How To Start Affiliate Marketing Step By Step In 2023

One problem. One solution. One affiliate program. That combination is enough to build a full-time income online. That sounds too simple to be true, but that is exactly what Alston walks through in this video with real examples of small blogs and YouTube channels that are doing it right now in 2023.

If you have been stuck trying to figure out what niche to pick, what product to promote, or how to actually get traffic to an affiliate link, this guide breaks it all down in the same order Alston covers it in the video. No fluff. No theory. Just the actual steps.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A repeatable method for finding real problems people search online every day
How to use Answer the Public (free) and Ahrefs (paid) to validate a niche before you create anything
A real-world example of a two-year-old website ranking for 3,400 keywords in one focused niche
Three separate affiliate programs hidden inside a single personal story about a dog
How CPA marketing works and why you can earn a commission without the visitor buying anything
What 57 videos in a consistent niche can realistically earn per month
A step-by-step action plan to take you from zero to first commission, and a free tool at finder.platformproof.com to help you choose the right method for your specific skills

Step 1: Find a Real Problem

The first step in affiliate marketing is finding a problem. Some people call this picking a niche. The terms mean the same thing. You are not trying to build a brand about yourself. You are building content around a specific problem that real people are actively searching for solutions to online right now.

You do not need to look far. Alston walked through his own morning in the video to prove this point. He got up at 3:30 a.m. to take out his four-month-old dog. Problem. He went to the gym for arms day. Problem. He packed school lunches for his kids. Problem. Every part of your day is a list of potential niches. The question is which one has enough people searching for it online to turn into consistent income.

Beyond your own daily life, you can look at your hobbies, your recent purchases, or use a website like trends.google.com to spot rising topics. The goal at this stage is to make a list. You do not need to narrow it down yet. Give yourself permission to brainstorm freely before committing to one direction.

How to Use Answer the Public to Find Real Search Questions

Answer the Public is a free keyword research tool that takes a short phrase and returns every question real people are asking around it online. You type in one or two keywords and it generates a full map of search queries organized by question type.

Alston’s example in the video: type in “can dogs eat” and you immediately see that people are asking whether dogs can eat potatoes, popcorn, eggs, and dozens of other foods. Every one of those questions is a potential blog post or YouTube video. Every one of those posts is a slot where you could place an affiliate link to a relevant product or service.

This is not a hypothetical exercise. Real websites have been built entirely around this one type of question and are earning traffic and commissions from it today. Answer the Public shows you exactly what people are already looking for, which removes the guesswork from content planning. You are not trying to predict what someone might want to know. You are looking up what millions of people are already asking.

The practical move here is to spend thirty minutes on Answer the Public with two or three of the problem areas you identified in Step 1. Pull out ten to twenty questions that you could realistically answer and write them down as a content calendar.

How to Validate Your Niche with Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a paid keyword research tool, and it adds a layer of hard data that Answer the Public does not provide. Where Answer the Public shows you the questions, Ahrefs shows you the volume and the competition level.

Alston pulled up the “can dogs eat” search in Ahrefs during the video. The results: 36,000 related keywords and over four million searches per month across that one topic. People are searching “can dogs eat apples,” “can dogs eat grapes,” “can dogs eat pineapple,” over and over. That is four million opportunities per month for a website or channel focused on that one problem to show up with an answer and a recommendation.

You do not need Ahrefs to get started. Answer the Public is free and gives you the questions. Ahrefs becomes useful when you want to confirm the size of the market before you invest months of consistent effort into it. If you are choosing between two niches and one has four million monthly searches and the other has forty thousand, that is meaningful information for your decision.

The Dog Food Niche: A Real Website Doing This Right Now

Alston walked through a real website in the video that has built an entire business around one problem: dog owners wanting to know what their dog can and cannot eat. The site answers questions like “can dogs eat cheesecake,” “can dogs eat hash browns,” “can dogs eat fruit snacks,” and “can dogs eat smoked salmon.”

That is all this website does. One niche. One type of question. Answered consistently over time.

The Ahrefs data Alston pulled on this website: it started getting search rankings in October 2021. By the time of the video it ranked for 3,400 keywords. The estimated traffic value based on equivalent ad spend is $417 per month, and that number does not account for the affiliate commissions the site earns separately from that traffic.

