How does being an affiliate work? You use a product, love it, and see if they offer an affiliate program.
If so, you sign up as an affiliate, agree to their terms, and start promoting.
If you make a sale, you get paid a small commission. Most places do make you wait about 45 days for the commission. Others might make you earn a specific amount prior to payout.
Be sure that you follow all of their rules like submitting a W-9, connecting your payment preferences, etc. so you can actually get paid.
You will also want to add a disclosure statement telling your audience that you may make a commission should they use your link. You need to disclose this because the FTC says so – read more here.
Remember you are not just doing this for the money but you are doing it to help your audience. Helping them to use the best products and to solve a problem they have.
The commission is just the bonus. If you look at it like a money making thing, then you are doing them a disservice.
Affiliate Promotions
To share your affiliate and other recommendations, you could create a list of your favorite tools.
I also encourage you to go the extra mile and write a blog post based on your experience with each product. You could talk about how to set it up, what made it special, or any information that your audience would find valuable.
When you write the blog posts and you are on social media (trying to be helpful and answering questions) it is much easier to send them to a very detailed and helpful post versus an affiliate link.
This helpful post could be the deciding factor in them purchasing.
I also include a list of recommended resources to my clients inside of the client training portal.
A Few Tips
I urge you not to endorse any products or services that you haven’t tried and used successfully. It comes off disingenuous and people can tell.
Also, I would never require that someone use a particular product just so you can make a commission – just recommend what you prefer based on your experience. If they decide not to buy, no problem.
And finally, if you are using WordPress a plugin that I use and recommend that is FREE is Pretty Link Lite. It helps you to shrink, beautify and track your ugly affiliate links.
Now, you are ready to make a list of potential products or services you could recommend.
