Disclaimer: I use affiliate links on here which means that if you purchase anything through my affiliate links, I receive commission at no additional cost to you. My views and opinions are never influenced by anybody but myself because I only promote products that I love!

Making some extra cash online can be a huge blessing. Unfortunately, getting started can be overwhelming. If you search in Google for, “ways to make money online” you will get an endless search result.

Filtering through those results gets tiresome. Unless you are already familiar with affiliate marketing, network marketing, creating passive income, side hustles, etc. it may feel like you are reading a foreign language.

Hopefully, I can help clear some of it up for you. I will be writing individual posts explaining each of these methods of making money online and sharing my number one way to make money within each method. We’ll start with affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing

Google defines affiliate marketing as: “A marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.”

Basically, you promote a product (preferably one that you yourself like and use) to your readers, viewers, friends, family, acquaintances or whoever else you can get the product in front of. This id done using a personalized link provided to you by the company you are promoting the product for.

If the product is purchased via your link, you earn a commission for that sale. When done correctly, affiliate marketing can benefit you as the affiliate, the consumer and the company you are promoting the product for.

How do you get started as an affiliate?

Getting started as an affiliate is really easy and normally takes just a few minutes. Typically, there is no cost to become an affiliate since you are trying to help sell a product. Most companies will instantly approve affiliates, but there are some that have an approval process to go through. Many times these sites will require you to have a website or a domain name in order to be approved.

Types Of Affiliate Programs

There are literally millions of products out there that you can promote as an affiliate. When I was first trying to make sense of affiliate marketing and I was trying to decide how I would promote products and which affiliate programs I would join, I found it easier to think about affiliate marketing in two different categories.

1. General Product Affiliate Programs – Amazon would be a good example of a general product affiliate program. You can literally choose from a million different products you want to promote. It could be a tent for camping or an electric toothbrush you love. Those are pretty general products.  
2. Niche Specific Affiliate Products – This could be an awesome course you found that teaches people how to start a blog or maybe the latest ketogenic supplement. Those would both be targeting customers within a specific niche.

Companies Offering Affiliate Programs

There are thousands of companies out there that offer affiliate programs. Listed below are a few of my favorites. I am an affiliate with each of these companies. If there is a company out there that you like to work with or that you love to buy from, reach out to them or check their website, they may offer an affiliate program.

• Wealthy Affiliate – Wealthy Affiliate not only offers thousands of affiliate options but they also provide a complete platform to promote your products on. This is a totally free program although they do offer a “premium” package upgrade. Currently the premium upgrade is $49 per month. If you upgrade within the first seven days of joining you get the first month for $19. The premium plan comes with a ton of training and benefits but you can totally get started with the free plan. 
• ClickFunnels – ClickFunnels is probably one of my favorite companies AND tools to use since joining this world of online marketing. Russell Brunson, the creator of ClickFunnels is from my hometown of Boise Idaho and he has this wildly successful company. ClickFunnels offers products and services to help entrepreneurs grow their business online. As an affiliate you earn great commissions and you have many great products you can promote.
• Amazon Associates – Amazon Associates is also easy and free to join. A huge benefit of choosing Amazon as an affiliate partner is that they have over a million products to choose from to promote. Regardless of what your interests are, you’ll find something that will fit within your niche to promote. You can earn up to 10% in advertising fees.
• Click Bank – You can make up to 75% commissions with ClickBank! You can get paid as often as every week. 
• ShareASale – ShareASale is another great affiliate program. They work with over 3,900 merchants so you have plenty of offers to promote with this company too. Again, it was super simple to get started with ShareAsale.

Promoting your Affiliate Products

Promoting your affiliate products can be done online on whatever platform you choose. Sometimes this will depend on your niche or maybe even your personal preference. What works for one person may not work for others. I’ll give you a couple examples.

My daughter is 22, and she is really into fashion and makeup. She has thousands of followers on every social media platform you can think of. She can take photos of herself wearing some new makeup or a cute new outfit she bought and share a link to it on any one of her social media pages and she could sell those products with little effort. That wouldn’t work for me and I wouldn’t see the same success.

For myself, I like to blog about ways you can make extra money online. One of the best ways to do that, is with affiliate marketing. Another great way to make money online is blogging. My favorite way to do both of these things is through Wealthy Affiliate. Not only can you host your blog within Wealthy Affiliate, but they will also teach you how to set up your website, how to optimize your website and your posts for search engines, and how to promote products for affiliate marketing.

Because this is a product I use and love, I have written a detailed review on Wealthy Affiliate via a blog post. I can then share that post with others who are interested in making money online, affiliate marketing or people wanting to start a blog. If anyone joins Wealthy Affiliate using my link, I would receive a commission.

Final thoughts

Find what works for you. If you enjoy sharing amazing cake decorating videos and recipes on pinterest, find some affiliate programs where you can promote some amazing new cake decorating supplies you have found that would directly relate to the readers who would be checking out the recipes or videos you are sharing.

If you are a member of a bunch of Facebook groups for new moms and you found the coolest new bottles that you can promote as an affiliate, share it with those like minded group members (as long as the Facebook group you are in allows it).

Bottom line, get creative. There are an unlimited amount of ways you can promote products as an affiliate.

As always, I would love to connect with you on Facebook and best of luck to you on your journey to financial freedom.