Is Affiliate Marketing A Good Business For Senior Citizens?

Affiliate marketing is a great business model, but is it worthwhile for seniors?

Yes, I believe it is.

Making money as an affiliate marketer is not about being some kind of ‘new age tech wiz’, having special marketing skills, or any of that stuff. It’s about taking the time to learn the right skills, and consistently taking action on what you learn.

As a matter of fact, seniors are perfect affiliate marketing.

Why? They understand the value of hard work, sticking to something, and not giving up easily. They’re often not in a hurry to jump from one thing to the next. Being retired, seniors also have the time to put into learning and applying themselves to their business.

If you ask me (someone who makes money this way) this is a recipe for success.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is simple- you earn commissions by promoting other people’s stuff on the internet.

Rather than selling your own products in a traditional way, you simply promote products people are already buying. This means you don’t need to create your own products, stock anything, deal with customers, handle shipping, or any of that stuff.

You focus on referring people to a website that does handle all of this, and if the people you refer make a purchase through your unique affiliate link, you earn a commission. This is a multi-billion dollar per year industry and it’s only getting more popular as time goes on.

To highlight this, let’s look at two of the most successful companies of our time…

Uber is one of the world’s largest transport companies, yet they do not use any of their own vehicles. Airbnb is the world’s largest accommodation provider, yet they own zero hotels.

What do they do? They connect customers with vendors.

Of course, you don’t need to do anything on that scale to create a nice income. Not at all. This is just an example. The type of affiliate marketing I do, and what you can do, is much simpler than this.

Your goal is to connect people surfing the net, with vendors. That’s it.

The reason why vendors love this business model is that they only pay for results. The reason affiliates love it is because it’s simple, flexible, and highly lucrative when you follow the right process.

How Does It Work?

There are four main steps to building a successful affiliate marketing business:

Each of these steps can be learned by anyone willing. Regardless of age, background, or level of skill. I’ve created an in-depth guide to affiliate marketing for beginners if you want all the details, but the following sections will give you an overview of each step.

Step 1: Choose An Interest

The first thing you need to do is choose a topic you are interested in. This can be anything. Most seniors have a hobby of some kind, this is a perfect starting point.

This might be a hobby or activity you enjoy doing now in your senior years, or maybe something you enjoyed earlier in life. For some, this could be model building, knitting, or craft beer. For others, it could be golfing, animals, or gardening-related topics.

The possibilities are practically endless.

That’s why it’s best to start with something you are passionate about. Try not to think about the money aspect in this stage, which comes naturally by following the process.

Step 2: Build a Website

Believe it or not, this is the easiest part of the process. In fact, I show people (over the shoulder video) how this is done in less than 60 seconds and without spending a dime.

You can learn how to build a website here. It’s not about creating some super fancy website or spending lots of money. Not at all. It’s about creating a useful website with content that is going to interest the people who come to your website.

For example, if you created a website about ‘horse riding’ you would build a simple website about this topic.

Step 3: Attract Visitors

The way you get visitors is through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Because you have a website and create useful content relevant to your audience, your website can rank in search engine results. This is highly targeted, free visitors coming to your site who are interested in what you write about.

Step 4: Promoting Affiliate Products

This is the fun part. Once you’ve chosen a topic, built your site, and got some visitors coming to it, you can start making money.

The idea is to promote relevant products to your audience that they are already interested in buying. There are millions of products you can promote so there’s something to suit pretty much every type of website.

Where Do You Find Products To Promote?

There are many places you can find good products to promote as an affiliate.

The best way to find these is to type “your topic + affiliate program” into Google and see what comes up. You may be surprised at just how many companies have thee partner programs in place.

Amazon is probably the most well-known example. It’s free and easy to become an Amazon affiliate and they have millions of products you can begin promoting as soon as you register.

How Much Money Can You Make?

How much money you make depends entirely on you. That’s what I love about this business. The opportunity is vast, but it all comes down to how much effort you put in. Your income is not capped, so you can make as much money as you want.

Of course, it does take work and it does take time. This is a business after all. But the potential is there for anyone willing to put in the effort.

It also comes down to what you promote, your chosen topic, and other factors. You can absolutely make money in any niche (topic) but some are going to take longer to succeed with, and some just aren’t worth it.

Learning how to choose a profitable niche is not rocket science, but it is a process and it will take time to learn. Like any business, some make awesome money, some make peanuts.

But I can guarantee you that the ones making the good money are the ones who never give up and put in a consistent effort. Most senior citizens I know appreciate the value of putting in the effort to achieve their goals since they have worked hard for everything they own.

Believe it or not, having the right mindset is more than half the battle.

Getting Started With Affiliate Marketing- The Right Way

There are many ways to do affiliate marketing. Some good, some not so good. The biggest differentiator is how you get people to click on your affiliate links.

On one hand, you can pay for traffic (website visitors) which brings you pretty much instant results, but costs money. As a beginner, this is a good way to lose money very quickly. Spending money on traffic absolutely works when you know what you are doing, but it can be a recipe for disaster as a newbie.

On the other hand, you can get free traffic to your website through search engines. This takes time to build up, but it’s 100% free for life and can bring you very worthwhile results. This is the method I recommend to anyone looking to make money with affiliate marketing. This method is perfect if you are retired since you have the time to put into your business.

I learned how to do affiliate marketing through a platform called Wealthy Affiliate.

They provide step-by-step training, support, and all the tools you need to build your business. It’s all there.

This is also a helpful community, with people of all ages and backgrounds helping one another succeed. The citizens of this online community genuinely help one another, and that’s what makes it so unique.

No matter what stage of life you are in, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to create an income doing something you love. It gives you the freedom to work from anywhere in the world, at any pace, and for very little investment.

By setting yourself up with the right tools, training, and support you are going to be in a position to take full advantage of everything affiliate marketing has to offer.