Affiliate Marketing: Getting started with these 10 resources

You know that feeling when you tried something and failed miserably? That’s the feeling I get when I think about affiliate marketing. To be fair, it was not a total bust. I actually made a little bit of money.

You see, in the late 2000’s, I had a football website. From here, this is where I got my start with WordPress. The football website pretty much broke must of the guidelines you need to follow when trying to make money online, but I was naive.

So, I started doing a little affiliate marketing. Actually, I started with good old Google Ads and I probably cleared $200-300 over about four or five years using Google Ads.

I started using Amazon to sell items. I learned how to make the little widgets and put them in my sidebar. I was empowered!

I even sold a full-sized Dallas Cowboys football helmet once. I think it netted me approximately $50. You see, I made a little bit of money, but nothing that would pay rent.

I had a Commission Junction account too. I don’t recall clearing any money from there, however. Affiliate marketing can pay off for WordPress professionals by giving you a nice revenue stream.

So, if you are a WordPress professional and you are wanting to add a new revenue stream to your income, affiliate marketing can be a nice (somewhat) passive way to do so.

For starters, there are tons of WordPress products these days and most have an affiliate program. Take MainWP, for example. MainWP has an affiliate program that you can implement.

As a guide to get started with affiliate marketing, I have compiled some of the best sources. Let’s get started!

Resources to get started with affiliate marketing

Know the basics: 10 Crucial Tips To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Raelyn Tan is a digital marketer who helps entrepreneurs with actionable tips. This article has 10 fantastic tips for those wishing to use affiliate marketing.

This particular blog is number 3 in a 5 part series on affiliate marketing, but I thought the tips were so good in this post I wanted to include them in our article.

Here’s a summary of the 10 tips you can use to make money with affiliate marketing.

Stay legal, add your affiliate disclosures

Cloak your links

Don’t recommend anything that you don’t love with all your heart

Weave your links naturally in a tutorial

Add affiliate links to your most popular posts

Resource page

Make sure your target audience actually needs them

Experiment with different layouts

Add them to your email newsletters

Add them to your lead magnets

Our Giant List of 101+ Affiliate Marketing Resources

This article is a giant list of various resources for affiliate marketing written by James Parsons. The article is about 2 years old, so some of the information could be dated. Nevertheless, it contains over 100 resources to peruse when learning more about affiliate marketing.

The various categories include past posts from Grow Traffic, Affilate Marketing Blogs, Tools, Affiliate Networks, Useful Guides, and Affiliate-Friendly Web Hosts.

Problogger

Problogger, of course, is the brainchild of Australian marketer Darren Rowse. Bloggers have been using the articles, resources, podcasts, and products from Problogger for years to be better bloggers.

Problogger has lots of information on blogging as well as information on affiliate marketing.

More Affiliate Marketing Advice, Tips, and Techniques

Written several years ago, the information is still relevant. This page contains the best of affiliate marketing posts at Problogger.

A 3-Step Blueprint for Smart Affiliate Marketing

This article was written by a guest poster, but the info is solid. The article does a great job of explaining, as with any business, to line up your niche with your target audience.

Tools

10 Best Affiliate Marketing Tools and Plugins for WordPress

Written by WP Beginner, this article includes 10 useful tools, including WordPress plugins, that will help you run affiliate marketing for your WordPress business.

Are you an affiliate marketer? Looking for the best affiliate marketing tools for WordPress? In this article, we will share 10 best affiliate marketing plugins for WordPress to help you maximize your earning potential.

Among the plugins included in the article are tools like SEM Rush for helping you analyze keywords, Google Analytics, and Webmaster Tools, as well as Constant Contact for email marketing. Naturally, you can use whatever email marketing software you like.

Blogging & Affiliate Marketing Tools

Sugarrae is one of the best affiliate marketing consultants you can find. For over 16 years she has been mastering the trade of internet marketing which includes affiliate marketing. This is a robust list of tools which she uses to power her affiliate marketing.

I get asked all the time about what products, services, resources and tools I use for running my websites. You’ll find a list of my favorite products and services below. Some are free. Some are paid. And even though I use affiliate links when available – which means I may receive a commission if you sign up or purchase something – I can promise that everything listed on this page is on it because I use the product or service and find it to be a valuable asset to my business.

The 27 Best Free Marketing Tools for Affiliates

Because affiliate marketing needs to use marketing, Get Response compiled a list free marketing tools. Get Response is an email marketing software that allows companies to have an all-in-one marketing platform.

Guides

Affiliate Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide – Neil Patel

If you want to dive deep into affiliate marketing as you get started, this article from Neil Patel will get you going. It is a monster post coming in at 4700 + words. If you do decide to devour the post, block out some time. It comes complete with steps, lots of illustrations, and tons of examples.

The Sugarrae Guide of Affiliate Marketing

In addition to the page of tools that is listed above, Rae has a page with some basic information on affiliate marketing followed by a list of posts she has written on affiliate marketing.

Over to You

Have you made money from Affiliate links? There are lots of tools that your customers and audience can use that you can help them discover, and most of them have an affiliate program.

I would love to hear how you make money using affiliate marketing in the comments below. Are you interested in using affiliate marketing? Let us know below!