Have you decided you want to find out how to start affiliate marketing…properly?
And do you want to know where you can find some of the best affiliate marketing training courses in 2018?
Great!
You’re at the start of an exciting journey.
But! (yeah, there’s always a but)…
…you’re going to have to put in some hard work, and you’re going have to learn some cutting edge online skills.
It’s not the year 2000 anymore.
You can’t just throw up some ropey website of no value and expect success.
And the competition is fierce, but by no means unbeatable.
The Difference Between Affiliate Marketing Success and Failure
As you may already be coming to realise…
…there are very few things online with more rubbish being told and sold about them than affiliate marketing.
Every man and his dog are on the internet trying to sell you a course on how to learn affiliate marketing.
Most of them won’t get you anywhere quickly…if they’ll get you anywhere at all!
Sure, most of them will offer you endless amounts of content.
But you’ll find they mostly get pretty thin and sketchy when it comes to a couple of massively important areas:
How to get traffic to your website;
and…
…how to convert that traffic.
Do You Really Have 2 Years to Waste?
Stick with me here and you can potentially save yourself a lot of wasted time.
A couple of years like I had, struggling to get any kind of affiliate success.
That’s how long it took me to start getting real traction.
Two damn years!
The good news?
It doesn’t have to take you that long.
Not anywhere near.
But to get yourself a head start, you’re going to have to avoid making a bad decision with your choice of affiliate training program.
Get this big decision right on day one, and you’ll be well ahead of your competition and well placed for future success.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing – My Top 3 Training Courses
The training courses listed below are what I personally believe to be the best affiliate marketing courses out there right now.
And I’ve tried a few.
I only wish I’d stumbled upon one of these in my early searches.
In my opinion, these three are all fit to teach pretty much anyone with a sound work ethic, not just how to start affiliate marketing, but how to succeed in affiliate marketing for many years to come.
(If you’ve come to this article pretty early in your search, I mean early to the point where you’re not even completely certain how affiliate marketing works, take a read of another post on this site covering exactly that, you can find it here).
Okay, here they are…
Authority Hacker
If you’re looking for training that can take you, step-by-step, from beginner to expert…look no further!
The founders of Authority Hacker, Gael Breton and Mark Webster have created outstanding training split across three information packed, but easy-to-follow programs.
Each training program being aimed at people with different levels of affiliate marketing experience;
And who are experiencing different levels of success with their authority/affiliate sites.
I honestly believe that few people are better qualified to show you how to build a profitable authority site than Gael and Mark.
These guys are running a number of massively successful authority sites, each of them pulling in plenty of business.
You can check out one of their sites here: www.healthambition.com
Here’s a brief outline of the 3 Authority Hacker programs:
- The Authority Site System: A complete, step-by-step system for how to start, build and grow your own profitable affiliate and authority sites.
- Authority Hacker Pro: Aimed towards more advanced users who already have a well established website which they are looking to progress further. It provides detailed blueprints on how to grow revenue and take your site to the next level.
- Authority Hacker Pro Platinum: Genuine high-end stuff here where we’re talking about one-to-one mentoring etc.
What I love about the way these guys have split the training up into separate courses, is this;
It keeps you totally focused on only the critically important aspects at each stage of your site development.
It’s too easy in affiliate marketing to let yourself get pulled in different directions, and end up getting nothing meaningful done.
Let’s take a look at what’s inside each course in a bit more detail:
The Authority Site System (Building a Stage 1 Authority Site)
- Follow Along Case Study – Watch and learn as Gael and Mark build a brand new authority site from scratch, using the exact methods they teach in their training.
- Over The Shoulder Lessons (85 Video Lessons across 5 Modules) – Extremely in-depth training that gives absolute clarity on what needs to be done, organised exactly in the order you need to take action on them.
- Pre-Built Templates – Each fill-in-the-blanks template has been built and optimised over time to massively speed up your implementation.
- Trello ‘To-Do’ System – A well structured and easy to follow checklist, making sure you keep taking exactly the right action at the exactly the right time…and ensures that you do actually take action, instead of just continuing to consume content.
- Facebook Community – Lifetime access to a very active student community.
- Regular Q&A’s – Hosted by the course creators these are the perfect opportunity to ask any questions you may not have been able to get answers for from the FB community.
One of the most valuable parts of this course lays inside one of the pre-built templates:
The ‘Niche Research’ template.
When you consider that a huge percentage of people who want to get into affiliate marketing never even get out of the starting blocks because of one recurring reason…
…failing to select a niche (that’s right, many aspiring affiliate marketers get stuck at niche selection, and that’s as far as it goes for them)…
…you start to see the massive power of having a pre-filled niche research spreadsheet, complete with automated scoring system, and everything you need to consider in order to find your perfect niche.
This alone is worth it’s weight!
Authority Hacker Pro (Progressing to a Stage 2 Authority Site)
- 18 Advanced Blueprints – All built so that you can implement them in your already successful online business for even greater success.
- 200+ Over The Shoulder Video Lessons – Training that will teach you step-by-step how to implement the new blueprints for maximum success.
