The Retired Affiliate

How to Make an Extra 1000 a Month with Affiliate Marketing

Mark Apletree

How to Make an Extra 1000 a Month with Affiliate Marketing
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If you want to learn how to make an extra 1000 a month with affiliate marketing, you need to get rid of the cookie-cutter advice you’ve read on the internet.

Have you always wanted your own business?

Are you freaked out about the startup cost?

I’ll be honest: affiliate marketing isn’t the easiest way to make money online in Australia. But the best part is that anyone can do it and it is a good way to earn an extra $1,000–$2,000 per month.

All you need to do is choose your affiliate’s niche based on market factors and get the proper training and strategies to build traffic and a following, and start to be your own boss. 

There’s a reason why 90% of digital marketers & small businesses fail, and it’s not what you think. 

How to Make an Extra 1000 A Month with Affiliate Marketing - Stressful young businessman holding his heads and feeling stressed about work.

The current belief is that marketers fail because they aren’t “passionate enough.” The real reason affiliate marketers fail is the same reason that any small business ideas fail: it’s not profitable. Affiliate marketers fail because they can’t transition from blogger to business owner, and while they may have a great business idea, they fail to develop a good business plan.

So, they chose a non-profitable niche with a low-value audience. New marketers tend to overlook networking and connections to their strategic advantage. And they don’t have enough consumer interest to increase traffic volume and end up making very little money or any at all.

I Want You to Succeed

I realized that 2021 wasn’t the best year for many affiliate marketers. So, before starting your blog, it’s essential to choose your niche not just on your passions but on:

  • Audience budget potential
  • Market demand
  • Professional experience.
  • Bonus: Keyword Research

Great Low-Cost Business Ideas

Here are just a few examples of some great low cost business ideas that are dominating at the moment.

  • Personal Trainer
  • Virtual Assistant
  • Designing Online Courses
  • Creating YouTube Videos
  • Wedding Planner
  • Start your own YouTube Channel
  • Start a lawn care business
  • Dog walker
  • Freelance Writer
  • Personal Chef

All of these can very easily turn into a full-time income and the best thing is they only require a low investment to get started

How to Make an Extra 1000 a Month with Affiliate Marketing

This can be the easy or the hard part of starting your business.

wealthy affiliate going up

How to Choose a Profitable Affiliate Marketing Topic

Finding your passions, staying consistent, and creating great content. This is the great generic advice experts will give you when searching for a niche to start affiliate marketing. But it’s not enough.

Before you get started, you need to research and see if potential clients are looking for the topics you want to write about. And if they are monetizable.

These are my Best Ways to Find a Topic for a New Affiliate Website

Look at other blogs: Check out the list of the top-selling niches. Consider what piques your interest the most or fits your market concept the best. And, perhaps more importantly, what is missing? Identify the gaps in the niche.

Use Google search: What are people looking for? Use Google suggested searches and autocomplete to discover what people are looking for online and this is the best way to get some great ideas…

Track current trends: What topics are making the headlines? It’s good to pick a topic that has been around for a long. If you can capitalize on a trend early on. In that case, you can quickly position yourself as an expert on it before anyone else. 

Search forums for common frequently asked questions (FAQs): When people can’t find answers to their inquiries, they go to forums. What are they asking? What do they need advice on? 

Leverage your own professional experience and passions: To create a profitable affiliate site, you must build influence and make authority. You need to start challenging yourself to step out of your comfort zone and leverage your relationships. However, there’s no point in marketing a niche you have zero interest in – you’ll quickly get bored.

Your Affiliate Niche Needs Market Demand.

Most importantly, think about the different types of content.

The three main types of monetizable keywords are “best” list posts, “review” guides, and “how-to” guides. 

These three main types of keywords have the most affiliate marketing revenue potential.

For example, on the topic of the “best” list posts:

  • In Family and Pets, this could be “best pets for kids” or “best pets’ insurance.”
  • Fitness and Weight Loss could be “best adjustable dumbbells” or “Best exercise bikes.”
  • Making money on the internet could be “best side hustles Australia” or “best paid online surveys sites in Australia.” Everybody wants the “best” something, and you can capitalize on that by creating long-form guides recommending products. Most of these will have good affiliate marketing programs and e-tailers like Amazon to join, promote and earn money.

In the case of “how-to,” post these could be:

  • In marketing: it could be this article “How to make an extra 1000 a month with affiliate marketing”.
  • Beauty treatments: how to get rid of forehead wrinkles.
  • Smart Home Devices: how to save money and energy with smart home devices
  • “How to turn your digital marketing business into a lucrative business with an online store”
  • For Graphic Designers – How to turn Business Cards into a Profitable Business!

