Looking for ways to make money on your blog using affiliate links? Want to know how to start and which ones are worth your time? This hangout focuses on this very question.
Speakers in Hangout Are:
Crystal Van Tassel of Crystalandcomp.com
Kelli Miller of 3Boysandadog.com
We will share our 10 favorites and discuss how to use them to the best advantage!
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
a marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays a commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
Why Should I Do Affiliate Marketing?
These small streams of income can go toward hosting fees, tech support fees, etc. It’s passive income that you can earn without doing additional work.
How to Make Money Using Affiliate Links
Whenever you mention products that you use and love or your readers would find helpful, link to their products using your affiliate link.
10 Affiliate Programs to Consider
1. Amazon
The Amazon Associates program uses a 24 hour cookie for anything someone purchases after clicking on your link.
Link to a product so they can see what a product is (i.e. Rotel tomatoes mentioned in a recipe), any ebooks you are selling on Amazon, or a daily deal.
Amazon is easy to use, ships right to your door, has a great Amazon Prime program, and other benefits you can sell your reader on.
There’s a toolbar you can use to link to products. Promoting free Amazon products bumps up your percentage. The more items you sell, the more of a percentage you get, even free ones like free Kindle books.
The site offers detailed reporting, including products purchased, broken links (so you are alerted what to update), and items not purchased.
Pay attention to things that are selling well, find a deal on the product/product type, promote it more/more often.
How to find “items with no orders”
- Login to your Amazon Associates account. Go to Reports. Go to Orders Report. Click on items with no orders.
- Click the link to find out which product it is. If you don’t know which post(s) you linked to that product in, do a search on your site for the item number (i.e. B00993B0ZI). Update your links.
- Ask yourself why someone clicks on the item and them doesn’t buy it. Replace link with a better value or less expensive alternative.
Amazon associates can be paid by Amazon gift card (save up your money and spend it at Christmas or during other holidays) or direct deposit/check payment.
Seasonal items
- Christmas
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- other holidays
Many readers tell us that Amazon doesn’t work with bloggers in their states. Here are nine alternative ways to the Amazon Associates Program where you can still earn money.
2. Bundles
The most popular bundle program is Ultimate Bundles. Affiliates make about 40% off of each sale, which is held for a short period of time, offering $100’s of dollars worth of ebooks for less than $30.
Bundle of the week was mentioned in the video, but this program is no longer active.
3. Ebooks
Include graphics/ads in your sidebar to promote and sell ebooks. A common platform is E-junkie.
4. Escalate Network or My Savings Media
Escalate Network or Shop Her Media (formerly My Savings Media) offer coupons/deals. Often include pre-written info to use in your blog posts (including your affiliate links), just add 100 words to the intro, and whatever info you want at the end.
Send with your meal planning posts so readers can save money on grocery items they buy.
5. Logical Media
Logical Media “is a full service digital marketing agency specializing in Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, and Web Design.”
6. Brandcaster
Coupons.com / Brandcaster “have coupons and offers for the brands that will keep your consumers coming back.”
7. Stores you like and stores you shop at
If there’s a store you like and talk about them in your posts, go to their website, look in the footer of the website to see if “affiliate,” “make money with us,” or “publisher” is mentioned or search for it.
This is way more authentic and helpful to your audience than searching for a company just for the sake of making money.
KNOW YOUR READERS. Her readers love cookbooks, while yours might not. If you post deals or promote items that your readers aren’t interested in, you won’t get a conversion.
8. Shareasale
Shareasale is an “affiliate network providing pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-click programs for webmasters.” They have lots of merchants.
9. Swagbucks
Swagbucks – Your readers can “Earn Free Gift cards when you Shop online, Watch Videos, Take Surveys, and Discover deals and promo codes. Over $150 Million paid to members. Join Today!”
10. DFP (Double Click for Publishers)
If you use an ad network, you can set “house ads,” which do not have to be to your site, but they could be to an affiliate. In Google AdSense, you can give instructions (with your affiliate links) for them to show that ad when they don’t have one. You can backfill unsold ad slots
For example, if you display 125×125 buttons/ad sizes, you can fill with affiliate graphics.
How to Track Affiliate Programs
- Create a spreadsheet of affiliate programs (affiliate network name, name of program(s), product(s) included, your affiliate link(s), commission for each sale).
- Track your monthly earnings for each program.
- Sign up for daily emails about specials and new programs, filter to a special folder, review once a day, and use them as they make sense
Ways to Use Affiliate Links
- On your blog – Make sure that your top posts are optimized with affiliate links. Don’t post about things that your reader is not interested in because it will not convert and you may alienate readers and they will leave.
- Make sure that your top posts are optimized with affiliate links.
- Add a proper disclosure that the post may include affiliate links.
- No follow your links.
- On your Social Media accounts. (Add a proper disclosure when you include affiliate links.)
Starting May 1, 2017, there’s a Facebook group for the Conquer course. We give you support and help. We also allow you to give us access to your Webmaster Tools so we can show you HOW we look at words and create keyword plans off of that.
Related posts:
- How to Start Blogging for Money
- How to Create a Successful and Profitable eBook
- How to Set Up Your Adsense Ads for Best Profit
Plan to watch the hangout and pause it so you can implement the changes as the step-by-step instructions are explained.
Hi Raki,
Great ideas about how to start using affiliates to generate money on a blog!