The affiliate program this site promotes is Brain Training for Dogs, available through ClickBank. It is a popular choice for new affiliates because ClickBank programs often have automatic approval. You do not need a proven track record or a large existing audience to start promoting and earning commissions on it.

The website itself is not large. It is not old. It is not running ads or going viral on social media. It identified one problem, created content to answer it at scale, and placed relevant affiliate links throughout. That is the entire business model.

Step 2: Create Content That Solves the Problem

Once you have identified a problem with real search volume, the job is to create content that answers the question. The format is straightforward: give a clear yes or no, then explain the reasoning. After the explanation, add related information like warning signs, similar items to avoid, and product recommendations that are directly relevant to the topic.

You have two main content formats to choose from: blog posts and YouTube videos. Both work for affiliate marketing. The dog food website Alston showed is a blog. The YouTube search results for “can dogs eat bananas” include a channel with 77,000 subscribers that got 41,000 views on that one video, and a much smaller account with only 691 subscribers that still pulled 553 views on the same topic.

The size of your channel or website does not determine whether you can show up. Consistency and relevance determine it. A small account that answered the exact question the viewer typed in will outperform a large channel that answered something adjacent.

There are also YouTube Shorts covering this same topic. Short-form video is a third format that works within the same niche, on the same questions, with the same affiliate links. You do not have to pick just one format forever. Start with one and add others as you get comfortable.

How to Build Real Authority on Your Topic

Reading other blog posts and watching YouTube videos on your topic is a starting point. It gives you a sense of what is already being said and what angles are being missed. But Alston recommends going further if you want your content to stand apart from the crowd.

His suggestion in the video: contact a local expert. If you are writing about whether dogs can eat cheesecake, call a local vet. Tell them you are writing a blog post on the topic and ask for ten minutes of their time. Ask them what dogs can eat safely, what happens if they eat something harmful, and what signs to watch for. That kind of sourced, expert-backed content is harder to copy and builds genuine trust in search.

You can also reach out to friends and family who have direct experience with the topic. The point is to go beyond what is already on the first page of Google rather than restating it in slightly different words. Content that adds something new has a better chance of ranking and a better chance of earning a reader’s trust when you recommend a product.

Step 3: Choose the Right Affiliate Programs

The affiliate program you choose should be directly related to the problem you are solving. In the dog food niche, that seems straightforward: promote pet products. But Alston’s personal story about his dog Sam shows how many more options exist inside a single topic than most people initially see.

Here is the story from the video. Sam, the family’s first dog, got into rat poison while at his in-laws’ house. The family went online immediately to search for what to do. They called a vet, who told them to give Sam raw spinach to help him pass the poison. That one experience contains at least three distinct affiliate programs.

Program one: the online search itself. A website that answers “what happens when a dog eats rat poison” and places a relevant product recommendation earns a commission every time a panicked dog owner in that same situation clicks and buys. The audience intent is urgent. The conversion rate on relevant recommendations for urgent searches tends to be higher.

Program two: virtual vet consultations. There are affiliate programs that pay you a commission any time someone reaches out to a virtual veterinarian for a consultation. The visitor does not need to buy anything. They just need to make contact. This is CPA marketing, which stands for cost per action or cost per acquisition. You earn for the action, not for a purchase. Someone in a panic about their dog eating something dangerous is exactly the kind of person who would pay for an immediate phone or video consultation with a vet online.

Program three: pet insurance. Someone whose dog just ate rat poison and faced an expensive emergency vet situation is highly motivated to get pet insurance. That is the moment when the value of having coverage becomes obvious. Pet insurance affiliate programs pay commissions for sign-ups, and the audience reading about dog poisoning is a qualified audience for that offer. They already understand the risk. They have just lived through it.

Not sure which online income method fits your specific skills right now?

Find your best starting point at finder.platformproof.com. Answer a few quick questions and get a personalized recommendation based on what you already know how to do, no guesswork required.

Email Marketing as an Affiliate Income Multiplier

There is a fourth revenue path in the dog story that Alston calls affiliate marketing 201: email marketing. The idea is to create a free lead magnet, a downloadable resource that your reader would genuinely want, and use it to build a mailing list. Once someone is on your list, you can continue recommending relevant products over time rather than earning one commission and losing the visitor forever.

