The Best Way to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing: Follow These Steps

Let's go back in time a few years. I was scrolling the Internet and this time I was looking for the best ways to make money online.

I landed on website where a young man called Nathaniel from the United States was teaching people how to make a living on the Internet. Nathaniel said he got started when he was living in China and wanted to earn dollars online and "live like a king".

Nathaniel had accomplished his goals and now he was teaching other people to do the same. That sounded so exciting!

Back then I lived in Finland (which is my home country) but I had visited in Asia and I thought that the idea of "living like a king" in Asia while earning dollars or euros online wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

So I got started with their training that he recommended and the name of the training is called Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate, as its name says teaches people how to make money online with affiliate marketing. In my opinion, it's the best way to get started with affiliate marketing because their training is beginner-friendly but provides still world-class quality.

I got started without any prior knowledge or experience of affiliate marketing. Actually, I didn't even know what affiliate marketing means. So I can completely relate with you because you are on your journey to getting started.

Making money online with affiliate marketing has enabled me to travel around the world.

Nowadays I have achieved some of my goals and dreams with affiliate marketing. I make a full-time income online, I can live wherever I want, and work whenever I want and I can do what I love. And one of the things that I love doing is helping other people to achieve the same.

After getting started and learning myself how to pick money online with affiliate marketing, I have helped thousands of other people to get started as well.

Maybe today is your turn to get started? 

Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing Review - Summary


What is Affiliate Marketing?

It's an act where you make money by promoting other people's products.

Affiliate Marketing Example?

  1. You leave a link to an Amazon product.
  2. Somebody clicks your link.
  3. He buys a product on Amazon.
  4. You earn a commission.

What is the Best Way to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

  1. Start the step-by-step training on Wealthy Affiliate.
  2. Apply what you have learned.
  3. Ask me if you have any questions regarding the training.
  4. Start earning commissions with affiliate marketing.

Who Is Affiliate Marketing Best For?

For anyone who wants to make passive income online. 

Is Affiliate Marketing Recommended? 

Yes. Affiliate marketing is my #1 recommended way to make money online for especially beginners but also for more advanced Internet marketers.

How long Does It Take to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?

This depends on a few factors:

  1. How much effort you are willing to put in?
  2. What kind of training do you have?
  3. Are you going to invest any money?

With a proper training you can fasten the process significantly and start making money with affiliate marketing more easily. You can learn from other people's mistakes and no need to make them yourself.

I know people who have made their first income within 7 days but for most people it takes a bit more time.

How Much Does It Cost to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

You can get started for completely free on Wealthy Affiliate.

However, my recommendation is that you invest money at least in your own domain name (~$14/year) and the domain hosting.

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If you want to make more money faster, I also recommend getting additional tools like the step-by-step training on Wealthy Affiliate, keyword tool and support from experienced affiliate marketers.

Those are all included within the Wealthy Affiliate premium membership.

Therefore, you can get started with a very cheap price. Normally starting a business would cost you up to $10,000's but you can get started with affiliate marketing with almost for free.


The Best Way To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing - My Video

In order to provide you the best step-by-step instructions to start making money with affiliate marketing, I also created for you the following video to help you out.

If your goal is to start making money online with affiliate marketing, watch this video until the end and let me know if you have any questions and I'll be more than happy to help you further!

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing simply means making money by promoting other people's products. Let me illustrate this with an simple example:

  1. You leave a link to Amazon to your website or on your social media.
  2. Somebody clicks your links to Amazon.
  3. He buys a product on Amazon.
  4. You earn a commission from Amazon for ALL the products that the customer bought within 24 hours.

Amazon affiliate program is probably the most famous one in the world and certainly the biggest independent affiliate program. Thousands of people from all around the world get paid every single month by Amazon. Also I get paid by Amazon because I has left some links on some of my websites.

However, Amazon is just one example of 100,000's affiliate programs in the world. You can basically get paid by promoting any product or any company in the world. The opportunities are endelss.

So in a nutshell affiliate marketing looks like this:

  1. You leave an affiliate link anywhere on the Internet.
  2. Somebody clicks your link and buys a product later.
  3. You earn a commission.

