate marketing is the process by which you select a product or service that you believe in or feel comfortable with telling others about, then set about marketing that product or service on behalf of the individual or company that is offering it. The best part of affiliate marketing is that you can promote as many products or services as you want to. And, IF you are good at it (and thousands upon thousands of average people are) you can make enormous (LOTS) of money.

Steps to Starting Your Own Online Affiliate Marketing Business

In a nut shell, for you readers who get bored or grow impatient quickly, this is how you do it: choose a product you like, sign up as an affiliate of it, write articles that interest you, advertise the affiliate links for your products or services on your article page, promote your article. It’s that simple. OK, so, now that I have the bored and the impatient taken care of, let’s break this affiliate marketing business down and see what it takes.

1)  You will need to have access to a computer or smart phone with Internet access. I have known some people that did not have a computer or Internet service to start an affiliate marketing business who worked from a school computer lab or used a computer at a public library. There really isn’t any reason anyone that can read or type can’t do this if they really want to.

2)  Find a good affiliate program that offers good commissions for what they have to sell. There are lots of companies that have affiliate programs. Almost everything you can think of is or can be marketed through affiliate programs. Most Fortune 500 companies offer some sort of affiliate program to promote at least one of their products if not all of them. There are several companies online that you can work with who broker affiliate programs. In some cases you can deal directly with the company that is offering a product or service. One particular type of company that I started doing affiliate marketing with was computer software like that of Anti-virus and computer performance and maintenance software. I chose this because, #1, I really believed in what the software had to offer (personal experience), and #2, the commissions were good on the software I chose to sell.

3)  Determine what subject or subjects that you are really knowledgeable or passionate about. I always recommend to my coaching clients that it be one that you know a great deal about where others could either be inspired or benefit from your knowledge or experience. Once you determine what that subject or interest is (or they are), begin writing on it each day. Write short articles of between 500 and 750 words that can be read in three or four minutes max. This is a good length to engage a reader, but not so long that they run out of time to read it.

What are you most passionate about or what is it that you know the most about from your life work, education, or recreation? Once you determine that, start writing about those things. Begin by just opening up a word processing program and start writing about it – everyday, for 20 minutes. You will find that the number of articles you will accumulate will be more than enough to promote your products or services with after a few months. If you are unsure what you are most passionate about, one of the best reflections of who you are is what you post to your FaceBook or Friendster profiles, or whatever social network you belong to. 

4) Start a blog or begin posting your articles to your social media profiles that include links to the products and services that you are promoting. If you choose a subject like ‘camping’ that you enjoy and want to write about, include links to camping supply and outfitter companies that you are an affiliate for. I encourage most writers to set up a WordPress blog (it’s free to set up), and begin their personal blog in a blogging community to get additional exposure, and link their social network profiles to their blog.

5) Find others who need articles for their blogs or who would be willing to allow you to post some of your articles on their blogs that have your affiliate links embedded into the content of your article, i.e. an article on rock climbing that talks about the importance of having a good fitting pair of rock climbing shoes, with a link embedded in it for a Website that sells rock climbing shoes that you are an affiliate of.  The more your articles are distributed with your links or contact information in them, the more traffic you will see on your Website or through your affiliate links.

EXTRA CREDIT: If you really want to explode your affiliate marketing business once it is up and running and generating you some monthly income, consider self host your blog as soon as you can afford to. When you self-host your blog, it gives you full control over everything that goes on your blog Website, including the advertising and affiliate links that will earn you money. In order to self host, you will need a domain name. A domain name is your personal or business address on the World Wide Web. They cost between $8.00 and $35.00, depending on the company you choose and whether or not there are any additional services provided to you with the domain name. Hosting costs are based on the amount of traffic you hope or plan to have. Expect to pay between $2.50 and $100.00, per month depending on what added services you want.

Keep in mind that you can make as much money with a low traffic Website with a high rate of visitor response as you can with a high traffic Website with little or no visitor response. That is why product or service selection for your affiliate programs are so important. The product or service affiliate programs you choose should reflect the nature and content of your Website. I also recommend you do not use any company that promotes or reflects values that are not shared by you personally (this is known as being a socially responsible net-citizen.

If you are not sure about how to go about choosing a product or service affiliate program that’s right for you, read my blog on “How to Choose an Affiliate Program that’s Right for You.”

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