In the age of the internet, you know longer have to own a brick and mortar shop to be the proud owner of a successful business. More and more people are learning how to sell products online from home and are becoming their own boss.
Most of us are familiar with sites like eBay and Craigslist along with others like Zazzle and Etsy. But with sites like those, your products can get lost in the competition. Also, what about those of us who don’t have products of our own to sell?
In this article I’m going to show you the most profitable way to sell products online from your own website. Don’t worry about experience or needing products. An understanding of affiliate marketing is all you need.
I’ll connect you with the same training platform I used to create my first website that earned a $4k month in my first year and a $7200 month in my second. I’ll even show you how you can get started free.
How to Sell Products Online From Home With Zero Competition
In this article, you’re going to learn all about:
- How to choose a profitable niche
- Building a website that gets massive organic traffic.
- Getting targeted traffic to your site from customers who are actively searching for what you’re selling/promoting.
- Turning that traffic into a high conversion rate and consistent revenue.
- And finally, how to get the right training so you set your business up for success.
Let’s get into some Selling Online 101. If you’re looking to become an online entrepreneur, selling online isn’t nearly as difficult as you may think. It’s actually very straightforward.
Choosing a Profitable Niche
If you’re going to be selling consistently, then you need to start with choosing an interest, or choosing a profitable niche. Choose something specific that you have a genuine interest in.
It’s not all about finding the most popular products to sell online. Instead, when you focus on a niche that you have a genuine interest in it makes it that much easier to understand what your audience is looking for. It instantly places you in your own target audience and makes it that much easier to write quality blog articles for your website.
Be specific with your niche. A niche like “basketball” is much too broad. But a niche like “Basketball shoes for teenagers” narrows your niche down to one that is very manageable.
Don’t try to be everything for everybody. It wouldn’t make sense to your audience if you started promoting camping equipment, photography equipment, and cell phone accessories all from the same website, right? Remember, you’re not Amazon!
When you create a website around a specific niche you’ll get a much higher percentage of conversions because people arriving at your site are finding exactly what they’re looking for.
Building Your Own Website
Don’t worry if you’re never done this before! On the right platform, building your own website is actually much easier than you think.
While popular websites like eBay and Craigslist are freely available to sell stuff online, they are also filled with competition. Any items you place on those sites can be lost in a sea of similar items in a heartbeat.
This is where doing business on your own internet real estate comes into play.
When you build your business on your own website you are in full control. You choose how items are displayed & you completely eliminate competition being shown in the same space. Further, you can choose any number of ways to monetize all your traffic that’s coming in.
Commissions and website earnings don’t just come from sales. In fact, the most profitable websites earn revenue not only from people who make purchases on their site, but even from people who show up and actually leave the site!
You can earn revenue through relevant ads placed on your site, building an email list, creating a sales funnel, and more.
Attracting Visitors to Your Website
Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. Many training platforms will focus on buying traffic. But the true key to building traffic that continues to grow for a sustained period is in learning how to build organic, free traffic.
Steps can be taken to get more traffic to your content, but at the core of building traffic is doing good keyword research.
Understanding the power of keywords is how you drive massive traffic to your website organically.
Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into search engines. There are great keyword research tools out there that allow you to know the exact keywords your target audience was making. This is the equivalent of knowing exactly what your target audience is looking for.
And when you know exactly what your audience is looking for you can then create content that is the answer to their most popular searches! Further, a great keyword tool will not only show you popular keywords but the ones with the least amount of competing websites targeting them. This means you’re getting high traffic with minimal competition.
Turning Your Traffic Into Revenue through Affiliate Marketing
Once you have consistent traffic, commissions and monthly revenue follow. If you’re selling your own products or services, this is pretty straightforward. However, how does one get commissions without your own products to sell?
In a nutshell, merchants like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, etc. will pay you commissions when you refer customers their way. Every single time they make a purchase, you get a commission!
Want a Detailed Look at the Affiliate Marketing Process?
Check out my full article where I walk you through it step by step. There’s even a video so you can follow along.
Final Thoughts
The key to maximizing your profit online is to create a business on your own website. It’s a little like the difference between renting and owning. Doing business on someone else’s space limits your control of how your content is displayed.
Additionally, whether you have products or services of your own or whether you’re connecting your audience with the merchants they trust, you can monetize your traffic in a number of ways when you build on your own website.
Getting the right training is key. Online business profitability doesn’t come overnight. Like traditional business it takes consistency. But when you have the right training and follow tried and true strategies, you can find yourself with your own online business where you’re the boss & consistent monthly commissions are coming your way.
