You Can Clone This To Maximize Your Earnings With Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable ways to make passive income online.
It’s also one of the most challenging since there is no one-size-fits-all approach to succeeding as an affiliate marketer.
But if you follow the strategy I used in this affiliate marketing case study, you can make it.
Important before we start!
Affiliate marketing is easy. But you must put in some effort and use the right strategy to make money online.
I’ll help you make it possible by only using free services. Sounds exciting?
Step 1: Signup for an affiliate program.
If you are a beginner and don't have any online presence, the best way to start is by picking a pre-approved affiliate program.
We have many programs like that; in my case, I’ve chosen Vultr, a web hosting platform specializing in cloud computing services.
So Sign up for a free Vultr account and get the affiliate referral link.
Head over to the Vultr website and create a free Vultr account there. Once your account is ready, search for “Referral Program” Look for a section labeled “Give $100, Get $35”.
Copy the referral link and save it somewhere, like on Notepad.
But why have I chosen the Vultr affiliate program?
The reason is simple. It’s free to sign up, and you don’t need any technical skills to promote their products online. Plus, they offer something to you and your referred customer as well. Everyone wins!
Step 2: Brand and Track Your Link!
After choosing a product or service and signing up for its affiliate program, you must sign up for a link management system. What do I mean by that?
Well, most affiliate programs offer you a unique affiliate link you can use to promote their products online. But the link is usually long and ugly, making it difficult for your customers to remember.
And that’s where L-ink.me comes in.
It’s an online link management tool that helps you shorten, brand, and track your links on the go.
It also offers analytical insight into the performance of your digital marketing campaigns.
Getting started is easy. Create your free account, log in, and you’ll see an empty dashboard ready to be populated with your link tracking data.
Verify your domain and brand your affiliate link.
Here’s how to do it:
- Log into your L-ink.me account.
- Go to the “Branded Domains” section.
- Click on “Add Domain” to add your domain name there.
- Copy the Cname records given there.
- Go to your DNS records.
- Click “Add” to add Cname records to your subdomain or primary domain that you wanna use for tracking.
Note: Don’t use your website domain; use a custom domain for tracking links or a subdomain.
Your DNS record should look like this:
Go to your dashboard to make your link brandable. Paste your Vultr referral link in the box, hit the settings icon, and select your custom domain name.
Add your custom alias, such as Vultr, in this case, and that’s it!
You have successfully made a branded link and added it to your L-ink.me dashboard.
Now, you can use this link to promote Vultr online and make passive income online.
Step 3: Promote your referral link online
There are many ways to do it. But if you want to follow my strategy in this affiliate marketing case study, start with the methods I’ve used.
- Sell your skills.
- Make tutorials about Vultr.
- Target relevant keywords.
- Use Quora.
- Advanced Method!
Let’s dive into the details now.
1. Sell your skills.
Freelance gigs and online jobs are a great way to make money online, and you can use your affiliate link to create leads for yourself so if you are an expert in web design, digital marketing, programming, or any other skill that could help Vultr clients, start pitching your services online.
These are some examples of such freelance gigs that will help you promote hosting services like Vultr.
- Set up PHP script.
- Build a mailing server.
- Set up WordPress on a VPS.
- Migrate the site to VPS.
- Create an affiliate marketing website.
- Make a website like_______ (YouTube).
And the list goes on! But I hope you get the idea. You can also make money with affiliate marketing and freelancing when doing these services for your clients.
2. Make tutorials about Vultr.
Make online tutorials and other content that promotes Vultr. For example, create videos showing people how to set up Vultr on their site or WordPress install.
And then, include your affiliate link in the video description, and all the views will be redirected to your link. I do this on my channel. Here is an example.
You can also make tutorials based on the freelance gigs as well. You can make a tutorial on setting up a PHP script, building a mailing server, migrating the site to VPS, and more. You can create these tutorials on YouTube, your blog, LinkedIn, and Medium.
I explained this in more detail in this guide:
3. Target relevant keywords.
Another way to promote Vultr online is by targeting relevant keywords in your marketing campaigns. For example, if you are a web designer, you could use targeted keywords like “how to set up Vultr on a WordPress site” or “how to migrate your site to Vultr.”
While these are just informational keywords, they are easy to rank for. But ultimately, you want to rank for commercial keywords about the product or service you are promoting.
For example, you could write about the “Main keyword + modifiers such as best, cheap, alternative, compare, improve, and so on.
After you come up with these topic ideas, start creating high-quality content that is engaging and informative. This will help you attract more readers and potential customers to your affiliate link.
4. Use Quora.
Finally, you can use online communities like Quora to promote your affiliate link. Create a profile for yourself and answer questions about Vultr and online marketing in general, including how you use the service to make passive online income.
Let me share the secrets to getting traction on Quora. These secrets helped reach 1M content views on Quora last month
- Search for your topic
- Follow the “Most viewed writers.”
- See what questions they are answering.
- Answer those questions.
So the trick is to answer questions that the successful Quora users are responding to. You’ll surely get viewership and attract leads for your affiliate link.
Another Quora hack is to use Quora Ads Manager to get into the important metrics based on which you can answer. Here’s how to do it:
- Click on your profile.
- Go to Ads Manager.
- Choose the “New Campaign” option.
- Make the “Conversion Event” “Generic.”
- Set your daily maximum budget (e.g., $10) — we will not use it
- Go to “Questions” under “Choose primary targeting.”
- Click “Bulk add” and search for a relevant topic like “VPS.”
- Analyze weekly views.
And answer the questions with the most weekly views and boom! You have chosen highly targeted questions to answer that also get substantial traffic.
One last Quora hack is to go to a relevant question and jump over to “Question stats” to see if it’s worth your answer.
The key is to:
- Find high-volume questions
- Answer 1–2 questions daily.
- Start adding links after 10 days.
Why add your links after a few days?
Because you want to build credibility on Quora and establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche, once you have done that, your links will be more likely to get clicks from readers and leads for your business.
Important: Don’t share direct affiliate links on quora. You will be banned! Use a landing page or a bridge page.
So start by taking these simple steps to promote a great product like Vultr and make passive online income today!
Learn more about how I get 100K Views/ Month on Quora, Working 2 Hours a week in this post
5. Advanced Method to Promote Your Affiliate Offer
Very few people are doing this, but it can be effective. If you want to take your online marketing game to the next level, consider making a simple advisor tool that helps users decide on the right product or service.
For example, you can build a VPS hosting advisor tool. Use questions to determine which VPS hosting service is the best customer and recommend it!
The best example I can share with you is Hosting Adviser, which helps users select the best hosting based on their needs.
How To Create an Affiliate Product Advisor Tool?
There are plenty of free and paid product advisor software options. I’ve tried several, including Thrive’s quiz plugin, My Theme Shop’s quiz plugin, and Opinionstage. I currently use Opinionstage. You can test it for free!
Create Tools
Another approach is to build a simple tool where people search for something, and the tool will recommend results linked with affiliate products.
For example, I created a tool called Fast Domainer, where people can search for available domain names, and all suggestions will be affiliate links.
Today’s Quote:
If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse. (Jim Rohn)
- Disclosure: Some external links in this post are affiliate links.