Answering the question, Can I Start my own Online Business?

When we talk about building a business, the first thing in our minds is usually our brick and mortar business, while a few cast their mind to various types of portfolio investment. Can I start my own online business? This is the question in the mind of so many people looking out to start something of their own

The Answer is a big “YES”, in fact, with no cumbersome logistics you can start a business model called Affiliate Marketing

This is the business model I resulted to after I had lost all my cash, I started with no cash and gradually began to scale up and recovered all I had lost. I tried every online business model and saw that you need cash and high-end logistics.

Talk of Ecommerce, you need cash to buy goods from either China or Amazon and import to my country before shipping to customers. Even if you call it Shopify, you still need to understand the logistics and there were a lot of bottlenecks.

I tried network marketing; if you have to succeed you must invest in the company’s product and logistics. Top of it I was always at the mercy of the company’s policies and models. Talk of other forms of online business, coaching, consulting, etc; the ball game was not too different. But when it comes to affiliate marketing, with training and tools from a place like Wealthy Affiliate, you are good to go.

What then is Affiliate Marketing?

Wikipedia simply puts it this way, it is a form of performance-based marketing where an affiliate gets rewarded for bringing a customer to the business platform. Let us break it down in simple terms.

1. You create a website for the sole aim of getting visitors to a product
2. You create relevant content to recommend these products using links called affiliate links.
3. Every time a visitor makes a purchase via your link, you earn a commission.

The breakdown: You are a middle man linking buyers to products of their choice. One unique thing about these products is that you have either used them or heard about them in one way or the other. On purchase of this product, you earn a commission which can range from .01 percent to 100 percent all depends on the terms of the company selling the product.

Getting started in affiliate marketing is simple, First thing is to pick a niche (Your point of interest), next is to pick an affiliate program within your niche. Then the main job begins – raise content and drive traffic.

What type of content can you use for affiliate marketing? Below are four different approaches to raising content for affiliate marketing

Blog or How-to-Guides

These are simple guides showing readers how to perform certain tasks, they are good content that will provide value to your audience. Also, they help increase your Search Engine Ranking Pages, making you much more visible when it comes to search engine optimization.

To create a good how-to guide, always keep your audience in mind. In fact, it is good you assume the shoes of your readers and anticipate their questions and comments.

Product Reviews

Every time people are interested in a product, they want to hear of the testimony of someone who knows the product very well or has used the product before. This makes product review a go-to tool for affiliate marketers.

Producing a quality review on a product without been biased can land your blog on the very front page of Google. This review can be in any form, it can be written article, video, podcast, or any form of content of your choice.

Product Launches

Another dynamic strategy, all though it is limited to a few niche or brand; still stands as a dynamic tool for niches like making money online, health, love and relationship, and currency trading. In case you want to take the opportunity of product launch to build an online business then you have to research within your niche to discover people who do product launches regularly.

When it comes to driving traffic to your website there are various methods or approaches ranging from SEO, PPC ads, Social media ads, guest blogging, and a couple of others.

Out of these

approaches, two methods have proven to be highly resourceful with the highest return on investment.

1. Create Engaging Content
2. Guest Blogging

Create Engaging Content

There is no doubt about it, you would have read from bloggers like Niel Patel, Ryan Robinson, or any other industry authority. They have engraved their names on this path simply by writing irresistible content, so doing they have built great followers for themselves.

No doubt about it, there is a model they follow. A model that helps craft website articles that are highly engaging and keeps their audience glued to their website. Below are three key questions that your content must be able to provide answers to.

1. What content will I create that will be irresistible for my audience
2. How can I make it valuable for my audience to say “thank you”?
3. How do I personally feel about sharing this content?

What content will I create that will be irresistible for my audience?

This is valuable content that people see and cannot wait until they read, they do not just want to read it. But they will leave every other thing to pay attention to your article, to achieve this you need to know your audience very well.

I can make the right guess on what is on your mind right now – How do I get to know my audience?

Go to places where they hang out, join online communities, attend meet-ups in your locality. Personally, I started attending meet-ups for professionals like myself with the sole aim of sharing valuable content about freelancing and affiliate marketing.

When you find your audience interest and write about them, you will naturally command their attention.

How can I make it valuable for my audience to say “thank you”?

If you solve a problem, the listed reward you should get is – “thank you”.

Writing engaging content is not just about writing well-structured grammar but delivering the right results at your audience desk. As such, ensure your article contains relevant information that answers virtually all of your audience questions with respect to the topic.

A good way to doing this is to put your content in a detailed step by step approach for your audience to follow. Make your ideas easy for your audience to follow and keep it simple.

How do I personally feel about sharing this content?

How do you feel about what you have just written? How passionate are you about it?

If you care about what you have written, you will eagerly want someone else to read and add about yourself to it.

Talk about yourself, even if it is just your basic approach to how you get things done. I am not a fan of marketers who love to show how many millions of dollars they have made and how many aircraft they drive.

But a little touch on how you get things done personally will spice up your work. The more your audience can feel the real you, the better they connect with your work.

The Guest Post Approach

Now you have seen how to craft content for your blog, but crafting content for bloggers with a larger audience will help drive more traffic to your blog. This is a strategy that has been proven to work for both new and old bloggers with little traffic.

How then do you approach these top bloggers?

1) Do diligent research on bloggers and websites related to your niche

This are bloggers you will want to reach out to. Remember that when you do a guest post, there are chances that you will insert a link, which will direct traffic to your website. So guest posting on a site with related content will make this backlink of website easy and seamless.

Create targeted content for each of them

This is the next thing after finding relevant websites and bloggers you can work with, you must research on topics and create content that is relevant to your audience and appropriate for your host website. Already I have over flogged the need to write engaging content

Reach out to each of them with your content to see who wants it

In conclusion, although affiliate marketing is a great way to build an online business without product cost, it is essential you learn the dynamics of the business from industry experts. If this is your desire, join me at a wealthy Affiliate, a community with thousands of internet marketers committed to building a steady and robust business of their own.

I will be glad to respond to your questions and comments, kindly use the comment section below