If this is something that interests you, check out my top recommendation for anyone looking to get started in affiliate marketing. It’s the same training platform where I got my start, and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences from it.
Just how quickly can your own affiliate marketing website start earning you 4 figures per month? Quicker than you think. Check out these results & take the training for a FREE test drive!
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Hi Eric,
Choosing a niche for a beginner is something that might take them a long time to find. Yes, it is recommended to choose something they are so passionate about, but then the questions till remains, will it be a profitable niche?
Do you have any tips in order to be successful in any niche, no matter how unpopular it is?
Thanks so much for your inspiring article.
Thanks for the question. What’s important to understand is that ANY niche can be profitable, no matter how obscure, As long as there are related products or services that people can purchase that are relevant to that niche, it can be profitable. So the absolute most important factor is making sure you have a genuine interest in it. This places you inside your target audience, shoulder to shoulder with the people you’re marketing to. So many people go back and forth thinking about profitability instead of going after the niche they’re passionate for. You don’t have to come up with your perfect niche on your first try. Most marketers try many, many different niches based on interests they have. When you find that you enjoy writing content for it, that’s a huge sign that you’re on the right path. 馃檪 Thanks for the comment!
I’m hyped after your explanations on the strategies and the path! I’m new to affiliate marketing and this is the exact kind of article I was looking for. I used to think this was all about selling, but I can see now it’s much more about helping. It’s easy to sometimes forget the little things. Really appreciate this post, man. Saving it for sure!
Well said! Thanks for the comment!
Exciting way to introduce affiliate marketing to new people. Your style of writing is both inspiring and concise. Your explanation of what affiliate marketing is and how it works is very straight forward so that anybody can read and instantly make a decision to join or not. Kudos to you on sharing a great article such as this. I wish you continued success on your websites.
I really appreciate the kind words! Thanks so much!
I remember my first attempt to try and be an affiliate marketer and how it was a fail. I chose a niche which was just too broad and competition was too tough and I ended up giving up on it when I relaised that mistake. Now I’m back again and I launched a new site which looks promising now and is starting to trickle in some traffic.
Getting the right training and following it is the best way to achieve success in this line of business and I’m glad there are people like you that are lighting up the way for us. Thanks Eric I know this is really helpful even to the people that have been long in the industry but at times forget forget some of the tips here.
I really appreciate the honesty, man. Thanks so stopping in and sharing your perspective.
Hi Eric, thanks for sharing this information. I’ve heard a bit about referral marketing (or it’s actually affiliate marketing), so I’m glad this can work for any niche. Do you think it’s better to start with profitable niche or our passion first? Honestly, I want to work full-time on this online business as soon as possible, so I’m willing to learn a lot. Thanks
Your profitable niche IS a niche based around your passion. They are one and the same. It’s important to have a genuine interest in your niche because it automatically places you inside your target audience. That will come through to your readers and make you relatable and relevant. Thanks so much for the comment and best of luck!
Interesting how you described picking a niche to make money with. With your description of choosing a niche, you are saying not to have a fashion site for everyone, instead, break it down in multiple sites like departments. I have a fashion website that includes fashion for men, women, and children. If understanding your intent here is for me to be successful and make thousands within a year, I need to separate this website into niche fashion for each men, women, and children. Is that correct?
The key here is starting with a specific interest, and as time goes you can scale forward. Starting with a specific niche leads to more conversions because when people who are looking for, say golf shoes, arrive at a website that 100% sells golf shoes, they know instantly they’re in the right spot. If they arrive at a sporting goods website that sells everything from catcher’s mitts to tennis rackets, they may decide to just buy from Amazon. With time, as your authority grows, then you can branch out and grow because now your audience is coming with you. This is the exact beginning Amazon had, simply selling books online. Now, they literally sell everything under the sun. Start specific, then branch out. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric,
Using those exact 4 steps I built my online business and I am now a full-time blogger working from home.
As we all know the number of people who buy products online is keep on increasing and there are 1000’s of people who earn a full-time income by selling products online. This is a lot better than working on a 9-5 job or working for an MLM company.
We can turn our interest into an income and sell products related to our interest. You are right about keywords. Because of my budget, I can’t afford to paid traffic so I use to drive traffic to my website using keywords.
Thanks for the informative and educational post.
I always enjoy hearing the perspective of someone who’s successful in this business. Thanks for stopping by, and continued success!
Your post has helped me view a very interesting market. I had always wanted to open a brick and mortar business but the amount of capital was always to high form me. I could make a list of the times I got excited and the project would always end for lack of funds.
I still want to have my own business and your post has given me hope. I’ll check this platform you’re recommending. Thanks.
