Blogs are basically websites and webpages that provide information which answers questions or solves problems for search engine queries. Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission from selling someone else’ product. Affiliate marketing can be done through a variety of means but the most popular are through social media, blogging, and youtube. If done correctly, overtime it is a great way to begin making Evergreen income. Using a blog to make money through affiliate sales is a great way for medical students to make money online because it does not take much money to start and also because there is a growing number of affiliate programs in the medical education space. Many medical students however do not actually know how to get started blogging or what steps to take. In this article I will discuss 9 tips on how medical students can get start making money through affiliate sales with a blog

Create a website and Start a blog 

• First and foremost a website has to be created. Creating a website these days is easier than ever. In fact you do not even need to have any coding skills. The first thing you want to do is purchase web hosting services. These normally cost between $100-200. Examples of two web hosting services include Hostgator and Bluehost. Both of these hosting servers use WordPress which is pretty much the gold standard for creating a website these days. The next thing you have to do is begin working on adding content to your blog.

Choose a niche within medicals school

• This could be broad, or specific. The thing is that medical school and medicine in general is so all encompassing that you could literally finds 100s of things to discuss. These include categories such as medical education, staying fit in medical school, and  making money in medical school just to name a few.

Learn all about search engine optimization

• Websites such as google and Youtube are constantly ranking websites based on the quality of the content the website provides. They use a complex algorithm to make these rankings. building a successful blog requires creating a website which a search engine determines as high quality. There are many experts on this. One such person I recommend listening is to Adam

Keyword Research

• Medical students are constantly looking for ways to improve their studying. Because of this, search queries such as “best question banks for step 1,” or best question banks for anatomy are likely to have a high search volume. 
• What this means is if you have knowledge on which question banks are the best then you could create a blog which reviews all of the popular question banks out there. If your content is quality, then Google will rank 
• Other popular search queries for medical students include things such as:
  • Best Question Banks for Physiology
  • Boards and Beyond Review
  • Best Free Question Banks
  • Sketchy Question Banks review

Look for products to sell

There are many products in the medical student niche that offer the chance to become an affiliate. Also, these products are normally e-learning products used by medical students so sellers are happy to have medical students sign up as affiliates who could potentially earn them revenue.

For example programs such as Statpearls which is an online learning platform that produces medical articles as well as question banks has an affiliate program where they give you a commission for every sale that you make. Other Question Bank makers such as such as Truelearn, Picmonic and Boards and Anatomy Bootcamp have referral programs where they give you commission on every sale that you make.

Join an Affiliate network

• To join these affiliate programs, you can go directly to the website or you can sign up through an affiliate network.  Some Affiliate networks medical students can sign up for include
  • LinkConnector
  • Shareasale
  • Clickbank
  • Awin
  • CJ affiliates
  • Flexoffers
  • There are many others but this is just to name a few.

Selling

• So exactly does the selling work. Do you just create a website, put the link on the website, and then poof! Just like magic you have people that come to you site and buy what you are selling
• Learn some video editing and Start a youtube channel
• Youtube is a way that you can further add to things suc as product reviews. So fo example if you wanted to promote a question bank or some other kind of study resource online, making a video online showing how you use the resource may be more helpful the just discussing 

Grow a social media following

Social media itself will not automatically drive affiliate sales, but it can be used as a tool to help boost traffic to your website. Additionally, it can be used as a way to build an audience. Over time this audience can come to get to know you as a person and will buy products that you recommend because that initial trust has been built

it should be stated though that growing a social media following in and of itself is a skill. It requires skill such as marketing, video editing, and engaging with your audience. It is definitely a learning curve but there are many tools such as Canva that help with things such as branding, making a thumbnail, or making an captivating design for your social media post.

What are some good affiliate programs I can join as medical student?

You can look for companies that are big in the education space for example For pre meds that includes

• Magoosh affiliate Program
• Princeton Review Affiliate program

These two companies are known to produce quality MCAT materials. Other educational companies for the medical school and above space may include ones such as Elsevier and Wolters Kluver.

These companies own educational resources such as Osmosis, and Up to date Respectively.

In Conclusion

As you can see there many steps that go into creating a successful affiliate marketing business with blogging. Although it takes a long time to make a significant amount of money, affiliate marketing using a blog is definitely a legitimate side hustle for medical students. Additionally given all of the affiliate and referral  programs which exists in the medical education space, I think it is worth it for Medical Students to make some extra cash through blogging.