In this blog post, I will share my personal experience of how I made my 1st affiliate income from my blog. There are so many ways to earn your first affiliate sale with free traffic. There is no right or wrong method, just try which one will work best for you.
This blog post will give you an idea of how to make your first affiliate sale even if you’re a new blogger based on my experience
Table of Contents
How to make your first affiliate sale?
I was surprised when I made my first affiliate sale from my blog. It was when I checked my email. There was a notification that I made a sale from one of the affiliate products that I promote, which is Vidnami.
Here the email notification I got from Vidnami. YEAH! I made it.
It’s like a great celebration for me since this is the first time I made an organic affiliate sale from my blog. I was feeling super excited on that day!
At that time, I realized that making money through affiliate marketing from my blog is possible. Even I didn’t have an email list yet. It gave me hope that earning an affiliate sale without collecting an email list as a new blogger was possible. As long as we had enough quality traffic to our blog, making affiliate sale was possible.
I know for every new blogger whom feeling overwhelmed the first time they just started their blog, there are so many things to learn. Email marketing is like one course that we need to learn separately. In my opinion, It’s not too late to collect email lists once our blog already had consistent traffic. You can focus on writing more blog posts and driving traffic first at the beginning stage of your blogging journey.
Okay, let’s back to the main topic of how I made my first affiliate sale. I started promoting my blog content in the last week of February 2021. The first place that I used to drive traffic to my blog was utilizing forum traffic.
I joined several niche forums related to my blog niches, such as Blackhatworld, Warrior Forum, and Digital Point. What I did is just helping others forum members in the group by answering their questions.
I was quite skeptical since I didn’t get enough traffic to my blog from Forum marketing. As you can see, the number of visitors coming to my blog is around 3-7 people per day. That traffic all coming from forum marketing.
I knew the traffic is not too much because I didn’t create a post thread on the forum and only promoted my blog through a comment on other people thread in less than a week. In other words, I failed to be consistently actively engaged in the forum every day! I hope I can do it better in the future! Haha.
The second traffic source I used to drive traffic is Quora. The same as forum marketing. What I did is answering questions on Quora to build a reputation and get traffic to my blog.
Here you can see on my Quora stats that I only answer six questions in total.
Then, the great thing happened! Suddenly I got my first affiliate sales on March 16, 2021. This is what I really like about getting organic affiliate sales. It’s completely passive and pure profit, especially if we can drive the traffic organically.
Can you make money with affiliate marketing?
YES, absolutely! As a new blogger, I have proof to you that it’s possible to make money with affiliate marketing.
So many bloggers make money for a living from their blog through affiliate marketing. So, I really encourage you to start your blog base on your passion and knowledge so you can make money as I did.
How long it takes to make your first affiliate sale?
It took me one month to earn my first affiliate sale since I started promoting my blog. I started enrolling my website hosting and domain last November 2020 using Bluehost. I highly recommend you use Bluehost as your blog hosting for every new blogger. It’s super cheap to start, which only cost $2.95/ month for three years plan plus a free 1-year domain from Bluehost.
After I had registered my hosting and domain with Bluehost, I didn’t directly post my first blog post. I was still learning a lot about blogging by reading other people blog and watching Youtube video about blogging.
In December 2020, I was quite active in the forum to build a reputation in order to obtain a signature line on my post. If you didn’t know what the signature line is, it was a hyperlink text that can we put below our post on the forum. Every time we put comments on the forum, the signature line will be shown below our posts. As a blogger, we can use the signature line to drive traffic to our blog.
Here the signature line on the Digital Point forum, as you can see the blue color words below my post.
Please kindly note some forums will require you to have a specific number of posts and seniority to be eligible to get the signature line. Others forum will require you to pay a one-time payment to get the signature link clickable. The signature line was really powerful to get instant free traffic to our blog.
From January until mid-February 2021, while I was started making more articles to launch on my blog. I was making a mistake. I decided to create an ebook in exchange as a bonus for taking my Bluehost affiliate offer, which is the web hosting provider that I used.
It makes my progress slower to start driving traffic to my blog because I spare my time a lot creating an ebook instead of pushing more articles and driving traffic. Don’t try to create any digital product at the beginning stage because you don’t have TRAFFIC yet! It’s wasting your time.
As a new blogger, I learned that we should create more blog posts content at the beginning instead of preparing bonus offers like an ebook or anything else. Once you have around ten blog posts, you can immediately promote your blog on Pinterest because it takes time to get Pinterest’s attraction.
The reason I suggest you start on Pinterest because Pinterest is a visual search engine, it can rank our pin faster than Google SEO and bring passive traffic to your blog. That’s why all blogger loves Pinterest! Besides, Pinterest can also drive traffic to your blog for a longer lifespan instead of forums, Quora, and any other social media.
Feb 20, 2021. I am officially started to promote my blog post after finishing my ebook. The first marketing method I used was forum marketing. Since I had a signature line already, I can drive some small traffic to my blog by answering the forum questions. I also started answering questions on Quora at the beginning of March 2021.
Finally, I made my first affiliate sale from my blog in the middle of March 2021. In total, it took me 1 month as a new blogger promoting my blog to crack my first affiliate sale. I hope you learn something from my personal story. TRAFFIC is the ONLY MATTER when you just STARTED!
