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One Year into My Journey: Incorporating Organic Strategies for Growth as an Affiliate Marketer and Blogger

It has been one year since I started taking courses on affiliate marketing and blogging.

Affiliate marketing is much more than what I was led to believe prior to my learning experience.

I quickly learned that affiliate marketing for beginners is not a get-rich-quick scheme or a shortcut to quitting your day job. It’s a strategic endeavor that takes time, patience, and dedication. Sustainable affiliate marketing depends on building a genuine connection with your audience and offering valuable, relevant content.

I’ve faced many challenges along the way, but each one has been a learning experience that has strengthened my determination.

Now, I’m here to share some of these hard-earned insights to help guide other beginners and remind you that success is absolutely within reach if you stay the course.

In the Beginning

My journey started with a FREE (only pay S&H) book, The Iceberg Effect, where I learned that there are four core areas for which I must learn and practice the necessary skills for affiliate marketing success. Inspired by the background story of the author and the insightful information that I acquired from this book led me to dive deeper by researching with Google searches and YouTube in hopes of exploring different tools, and tactics, and then learning about the inevitable expenses that come with starting out with affiliate marketing.

Quite a few videos boasted about doing affiliate marketing for free. Upon further searches into the “HOW” to be successful, some necessary dollar signs began to appear.

Now, don’t get me wrong! I am still determined to run my affiliate marketing business using FREE traffic strategies. The affiliate marketing world calls it “organic traffic”. But let’s make this clear for all the people who are pursuing affiliate marketing for beginners.

Depending on your personal choices, the FREE traffic road to long-term affiliate marketing success comes only after you have established the necessary resources for your owned asset. Some of which come with a cost involved.

I decided to purchase a course from the same author of the previous book that I mentioned. This course gave me access to the full educational library of videos from starting with buying a domain name, to creating a WordPress website, email sequences and automation, etc., then on to choosing which path to continue on for getting traffic. This course also came with 6 months of mentorship in the form of Zoom meet Question and Answer sessions. I learned so much from meeting with these mentors on a weekly basis.

I strongly believe now more than ever, that if you are completely new to affiliate marketing, please find yourself a course and mentorship program that you can afford to help you better navigate through the “been there, done that” obstacles which can really set you back!

Organic Growth and the Power of Blogging

Once the training videos were completed, I came to the crossroads of choosing FREE (Organic) or PAID traffic strategies.  Paid traffic generation would be any paid advertising for your links, such as Facebook lead ads.

This is where I chose the FREE path of organic traffic generation.

I originally chose blogging as my main platform to embed my affiliate links. As a secondary free platform, I chose to start making videos on TikTok.

It took approximately 3 months since publishing my first blog post to see my first commission—a moment that felt incredibly validating! The commission came from someone clicking on an affiliate link on one of my blog posts! I thought, WOW!, this is it! Here I go onward and upward!

However, affiliate marketing taught me the importance of patience and consistency, as there was a time-lapse before I made my next commissions. This waiting period was humbling and helped me understand that building a reliable online income takes time.

My next commissions didn’t happen until several months later.

Taking Time to Rethink My Affiliate Marketing Strategies

Time for Reflection

I had to take some family time away from my blogging efforts when I was roughly 9 months or so into creating my online business. This break also allowed me the time to rethink my affiliate marketing strategies. I reflected on my original WHY for starting with affiliate marketing and my reasons for choosing blogging.

When I was able to refocus on the business tasks at hand, I was determined to continue learning how to increase my blog presence.

Time for Researching the Other Business Pieces

I used this time wisely.

When I had available time, I continued to visit other bloggers’ sites, watched YouTube videos and did Google searches on affiliate marketing, blogging, and legal pages.

It is very helpful to see how other bloggers and affiliate marketers are presenting themselves on the social media platforms are their websites!

Concerning legal pages, this took time to sift through all of the online information, but only you are responsible for your business.

This should be on everyone’s checklist to see what legal information you need posted on your website!

Time to Get Moving Again!

When I was able to refocus on the business tasks at hand, I was determined continue learning how to increase my blog presence.

The Power of Pinterest for Increasing Your Online Presence

During my research, I found a successful Pinterest expert whose journey inspired me. She offers courses on blogging and Pinterest marketing, and her strategies proved invaluable.

About 10 months into my journey, I knew that this was my next step in my online business education!

The Pinterest course that she offers is amazing! She is very thorough with her educational videos, and when she updates her courses, those who previously purchased the course get these updates for free.

Amazing! I watched her videos and did exactly what she suggested. I achieved growing impressions on my Pinterest account within days on implementing my first sequence of pins! Now mind you, these are my results. Your results may vary.

She offers them as single purchases or in bundle packs, so I chose one of her bundle packs. I am eagerly looking forward to learning about her take on perfecting blogging.

In Conclusion:

Reflecting on my first year, I’m so grateful for every lesson learned. This journey has not always been easy, but every challenge has prepared me for the next step.

For anyone just starting with affiliate marketing, I strongly encourage you to get Dean Holland’s free book, do your own research into what will work for you, consider purchasing a course that offers mentorship, and use Pinterest as a traffic driver for your blog. A Pinterest business account is free, and with consistent effort, it can significantly amplify your reach.

I’m more committed than ever to continue learning, growing, and sharing these insights with others.

So here’s to one year down and many more to go as a blogger, affiliate marketer, and content creator!

Where are you in your affiliate marketing journey? What are some tips that you would share with other beginner affiliate marketers or bloggers? Please leave a comment.

All the best!

Milissa Neirotti