Affiliate marketing is not by any means a complicated process. It may feel a bit complicated at the beginning but once you learn it, you realize it's a simple 4-step process repeated over and over again.

That being said, making a big income with affiliate marketing certainly requires a lot of effort. You have come to the right place because in this article you will learn everything you need to know to get started with affiliate marketing.

Make Money with Affiliate Marketing in 4 Simple Steps

I have created step-by-step instructions and illustrations how you can make money with affiliate marketing on my comprehensive Wealthy Affiliate review.

You will see the examples from my own websites how I am using the 4-step process to make passive income.

I haven't touched some sites for almost a year and they are still making me consistently some money every single month.

If you are interested in seeing how the process works in practice read this article to see how you can use the 4-step formula to make money with affiliate marketing.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginners?

When you are a beginner with affiliate marketing, the best and the fastest way to succeed is to find someone who already knows how to make money with affiliate marketing and follow their steps.

The principle applies that Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy and pretty much all the other business coaches in the world say, "If you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the same results that they do."

The process of making money with affiliate marketing is simple yet it requires some effort to make a big income.

Now you are in a good place because I have already walked the path from a complete beginner to making a full-time income online with affiliate marketing. I have already made the mistakes so you don't need to do them again. 

You can just learn from my mistakes and start making money online faster than I did. In addition, you will be able to leverage all the wisdom and techniques that I have learned during my affiliate marketing career.

Here are the steps that I suggest you take to start affiliate marketing:

  1. Start the step-by-step training on Wealthy Affiliate.
  2. Follow the training and apply all the steps that you learn.
  3. Ask lots of questions within the community from me and other members.
  4. Start making money with affiliate marketing.

When you follow those steps, you can't really fail.

I don't know anyone who wouldn't have succeeded with Wealthy Affiliate training if they didn't quit.

In the other words, everyone that I know who started the Wealthy Affiliate training and didn't quit, made a good income online!

My 1-On-1 Support Guarantees That You'll Succeed

When you join Wealthy Affiliate through my affiliate link, as a bonus I provide you my 1-on-1 support and mentoring. It doesn't cost you anything more but it's completely included in your membership.

I will answer ALL your questions and make sure that you succeed. I have personally helped numerous people already within WA so I have also noticed what are the most common things that people struggle with and how you can overcome them.

Normally, I could charge for this kind of affiliate marketing consultation service at least $50-200/hour but you get it for completely free included in your Wealthy Affiliate membership.

I will be happy to provide you my helping hand with affiliate marketing.

The best part is that you can get started on Wealthy Affiliate for free so you don't need to risk anything. You don't even need to give your credit card details.

Once you notice that the training works and it really helps you to make money with affiliate marketing, you can upgrade to the premium which is $19 for the first month and therefater $49/month or $359/year.

I am myself a premium member with a yearly membership because it costs less than $0,99 day but it provides all the tools you need to make a full-time income with affiliate marketing. In the other words, the premium membership pays itself back quickly.

IMPORTANT NOTE! Within Wealthy Affiliate, you can also receive 1-on-1 support for 100% free from other successful affiliate marketers by following these steps.

Why Is WA the Best for Beginner Affiliate Marketers?

Recently, I published a blog post, "​Is Wealthy Affiliate for beginners?" Where I explained in a comprehensive manner why WA is great for beginners who want to make money online with affiliate marketing.

I recommend that you read through that article but I have also created you a following image that concludes the main benefits of Wealthy Affiliate?

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Learn SIMPLE steps to make a LIFE-CHANGING INCOME online. I will help you hand-by-hand!

8 Benefits of Wealthy Affiliate

Many people guess that getting started with the Wealthy Affiliate would cost lts of money but it doesn't.

You can get started for completely free here or by clicking the button below.

How Much Money Can You Make with Affiliate Marketing?

First of all, you need to acknowledge that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. You need to put in the effort to succeed.

But if you are willing to do the work, even the sky isn't a limit. Here are 5 examples of friends who are making +$10,000/month online with affiliate marketing.

Just click that link to check out how they did it. By clicking the image below you can see one example of affiliate marketing earnings from one Wealthy Affiliate members:

Littlemama has regularly posted her income reports on Wealthy Affiliate.

