How To Start A Blog For Affiliate Marketing 2022 ($100/Day Strategy)

Last night, while celebrating Father’s Day and my son’s birthday, I checked my phone and saw an email from Bluehost. It told me I had just earned a commission. I was sitting around doing absolutely nothing work-related, and money came in anyway. That is what a blog built for affiliate marketing can do for you, and in this post I am going to walk you through the exact steps I used so you can replicate the same process in any niche you choose.

My name is Alston Godbolt. As a full-time affiliate marketer, I have earned commissions from products ranging from security cameras and sound bars to stand mixers, microwaves, web hosting, and online courses. The strategy below is the same one I used to rank on the first page of Google and earn passive commissions. It works regardless of what topic you want to build around, and it does not require you to show your face on camera or build a social media following first.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The correct way to set up your domain name and web hosting so you are not overthinking the small stuff
Why WordPress is the right platform for affiliate blogging and how it handles SEO setup automatically
How to use Ahrefs to find low-competition keywords where you actually have a shot at ranking on the first page
The Who/What/When/Where/Why/How writing framework that turns a blank page into a structured post in 10 minutes
How to create image-style call-to-action graphics in Canva that get readers to click your affiliate links
The consistency rule that separates bloggers who make money from those who quit before they see results
The free tool at finder.platformproof.com that tells you which online income method fits your current skills and situation

Step 1: Get Your Domain Name and Web Hosting

The first thing you need is a domain name and web hosting. A lot of people spend way too long here trying to find the perfect name. You want something general enough that you can create content across multiple areas within your niche, but specific enough that a visitor understands what the site is about when they land on it.

Here is the honest truth: the domain name is not that important. What matters far more is getting set up and starting to write. Do not spend two weeks agonizing over a URL. Pick something reasonable that points toward your topic and move forward. The content you create will do the heavy lifting, not the domain itself.

For hosting, I personally use Bluehost. That Bluehost commission email I mentioned at the top came because I recommend them to my readers, and Bluehost has an affiliate program that pays when people sign up through my link. Bluehost is beginner-friendly, affordable, and gives you everything you need to launch a WordPress site. The point is that the very tools you use to build your blog can also become your first affiliate income sources. You are a customer who converts into a publisher, and the same recommendation your readers need is one you have already made yourself.

Step 2: Install WordPress

Once your domain and hosting are live, the next step is installing WordPress. WordPress is a content management system that lets you write and publish blog posts quickly without knowing how to code. It is the most widely used blogging platform in the world, and for a very good reason: it comes pre-configured for search engine optimization out of the box.

When I say WordPress is configured for SEO, I mean it handles a lot of the technical setup automatically. Clean URL structures, image alt text support, the ability to add meta descriptions, and fast page loading are all built into the platform or available through free plugins. If you tried to build this infrastructure yourself, you would spend months on technical work instead of writing. WordPress removes that obstacle entirely so you can focus on the one activity that actually drives affiliate commissions: publishing content that ranks.

Most hosting providers, including Bluehost, let you install WordPress with a single click from your dashboard. The entire process from purchasing hosting to having a live, functioning WordPress site can take less than 30 minutes. Once it is running, you are ready to move to the step that actually determines whether your blog makes money or just sits there collecting dust.

Step 3: Pick Your Niche

Your niche is the topic area where you will create all of your content. It does not need to be exotic or completely unique. It just needs to be a subject with affiliate programs attached to it and enough sub-topics that you can write consistently for months without running out of ideas.

My site covers affiliate marketing and making money online. That is my niche. A different person might choose pet care, personal finance, home cooking, outdoor gear, parenting, fitness, or travel. Every one of those topics has companies willing to pay commissions when you send them a customer who makes a purchase. The affiliate programs exist across virtually every product category you can think of.

Your niche needs to be specific enough to have a clear target audience, but not so narrow that you exhaust your content ideas after six posts. If you choose “stand mixers,” you will run out of things to write about quickly. If you choose “baking and kitchen tools,” you have years worth of content ahead of you. Think in terms of a broader category, not a single product or brand.

One thing worth noting: you do not need to be a deep expert in your niche to get started. You need to be willing to research topics and write clearly about what you find. The audience you are writing for is typically someone who knows less than you do after you have spent a few focused hours reading about the subject. That bar is not as high as most people assume it is.

