Disclosure: Some of these links below are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you I may receive a small commission; if you were to click through and make a purchase.
Internet And Affiliate Marketing Overview
With over 3.2 billion people on the internet, today and the number of digital buyers increasing by the minute, internet marketing and affiliate marketing is a term that you should become familiar with if you are considering an online business.
By the way, in 2021, digital buyers are expected to have increased from 1.66 billion to 2.14 billion buyers. Besides, according to Forbes, work from home opportunities has increased within growth thanks to the high-speed internet.
Furthermore, according to the Us News online college enrollment, it has even increased by at least 5% since 2016. With that in mind, as a college student I encourage you to check out Building Toward The Future Student Program, the author provides excellent resources to teach you how to be competitive in the professional world. You can’t go wrong with the valuable information provided on that site.
Above all, as you can see the internet is evolving, all the time. How we use it? Where you use it? Also, who uses it? It’s always in a continuous changing state, which brings me to the point that internet marketing or affiliate marketing is no different.
Statistics don’t lie according to Awin, 81% of brands that the average consumer makes purchases from have adopted affiliate marketing. So, what is internet marketing and affiliate marketing? In this review you will learn:
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What Is Internet Marketing?
The confusion I use to have when it came to all the terms of internet marketing, digital marketing, affiliate marketing, and so on. It was just puzzling. When I first started blogging, I mentioned how this process was like a huge 9000 piece puzzle on my WA blog. You can read the full story here.
Nonetheless, today I understand clearly what it means so, I’m glad to help you know as well.
Internet marketing, this indeed is a very broad term. So, think of it like this; internet marketing is any marketing efforts that you use to build your web or online presence.
A few examples of internet marketing is:
#1. SEO – which means Search Engine Optimization, creating a blog, choosing a low competition keyword, and writing articles, like you’re viewing right here on this page. Over time, with SEO you’ll gain free traffic to your website, because, the articles that you’re writing now or in the near future will be organized and optimized to rank into the search engines.
By the way, when I joined Wealthy Affiliate I never knew how or what an SEO was, but, today, as you can see I know what I’m doing because, if I didn’t you would have arrived at this article.
Anyhow, SEO is a technique that takes some learning and skills. However, it should be scary. I thought I would have never learned the concept or the steps that it took to rank within Google, Bing, or Yahoo but, that’s all passed me because I learned the proper SEO steps within the Wealthy Affiliate training platform.
#2. Social Media Marketing – Another method of internet marketing is social media marketing. You may already be familiar with this but, just in case you’re not, let’s go over it anyhow. Social media marketing is when you choose a platform.
It can be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest which is my favorite, or Linkedin. There is also snapchat, Mix, and so many others. The primary goal with social media marketing is to build brand awareness, trust, and a relationship with your audience, which can be done by organic social media marketing or paid social media marketing.
#3. Email Marketing – with email marketing, it’s where you will build an even stronger relationship with your audience, by providing value or sales through email communications. Email marketing allows you to keep you in touch with your web visitors, answer any questions that they may have and so on.
#4. Content Marketing – this is when you attract your audience attention by writing a blog post, video creation, creating infographics, or pinning images. Content marketing still involves SEO and consistency.
Now, that we have some of the vital internet marketing terms out of the way, let me dive a little deeper so, that you can understand exactly what I do at Wealthy Affiliate. It’ called Affiliate Marketing.
Briefly What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Simply put, affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products that you do not own and potentially earn a commission for it. It can be any product, any brand, anything.
For example, Are you an Amazon fan? Do you enjoy, products on Amazon? You can become an Amazon affiliate for free and share any product listed on the Amazon website, and potentially earn commission from it. Dom, has an excellent course on “How To Build Amazon Sites And Make Money From it?
So, if you are struggling to get your Amazon website ranked into the search engines, or you’re having a hard time finding a niche, Dom’s course will walk you through the steps. Check his course, out here.
So, in short, I’m an affiliate marketer, that drives the traffic to someone else’s product, and when a customer buys the product, I will make a small commission for it.
That’s it; however, I don’t want to mislead you; it’s not exactly that simple. You see there are techniques you must learn like SEO, driving traffic to your website, and monetizing it. All of this takes time and effort.
The Risk Is Low
You may be wondering, why would a company pay affiliate marketers to promote their products. Well, that’s simple too. It’s because the company can save thousands of dollars in advertising and promotions if they have other people like me or even you called an affiliate marketer to promote their products.