- Access to Pro Members Community – Being able to talk with people at the same stage of you is invaluable when trying to progress your business. This community makes certain you have somewhere to turn.
Authority Hacker Pro Platinum (Progressing to a Stage 3 Authority Site)
Okay, I’ve not actually done this course. So I’m not going to BS you about what I think is in there.
Anyway, this post is about ‘how to start affiliate marketing’ and this part of the Authority Hacker training is way beyond that.
That’s a basic round-up of what the Authority Hacker courses consist of.
But what really makes Authority Hacker so good?
- Always fully up to date and completely current
- Field tested – these guys are running their own affiliate sites in a number of different niches.
- In-depth and fluff free training -absolutely nothing is missed, all the pieces of the puzzle are given to you.
- Step-by-Step – a lesson, a template, a list of actions needed to be taken before progressing to the next lesson.
- Practical – it works, simple as that.
What you’ll find with all of the Authority Hacker training is that they have an extremely well defined strategy for how to develop a website through each stage of it’s growth.
Most courses out there do not have a core strategy to follow, which means you end up getting confused about exactly where you should be concentrating your efforts.
You bring the motivation, commitment and time…combine it withe the Authority Hacker training, you will get success in less time than you thought possible.
Best Beginners/Intermediates Program: The Authority Site System
Price: $997 (sometimes reduced to $599 during the webinar)
Rating: 9/10
Visit Authority Hacker here: www.authorityhacker.com
Affilorama
This is another unbelievably high quality training package.
Mark Ling is the founder of Affilorama which has been running since 2005, making it one of the longest running affiliate training programs you can get your hands on.
This is another program created by somebody who built their own success by following the exact same strategies that his courses now teach.
Here’s a brief outline of the 3 Affilorama programs:
- Pathway to Passive: An entry level round-up on how to build a successful, high-quality, long-lasting affiliate website, and a passive income.
- AffiloBlueprint: A comprehensive and step-by-step proven system for succeeding as an affiliate. Beginner to advanced, it’s all covered.
- AffiloJetpack: Not so much a training course as a done-for-you system. Done-for-you niche selection, done-for-you website set-up, done-for-you email sequence. Not sure how much you really learn here, but hey, who am I to judge?
All of the training on offer form Affilorama is uncomplicated, to the point, and easy to follow.
What’a also similar to how Authority Hacker put their courses together, is that you are taught ethical business practices that will keep the search engines on-side.
I think very highly of the Affilorama training but my clear favourite of their training products is definitely AffiloBlueprint.
Let’s look at what’s inside each course in more detail:
Pathway to Passive (How to Not Screw Up Affiliate Marketing)
This is top guide for new affiliates. It will only take you about three hours to read and you’ll learn an absolute tonne.
The guide is presented around the following key areas:
- The 4 steps to success as an affiliate.
- How to find profitable niches and products.
- How to attract the right people.
- How to convert your visitors into buyers.
- How to create content that attracts links.
AffiloBlueprint
- 90+ Step by Step Video Lessons – The video lessons are divided across 12 modules and progresses in a clear and logical way. Each module deals with a well defined and clearly explained area of affiliate marketing.
- Downloadable Lessons & Course Notes – Basically this is the video lessons in another format.
- Private Members’ Forum – This is a pretty active forum and like all forums of this nature it’s there primarily so you can get involved with other people going through the same process as you.
- Lifetime Access – As the course material is updated you will retain access to all of the updated stuff.
- AffiloTheme Website Builder – This looks to be okay and for somebody starting out from scratch it’s probably a good route to go down for a quick start. Personally I never use bundled website themes etc. as I have a preferred theme that I tend to use for all of my sites.
- 1-Year Web Hosting for 1 Website – Similar to the point directly above, if you’re just starting out this could be a good option to take-up as it will let you get started on a smaller budget. I only ever use WPX Hosting for my sites so can’t really comment on the quality of hosting offered here.
AffiloJetpack
Before I get into this please note that I have not personally gone through the AffiloJetpack program.
And I’m jot sure I ever would. The whole ‘done-for-you’ thing is just not my cup of tea.
Below is an outline of what’s inside this ‘done-for-you’ bundle:
- 5 Niche Selection – Choose from a choice of 18 known-profitable niches.
- 5 Built-for-You Websites – 1 WordPress website for each of your chosen 5 niches.
- Ready-Made Website Content – Cheat sheets containing niche-specific research and ideas to create your sites articles.
- 3 Niche Specific Free-Reports – For you to re-brand and use to attract subscribers with.
- 90 Expert-Written Emails – For each of your selected niches you will receive one-years worth of emails to send to your subscribers.
- Traffic Generation Strategies – Training to help you attract traffic from a number of sources.
Whilst I’m not a fan of the ‘done-for-you’ approach that is AffiloJetpack, I still believe with the other Affilorama programs, you’re going to learn how to build websites that have the potential to be successful for a long time and hopefully make you some good income.
Best Beginners/Intermediates Program: AffiloBlueprint
Price: $197
Rating: 8/10
Visit Affilorama here: www.affilorama.com
Chris Farrell Membership
You’re probably coming to realise that the training providers on this list have a few things in common:
They all focus on the important stuff and ignore the fluff.