Step 4: Find Low-Competition Keywords With Ahrefs

This is where most beginner bloggers make their biggest strategic mistake. They start writing about whatever interests them without checking whether anyone is actively searching for it, or whether they can realistically compete with the sites already ranking for that phrase. The result is content that earns zero traffic because it targets something nobody searches for, or something dominated entirely by major authority websites with years of backlinks behind them.

The tool I use to avoid that mistake is Ahrefs. Specifically, I use the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. You type in a keyword related to your niche and it shows you the monthly search volume alongside a keyword difficulty score on a scale of 0 to 100. The closer that score is to 100, the harder it is for a new site to rank on the first page of Google. The closer it is to 0, the more realistic your chances are.

When I type “affiliate program” into Ahrefs, the broad term is extremely competitive. But when I look at the matching terms it surfaces, I see hundreds of specific affiliate programs with much lower difficulty scores. “Amazon affiliate program” is brutally competitive. Nobody running a new blog should target that. “Nike affiliate program” is meaningfully less competitive. “Pottery barn affiliate program” is low enough that I wrote a post about it and now rank fourth or fifth on Google for that exact phrase.

My filter rule is simple: I set the keyword difficulty to 10 or less. That threshold is where newer blogs without large backlink profiles actually have a fighting chance to compete. Anything above that and you are competing against sites with far more domain authority than you have in your first year.

Here is a real example from the video. When I searched “Shein affiliate program” in Ahrefs, the keyword difficulty was 4 and the monthly search volume was 1,200 searches. That is a keyword a new blog can rank for without a massive existing audience. Compare that to “Amazon affiliate program,” which gets enormous search volume but has a difficulty that makes it nearly impossible for a brand-new site to crack the first page.

This logic applies to any niche, not just affiliate marketing topics. I searched “can dogs eat” in Ahrefs as a demonstration and found 4.1 million monthly searches across 39,000 related keywords. When I filtered that result for keyword difficulty 10 or less, there were still hundreds of real opportunities remaining. Something like “can dogs eat popcorn” is a genuine keyword a pet blog could target, write a thorough post about, rank for within a few months, and monetize through affiliate links to pet food products, treats, or veterinary services. The niche itself almost does not matter. The principle is the same everywhere.

Step 5: Write Using the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How Framework

Once you have your keyword picked, the most common obstacle bloggers hit is staring at a blank page. The Who/What/When/Where/Why/How framework solves that problem before you even open a new document.

Before you write a single word of the actual post, spend five to ten minutes brainstorming questions about your topic using those six words as prompts. If your keyword is “pottery barn affiliate program,” your question list might look like this: Who can join the pottery barn affiliate program? What commissions does it pay? When do commissions get paid out? Where do you sign up? Why would a content creator choose pottery barn over other home decor programs? How do you actually generate traffic and conversions once you are inside the program?

Each one of those questions becomes a section of your blog post. You are not inventing structure from scratch. You are answering questions that your reader genuinely wants answered before they decide whether to join an affiliate program. That is exactly what search engines reward: a thorough, organized answer to the questions people are typing into Google.

The framework works just as well across completely different niches. For a dog blog post targeting “can dogs eat popcorn,” a five-minute brainstorm might surface: What is popcorn actually made of? Why might certain ingredients in popcorn be harmful to dogs? What happens if a dog eats too much? Can dogs eat popcorn kernels specifically, or just the popped portion? What are safer treat alternatives? How much popcorn can a dog tolerate before having an adverse reaction?

After that brainstorm, you are not starting from zero. You have a complete outline already built. Writing becomes faster because you are just working through a prepared list of questions and answering them one at a time with whatever you find in your research. A focused ten-minute brainstorm can cut your actual writing time in half. That speed compounds when you are trying to publish three to five posts per week.

Step 6: Create Image Links With Flat Icon and Canva

Text links inside your blog post content are one reliable way to get affiliate clicks. Image links are another, and they often perform just as well or better because they stand out visually on the page and catch the eye of readers who are skimming rather than reading every word. Here is exactly how I build them.

