How To Promote Affiliate Links For Free

In this modern society, digital has moved to the forefront of the marketing department’s priorities. Businesses are starting to invest a lot in digital marketing, there is no better time to start doing affiliate marketing than now.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, chances are you are getting a little overwhelmed by the mountains of the information on the internet. Here I am going to simplify it for you and show you 5 ways to start promoting your affiliate links for free.

 

Types Of Traffic

In short, there are 2 types of traffic which you can utilise to draw people to your affiliate links, namely free traffic and paid traffic. Free traffic can be traffic from social media, email list, or search engine. While paid traffic can be Google Ads, Bing Ads and Facebook ads.

Building free traffic is a slow process that takes time and patience, but it is also one that will give you the most lasting result. If you are in this for the long haul, it is best to build up your own free traffic source so that you won’t be always chasing the money. It is a great way to generate passive income from.

Paid traffic is an amazing way to bring your offer in front of a large audience. When you pay, you get to choose your exact keywords. While the instant nature of PPC makes it sound really exciting, I do have to caution you that you are basically using real money with PPC. You can burn through money if you are careless and if you do not know what you are doing.

So here I will focus on the 5 methods which you can promote your affiliate links for free.

 

1. Facebook

Practically everyone is on Facebook these days, old or young. It allows you to reach out to a large audience – people can view, like, comment, and share your posts.

The more genuine interaction you have. the more your posts get seen by others. Well-written updates and posts can then result in profitable affiliate sales. So how can you get started with Facebook affiliate marketing?

 

i. Sharing Affiliate Links On Personal Facebook Page

This is the easiest way to get started, but probably also the least effective. Although it allows us to reach out to our circle of friends, your friends may get upset over the thoughts that you are selling things to them. One way to go around it is to make your post less sales-centric, but more people-focused. Try to use different wordings and see which one sticks and which one doesn’t.

 

ii. Create A Facebook Group

Facebook group takes a while to grow. However, it is an effective way to promote your affiliate links because you can get access to a highly targeted audience.

First, you will have to create a niche Facebook group. It should be the same niche with the products that you are going to promote. That way, you will attract the right kind of audience.

The group may start small and slowly grow from there. You can start attracting people by posting various useful products – even those that you are not affiliated with. When people find your post helpful and informative, they will share it around, and more people will trust your opinion and join your group.

 

iii. Create A Page

Instead of posting on your personal profile, you can create a page instead. By doing so you can separate your personal life with your affiliate business.

Post regularly on your page, make sure you provide lots of useful content, share videos and links and interact with you audience actively. You can post your affiliate links or links to your site if you have a blog.

 

iv. Join existing Facebook groups

Find a sizeable Facebook group that is related to your niche, preferably groups that are active. You can check out the number of daily posts in the group.

Watch out for posting rule, make sure that you are not violating any rules by posting affiliate links.

After becoming a member of the group, be active and helpful to others. Once you establish yourself as the authority of the field, people will check out your profile and even private message you for your advice.

Otherwise, you can also share your affiliate links or links to your site by creating posts, or as a comment when someone looking for a piece of advice.

 

2. YouTube

Video is a powerful form of advertising. As visual creatures, we can’t help but get captivated by a well-made, attention-grabbing video.

Contrary to the common belief, you don’t actually need expensive equipments to get started. Nowadays, mobile devices often come with good quality camera. I have seen many successful YouTubers who simply rely on their iphone or iPad for recording purposes.

You can do a video demo, product review, products comparison, how-to tutorial, unboxing video, or vlog showing yourself wearing or using the products. There are plenty of ideas out there!

If you are really camera shy and couldn’t stand the thought of speaking in front of a camera, consider using screen recording or slide presentation and narrate a presentation for your audience. If there is a will, there is a way!

 

3. Pinterest

Pinterest is basically the largest image-based search engine currently. It enables users to search for interesting content and create boards. When users find Pins that they like, Pinterest allows them to Repin them to their own boards. Think about it as a scrapbook, where you ‘pin’ your favourite pieces of the cutout, organised by different categories e.g. gardening, arts, music etc.

 

i. Direct Link A Pinterest Pin To The Product

This is again the easiest route but probably also the least effective way. You are basically linking your pins directly to the affiliate products.

Let’s say you are promoting nonstick pan. You can create an image of the pan, pin it, and link that Pin directly through your affiliate link to the product sales page where the person could purchase it.

 

ii. Pin Your Post

This will only work if you have a website. You can create product reviews, or do a top 10 best nonstick pan list, starting from the first on the list – how it works, and why it is your favourite, or how is it better than others. Tell your story about how it has worked for you. Then move on to the rest on the list. Insert your affiliate links on each of the products, and pin this post on your Pinterest board.

 

4. Instagram

According to Forester, Instagram has the highest engagement rate of the many social media platforms. However, One of several features missing from Instagram is the ability to share links in captions.

One of the ways to bypass this problem is to Insert your link in your bio- be it your affiliate link or link to a webpage for more information about the product.

Then post inspiring, motivating and helpful post everyday. If you are struggling to come out with an idea of what to post, take a look at your competitors’ account. It is an effective way to find out the type of posts that people respond to the most.

Your goal is for people to click the link on your bio. But making every post about your offer will eventually piss people off and you may end up losing followers. Have maybe one or two offer post per week. On your offer post, use hashtags sufficiently, post a picture with a short description of your product and ask people to check out the link in your profile.

 

5. Blogging (My #1 Recommended Method)

As you can see, there is always a choice as to whether to post a direct affiliate link or a link to your own site. Despite being the easiest way, posting a direct affiliate link is not the best way to go about if you plan to be in this for the long haul.

Simply put, you are not providing much value add to your audience and they have not developed a trusting relationship with you.

New affiliate marketers are concerned about blasting their affiliate links everywhere, but experience ones are concerned about building up a relationship.

A lot of people dreaded at the idea of starting a website, but what if I can show you how to build your own website in under 30 seconds? With so many premade templates around, it is not difficult to do it at all. The biggest challenges facing affiliate marketers are actually content creation, keyword research, how to get ranked, how to convert etc.

There are so much to learn that it is better for you to get proper training on this. I started the hard way- getting bits and pieces of information from everywhere on the internet and I ended up more confused than ever. I started a site with decent traffic but I have got no single sales for 2 years. I didn’t even know what had gone wrong until I learnt it the proper way.

And to help others who are as clueless as I once was, I have compiled a step-by-step guide on how to start your affiliate marketing blog for you.

I hope you enjoyed this post about various ways on how to advertise affiliate links for free. If you have any questions about affiliate links or anything that relates to affiliate marketing, please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment below! I always reply to my readers!