There’s so many online business ideas out there that it’s hard to keep track of what is legitimate and what’s a scam.
One of the most popular methods of making money online is affiliate marketing. With many people claiming to make 10’s of thousands of dollars every month in a short period of time, it’s easy to see why people are skeptical about whether this method is legitimate. So, is affiliate marketing legitimate?
The answer is yes, affiliate marketing is definitely legitimate. The thing is, it takes quite a long time to see a legitimate return. That’s why so many people give up and think that it’s a scam. Another reason people think it isn’t legitimate is because people sell courses claiming you could make money fast, which isn’t realistic.
Why Does Making Money With Affiliate Marketing Take So Much Time?
The reason it takes a long time to be successful with affiliate marketing, is because you need to build up a base of subscribers (on YouTube) and readers (on a blog), which takes a very long time in order to make money.
Let’s take a blog for instance (since this is the method I specialize in). You could write 100 blog posts geared towards affiliate marketing and not see returns on those posts for over 6 months. This is because it takes a while for Google to pick up on your site, and start bringing you traffic organically.
The same goes for YouTube! You may have to make 50 videos, before your subscribers start piling in. The more subscribers you have, the more you’re likely to make sales as an affiliate marketer.
The fact that it takes that long, and many people give up before they start seeing results is a prime example of why people think the business model is a scam!
The key is to compare affiliate marketing with anything else. Are you going to get good at basketball in one month? No. So why would you think you can make $10,000 per month in just a few months off of a new business. You have to be relentless and not stop until you see that first dollar. Once you get the first dollar, you’ll understand more of what to do, and that’s where the real scaling begins!
How Can You Get Legitimate Sources To Learn Affiliate Marketing From?
One of the biggest things you need to look out for, as we mentioned above, are the people looking to make money off of you, rather than actually teach you.
You want to be able to learn from legitimate resources, and get involved in the community as much as possible. You can ask those legit resources where they learned affiliate marketing, and other questions (maybe they’ll recommend a course or something along those lines).
But where are these legitimate resources? One trick I learned, getting involved in blogging, was to search, “blogging income report” on YouTube. I came across a wide array of different bloggers explaining their journey and the up’s and down of blogging.
If you search “affiliate marketing income report” on YouTube, you will find people showing their income for that month, things they did to help their affiliate marketing business, and other things related to affiliate marketing.
These are the people you want to affiliate yourself with as they are in the trenches, and not just saying they make money online (to sell you a course). They’re actually doing it, and showing you how they do it!
Keep in mind, some of these people actually do sell a course, but since you’ve seen the in’s and out’s of their business, their courses may be actually worth your time!
How To Spot The Biggest Affiliate Marketing Scams
YouTube Ads With No Value
If you’ve ever binge watched YouTube, you may have seen countless Ads that pop up saying, “do you want to know how to make $10,000 per month by __________.
If you do, instantly hit skip. You don’t want to buy a course based on a YouTube ad, you want to buy a course based on some value someone gave before hand. That’s why watching organic YouTube videos is the way to go!
Low Quality Products With High Commissions
You also have to pay attention to the products you’re promoting. You may see some products that are offering a very high percentage for those that are selling their products.
This could be a red flag, and you should stay away from those products if possible. This is because the company is seeing how desperate people are to make money online by any means necessary, so they’re pushing out extremely high commissions. However, along with these high commissions, the product is likely not of great value, and you don’t want to be supporting this type of business.
Some business even push fake products all together. This means that you will never get paid for anything and customers may even report your affiliate links as spam.
It’s important to Google the product you’re pushing in order to see if it’s legit, and what other people are saying about the product.
Paid Programs In Order To Be an Affiliate Marketing
The natural way to do affiliate marketing is to offer your audience to the company who has an affiliate marketing program (Whether that be YouTube Subscribers, Blog readers, or Social Media Followers). It’s a fair trade off of value, and you’re likely to get paid if they have a legitimate product.
With that being said, there are many affiliate programs that have you pay to be apart of it, which isn’t ideal. There’s no reason you should ever pay to be an affiliate marketer for someone else.
What Does It Take To Be Successful As an Affiliate Marketer
It takes a couple of things to be successful.
Choose a Specific Niche
The first thing you should do, is become an authority in a niche. Don’t bounce around being an affiliate marketer for 100 different niches. If you like coffee, start a YouTube channel or blog, reviewing different coffee beans, and answering questions in regards to different coffee products. The more you can be seen as a knowledgeable person who people can trust, the more money you will make in affiliate marketing.
Focus On Content Creation Rather Than Income
You shouldn’t focus on the outcome, but you should focus on your output. Focus on creating A LOT of high value content. In fact, you shouldn’t be focused on the amount of money you’re making until you have 50-60 YouTube videos, or 100-200 blog posts.
Just put your head down and work, and then adjust accordingly once you have a decent amount of content created.
Delayed gratification is the name of the game if you want to be successful in affiliate marketing, or a content creation business in general.
Wrapped Up
Affiliate marketing is definitely legitimate, but at the same time, there are many things you should consider. It takes time, effort, quality products and services, and a willingness to learn.
You must keep an eye out for the scams we mentioned above, and you also need to focus on the value that you’re providing to your audience.
If you keep all of these things in mind, keep your head down, and work your tail off, there’s no reason you shouldn’t become successful.
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