It’s meaningful to care for other people’s pets, but the reality is that it’s not always financially rewarding. I know this very well because I am also from the veterinary field and have met quite a number of people who is interested to know how to make more money as a vet tech without working on two (or more) jobs at the same time. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way than to go online hence this article is dedicated to help you understand the process and opportunities available for this unique profession.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
There are 3 main players in the affiliate marketing model – you (the marketer), a brand merchant and an online customer. When someone purchases a product/service that you recommend online, you’ll earn a percentage of the sales from the merchant.
The sales can be potentially recurring so as long as you maintain a good online presence, you can actually run a side business with a fairly low investment. This is how most niche bloggers make money before moving on to creating and selling their own products online.
How to Build an Online Presence?
In the beginning, no one would know about you in the world wide web so in order to create an online presence, you’d need the following for building a website.
1# Select a Domain Name
This is basically the name of a site that ends with a .com extension. Most domain names that you see on the internet are owned and the registration fee is renewed every year to keep the website going. Before purchasing one, it’s important to understand what makes a good domain name.
If you can’t decide on one just yet, simply create a sub domain with SiteRubix (which is free) and make the transfer later on.
2# Choose a Publishing Platform
There is a ton of blogging platforms out there from the original Blogspot by Google to a new one called PhrasePress. While most of them opt for the easy-to-use approach, I personally prefer a self-hosted WordPress because it offers more diversity and flexibility that will allow you to monetize long term from a website.
This blog of mine that you are reading now, for example, is built on WordPress supported by a premium theme. But when you are just getting started, a free theme works just fine and lucky for you, there are more than 2000 to choose from within the WordPress theme gallery.
3# – Find a Niche
A niche is generally a group of people with the same interest and in the context of affiliate marketing, it’s an audience that’s looking to buy something online. As a vet tech, you have the advantage because you know what type of products/services that can help people solve their pet problems.
In case you aren’t aware, there are plenty of eCommerce stores that sell pet related items and the good news is, most of them have affiliate programs that you can apply for free. For your convenience, I’ve actually researched some of them and made a list of commission rates below for easy comparison.
- Amazon marketplace – 8% (direct application)
- PetSmart – between 5% to 6% (via Rakuten Linkshare)
- PetCo – between 5% to 8% (via Commission Junction)
- Pet Plus – between 12% to 30% (via Rakuten Linkshare)
- Pet Care Rx – from 6% (via Rakuten Linkshare)
- Pet Care Supplies – 10% (via Rakuten Linkshare)
- 1st Pet Naturals – 20% (via ShareASale)
- Canna-Pet – 20% (via ShareASale)
- Pet Flow – 8% (via ShareASale)
- Pet Well Being – 10% (via ShareASale)
- Embrace Pet Insurance – $33/sale (via ShareASale)
- My Pet DMV – 20% to 35% (via ShareASale)
- Pettura – 8% (via ShareASale)
- Pets Best – $35/sale (via direct application)
- Pet Assure – 25% (via direct application)
- Cuddle Clones – 10% (via direct application)
- Doggy Dan The Online Dog Trainer – 70% (via Clickbank)
That’s quite a comprehensive list, isn’t it? There are literally hundreds of pet products, dog training programs, insurance as well as cremation services that you can piggyback on and write reviews to help pet owners make the right choices online.
And just how much can you make?
Let’s take the Amazon marketplace, for example. Say you’ve just become an Amazon Associate and you would like to promote this awesome backpack pet carrier worth $77 as your main product review.
When someone buys this item through your link, you make about $6/sale (based on 8% commission rate), but that’s not just a one time thing.
You see, a good blog can get indexed and ranked well on the search engines, drawing a stream of visitors over a long period.
With every new customers, the sales can multiply by 10s and 100’s. So even though $6 might look like a terribly small figure, over the next few months, you could rack up more than $600 from just one article.
That brings us to the next questions…
How Do You Attract The Online Audience?
It’s not magic and certainly not instantaneous. Some work is needed to understand the niche behavior and the most common method is through keyword research. Can you remember the last time you look for something online? What type of phrases did you enter into Google?
These are called keywords and there are countless of them in the pet products/services niche. A good keyphrase are elaborated, widely searched and not very competitive. Brainstorming them is easy when you use an effective keyword tool like Jaaxy.
Here are some ‘profitable’ keyphrases that might spark a blog idea in you.
- How to prevent ticks on dogs
- Homemade dog ear cleaner
- How much to feed a puppy a day
- Signs that your dog is pregnant
- How to cut cat nails
- Cat food allergy symptoms
So, if you paired these keyphrases to the benefits of a certain product, you’ll be able to build an online audience of pet owners who are also likely to become your buying customers.
Blogging As a Second Income
The purpose of this article isn’t to get you to quit what you like to do, but rather encourage you to think out of the box. Imagine this;
- You can channel your passion and knowledge to empower more people to learn about the health care/well-being of their pets.
- You can use it to make more money for your household as a vet tech
- You can use your creativity and turn it into a full fledged online business using all the information that I’ve just shown you.
I hope you’ve found this article helpful. To get begin your first step, find out how I started my online journey with Wealthy Affiliate and if you like, I’ll personally guide you through the process myself.
Have any thoughts or questions about this article? Just leave them in the comment below and I’ll respond to you shortly.
You may also be interested to read;
How to Sell Pet Products Through Affiliate Program
Hi Cathy, I read your article and the comments below it. Once thing that strikes me is the many different paths we can take to make extra money online. There’s so many different products and topics even within one niche. I appreciate your comment discussion about changing niches as you discovered where your interests lied. Its good to know that its okay to change paths.
Hi Alyssa, it truly is okay to change or diversify one’s career path after you have been in it for a while. For me, blogging is just an evolution of someone’s personal growth within a certain skill set. Whether you are a vet tech or a veteran, you can still make use of blogging as an extension of income streams and stay current with the community within your niche.
Hi Cathy,
I find your article very useful and helpful, thank you. I am a pet owner (one dog + one cat) and, as both of them get older, I seem to spend a fortune in special diet food as well as medicines. I’ve been wondering if I’m able to able to promote them on my site to make money. So your advice is a great help, especially the list of the pet stores. I didn’t know there were so many who offer affiliate commissions.
One question, do you know if they offer commissions if we promote prescribed medicines too? I spend so much (around $150 per month) for my dog’s illness (get a prescription from local vets, then buy the drugs online).
Hey Ray, if you have a blog that discusses about pet wellness, you can definitely team up with an online pharmacy such as this one. However, you must know that due to legislation, the merchant doesn’t usually offer commission for prescribed medication. So the most you could promote are nutritional supplements or prevention diets.
When I joined WA 18 months ago, it was with the intention of blogging about my love for my 2 labradors, so I bought www lablovers co uk (now defunct).
Initially I had all these fantastic ideas of how I was going to structure my site, monetize it and build it out. Then strange as it might seem, I realized that my dogs were NOT my niche at all, mainly due to how broad the niche would be. I mean, there’s a million things to write about.
I then went onto promote Wealthy Affiliate as a tool to compliment my Karatbars business which is now going really well. It just shows you why it can take time to settle on your niche and why you should seriously think about it without rushing into it.
Totally agree with you Dave. One of my biggest passion is dogs too, but strangely, that wasn’t what come to my mind when finding a niche. I was curious to learn about other niches and soon, Time Freedom was created based on my desire to achieve more personal time and joy in doing the things that I love.
It was a steep learning process – I failed a lot, but learned a lot too. Now, I’ve come to see the bigger picture and no longer chasing after ‘the dream’. I know success will be there as long as I work towards it.