They all keep their training uncomplicated and easy to follow.
And they’ve all built their own affiliate marketing businesses from scratch, and are willing to show you exactly how they did it.
Chris Farrell membership ticks all of these boxes and then some.
Here’s what’s inside Chris Farrell Membership:
- How To Make Money Online Explained Simply – Pretty much just an into by Chris talking about the 3 steps to making money online.
- Access To Exclusive Member’s Forum – Always useful to have a member’s forum but this one isn’t that active.
- 10 Minutes To Success Training (31 Videos) – This is the core of the training course. Each video is roughly 10 minutes long (hence the name) and covers the important stuff: Niche selection, choosing profitable products, traffic generation, email campaigns etc.
- Money Making Labs – Traffic and growth strategies which cover using Facebook, video, webinar hosting and e-books.
- ‘I Love Traffic’ Traffic Course (15 Videos) – Step-by-step training on different strategies for getting traffic to your offers.
In my opinion, the training here is not at the same level as Authority Hacker but it still works and is way better than most of what’s on offer from all the various gurus out there.
Chris is an authentic guy who doesn’t bang on about his own achievements but instead keeps focused on trying to help his subscribers create successful online businesses of their own.
Best Beginners Program: Chris Farrell Membership
Price: $37 per month, or $297 per year
Rating: 7.5/10
Visit Chris Farrell membership here: www.chrisfarrellmembership.com
The Missing Part of the Puzzle
I already touched on this earlier in this post…
...but it is important…
…for all that is taught on the internet about affiliate marketing, there always seems to be one specific area that is barely covered in any kind of meaningful detail.
Traffic.
Yeah, you can enrol on a course that is high-gloss, super-slick and with an endless amount of material to work through.
But when it comes to getting traffic to your site…
…this is where you will often find you’re pretty much left on your own;
on your own, trying to work out how to get people to your spot on the internet.
That’s not going to happen with any of the above programs.
Authority Hacker, Affilorama, Chris Farrell Membership…they all have battle-tested traffic strategies that they will teach you.
They hold nothing back.
But Can’t You Get It All for Free
You can find endless blogs on the internet, telling you that you can find everything that’s inside whatever course you care to mention, for free.
Of course, it may be possible in theory.
But I dread to think how long it’s going to take you, from sourcing the information, learning, testing and everything else.
Probably years.
Ultimately, what you want from any training course of this nature, and what you’re paying for, is to learn from someone who has already trodden the path you now want to go down, and who can also clearly show you how to do it.
But this combination, real experience and the ability to teach, not only how to start affiliate marketing, but how to grow and thrive for years to come, is hard to find.
And it’s what all three providers mentioned in this post do so well.
All three take this basic approach to how they have put together their training:
- This is what we do and what we’ve done it for many years, successfully;
- This is exactly how we do it, right now, not five years ago;
- These are all the tools we use;
- Choose your niche and copy us
How To Start Affiliate Marketing – Wrapping It Up
Affiliate marketing is a very different thing to what it was ten, or even five, years ago.
Ten years back you could get into whatever niche you fancied, put together some ropey website and with just a little effort be pulling in traffic and bagging sales before you knew what was going on.
Those days are long gone.
And that’s a good thing for anyone with a good work ethic, because a ton of people are no longer interested in affiliate marketing because it now requires effort.
And it also requires a lot of knowledge and skill.
To get affiliate marketing success now, fully up to date knowledge and skills are what you should be trying to get form any training program.
But what’s the best affiliate training course for you?
It depends on a couple of things:
What level are you at? I would say beginners can have their pick of those listed above. If you’re more advanced I think you’ll want to rule out Chris Farrell Membership.
Your budget. Some are pricier than others, but this does tend to play through in the quality.
Your own preference. Have a good look around their sites, jump on their webinars and get a feel for who seems to really speak your language.
The truth is that I think all of the courses listed in this post offer great value.
Now it’s up to you.
Good luck.
Got something to add?
I’d love to hear about your experiences with any affiliate marketing training courses…good or bad.
Maybe you know of another great course teaching people how to start affiliate marketing.
Go ahead and leave me a comment in the box further below.
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Hi Andrew,
Thanks very very much for all this fantastic info.
We did the traning from Peng Joon a few years back…and didn’t finish.
Now we saw the SFM programm and after a bit of research found you. Real happy with the info…without the fluff.
Just a small question. When you are starting from scratch how much time will it take to be up and running. We know our niche and the website is practically ready to go.
Hey, Sorry to take so long to reply. Just got back from holiday.
Your question, it’s a big question!
It’s really hard to say without knowing your niche, your traffic generation strategy and monetisation strategy.
For new authority sites I tend to use an extremely rough guide whereby I think that the first time a new site will start to make regular income is when it hits 3k visitors a month. A new site will spend a few months on the google sandbox so I reckon if you hit that traffic figure within 12 months from launch you’ve done a good job.
But hey, like I said, this is very rough guide stuff.