Beginner's Guide to Applying for Affiliate Programs
The first step to making money from referring other people's products
In the early days of your website you should be laser-focused on getting traffic. If you have no traffic then your business essentially doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist then you can’t monetize it.
The time to start thinking about monetization is when you get your traffic to a couple of thousand pageviews per month.
Obviously you still have a lot of work to do at that point. You won’t be able to quit your job off of the revenue you earn from such a tiny number of pageviews. But opening up the money tap and seeing that initial trickle of revenue is a huge step in the right direction and gives you a taste of what’s to come in the future when your traffic numbers increase (massive motivation boost at this point).
Here are a few basic ways to monetize your content site:
Affiliate links
Display ads
Selling e-commerce products
Selling links/guest posts
Selling product placements and charging review fees
These are only the most basic ways to monetize your site. You’d be surprised by the random promotional opportunities that companies will pay money for. You’re really only imitated by your imagination and your skill at selling/persuasion.
If you’re ready to start making money right now, one of the first methods you should consider is using affiliate links to earn commissions on other people’s products.
How affiliate programs work
The basic concept of an affiliate link is simple.
You recommend a product from an e-commerce store to your site’s visitors. If someone clicks on the link, it places a cookie in their browser showing that they were referred from your site. If they place an order before the cookie expires, you’ll be credited with the sale and will earn a commission based on the value of the order (can be anywhere from a low-single-digit percentage to 50% or even more).