So the key takeaway here is you can get your first affiliate sales even with a small amount of traffic, and you don’t need to have an email list right off the bat as a new blogger to earn your first affiliate sale.
Don’t be afraid to start your blog and earn money from it. Blogging is like we’re talking with our friends or family but pouring it into words. Hence, you don’t need to become a good writer to start your blog, and your blog doesn’t have to be formal writing. Make it more casual and like a conversation.
I myself is not a writer. My educational background in chemical engineering, and my last corporate job is in an oilfield services company. So, it’s clear that there is absolutely no correlation at all. But, I can create ebiz strategic blog to share my passion, knowledge, and experiences in making money online through blogging.
Kindly note that English is not my first language, so I believe that you can do a better job than me in writing your blog post. If English is not your first language like me, don’t worry! You can use the app Grammarly free version, which really helps correct your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It’s literally the best app ever!
Blogging should be fun because you write something you’re passionate about and then monetize it to earn a side income or even full-time income.
If you still doubt why we need to start our blog, you should read these article 12 reasons why you should Start a blog even you’re not a writer.
Even though it was not easy for me initially to write my first blog post, but I was motivated to start my blog to share my passion and knowledge with the world. Besides, the potential growth earning from blogging can be lucrative for the long term. It’s like an investment to start your blog. It can bring a snowball effect if we have an aged blog domain. That’s why I am interested in starting my blog. It’s like a passion project for me.
How I Drive Traffic to Blog?
I choose forum and Quora as my traffic source at the beginning because both of them can drive free traffic fast to our site. Let’s deep dive into what I did to drive traffic to my blog.
Forum Marketing
As I have explained previously, my first traffic source is Forum Marketing. I drove traffic to my blog through forums related to my blog niches, such as Blackhatworld, Digital Point, and Warrior Forum.
Some forums will allow us to have a signature line on our post. The signature line can be used to drive traffic by promoting your blog post content with hyperlink text. I did this by commenting on several threads to increase the chance the forum members saw my signature. If they’re interested in the topic on my signature line, they will click it.
Here the signature line on the Blackhatworld forum under my post, I mark my signature line with several colors to make it look eye-catching with a combination of blue, green, and yellow colors.
Remember, don’t spam your post with a link. You will quickly be getting banned on the first day by the forum moderator. Ensure to read forum rules before posting. Some forums will need you to reach several requirements in order to get the signature line. Let’s see an example of the Digital Point forum requiring us to have three different likes from different established members inside the forum to get the signature line.
When actively engaged in the forum, I only focused on putting invaluable posts and helping others members. Slowly but sure, the forum members will be recognized you as an expert. Every time you put a valuable post that can be useful for the forum members, the more likely the forum members clicking on your signature line. This is the way how I drive traffic to my blog using forum marketing.
You can search on Google to find your top niche forum or go to the website findaforum.net to find a specific forum niche for your blog. Just ensure that the forum you choose has a signature line. Using forum marketing requires you to have passion in your niche to execute it consistently, or you will easily get bored. It’s a passion game to make it work.
You will need to be consistently active in the forum every day in order to make it work. When I didn’t put any post anymore in the forum, the traffic will start to drop. Hence, consistently putting valuable posts will be needed.
Here the screenshot of my Google Analytics referral traffic from forum marketing. As you can see that I didn’t drive huge traffic from my forum because I never post a thread. I will do it in the future and let you know the traffic coming to my blog by posting a thread.
Quora
My second traffic source is Quora. Besides active in the forum, I also start answering the questions on Quora. The way I was answering questions on Quora is quite different with most other marketers did.
I didn’t put any link to my blog on my Quora answers. Instead, I put a footer that told the reader to check my Quora profile for more information about the topic I answered as can be seen from the picture below. I put several of my blog post links in my Quora profile. That’s why the traffic I received from Quora quite low with that amount of impressions. It’s because I didn’t put any direct link to my blog on my answers.
This method is the safest way at the beginning of doing Quora marketing to avoid Quora moderation due to spamming an external link on your Quora’s answer. You can’t aggressively be putting your blog link on every answer. You will risk your Quora account being banned quickly.
I myself only include a link in no more than one in every five questions I answer, and never include affiliate links in Quora’s answer. If you put affiliate link inside of blog posts is OK.
Ensure to avoid copying and paste the same answer for similar questions you’re going to answer. Quora will hide your answer if they see similar answers. So, changing or rewording your answers should be good enough to avoid Quora hide your answer.
In Conclusion
In a nutshell, getting your first affiliate sale is possible even though with only a small amount of traffic. Looking at the traffic on my Google analytic, it was clear that both forum and Quora can help bring free traffic faster to your blog. Hence, I could earn my first affiliate sales with only a few visitors to my blog.
So the key here is focusing on driving traffic and creating more blog posts as a new blogger. This is the only thing you need to focus on at the beginning. Don’t think about creating your own product or email flow campaign yet, once you have consistent traffic to your blog. It’s not too late to start building your email lists.
Moving forwards, I will start experimenting with other traffic sources such as Pinterest and Instagram. Let’s see how Pinterest and Instagram traffic can drive traffic to my blog several months later. I am really excited to share my progress on my blog.
Don’t forget to pin and follow me on Pinterest!
Let me know if you have any questions regarding my journey to get my first affiliate sale using organic traffic from the forum and Quora. See you in another article!
Enjoy this post? bookmark and share it on social media!
