Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular options for making money online. For the most part, affiliate marketing is free to do.
A majority of affiliate programs are free to join. You don’t need any special skills to recommend affiliate products.
For beginners, one of the big questions that comes to mind is, “can you start affiliate marketing with no money?”
The answer to this is yes and no. In terms of “no money”, it can mean not having a lot of start-up cash which is completely possible. The other meaning is starting from zero, which is also possible but will eventually require money for the long-term.
I will explain how you can start affiliate marketing with absolutely no money as well as very little money. Both options involve starting a blog as it is one of the lowest-cost methods for earning income online.
Tired of not making affiliate sales? Learn how I went from zero to consistent affiliate commissions every month so you can too. Click here to learn how I did it.
Do You Need Money to Start Affiliate Marketing?
The short answer to this is, yes. However, you do not need any money in the very beginning depending on how you approach affiliate marketing.
For many beginners, creating a blog is the easiest and lowest cost method of making money online.
You can start a blog for free depending on the service that you use. There are pros and cons to free blogs but it is an option if you have no budget at all.
The biggest con to free blogging services is that you do not have complete ownership of your blog.
Meaning, the service can close your account at any time for any reason. Imagine creating a ton of blog posts only to discover your blog account was shut down.
Free blogging service options can include WordPress.com and Blogger.
I also recommend the free blog offered here on the same training platform that I used when I learned how to make money with a blog.
A free blog can be a great starting point for a beginner affiliate marketer but the truth of the matter is that you’ll eventually need to (and will likely want to) transition to a self-hosted blog of your own.
A self-hosted blog means you register your own domain name, get a web hosting account, and install the WordPress CMS on your hosting account.
You have more options with your own self-hosted blog than you do with any free blogging service.
The big advantage of course is that you retain 100% ownership of your blog. Besides that, you can make money in any way that you want.
Whether it’s affiliate marketing, paid ads, sponsored ads, or any combination, it is your choice.
Is Affiliate Marketing Still Profitable?
You can expect affiliate marketing to be profitable now and into the foreseeable future.
It is one of the most popular ways to earn income online and earning a full-time income is more than possible with consistent effort.
There are many ways to make money promoting affiliate products but many methods do require paid advertising.
This is why I recommend starting a blog. Don’t underestimate blogging as a way to become an affiliate marketer.
I know of many bloggers that earn a full-time income online promoting affiliate products.
Thanks to hard work of my own, I was able to transition out of a full-time retail job into working for myself managing my own niche blogs.
The Easiest Way to Get Started as an Affiliate Marketer
If you have a bit of a budget (at least $100 to start), you can start affiliate marketing with your own niche blog.
A niche blog is a type of blog that focuses on one specific topic.
Starting a niche blog was a game-changer for me. For years, I struggled to make regular affiliate commissions.
It wasn’t until a job layoff that I took affiliate marketing seriously and pursued blogging as my method of choice.
Rather than spending the time to learn what I needed to learn on my own, I found this online training course and took action on what I learned there.
By doing so, I was able to earn a steady income online.
Why a Niche Blog Works for Affiliate Products
When it comes to a low-cost strategy for becoming an affiliate marketer, niche blogs will remain one of the best ones out there.
A niche blog works extremely well for promoting affiliate products because of the content that you create.
Your content are the blog posts that you write. You’ll be writing blog posts related to the niche that you chose.
Over time, your blog posts will be indexed and ranked in the search engine results.
This is what brings you free targeted web traffic. As people search for things on Google and other search engines, some of your blog posts will be clicked on.
A percentage of your web visitors will click on your affiliate links and buy what it is you are promoting. That is how you make commissions.
The best part of this is that all of your web traffic is free and the more blog posts that you create, the more opportunities you have for getting free traffic.
Tools and Software You’ll Need
As mentioned above, you can start a free blog but if you have the budget for buying a domain name and getting web hosting, that is the better route to take.
Almost any web hosting company can provide you with everything that you need for your niche blog. Siteground is a great web hosting provider that can do just that.
Other software you can use are keyword research tools. There is no need to pay for one as there are some great free keyword tools you can utilize.
Some of these include:
- Google Search and its autosuggest feature
- KeywordTool.io
- AnswerThePublic.com (limited free searches)
- Ubersuggest
When all is said and done, you can get your own self-hosted WordPress blog for well under $100.
Can You Start Affiliate Marketing Without a Website?
There is a way to sell affiliate products without a blog. It requires a bit more in terms of tools and software.
It is also a bit advanced for beginners. However, the flow chart below demonstrates how it would work:
It involves using a landing page (opt-in page) to collect your visitor’s email addresses, an autoresponder service that stores those email addresses and redirects users to a presell page, and then finally leading your visitors to the merchant’s page using your presell page and email messages.
This strategy is a lot for a beginner to understand which is what makes blogging an easier way to get started.
Closing Thoughts On Affiliate Marketing with No Money
I think it is great that anyone can begin affiliate marketing with little to no start-up costs.
It is important to understand that at some point, you will need to invest money into things such as domain registration, web hosting, research tools, etc.
Niche blogging is my recommendation for beginners. It is how I got my start and what I continue to do today to earn a consistent income online
If you are ready to get started with your own niche blog, consider following the same step-by-step training program I followed when I started.
I’m still a member of this training program today and use it to help others one-on-one with creating their own successful niche blogs.