That being said, most likely you will not make a $10,000/month income during your first year unless you are exceptionally determined.

A great thing with affiliate marketing is that your income usually grows exponentially. At first, you will not earn much money but when the "snowball starts rolling", your income can grow pretty fast.

See Brok's example by clicking the image below:

Brok joined the "$10,000/month club" in January 2018 by earning $13,481.39 in a single month.

Even though those guys are making +$10,000/month, they'll income can still grow a lot. For example, Dom Wells who is one of them is nowadays running a +$1 million dollar business. He also got started with affiliate marketing but since then created some own products as well.

You can set your own goals depending on your current level and how much time/money you are willing to spend.

Let's say that you use at least a few hours per day and some money by following the Wealthy Affiliate training, you can earn +$2,000/month passive income after a year.

Of course, that's just an estimation and you may earn much more than that or much less than that. It's all up to you.

Conclusion: Best Way to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing

The best way to for you to get started with affiliate marketing is to follow the steps of the other successful affiliate marketers. Then you don't need to make the same mistakes that they did and you'll save tons of time and money.

Wealthy Affiliate training is the most popular and probably the most effective affiliate marketing training for beginners. It has worked for me and 1,000's of other people as well so I am sure it will work for you as well.

Some of the greatest thing of Wealthy Affiliate are that you can get started for completely free and you'll get my personal 1-on-1 support. 

You will never be left alone within the WA community because there is a 24/7/365 live chat and technical support.

In addition, if you any time get stuck with any issue that you have, you can always reach out to me. I'll provide you my professional advice and help you to move forward.

affiliate marketing for dummies

The key is just to start. I will support you hand by hand all the way to your success.


What kind of experiences do you have with affiliate marketing?

Would you like to get my 1-on-1 support and mentoring to get started?

Have you already started the training on Wealthy Affiliate?

Let me know in the comments below!

If you have any questions, just leave a comment below and I will be more than happy to help you out.

By Roope Kiuttu

Hello! I am Roope "Robert" Kiuttu, the founder and owner of YourOnlineRevenue.com. I created this website back in 2015 to help you to make money online. You can ask me anything and I'll be happy to help you out. I help people daily to make more money online and I love seeing people succeeding. If you want to get my 1-on-1 support and help to make money online as well, get started HERE.

38 comments

  1. Hi Roope,
    congratulations with your success with Wealthy Affiliate.

    I’m a member too, so I know where you’re coming from when saying nice things about Wealthy Affiliate. They helped me too, though I don’t do affiliate marketing per se, but freelance SEO writing.
    It was the job that helped me when I had nothing here in my native Serbia.

  2. Hello sir.roope. I commemted before in your vlog about zwerl who was reported the zwerl lottery scam. I am her a christian also. I live in the philippines. I have no money to invest in the online marketing training. I just want to do the blog. If possible can i make my own website, blog and copy the link on my site like amazon without attending any training??? Please help me sir. I don’t have money to invest. I’m just a housewife in philippines who wants to earn money while keeping my eyes on our eyes. Sorry.! I hope you can read this.

    1. Hi Geraldine,

      yes, you can do affiliate marketing without paying a lot of money. However, you still need to find out how to learn it because you need some kind of training anyway. You can search things on YouTube and Google but most people will still sell paid training courses because they want to get rewarded for their hard work and teaching others.

      Anyway, maybe you could check out these online jobs to start making money online. Freelancing could be one good option for you.

  3. Ive been on clickbank affiliate system for more than a year but never really get profit from it. I guess I should try and definitely consider your tips. Thank you for sharing this good article you really big help for beginner om affiliate marketing business like me.

    1. Thanks for sharing! I’ve heard your story also often before. I would guess that 990% of the people who start affiliate marketing don’t make any significant money with it because they don’t have a proper training like Wealthy Affiliate that would walk them through all the steps to make big money with it.