And in the case of “review” guides

Here are Some Strategies for your Keyword Research

Use a keyword research tool like Keywords Google Keyword, Everywhere, PlannerSEMRushJaaxyAhrefs to see search engine results page (SERP) data. Specifically, look for the first page results’ Domain Rating (DR) and the SERP position history.

With Keywords Everywhere, you can do your keyword research right while you’re searching on Google.

When researching your affiliate marketing niche market demand, shoot for topics that have keywords with:

1,000+ monthly searches.

A good keyword difficulty score under 40.

To summarize, spend more time researching keywords and less on writing. Every single page needs to be optimized for 3 or more keywords.

Make sure to choose a niche based on the potential spending power of your audience, the demand for your product, and something you find interesting.

Find an audience you are a part of and understand their challenges personally. And leverage your relationship, job experience, and whatever you have at your disposal. And make sure your targeted niche has market demand.

Because in the end, passion alone doesn’t create wealth; but money can make passion.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing

Ready to start making an extra 1000 a month with affiliate marketing? Signup for Wealthy Affiliate for free today! 

button give me access to my free starter membership today

Wealthy affiliate offers access to some of the best training on the internet, necessary tools like web hosting, Your own website, 1 Free domain name, and keyword research tools required to succeed, along with incredible support from industry experts within the Wealthy Affiliate community.

And the initial investment for that… $0

Build Relationships and Network

Happy millennial couple satisfied with planning family budget, getting income, loan, mortgage bank approval. Young husband and wife using laptop, calculator and documents, giving high five

Before forging ahead with building relationships with other bloggers, you need to create a unique site identity. Essentially, you want to create a brand image that conveys what your business “says” without really saying anything. And you need to focus on the benefits you’ll give others.

Ask yourself: 

  • What pain points do I solve in the relationship??
  • Could you produce content that matches their target viewer’s interests?
  • Are they in need of new content to fill their editorial calendar?
  • Can you leverage link building for other blog content you’re writing?
  • Is there a topic you know a lot about that isn’t on their website?

In a week or two leading up to your pitch, here are a couple things you should do:

Comment on their blog

Engage them on Twitter

Potentially start an email conversation

Scale Your Content Creation

To compete in today’s online attention economy, you must create valuable content at scale. This means a lot of pieces of original content every month to keep your brand at the top of your customers’ minds.

Scaling your content production goes beyond increasing the quality of posts. In my opinion, it’s about making the most of the limited amount of content you’re capable of producing.

Symbolic scale of the stones on sea background. Concept of harmony and balance. work-life, emotional balance

It’s also about better serving your buyer persona by offering as much information as possible to educate, help, and lead them through their purchasing journey.

One great way to do that is to get writing assistance. Instead of writing every first draft yourself, you can use a service like Fiverr to hire freelance writers. Many writers provide the best-list, review-guide, how-to guide, and a ton more so you can spend your time editing, publishing, and building links.

I thought that writing content was a single phase.

But I recently learned that creating content is actually a series of smaller steps.

Overall, there are the main components to this process:

  • Develop templates to save you time
  • Break down your writing process into tiny steps
  • Outsource your content marketing strategy
  • Create an organized content calendar
  • Guest Post
  • Backlinks
  • Track results
  • Bonus: Repurpose content into new formats
  • Find a reliable source for photos. Check out PixabayUnsplash, and PikWizard for access to free images without attribution for commercial use.

Pitch Guest Posts to Your Connects

Guest blogging is a common practice among affiliate marketers. It’s also an intelligent way to drive traffic to your website and build up your backlink profile.

Several marketers say link building is the most complex SEO tactic to learn. Still, guest posts on high-DA sites can be the most rewarding on a new website’s SEO.

Once you’ve crafted a shortlist of potential contacts when you’ve built valuable blogging relationships, it’s time to start your email outreach. 

You can improve your guest post strategy by using an email template to start the relationship while asking to guest post.

Using a guest post email template and understanding how to start an email greeting can save time and scale your process by creating a conversation and pitching a guest post.

Once your contact replies to your email and expresses interest in accepting your guest post, you can pitch the ideal topic.

Five Steps to Write Top-Notch Guest Post Pitches:

  • Pitch one or more topic ideas that don’t exist on their website yet
  • Research your target topic and organic keywords (Go back to Jaaxy and input the blog’s URL.).
  • The content is irrelevant to their audience.
  • Write a concise summary of each idea.
  • Submit your topic ideas to the target blog.

How to Monetize Your Website the Right Way

There are many ways to make money blogging in — affiliate marketing, advertisements, sponsored posts, selling physical products, online coaching or consulting services, etc. Some of these revenue streams demand more traffic than others.