In the dog food niche, a lead magnet could be something like “25 Foods Your Dog Should Absolutely Stay Away From.” A person searching “can dogs eat cheesecake” would also want to know what else to keep out of reach. They join your list for the free guide, and from that list you can send follow-up content and relevant affiliate recommendations for months. One visitor becomes multiple commission opportunities over time without requiring more traffic.

This is not a step zero move. Build the content first, get some traffic, then layer in email once you have a steady stream of visitors who are interested enough to opt in. But it is worth knowing this option exists because it changes the long-term math on what each visitor is worth to your business.

Step-by-Step Action Plan for Beginner Affiliate Marketers

Write down five to ten problems you personally encounter in a typical week, pulling from your job, hobbies, household, health, finances, or parenting
Go to Answer the Public and type in a keyword related to one of those problems. Collect ten to twenty specific questions that real people are searching for answers to right now
Search those questions on YouTube and Google. If small channels and modest blogs are showing up on the first page, the barrier to entry is low enough for a new account to compete
Search ClickBank, ShareASale, or a CPA network for affiliate programs related to your niche. Find at least two or three programs you could promote within the same type of content
Create your first piece of content: one blog post or one video answering one specific question from your list. Give a direct answer, explain the reasoning, and recommend a relevant product or service at the end
Publish consistently. Repeat the same process for each question on your list. Each piece of content is another slot in search results where your affiliate link can earn a commission without you doing additional work
Track what is working. Use Google Search Console for a blog or YouTube Studio for a channel to see which topics are driving traffic. Prioritize creating more content in the areas already showing results
Once one piece of content starts earning, build more content around the same problem before expanding to a new niche. Go deep in one area before going wide

Honest Drawbacks of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is simple. It is not fast. Alston says it directly in the video: ten videos will probably not earn you a commission. The dog food website he featured started in October 2021 and took real time to build up to 3,400 ranking keywords. That does not happen in a weekend, or even in a month.

Consistency is the actual requirement. Alston’s benchmark from the video: a channel with 57 videos in a focused niche could potentially earn around $2,000 per month. That means creating 57 pieces of content before expecting serious income. At one video or post per week, that is more than a year of consistent work before you reach that point.

The people who stop before video 57 are the majority. The people who reach 100 pieces of content are the minority, and Alston’s position is that 100 blog posts or videos is a more realistic target for full-time income. If you are not willing to commit to that timeline, affiliate marketing will disappoint you. If you treat it as a long-term build rather than a fast paycheck, the compounding nature of search-ranked content works in your favor over time. Old posts keep earning. Old videos keep earning. The library grows.

There is also the reality that not every niche will work. Some problems you identify will not have affiliate programs that pay enough to justify the effort. Research the commission structures before you build a content strategy around them. A niche with four million monthly searches but affiliate commissions of forty cents per sale requires very different math than one with half a million searches and commissions of forty dollars per sale.

What Real Results Look Like

The dog food website Alston analyzed in the video is a useful real-world benchmark. It is a relatively new site, started getting search rankings in October 2021. In roughly two years, it built rankings for 3,400 keywords. The Ahrefs traffic value estimate is $417 per month based on ad spend equivalency, which does not include the affiliate commissions earned from that same traffic.

The YouTube side of the same niche shows the same pattern at different scales. A channel with 77,000 subscribers got 41,000 views on a single “can dogs eat bananas” video. An account with only 691 subscribers got 553 views on the same topic. Being a small, new account does not disqualify you from showing up and earning. Relevance and consistency matter more than subscriber count in a niche-specific search.

None of this is a guarantee of income. These are real examples of what happened for actual websites and channels that identified one problem, created content consistently to answer it, and placed affiliate links in relevant locations. The pattern is repeatable. The timeline is longer than most people expect. Both things are true at the same time, and knowing both going in is better than finding out the hard way six months from now.

Find Your X

The hardest part of starting affiliate marketing is often not the content creation or the affiliate program setup. It is choosing the right problem to solve in the first place. Pick the wrong niche and you can spend six months building something with no clear monetization path. Pick the right one and your effort compounds over time, with each piece of content working for you long after you publish it.