Well said. In this age we live in, people still tend to think online business is only for the extremely tech savvy. The truth is, with the right training ANYONE can be successful making money online, and there is opportunity right there for the taking. Thanks for the comment!
Eric – very engaging website about affiliate marking. Getting straight to the point about how much money is possible to make and then relaying the information about Wealthy Affiliate and their program. You kept me reading all the way through. I really like your Jaaxy information as well. Very upbeat and positive – thanks Penny.
Thanks for all the kinds words!
I think a lot of us initially go wrong when it comes to creating a niche. We often think too broad, or at least I did when I first started my niche blogs. By pertaining to a certain sector of the population, you’re going to carve out that market for yourself and yes, there is competition, but it’s now far less. When you say profitable niche, what are some of the greatest examples of profitable niches that one can earn a full-time income in a quick manner?
The greatest examples of profitable niches that you can earn income quickly in are the ones you are passionate about. Bottom line. The only way you’re going to earn income quickly is by creating quality content, and the only way to do that is to have a genuine interest in the niche. That’s the secret sauce. 馃檪 Thanks for the comment!
With regards to choosing a profitable niche some good advice I came across is to evaluate the content you will be able to write. What problems are there in the niche that people want answers for? If you think you got a niche, make a list of how many articles you think you can practically write, then see if your niche is expandable.
You start with something very specific, and once you’ve exhausted the possibilities there, you expand. If you have a good amount of content in place before expanding, your site will already be much better established for your second subject compared to any possible competition.
In essence, it all depends on how much you are willing to work for it. The opportunities are endless. You can make any niche work if you’re dedicated.
Very well put. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks for the comment!
Great article! How long after creating your website can you start a partnership with companies like Amazon. Can you start right away or do you have to wait a certain period of time before you add affiliate links to your site? I heard that with Amazon you have to make three sales within a certain amount of time. How do you make sure to get sales in this time period?
The great thing about Amazon is they will let you into their affiliate program without needing to meet any minimums with regards to your site’s traffic. Once you’re placing their affiliate links in your site, the best way to get sales is to get traffic. Period. That means consistent quality content creation paired with solid keyword research. 馃檪 The training platform I link to in this article has a huge focus on building organic traffic this way with a huge emphasis on conversions. The strategies and insight they give is priceless. 馃檪 Thanks for the comment!
I have a question or two about keyword research. I’ve been using a free keyword research tool on my own to target keywords but I’m very interested in this one you mention in the article and how you mention that it will find the keywords with the lowest competition. How exactly does it do that? And also what constitutes “low competition”. Thanks!
Bruno
Good questions. Click here for the full review article on the keyword research tool I swear by. With regards to how you can find low competition keywords, it’s all about knowing how many other ranking sites are targeting that same keyword. You may find a keyword with spectacular traffic, but if 300 other websites are targeting it, you probably won’t rank for it which means your article will be lost in the abyss of page 7 through 10 of the search results. However, when you find a keyword with solid traffic and only say 50 competing websites targeting it, now you have a much better chance at ranking. Add to that the fact that this keyword tool also allows you to check the competition that is actually ranking for that keyword so you can know what it will take to beat them, from word count to site authority, etc. 馃檪 Thanks for the comment!
Eric, thanks so much for all this information. As someone who’s been frustrated in the past selling on other people’s “real estate” I’ve been considering doing it on my own. I needed that push in the right direction and this post did exactly that for me. How hard is it to find affiliate programs for services that aren’t so mainstream?
Great question. There are actually thousands of affiliate programs out there in just about every niche you can think of. A simple google of [your niche] + “affiliate program” can show you several good options. The training community I’m a part of really goes in depth with this particular aspect of the affiliate marketing training and I think that’s an important step that can give your business real direction and scalability. Thanks for the comment!
Great post! I’m a affiliate marketer myself. How long did it take you to start getting real traffic? The one downfall when starting your own site is it doesn’t have any of that traffic the established sales sites like eBay and the other ones you mentioned get. Do you use a keyword tool to target popular keywords?
Keyword research is HUGE. Click here to read the article I wrote on the keyword research tool I swear by. It changed everything for me. And I agree 100% with what you’re saying. A brand new website will have little to no traffic starting out, but that’s why understanding how to build that traffic the right way is SO key. Keyword research has a lot to do with that along with building your site right. The training I reference to and link to in the article above took me leaps and bounds higher than I’d ever thought. And trust me, once you have that traffic the returns are sooooo much sweeter than when you’re just a number on another site. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric
I completely agree with you that the best way to earn money online in to have your own website. In the past I struggled with getting my photos to sell online because as a user I could never even perform a search where my prints came back in the results! Great points you’ve made here. I’m someone who didn’t know a thing about building websites and thanks to this same training you reference at Wealthy Affiliate, I’m proud to say I have my own site up and running live! Many thanks for your encouraging and informative post.