Best Affiliate Training

That is why it is critical to prepare your future earnings strategy with suitable monetization options at the stages in your blog’s lifespan.

The perfect blog monetization timetable will focus on maximizing revenue in each stage of your site’s growth.

Check out my distinct areas of focus:

Here’s an example of the Website monetization timeline I’m using:

  • Day one to three months. High-end consulting (0-1,000 monthly site visitors)
  • Three to six months. Affiliate marketing (1,000-2,500 monthly site visitors)
  • Six to one year Your first online course (5,000+ monthly site visitors)
  • A year and beyond. Course memberships (10,000+ monthly site visitors)

Monetize Your Blog with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is still the most effective way to monetize your blog. You simply earn commission by promoting someone else’s product.

If you look at the most profitable affiliate websites, you’ll notice that almost all of them excel in affiliate marketing.

And to be a successful affiliate marketer, you must rank on relevant terms on Google and function as a buyer’s representative. It looks like this:

“Google => Your Website=> Purchase”.

Let’s look at an example.

GamesRadar is a well-known affiliate in the game niche. When you Google “the best board games or AOC 24G2 review,” you always see them at or near the top of the search engine results pages SERPs:

GR1
GR2
Source: GamesRadar

Monetize Your Site with Profitable ADs

One of the most reliable ways to make money blogging is to sell banner advertising space on your site and easily collect revenue from each click. 

Adverts can be placed anywhere but are often seen at the top of website pages or in the sidebar.

Three paper adverts nailed by crooked nails, sketch/grunge styled illustration.

You can make extra money in one of two ways. Cost per click (CPC), also called pay per click (PPC), means you’ll get paid for every reader who clicks the advert. In contrast, cost per thousand (CPM) means you’ll negotiate a set payment for every thousand ‘impressions’ the ad gets.

This is an excellent option since it does not require minimal effort on the marketer’s part. All you need to do is sign up for an online advertising platform and link it to your website.

A quick way to get started is to set up an account with AdSense. An advertising placement service by Google where advertisers bid for the right to show their content on your site.

Continually Promote Your Site

You’ll need to pitch your site continues to increase traffic, engage your audience, and grow your readership. While you’re writing blog posts, guest posts, and monetizing your content, keep the following strategies in mind to ensure your site remains profitable:

Be active on social media. It’s time to scale your social media. You’re more likely to get noticed if you’ve had social media accounts. Build and optimize your social channels to share your expertise and gather followers. I recommend setting up accounts/pages for your website on FacebookTwitterLinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube. Design these accounts in a similar color scheme/theme to your website. So your brand is consistent and easy to recognize.

Engage users with email marketing: periodic Newsletters are an excellent way to keep your audience engaged. Promote your most recent blog posts with captivating emails that encourage your reader to visit your site.

My Final Thought on How to Make an Extra 1000+ a Month

Now you know the answer to the question, “How can I make an extra 1000+ a month with affiliate marketing?” and can see your blog as a full-value business. Successful marketers can make over 7-figures/year, while some might generate no income at all. 

With all this information outlined above, I’ve laid out intelligent monetization strategies. The key to lasting content scalability is to organize, repurpose, and outsource your content production to experts.

Any/all links on this site may be affiliate links, and if you make a purchase through one of them, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read the full affiliate disclosure here.

Mark

CEO and Founder of The Retired Affiliates

The Retired Affiliates Logo

18 responses to “How to Make an Extra 1000 a Month with Affiliate Marketing”

  1. Hey, Mark,

    Those are some great tips. In my experience, I’ve found out that content quality is as important or even more important than the number of posts you have. For instance, I have two blogs: one about travel and the other one about the French language. The latter is newer and thus has fewer posts. However, it has done way better than the former.

    I haven’t tried guest posting yet. I will work on that.

    Regarding content creation, I think the best recommendation is to look for professional writers, even though that may be expensive. Fiverr is hit or miss. However, I don’t think it’s a good strategy during the initial stages of any blog. You can do that down the road, but not in the beginning. Well, that’s just my opinion.

    Thanks for sharing. It was an interesting read.

    • Hi Enrique,

      Some really great points you make there, especially regarding professional writers and Fiverr.

      Doing your own articles early will definitely save you a ton of money, and lets face it when we are starting out you need to be quite frugal with your outgoings.

      I have just started using two writers which I actually found through Fiverr, and they have been an excellent find, however it did take me a few writers beforehand until I found them.