If you are not sure which direction fits your actual skills and situation, the free tool at finder.platformproof.com can help you figure that out. It asks a few targeted questions about what you already know how to do and points you toward the income method most likely to work for someone with your background. Start there before you start creating content, so the effort you put in is aimed at the right target from the beginning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need money to start affiliate marketing?

No. The core of affiliate marketing is content and links, both of which cost nothing but time. Answer the Public is free. You can start a blog on free platforms like WordPress.com or Blogger. You can start a YouTube channel with a smartphone. Paid tools like Ahrefs help you move faster, but they are not required to get started. Put money into tools once you are earning, not before you have proven the concept works in your niche.

How long until I earn my first affiliate commission?

It varies, but the honest answer is that most people do not earn their first commission until they have published several dozen pieces of content. Alston’s reference point in the video is 57 videos potentially earning around $2,000 per month in a focused niche. Your first commission might come sooner depending on your niche, your traffic source, and how well your content matches what the searcher is actually looking for. Expect months, not weeks, before the first real signal appears.

Do I need my own website to do affiliate marketing?

No, but owning your platform gives you more control over the long term. A YouTube channel is a valid starting point, and so is a free blog. The risk with platforms you do not own is that their rules can change. A self-hosted website means your content and your affiliate links stay in place regardless of what any platform decides to update in its policies. Both approaches work. The self-hosted route simply gives you more ownership of what you build.

What is CPA marketing and how does it differ from standard affiliate marketing?

CPA stands for cost per action or cost per acquisition. In standard affiliate marketing, you earn a commission when someone buys a product. In CPA marketing, you earn when someone takes a specific action that may not include a purchase: filling out a form, calling a phone number, signing up for a free trial, or requesting a consultation. In the pet niche, virtual vet programs pay affiliates when someone reaches out for a consultation, no purchase required. CPA programs can convert at a higher rate because the bar for the visitor is lower than buying something outright.

How do I choose between starting a blog and starting a YouTube channel?

Choose based on how you naturally prefer to communicate. If you are more comfortable writing than being on camera, start a blog. If you are comfortable speaking on video or want to put a face to the content, start a YouTube channel. Both formats work for affiliate marketing. Both take time to build an audience. The worst choice is spending months trying to decide between the two instead of starting with one. Pick one, make fifty pieces of content, then evaluate before adding a second format.

What affiliate network is best for beginners?

ClickBank is a common starting point because many programs on the platform have automatic approval. You do not need a proven track record or an existing large audience to get accepted. ShareASale and CJ Affiliate have larger catalogs covering physical and digital products across many categories. For CPA marketing specifically, MaxBounty is a well-known network for new affiliates. The best network is whichever one has programs in your specific niche with commission structures that make the math work for your expected traffic levels.

Can I promote multiple affiliate programs within the same niche?

Yes, and Alston’s video makes a strong case for doing exactly that. The dog story example shows how one piece of content can include a product recommendation, a CPA link for a virtual vet consultation, and a mention of pet insurance. Each of those is a separate affiliate program, all relevant to the same reader, all capable of earning a commission independently. Stacking multiple relevant programs within a single piece of content increases your revenue per visitor without requiring more traffic. The programs just need to be genuinely related to the topic so the recommendations feel natural rather than forced.

Is affiliate marketing still a realistic income path in 2023 and beyond?

Yes. Search volume does not disappear because a calendar year changes. People were asking “can dogs eat grapes” in 2019 and they are still asking it now. The competition has increased in popular niches over time, which makes niche selection and content quality more important than they were five years ago. But the fundamental model remains intact: find a problem people are actively searching for, create content that answers it better than what already exists, recommend relevant products, and earn a commission when someone acts on that recommendation. That cycle works as long as people use search engines to find answers, which is still the overwhelming majority of how people find information online.

Sources

Answer the Public: answerthepublic.com (free keyword research and question-mapping tool)
Ahrefs: ahrefs.com (paid keyword research and SEO data platform)
ClickBank: clickbank.com (affiliate marketplace, includes the Brain Training for Dogs program)
Google Trends: trends.google.com (free trending topic research tool)
Alston Godbolt, “How To Start Affiliate Marketing Step By Step In 2023,” alstongodbolt.com