Chrissie 馃檪
It’s always great to hear about success stories. Congrats and keep up the good work! The training at Wealthy Affiliate absolutely delivers. Theirs is the best you’ll find online, bar none 馃檪 Thanks for the comment!
Eric,
I read your article on “How To Sell Products Online From Home With ZERO Competition!”. You cover the subject well. My concern with your article is that it makes it sound so easy. I don’t understand the ZERO Competition claim. There is tremendous competition on the internet. Nothing to be concerned with as competition is healthy. Please give me your thoughts.
Finally, please share some of your success to reach the monthly income stream you are enjoying. Congratulations!
Continued Success!
Rick
Hey Rick! Every single endeavor worth taking takes work, initiative, drive, patience, consistency, etc. Online business is no different. Don’t misunderstand my calling it straightforward for me saying that it takes no work. Business takes hard work, no matter if it’s traditional or online, but when you equip yourself with the tools, training, and resources necessary for success, that’s a HUGE leg up on the competition.
For me, Wealthy Affiliate was that huge leg up. I didn’t know where to start, and WA gave me the guidance I needed. That’s the reason I recommend it above all others, bar none 馃檪
The “zero competition” is referencing that when you sell your products or services online on your own website there are no other competitor’s products on the screen as there are when you sell on eBay, Zazzle, Craigslist, etc. 馃檪
Thanks for the question and comment!
Hi Eric,
Great high level overview on how to create an affiliate marketing business from scratch. Having my own affiliate marketing business I can testify that it can be a very effective way to make a living online. It’s especially true if you create your business around an interest as it seems less like work! I see you recommend Wealthy Affiliate for training, I’ve used it a few times myself over the years and agree their training and tools are better than any other system I’ve seen by a fair stretch.
Thanks for chiming in, brother. I appreciate your perspective. I think so many people see online business as something they’d want to try but don’t know where to start. I know that’s where I was 2 years ago. I found this training and never looked back 馃檪 Just doing my part to get it out there even more. Thanks for the comment!
You have this spot on regarding selling on places like Ebay and Amazon I have done both. I used to be a powerseller on Ebay which took up so much time and of course the outlay for stock. Amazon I sold $45000 dollars worth of products and made zilch out of it as you had to pay for ads to keep your products on page one … only one winner there! Taking you up on the training you mentioned. You’re very transparent and I appreciate that. Thanks for a great post. I have connected with you on Twitter look forward to chatting sometime.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Martin. I absolutely appreciate that. You can always reach me on WA. I look forward to seeing you on the inside!
I enjoyed this article. I have one question. How easy or hard is it to partner with companies like Amazon, Apple, etc to be able to get commissions from them? Do they expect you to have ads by them on your site? Do you need to apply for it? Is it free or do they take out from your commissions? Thank you!
Great questions. It’s absolutely free to partner up with these trusted merchants. Amazon for example basically accepts everyone who applies. It’s as easy as going to their site and scrolling down to the bottom of the site where you see “Affiliates”. With other merchants they may ask that you have some traffic to your site already, or ask for other requirements, but it is always free. The training I link to in the article walks you step by step through the entire process and really guides you through it. Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and advice with all of us Eric. In fact, after joining WA and picking your brain about how you made your first 4 figure month, I started doing everything that you did and achieved my first three figure month. I know it is not impressive as yours but it goes to show that all you need to do is follow the instructions and training as it is laid out!
Thanks for stopping in, Jessie! I really appreciate that! And you’re absolutely right. The training at WA absolutely sets us up for success. I’m only passing on what I’ve learned and I wish I could take more credit. Keep up the great work!
I really liked this article! This was extremely insightful for me personally as I’ve been looking for a direction into online selling. What would you say is harder? Selling your own products or partnering with these merchants to do affiliate marketing? Are there lots of rules to follow with merchants, or do you not have to worry about that at all?
Thanks for the comment! Personally, I’m not someone who had products or services of my own when I began. So connecting people with the products they’re already searching for online made perfect sense. And no, there aren’t giant hoops to jump through. It’s all about being honest and realizing that your target audience is finding you because they have an interest in what you’re talking about. There’s no need to “sell” to them. The training I link to in the article is the best I’ve found online, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into affiliate marketing. Thanks for the comment!