      Mark

  2. Affiliate marketing has been in the back of my mind for several years. But it has been this past month that I started to research it well.
    I am sad that I wasted a lot of time in the past. But I am determined to make the most of affiliate marketing this year.
    Thank you for helping me choose a niche. And your point about monetizing in the right way caught my attention.
    I am just starting this journey so I will keep coming to your site!

  3. Dear Mark,

    Being an Affiliate = Dream Come True! Anyone can do it regardless of their Level of Experience on the Internet.

    Anyone can be a writer, promote products, and get paid commissions even while they sleep.

    I honestly believe many people will work from home to be with their families and NO LONGER need to work a boring job that is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily just to make ends meet.

    Affiliate Marketing is the future for many people because the possibilities of joining Affiliate Programs are endless!

    Wishing you all the best with your online success Above and Beyond the Horizon,

    ~Angelina Jolina

  4. I think I speak for everyone when I say that adding an extra thousand dollars to our income each month would be great. I appreciate the actionable tips including how to leverage keyword research to find lucrative online opportunities.

    I appreciate the photo sources too – I have been looking for fresh new content and these are perfect.  

  5. You really have some wonderful ideas in this article for bloggers to up their game so that they can earn more than they currently are. I too am stuck earning the same amount every month for a year now, and I know I just need to do more to push those earnings up, as I get the traffic and I need to leverage this traffic more.

    I have considered doing guest posts, but never seem to find the time to write for other people, as I work full time. However I see you mention other ways that I know I could do more of, like promoting on Social Media and I also know I need to start paying for my traffic to make the whole process more automatic.

  6. Wonderful way of introducing us to the Business world Mark! I´ll be honest, I was always skeptical about Affiliate Marketing, as I thought it might be a scam. After reading your article, I must admit I have a boost of confidence and can´t wait to begin my journey! I tried several other thing to make an extra money, like selling warings and that, but I was amused with this phrase :Affiliate marketers fail because they can’t transition from blogger to business owner! That basically sums it up! Thanks for the info and I´ll surely give it a try. 

    • Hey Johnny,

      I am so glad you found this article helpful and I wish you all the best with your Affiliate marketing business.

      Hit me up if ever you need a hand.

      Mark

  7. Great article, I have been earning a lot of money from Wealthy affiliates it’s such a good platform to be in. The platform thought me all about affiliate marketing and has helpful users that helped me through some difficulties.                                                                                                                                                        

  8. The intro with a pic followed by TOC, is interesting to note. The pop-up is putting the real content in the shadow and losing interest to read content. My suggestion is to avoid, even if the add is about free training. I suggest adding some key pointers on finding a niche. Going through analyst reports to understand different markets and the market cap, which is top-down approach or start a topic that is bothering the mind and figure out how much it is globally worth, which is bottom-up approach! Without having an understanding on the market, even if there is a passion that doesn’t relate to monetization, it is not worth it! The basics here is about You on one side and World on the other side! Whatever the world offers you seek and in turn you define what the world should do for you! It is a cyclic phenomenon that is dependent on the space-time-situation! For example, at this point in time, that is Feb 2022 (which is time), thinking of US and EU markets (space) and situation (thinking of next version of digital wearable for example spectacles)! Now using bottom-up approach search the current status and market for this niche! Another example, keeping time and space same as mentioned above and situation as what are all the digital wearables available today and how much their market is worthy and what are the trends of the recent past and what are their immediate prospect forecasts, which is top-down approach to find the niche! Rest of the topics are good in the blog. With respect to key words, Will it be good adding content around search on google / bing with all cache cleared and go incognito to find real-time keywords? Great work on the blog!

  9. Hey great article you have here!

    I’ve recently decided to join the online business world which means I need to do quite a few research to know how to succeed! Reading through this post has got me thinking I definitely need to do keyword research. It’s probably one of the most important thing for a blogger to earn!

    • Hi Sariyah,

      Yes Keyword research is definitely the MOST IMPORTANT part of any online website, and the great thing about being with WA is you get Jaaxy as part of your membership.

      Another great one i use a lot now is RANKIQ which I have just done a reveiw on if you would like to check it out – https://theretiredaffiliates.com/the-2-best-keyword-research-tools-in-2022/.

      Rank IQ basically takes all the guess work out from the Best Titles to use and the keywords google crawls within your content.

      It has definitely given all my posts a major push up the rankings.

      Mark

  10. Hi Mark, Your article was certainly jam-packed full of  ideas and information to help affiliate marketers be successful. There should be no difficulty in implementing some of these ideas to enable monetization of an affiliate marketing website. I think you’ve gone through practically everything an online marketer needs to know so there should be no stopping us now! Best wishes, Jenni.

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Mark CEO & Founder
The Retired Affiliates

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