Innovative entrepreneurs in the eCommerce industry who are running a thriving company know how important it is to take steps to make the business grow. One way to accomplish this is to start looking in alternate income streams. This means you find something that complements your growing business and offers value to your customers. So, if you’re not currently running an affiliate marketing program, it’s time to consider taking advantage of it. This quick guide will help you get started.

Step One – Find a Service or Product You’re Passionate About

First up, what product or service do you want to offer? Dozens of affiliate marketing programs fail because of consistency issues, so it’s important that you pick a niche and product or service and pour everything you have into it. You should also try to be specific. So, instead of saying you’ll specialize in food, say that you’ll specialize in grilling food to narrow it down more.

Step Two – Pick a Platform

You can technically run an affiliate marketing program from almost any platform. Using a blog or a YouTube channel are the two most popular routes to take. Starting a website is relatively quick, easy, and inexpensive, and you want to optimize it for SEO. For YouTube, once you optimize it, put your affiliate links in the video’s description. You’ll also have to disclose that you have affiliate links, so your video stays up.

Step Three – Choose an Affiliate Program

There are dozens of affiliate programs you can join, including ones on Facebook and Amazon for products your already purchase. Amazon Associates, ShareASale, eBay Partners, Shopify Affiliates, Clickbank, Rakuten Marketing Affiliates, Leadpages Partner Program, JVZoo, Google AdSense, Facebook Affiliate Marketing, and many more are available. You can even go to hosting companies and domain registration affiliate programs if this is what you like. The more you know about the site you pick, the shorter your learning curve will be.

Step Four – Create Good Content

You have to create high-quality content for your affiliate site to draw traffic to it, and you want to make sure that your content matches your affiliate links. The goal is to show how your products will solve people’s problems. So, if you’re doing reviews, you want to actually buy the product and use it. If you don’t have the cash on hand to buy every product, find products at home that meet your chosen niche and review them. So, if you have a blog or YouTube channel based around technology, review any gadgets you have in your home.

Step Five – Drive Traffic

One of the hardest things about getting your affiliate program off the ground is figuring out how to drive enough traffic to your site to outstrip your competition. This will be easier if you have a mailing list already, but you have options if you don’t have one set up. You can use paid traffic by setting up PPC ads, but this costs money. Another option is optimizing for SEO. This will be trial and error, but the better you get at it, the higher your items will appear in the SERPs. Promoting in social media groups is another good option that can earn you a dedicated following.

Step Six – Position Your Links to Get Clicks

Learning how to place your affiliate links in your content can be a challenge at first. You don’t want them down at the bottom because people can miss them. You also don’t want to space a link every few words because it looks spammy. Instead, a good way to go about this is to state what you’re going to review and then list your products as product one, product two, and so on.

Step Seven – Successfully Convert Clicks to Cash

You need two conversions to make money with affiliate marketing. The first one is the customer clicking on the product page. The second click is the customer actually buying the product. Look for merchants that offer programs that have higher conversions. You can find them using public income reports and asking questions. Sign up for a few affiliate programs and ask questions to find the right fit.

If you’re looking for a program to promote that will help your connections build their business and give you a payout at the same time, check out The Outsource Playbook and the Affiliate Program with it