Following up on the last article on Affiliate Marketing As An Online Business, I would like to point you to some resources where you can learn affiliate marketing especially if you are totally new to this.

To me affiliate marketing is a subset of internet marketing, with specific focus on promoting products or services from affiliate programs.

There are a number of skill sets you have to pick up and this applies whether you are doing affiliate marketing, internet marketing in general or even going into drop shipping:

• Set up a website. And we recommend this be done on WordPress CMS platform as it is very flexible and there are lots of support information available online as so many people use it. And you do not need programming or coding knowledge but you do need to know how to maneuver around WordPress.
• Choosing of a niche area you want to work on, example if you keep fit and slim and know a lot in this area, you may promote products related to health and fitness.
• Knowing all about traffic generation, and this can be through paid ads like Google Adwords, social media ads and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Knowing how to heavily rely on social media is also key.
• Content creation. You also need to learn that creation of quality contents for a website is key to having subject matter authority and to attract traffic.
• Learn about affiliate networks and programs. Choose the right affiliate products that you can promote profitably.

For a total beginner, there is indeed quite a number of things you need to learn. And there are courses conducted by trainers who will teach you all these. I have attended a number of courses, some are good but unfortunately some are quite useless and many are scammy.

There are also a number of online training programs. I have tried out a few myself.

I have been a premium member of Wealthy Affiliate (WA) for a while and I have written a comprehensive review of this affiliate marketing training resource. Please head over there to read the pros and cons.

The review was done some time ago but it is largely valid even currently.

I will however supplement with the following comments having been a paying member myself for nearly two years.

1. You really get all the skill sets as necessary, some areas very comprehensively while still lacking somewhat elsewhere.
2. As a student trying to learns things, you absolutely must have the learning style to be able to absorb materials from watching instructional videos. To me it is great, as time schedule is so flexible.
3. WA itself provides web hosting for many websites (50 websites).  I have noted previously that location of hosting server affects your SEO though that’s not the only ranking factor. WA hosting server is in US. Therefore while hosting is now taken care of by WA when you become a member, take note where is your primary audience. Web hosting is fairly affordable at about SGD120 a year, so say you are targeting primarily audience in Singapore, then get a separate hosting service in Singapore. Especially if SEO is your primary source of traffic, page 1 ranking is important.
4. WA has both monthly and annual plans. Some of you will think, heh let me quickly learn as much as possible and then you can stop the subscription. Yes, that’s a possibility. I continue to subscribe to the service because of 2 reasons. The first being WA has an affiliate program and you can promote WA like I do. The commissions I get pay for the subscription actually (plus the free hosting I get as some of my websites target US audience). The other key reason is that they have new updates and training videos from time to time. I learned about AMP from there.

Sign up for a free account and try it out. I know 2 to 3-day workshop training can cost a few thousand dollars, so here is a fairly affordable option to try out things.

Alternatively, I am in the process of putting together my own training programs for aspiring digital marketers or internet marketers and will update this space after my trial run with my close circle of friends.

Liong Hai

—

Anspire Consulting provides digital marketing services. This piece is written more on a personal capacity. I do have affiliate links on this page.