How To Start Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

Affiliate marketing is one of the best online side-hustle that a person can do. The potential earnings from affiliate marketing is virtually unlimited while the start-up cost could range from $0 to a couple to ~$100 only. The best part is affiliate marketers don’t need to have their own product to sell. All they need to do is to promote somebody else’s product to earn a commission for each successful sale. Many people assume that a website is essential to any affiliate marketing campaign. Although this is used to be true in the past, it is not required today. In this article, we will let you know How to Start Affiliate Marketing Without a Website.

If Affiliate Marketing is So Good, Then Why People Are Not Starting Affiliate Marketing

There are many reasons why a person is hesitant to do affiliate marketing even if it can provide 5, 6, or even 7 digit figure income. The most common excuses are the following:

  1. Lack of knowledge or expertise in creating a website
  2. No idea how to start an affiliate marketing business
  3. Inability to write a meaningful article
  4. Previously scammed by affiliate marketing “gurus”
  5. No time to spare

These are legit concerns, but you must understand that they are not impossible to overcome. Here is why.

User-Friendly Website Builders Are Available

First of all, you don’t need to have a degree in IT to create your own website. There are now many website builders that are user-friendly. No need to code. All you need to do is to drop and drag widgets to give your website your brand personality as well as unique functionality and to create content.

Online Courses Abound

In case of not knowing how to start an affiliate marketing, it is not really an excuse because there are a lot of resources, both free and paid, that you can find on the internet.

For instance, Udemy, Wealthy Affiliate, and Shaw Academy are the resources that I used when I am just starting affiliate marketing.

Warning: Please avoid get-rich quick affiliate marketing courses that are being sold for a ridiculous price. Although they might work, you can get similar courses for a significantly reduced price.

Not An English/Scientific Paper

Inability to write a meaningful article seems a legit reason to not start affiliate marketing, but the truth is blogs are not the same an English paper or scientific report.

Sure, grammar is still important but you will surely not going to get penalized for having a few grammatical errors on your blogs.

Another big difference between writing a paper and writing a blog is blog articles are conversational. In other words, if you know how to tell a story on your social media post or have messaged a friend online, then technically you already blogged!

Treat it as a Legit Business

We understand that some people have attempted to start affiliate marketing but got scammed by an affiliate marketing guru.

You know, those gurus who are selling a done-for affiliate marketing strategy/course that is ridiculously priced. Unfortunately, people genuinely believe that if they buy the course and follow it step-by-step then they will be an instant millionaire. Then, reality hit. The strategy didn’t work overnight because affiliate marketing is not a quick-rich side hustle. Now they feel scammed for buying a useless thousand-dollar course.

Yet, the truth is affiliate marketing is not really a scam.

At most, these people just got hyped by the gurus that made them believe that affiliate marketing is a quick and easy cash cow.

Simple Time Management

The last concern is “no time to spare is” It seems it is a legit excuse not to blog. In reality, we all have a lot of spare time to use! We just don’t use it properly or we just prioritize wrong things (e.g. too much social media scrolling, spend so much time snooping and spreading rumors, binge-watching.

Okay, I understand that some of you legitimately have no time to start a side-hustle. Maybe you have 2 or more jobs, kids, extra-curricular activities, etc. thus managing a website for affiliate marketing is out of the question. Don’t worry. I got you. Below are some of the things you can do to start an affiliate marketing

What Are The Different Methods Of Doing Affiliate Marketing Without A Website?

If you are starting in affiliate marketing and have not found the time to learn web development or do not have the patience to do so, there are some of the following affiliate program methods that you do not need a site for:

1. Distributing Articles Through Article Directories

Article sharing involves creating articles that are ideally relevant to your affiliate products. These articles, which are usually at least 400 words, are then distributed through article directories, with affiliate links inserted into the text’s body or inserted into the author’s biography.

The trick to successful article distribution is to provide relevant, helpful, and rewarding content that people interested in your product can use. These articles can be in the form of reviews, guides, or simply informative articles, as long as they are worth reading.

2. Digital Marketing Using Forums

Forum marketing, or forum posting, involves posting affiliate links directly on forums as posts or comments. The main problem with posting on forums is your links can be seen as spam and can even be blocked. Therefore, you should refrain from simply posting links without adding value to everyone in the forum. You can do this by answering their questions or giving some helpful information then share your affiliate product and tell them how it will solve their problem. Finally, share with them your affiliate link and invite them to use try out the product through the link you have given.

Also, make sure that the forum on which you post your affiliate links is related to your product. Otherwise, no one will purchase the affiliate product no matter how great it is.

PRO TIP: As mentioned, not all forums allow you to post your affiliate link. Make sure to read the forum rules before posting your affiliate link. A get-around to this is to have a landing page where your affiliate link is. The strategy is to add value to the forum then share the link of your landing page that contains your affiliate link.

3. Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

Pinterest is the only social media (technically not a social media, rather a visual search engine) that truly allows affiliate marketers to directly put their affiliate link on the platform in a profitable way. Other social media lets you share affiliate links on their platform but their terms and conditions are restrictive and confusing. On the other hand, Pinterest allows its users to paste affiliate links directly to the destination link.

This is great news for affiliate marketers because creating Pinterest Pins is significantly easier than running and maintaining a website. In addition, since Pinterest is technically a search engine, affiliate marketers can easily get a lot of traffic from Pinterest by simply optimizing their Pinterest account.

PRO TIP: When creating a Pin, makes sure to add a high-traffic and relevant keyword to your Pin title and description and Pin it to a relevant board. Again, the board should also be using a high-traffic and relevant keyword on its title and description.

Read More: Optimize Your Pinterest for Business SEO in 3 Easy Steps, How to Get Traffic on Pinterest

4. Search Engine Marketing (Microsoft Advertising)

Search engine marketing is also an effective way to start affiliate marketing without a website. The theory is similar to affiliate marketing on Pinterest – use relevant keywords so your affiliate product will be shown to people who are searching it. The big difference between Pinterest marketing vs search engine marketing is the size of the audience (search engines have a significantly larger audience).

One thing that I need to warn your if you decide to use this method. Be sure you know how to do search engine marketing because although it is a powerful strategy to use, you will have to spend money to show your search engine ads that contain your affiliate link. If you haphazardly use this strategy without knowing how to do it, then you can easily lose money.

PRO TIP: Promote affiliate products that provides you a good landing page so you don’t have to create from scratch. Also this strategy only works with Microsoft Advertising (Bing/Yahoo search) Google doesn’t allow to directly use affiliate link on their search engine ads.

Recap: How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

Using a website for affiliate marketing is the norm but not essential. More and more people are learning and succeeding in affiliate marketing without a website. As affiliate marketing opportunities grow on the web, so does the number of non-website marketing activities. The trick is to use your imagination, be proactive, and know your product well.

Just a quick recap, here are the 4 things you can do to start affiliate marketing without a website.

  1. Distributing Articles Through Article Directories
  2. Digital Marketing on Forums
  3. Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest
  4. Search Engine Marketing (Microsoft Advertising)

Question for you. Which of these strategies will you use? Do you have a strategy that allows you to promote your affiliate link without a website? If you do please feel free to share! Let me know your answers on the comment section below.

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