Plus, it allows the company to reach so many more potential buyers, so it’s a win, win situation. At the same time, it is indeed a lower risk for the company rather than spending thousands on advertising because by paying an affiliate marketer; the company doesn’t pay anything until a customer purchases a product.
Moreover, affiliate marketing can be one of the most effective ways of earning an online income. Besides that affiliate marketing programs, are indeed a lot easier to join than receiving an interview for a day time job.
As a result, earning money while you sleep is a dream probably, for 99% of the world. Of course, who can pass up passive income?
How Does It Work?
However, to succeed with affiliate marketing the steps that you need to take aren’t considered passive. You’ll need active energy and effort to create a passive income. Moreover, affiliate marketing does take time, efforts, learning, and determination. It’s not as simple as it may appear.
There are a few steps that you’ll need to learn like:
- Picking a topic
- Finding affiliate programs
- Learn how to Start a blog
- Create high-quality content
- Building an audience
- Finding offers to promote
On the other hand, although, I find it a lot better to build your own site, however, sometimes people prefer the short route. If you have no time to put in the work and effort to build a site from scratch, there are businesses, that specifically create affiliate niche sites, that have been gaining momentum within the Google search engine and already getting results.
Not saying that these sites do not require work because they do, to remain the income that the sites are receiving you will still have to put in work regards but, if you would like to skip the beginning stages of building a website check out these excellent aged sites.
PROS
- Low Risk
-
Startup cost is low
- It’s not a scam.
- You can make lucrative income
- You’ll become a lot smarter
-
Affiliate Marketing is not going anywhere
CONS
- It’s not a get rich quick scheme.
- Takes work and effort.
- You’ll need to learn techniques.
- It’s not meant for everyone
- This requires patience
The Bottom Line
On a final note, you should have a better understanding on what internet and affiliate marketing is, the part that most people are anxious to find out about is how you will create a successful website and income with affiliate marketing.
As mentioned earlier there are essential steps that you must take to build a solid foundation for a brand new website, before you can even think about making an affiliate sale or site. Learn the proper techniques and strategies is indeed important. Don’t worry affiliate marketing isn’t going anywhere.
People are shopping online more than ever before, in fact, it is estimated that e-commerce will surpass 735 billion dollars in U.S retail sales by 2023
What are you waiting for, with the internet growing and people continuously online shopping? This is a chance for you to create a legit passive income. Affiliate marketing will only expand in its growth as well.
Kisha, this is another great article you have provided. You did a wonderful job of explaining the differences between internet marketing and affiliate marketing. It can definitely be a confusing aspect. Especially someone wanting to get into the online world, it’s very important for them to know and understand.
What I liked best about your article is how you explained the pros and cons of affiliate marketing and explaining it’s not a get rich scheme. It certainly is not and is just like any other job – you must work at it in order to be successful.
All the helpful links you provide throughout your article are helpful as well. Thank you for all this helpful information.
In this article, you share you can join Amazon for free as an affiliate. Are all affiliate programs free to join? Is there a limit on how many affiliate programs you can join at any given time?
Thanks again, for all this great information.
Have a great upcoming weekend.
Yvette
Hi, Yvette
Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read this article. I really appreciate. I am so glad that you found it to be helpful.
I believe sharing the pros and the cons about internet and affiliate marketing were important, especially for a beginner that has no clue what he or she is getting themselves into. This business model does take time and patience but, as they say hard work does pay off.
Great question!
Yes, Amazon is free to join and so are thousands of other programs.
However, as far as other affiliate programs being free, the answer to your question is yes but, at the same time no and here is why.
Although, you can sign up to thousands of affiliate programs for free and without making a purchase; it’s not always possible to sign up to certain programs, that require you to become a customer first. Then you’ll have an opportunity to become an affiliate next.
The most common practice you see this in is with MLM’s or everyday products that you might use like your cell phone provider or your local banking company. Maybe even you cable company or the place your purchased your auto from. In short, an affiliate is another way to say referral.
Another time I see that customers have to become customers first before becoming an affiliate is like products, that you use everyday like with my Tailwind, I had to be a customer first, which is understandable because, the company wants to make sure the user experience is controlled.
However, my #1 recommendation has taught me about so many affiliate programs that are available on the internet and which you can sign up for free. The opportunities are endless. I’m not sure why everyone is not looking into this.