  4. I began affiliate marketing when I joined hubpages, a writing site. Hubpages allowed amazon and ebay affiliate marketing. However, later hubpages phased out ebay and conttinued with amazon affiliate program. I was able to sell few ebay and amazon products through hubpages. Later when I created my website, I began amazon affiliate marketing. However, my account was disabled because I was unable to sell a single product. Then I created another account and was able to sell amazon products. sadly, I am yet to build passive income from affiliate marketing.

  5. Affiliate marketing sounds like a great income opportunity. But from the looks of it, affiliate marketing is still not as easy as it gets. There’s more to it than just leaving a link on websites waiting for sales to come in. Just like all other business opportunities, hardwork is still needed to get the most out of affiliate marketing.

    1. Yeah, making money with affiliate marketing requires learning like any other craft. However, the earning potential is much greater than with most other careers.

      In many jobs there is an income limit that people are willing to pay you but as an affiliate marketer your potential to earn money is basically limitless. I think that’s one of the things that especially fascinate me with affiliate marketing.

      You can get a raise every month. That wasn’t possible in my previous 9-5 jobs. I went to ask for a raise from the boss and it was up to him to decide whether or not will I get it. Now with affiliate marketing the amount of my income is in my own hands 🙂

  6. Honestly, I’m a little bit scared joining in any websites that offers a big amount of money by doing easy stuff. Because I’ve heard a lot of negative reviews regarding online marketing. Maybe, I just don’t have enough knowledge about this field. But affiliate Marketing caught my attention.

    It’s helping companies to promote there products and services online. In return, the companies will give some commission. And it’s sounds good for me, and I want to know more about this. Particularly, the Wealthy Affiliate I like the one on one tutorial because I need someone to guide me step by step by someone who really knows the business and already earning to it.

    1. I understand what you mean. I am also often very careful when joining new websites and especially if I’m investing some money there. It’s always good to do the research beforehand than regretting later.

      However, Wealthy Affiliate is a 100% legitimate company and it has been around since 2005. There are more than 1,500,000 members within the community and you are able to find tons of positive reviews about them on the Internet.

      Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t promise you lots of money without your own effort. They provide you a step-by-step training and provide you all the tools that you need to make money online. But eventually you need to put in the effort and move forward. There are no shortcuts to success. But once you start making money online, I can say from my own experience that it feels great.

      You can join Wealthy Affiliate and get my 1-on-1 support here.

  7. I actually started a blog where I was reviewing various different online sites & methods where my users could start making money online. Affiliate marketing is definitely a great way to make money online but you need to make sure to keep going at it. The problem for me was that I messed around with progressing the site and made a few mistakes which did not go well. I may try again though at some point.

    1. You are right. Making money with affiliate marketing takes time and consistency.

      Many people treat it as a “get-rich-quick” system and when they don’t make money right away, they quit. I have seen that happening many times when people get started on Wealthy Affiliate.

      However, those who keep on going forward will all eventually make money and some of them will make even a huge income.

      1. It’s the same with a lot of online money making methods, to be fair. I think people expect sites to automatically generate them money without much work which no site is like at the start. I’m actually talking to someone right now who has been experimenting with so many different website ideas but give up very quickly when it doesn’t work right away. It’s not at all a great strategy/habit to have.

        1. You’re right. If your friend jumps from one opportunity to another without sticking it out to make big money, he develops a habit of quitting which is not good like you said.

  8. It says that WA will display my ads. I don’t get it. If I’m just the marketer, what products will I advertise in the ads? I get the general idea but I thought that the ads are from other people and you’re just the one who is letting advertisers in your website display their ads. I’m sorry I’m new to this.

    1. Thanks for your question. WA will not actually display your ads. Wealthy Affiliate is a promotion-free zone to make it a safe place for anyone to learn to make money online.

      Wealthy Affiliate provides the training, tools and everything you need to make money with affiliate marketing. You will be able to make money through your website using many different ways, one of them is displaying ads.

      I recommend starting their training because it will walk you through all the steps you need to start making money with affiliate marketing.

