From lifestyle to finance, fashion to food, no matter what your website genre, there is indeed a way to make money from it. Making the transition from a passion project to a money-making resource can seem difficult initially, but in fact, can be made simple with a bit of know-how. Welcome to the world of affiliate marketing: a world where you can sit back, relax, and, when executed properly, watch the money flow in. While there are other ways to make money from your site that are worth exploring, affiliate marketing is a particularly efficient method.

How does affiliate marketing work?

What affiliate marketing basically comes down to, is creating a partnership with another company and providing them with advertising space on your website. This is usually in the form of banner ads or embedded links in you site’s content. Even if you don’t usually sell products on your website explicitly, if you have receive a decent level of traffic, there will likely be many merchants who will want to promote themselves to your readership. You, the owner of the blog or website that is giving away space on your site, are known as the affiliate, and a merchant looking to advertise with you is called a partner. With each product purchased via your website, you will receive a commission from the affiliate partner in question.

Some people hear alarm bells when they first realise that it involves giving up valuable space on your website, but if it is done correctly, you can curate your affiliate relationships very carefully and ensure that by allowing them space on your website, you are providing your readers with added value. Your loyal readers should ideally be appreciative of your well-curated ads rather than annoyed.

For example: if you run a vegetarian food blog and decide to opt for affiliate marketing, do some research into what your readers might like to see; why not conduct a survey or make a fun social media post that doubles up as a call to action. Think of what kind of tools or resources your customers may need to carry out the recipes that your blog features. In this case, you may want to take businesses like organic stores, kitchen supplies manufacturers or local vegetarian restaurants into consideration as potential affiliate partners. If all this seems too daunting, there are also platforms to help you select appropriate partners and execute your affiliate program effectively.

Key benefits at a glance

If you are still on the fence about affiliate marketing there are a number of benefits to take into consideration:

  • Affiliates can sit back, relax, and watch the money come through with each purchase.

  • The initial costs for the affiliate are little to nothing – the cost of creating a website

  • Thanks to the online nature of affiliate marketing, there are no restrictions as to when or from where you can make money

  • Being an affiliate requires little to no experience.