First, go to Flat Icon. Flat Icon is a free library of icons and simple images organized by category. You search for something related to your post topic and download an icon for free. If you are writing about web hosting, you might search “website” and grab a simple icon that represents a browser or a laptop. The free tier gives you access to a wide range of options without paying anything.

Next, open Canva. Canva is 100 percent free and runs entirely in your browser. Go to “Create a design,” choose a custom size, and set the dimensions to 1,000 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall. Drag the icon you downloaded from Flat Icon into the canvas. Then add a text element with a short call to action like “Start your first website today.” Change the font color to blue and add an underline so it visually resembles a clickable hyperlink. Download the finished image to your computer and import it into your WordPress post. Wrap that image in your affiliate link so that any click on it goes directly to the offer you are promoting.

When someone is reading your blog post and sees what appears to be a banner or button with blue underlined text, they are likely to click on it. That click goes through your affiliate link, and if they make a purchase, you earn a commission. That is exactly the method I used to earn that Bluehost commission while I was out celebrating with my family and not touching my laptop.

Not sure which online income path fits your skills?

Take the free 60-second quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a personalized answer based on what you already know and own.

Step 7: Sign Up for Affiliate Programs in Your Niche

Once your blog is running and you have written your first few posts, you need to actually join the affiliate programs that match your content. Most programs are free to join. Companies want more publishers sending them potential customers, so the barrier to entry is usually just filling out a basic application and agreeing to their terms.

Search for the name of any product, service, or company you write about followed by the words “affiliate program” and you will almost always find a signup page. Some programs are run directly by the company itself. Others operate through affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, or Impact, which host multiple programs in one place and let you manage them all from a single dashboard.

You do not need to join dozens of programs at once. Start with two or three that are directly relevant to the content you have already written. As your blog grows and you publish posts covering more products and services, you can add more programs over time. The goal is to make sure that every post you publish has at least one working affiliate link somewhere in it, so that every reader who clicks through and converts earns you a commission.

Step 8: Post Consistently and Do Not Stop Early

This is the step that separates the bloggers who actually make money from the ones who do not. The strategy outlined above works. But it only works if you keep showing up and doing it. The most common pattern I see is that someone starts a blog, writes three or four posts, sees no noticeable traffic in the first few weeks, concludes that the method does not work, and quits. Those posts then sit on the internet doing nothing, because three or four posts is not enough for search engines to take a new site seriously.

What I recommend is publishing three, four, or five posts per week. That pace sounds aggressive, but if you are using the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How brainstorm framework and targeting keywords with difficulty scores under 10, each post becomes much more manageable to write. You already know the structure before you start. You just need to sit down and fill it in with honest, accurate research.

Search engines take time to crawl, index, and rank new content. A brand-new blog typically takes three to six months before it starts seeing consistent organic traffic from Google. The bloggers who push through that initial period without stopping are the ones who eventually start seeing passive commissions show up while they are asleep, at dinner, or out celebrating a birthday. The ones who quit in month one never reach that point.

Honest Look at the Numbers

The title of this post mentions $100 per day. That is a real income target, but not a guaranteed outcome for every person in every niche. How fast you reach it depends on the affiliate programs in your niche, how consistently you publish, and how accurately you target low-competition keywords.

Web hosting is one of the higher-commission affiliate niches. Some hosting companies pay $50 to $100 per referral. In that scenario, a single Bluehost commission in a day already hits the $100 mark. Pet niche affiliate programs tend to pay smaller commissions per sale, so you would need more traffic and more conversions to reach the same number. Fashion affiliate programs like Shein often pay a percentage of the sale total rather than a flat per-referral fee, which means income scales with the average order value of what your referrals buy.

A realistic path for most people starting from scratch: months one and two are about building your content library and getting posts indexed. Months three and four you start seeing small amounts of traffic arrive and occasional commissions come in. Month six and beyond is when older posts continue to climb in rankings and new posts add to the total, creating a compounding effect. This is not a quick income model. It is a build-slowly, earn-for-a-long-time model. The passive commission I earned on Father’s Day did not come from one post written that week. It came from posts I wrote months earlier that had been steadily climbing the search results.