  9. One good thing that I could pick out of the review about Wealthy Affiliate marketing is that it is one of the programs out there that can offer a one and one tutoring when you are starting out. I believe that this is something that many others lack and that brought about the failure in them. However, with WA, you can get all the necessary tools needed to succeed in affiliate marketing as well as even push you further to becoming successful in other endeavors of life and that’s a great plus for the program ☺

    1. Yeah Wealthy Affiliate has many benefits compared to other programs 🙂

      I can’t deny it but my 1-on-1 support is valuable for anyone starting on WA because I give my word to make sure that anyone who starts with me, will succeed. I answer all questions that a person has and provide with personalized tips on how he/she can make more money online.

      Of course, it’s eventually up to the individual whether or not he’ll succeed but Wealthy Affiliate really provides everything you need to succeed online.

  10. Amazon seems to be the most used company that affiliate marketers focus on in advertising their products because it is obviously the commonly used online store by millions of people worldwide.

    1. Yes, Amazon has several benefits. People trust Amazon and many individuals buy there products “just for fun”. They just go to Amazon and shop something that they don’t even need. Amazon has done an amazing job to optimizing their online sales.

      Anyway, the commissions on Amazon for affiliates are not huge so I think there are also much better options for profitable affiliate marketing.

      1. For the fact that lots of people are into affiliate marketing with Amazon that’s probably the reason why their commission is lower. It’s like the law of demand and supply where the sellers are bigger in number compared to the available buyers, the price will drop. So, with Amazon having too many affiliate marketers, their commissions are certainly going to be low.

        1. Yeah, that’s true. They don’t need to pay more because many people want to promote their products anyway. Other reason is that most of their products are physical ones so the commissions can’t be so big.

          1. Exactly! Amazon is so well placed in online store to be trying to use high commission pay to lure more affiliate marketers to work for the company.

            A friend of mine told me about how good being an affiliate marketer for Craigslist is. What do you know about them? Between Amazon and Craigslist, which company pays better commission?

          2. To be honest, I haven’t used Craigslist myself and I don’t know how their affiliate marketer works. But I can say that if they have an affiliate program, it’s not even closely as popular as Amazon affiliate program. Maybe it’s also good but I just haven’t used it myself.

          3. There is no way Craigslist affiliate marketer program is more popular than Amazon but being less popular than Amazon might be a blessing in disguise in terms of commission for those using it unlike Amazon that is very popular but pays lower commission to its affiliate marketers.

          4. I don’t know much about how Craigslist affiliate program works as it’s my friend who makes use of it was the one that told me it’s a good alternative. I can ask him to tell me more about it and then relay whatever he tells me to you.

  11. I plan to start with the free membership and move on to the premium membership in the future. I want to do this but my laptop is damage for now. I just want to know if you need to have your own blog or website to be an affiliate marketer?

    1. You don’t necessarily need your own blog or a website to be an affiliate marketer. However, it’s highly recommended to have one.

      When you have your own site, it’s like your “own property”. If you build your business on Facebook, YouTube or on other social media, they can basically wipe out everything by changing their rules. On the other hand, when you have your own website, it’s your own asset that grows in value over time and nobody can wipe it out.

      That being said, it’s possible to build an affiliate marketing business on a social media platform but I don’t recommend it.

      1. I guess you have a point here. It’s really best for me to have my own blog. But for now, I don’t have one. In the future I’ll make one and maybe I’ll start first with the social media.

  12. Can I ask how the company itself makes money. That is of course besides the membership and renewal fee that they charge their members. I just fail to see the metrics of their enterprise.

    1. Thanks for your question Youngshark!

      Wealthy Affiliate makes money by selling a few different services.
      1.Premium membership (their main product). You can see the details what premium includes here.
      2.Domain names. They sell domain names in same way like hosting companies such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, etc.
      3.Selling comments to websites. Members can buy comments to their websites and blogs on Wealthy Affiliate.

      As far as I know, these are the ways how Wealthy Affiliate makes money. The premium membership is certainly the main product. It provides so much tools for making money online that it’s easily worth the price. It pays itself back quickly.

      1. Okay. Thanks a lot. I neede to check it to know how a local netwoek marketing company operates. I went to their workshop but I was not convinced about them when they said they only garnered income from member subscriptions.

        1. I see, I see. Notice that network marketing is completely different than affiliate marketing.

          With network marketing your goal is to recruit as many people as possible to your downline while with affiliate marketing you don’t need to recruit anyone.

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