Who are you and what are you currently working on?
My name is James Beckley and I have about 6 years of affiliate business experience, and I worked on several set-ups helping them to build out their content. I’m a writer at the GrillGuru blog team: we are reviewing grilling equipment and BBQ accessories.
How did you get started in affiliate marketing? What keeps you excited about it?
I got started in affiliate marketing because of my… kiddo. Such a funny thing as he’s still in college but he can teach me new tricks. As many other contributors here, I haven’t thought about monetizing my content besides selling my articles to offline magazines.
Well, ouch.
He told me about affiliate marketing and what he learned from other students and this got me hooked. After this, I subscribed to several channels – including Chris Mitty, Brian Dean, Neil Patel and many others – and thanks to them I learned a lot. Practice came with time. I started as a freelancer, then was hired by an agency and I’m still happy working here. Being a part of a team still counts, I believe, as your experience will grow with time.
Being a marketer means that you should be able to make dozens of things – sometimes at the same time. And to be tech-savvy enough not to get lost in addons and SEO tools. Before this, I haven’t had an idea of what it’s really to curate a website. Several personal pages you’ve made on HTML back in the 2000’s because you were curious don’t count, unfortunately. Challenge awaits you as soon as you hear about ranking, keyword’s difficulty and other crucial things that make this business highly competitive.
Moreover, I know that you might create a blog specifically for rates and income. But if you’re speaking from your heart and can recommend great products to your faithful readers – what can be better? That’s really inspirational. For me at least.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to a newbie affiliate marketer? And what is one piece of advice they should ignore?
Don’t be afraid of trying. It’s not something you can try once and easily forget – it’s a long-time process that is both fun and complicated. So at the beginning failures and errors are unavoidable, just deal with it and go on.
It’s quite easy to give up after one big fail, especially when you hear all those stories about making millions from the beginning. Self-promotion is a great thing, but being toxic is another story: stay realistic, everyone has to start somewhere.
What has been your favorite mistake? A mistake that in retrospect led to a great lesson and progress in your affiliate marketing?
Don’t stay attached to one project. You should switch your tasks and be open to other ideas. Of course, it requires a lot of focus. If you weren’t born a multitasker, it might be such a pain. As I already mentioned, I’m a creature of habit and that’s why switching between several small projects was quite tricky for me. Now as I’m writing this I’m looking back and realise that this was just six (well, 5 years and half) years ago.
Trust your team. And work on your management skills at the same time.
What is one piece of software or a web service (besides Geniuslink) that allows you to be more effective as an affiliate marketer?
One piece to rule them all – for me it’s Ahrefs. I can track back my projects, research keywords and find new content ideas using this software. I believe, if you’re reading this, you must be a beginner, and well, from my perspective it’s really user-friendly. Also their support team is really attentive to details and helpful. Which is another great plus.
How do you continue to educate yourself as an affiliate marketer? What are some of your favorite resources for learning?
Following others for tips, tricks, tutorials and guidelines is a great idea. Each time I sit up to watch courses or new videos from SEO guru’s I’ve mentioned above, I keep my notepad and a pencil near me. This way it’s easier to gather ideas for the future in the same place. I feel like I’m a student sometimes, but I must admit – that’s a great feeling.