Find Your X

Starting a blog for affiliate marketing is one proven path to earning passive income online. But it is not the only path. If writing is not how you work best, or if you want to see which method actually fits your current skills and resources before you commit months of effort, the free tool at finder.platformproof.com matches you to the right approach in about 60 seconds. Use it before you spend months on a strategy that may not be the right fit for you personally.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a lot of money to start a blog for affiliate marketing?

No. The primary costs are a domain name, which typically runs about $10 to $15 per year, and web hosting, which starts as low as $3 to $5 per month with providers like Bluehost. WordPress itself is free and open source. Ahrefs has paid subscription plans, but you can begin by manually checking search results to gauge competition before committing to a tool subscription. Canva and Flat Icon both have free tiers that cover everything you need for image creation. You can realistically get a functioning affiliate blog live for under $50 in your first year.

How long does it take to rank on Google?

For a new blog targeting keywords with a difficulty score of 10 or less, you can sometimes see your posts appear in search results within a few weeks of publishing. But for consistent, meaningful organic traffic, most new blogs take three to six months to build momentum. The more posts you publish targeting low-difficulty keywords, the faster you accumulate rankings across multiple searches and the more traffic you drive in total.

What niche should I choose?

Choose a topic that has affiliate programs associated with it and that you can write about consistently without running out of things to say. You do not need to be deeply passionate about it, but you should be able to research it clearly and write about it without dreading every session. Good niches tend to involve products or services people buy regularly, which means recurring opportunities to earn commissions. Pet care, personal finance, home goods, cooking, fitness, software tools, and outdoor activities all fit that description.

How many posts do I need before I start making money?

There is no exact number, but each post you publish that targets a real keyword is essentially a separate bet on a different search result. Some of those posts will rank and bring in clicks and commissions. Others will not. Publishing three to five posts per week gives you far more bets in play than publishing once a month, and it builds your site’s authority with search engines faster. Consistency over volume is the key variable, not hitting a specific post count milestone.

What is keyword difficulty and why does it matter so much for new blogs?

Keyword difficulty is a score from 0 to 100 that estimates how hard it is for any given website to rank on the first page of Google for a specific search term. A score near 100 means the top results are dominated by major websites with enormous backlink profiles built over years. A score of 4, like the Shein affiliate program keyword, means very little competition exists and a newer site has a genuine chance to rank. For a brand-new blog without years of authority, filtering to keyword difficulty 10 or less is what makes the difference between getting traffic and getting nothing.

Can I build an affiliate blog in a niche I do not know much about?

Yes, with one condition: you need to be willing to research before you write. The Who/What/When/Where/Why/How framework helps because it forces you to ask the right questions first and then find the answers in your research before writing. Most readers are looking for clear explanations, not insider jargon from a seasoned professional. If you can spend 20 to 30 minutes reading about a keyword topic and then write a clear summary of what you found, you can build a blog in almost any niche. That said, choosing a niche you find at least mildly interesting tends to produce better writing and fewer skipped publishing days.

Is affiliate marketing with a blog still a viable strategy?

Yes. Search engines continue to send large volumes of traffic to informational blog posts, and affiliate programs continue to pay commissions when readers click through and purchase. The strategy is more competitive than it was ten years ago, which is exactly why keyword research and low-competition targeting matter more now than they used to. Bloggers who approach it with real keyword data and consistent publishing schedules are still building meaningful income streams. The passive commission I earned on Father’s Day 2022 is proof that the model keeps working when you execute it correctly.

Do I need to show my face or start a YouTube channel alongside the blog?

No. A blog operates entirely through written text that lives on your website. You never need to appear on camera, record your voice, or produce any video content to make this work. Some bloggers eventually add YouTube or social channels to bring in additional traffic, but the core mechanics of writing a post, targeting a keyword, and earning affiliate commissions from search traffic require nothing beyond a keyboard and a willingness to publish consistently. The Bluehost commission I earned that night came from written blog content, not from a video or a social post.

Sources

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer (ahrefs.com): keyword difficulty scores and monthly search volume data cited in this post
Flat Icon (flaticon.com): free icon library used to source images for affiliate CTA graphics
Canva (canva.com): free browser-based graphic design tool for building image links
Bluehost (bluehost.com): web hosting provider referenced in the tutorial and used personally by Alston Godbolt
WordPress (wordpress.org): open-source content management system recommended for affiliate blogging