Affiliate programs are what make many bloggers successful online. They make money by selling other peoples services or products from their blog using banners, reviews or text links that they have embedded in their blog posts.
Once you become more comfortable with your blog and writing you will quickly realise how powerful this can be as a means of advertising products and services by writing useful information to current and potential customers.
Bloggers will often use product advertising in their actual blog postings or on the sidebars of their blogs with banner advertising. You will notice that these products can vary significantly from crazy pet costumes to something as traditional as wedding invitations.
If you have a blog already or maybe you have decided to get a blog to start your online venture, but you don’t have your products to sell, you can sell products and services that you do not own or even have to hold in stock.
To do this you just need to place selected affiliate programs which by the way are the most efficient way to earn money from a blog, and once you start your research you will see that there are quite a few affiliate programs that you can use where you will earn a percentage of any sale or lead that you generate from your affiliate links.
There are affiliate programs with commissions that range from as low as 3% to 10% to a fantastic 50% or even with some Clickbank products 75% of the profit made.
To Find Good Affiliate Programs Research Your Blogs Niche Market
The way for you to find a good affiliate program that will effectively complement your blog is to search your niche market. Do this by going to Google and type in words “affiliate program” along with your niche topic. As an example, if your blog is about baby showers, type this into the search box “baby shower affiliate programs”.
This is a perfect way for you to start adding income streams to your blog and also to give you additional ideas on new ways that you can be monetising your blog. Once you start your search and it doesn’t matter what niche you are in you are going to find a lot of different affiliate programs that you can potentially form an association with.
Should You Use The Bigger Affiliate Networks For Your Blogging
You will also be surprised at the number of small businesses that are running their affiliate programs independently which you will find online while searching. And then there will be those that are running their affiliate programs through significant affiliate networks like Commission Junction and ShareASale and Clickbank.
These affiliate programs are great if you get approved as they have access to multiple big-name merchants. Once accepted this can also be confusing at the start to choose a good program for your site if you go with the more extensive affiliate programs as they are always getting new merchants signing up which will give you even more products to choose.
Remember however not to get too caught up in the selection process of these programs, select the one you think is a good fit, advertise it for a week and see how it works out. If the desired result is not satisfactory, then choose another and start the process all over again.
Amazon Is A Good Place For Personal Bloggers
If your blogs focused on just general life ramblings then for you, a good choice would be Amazon which is a simplified affiliate program used by many bloggers that have personal blogs. Amazon is the same as the other affiliate networks where you are paid a commission for anything sold through your affiliate link. This could be anything from your favourite books, how to guides, electronic gadgets, gourmet teas, electronic games and more.
There is a massive selection of what types of affiliate link you can use on your blog to create a more non-commercial feel and atmosphere. If you are going to be using Amazon even though the payouts are small in comparison to other networks you can use Amazon to set up your very own page that has your affiliate links already embedded with a shopping cart based on your niche.
What About The eBay Auction Site For Bloggers
Another affiliate program that you should consider as it has proved popular with many for bloggers online is eBay believe it or not. If you are going to be running a blog with products as your source of income where you will be writing reviews and information about these products, this could prove to be quite the money spinner for you.
Getting your blog approved is another thing, as we tried to do this with our blog and never even received an email back from eBay, so we wish you luck in your attempt.
With all affiliate networks, you need to apply for a blog that was not just created yesterday. With so many people today looking to the internet to make money with blogging, affiliate networks know that and can pick and choose who they want as an affiliate.
Always read the requirements (TOS) that are needed by affiliate programs and apply when your blog is ready. Virtually all affiliate programs except Clickbank will check to see that your blog is current with substantial information and not still under construction.
Be Sure To Always Stay Focused And On You Blogging Topic
One of the most significant errors bloggers make with affiliate programs is trying to promote or advertise products that are not related to their niche don’t go off track when you monetise your blog, or you could potentially lose your site visitors.
Remember why you started the blog in the first place and what your blog is about when you create your affiliate links so that every banner or review you write is something related to your blog’s niche.
Great content on this site thank you for the info One of the big problems is that the most popular money making programs are written by people that forgot what it’s like to be new. These guys seem to think that building web pages, using FTP programs, and creating PDFs is common knowledge. The thing is most of us just don’t have the experience and knowledge that these guys take for granted that we should.
It almost seems that they are cursed by that knowledge and cannot effectively communicate with someone brand new to the whole Internet Marketing thing. You won’t be quitting your day job right away but it will definitely help to get you started in making money online
Hi Samuel
Firstly Merry Christmas And Happy New Year
Yes you are very much correct many of those programs do assume that you have a lot of knowledge already which does make it vary hard to communicate correctly. I think this is another reason that people start using the word scam when referring to this programs as the information on the steps that they needed to complete to see results were to technical which put any results beyond their reach.
I too at times get carried away writing posts for my readers and then have to go back and re-write it so it can be followed easily by any who read it.
You need to start building an email list as soon as possible, which you can market to over a period of time.Few people are going to come to your blog first time, click through on an affiliate link, and buy.First you have to show credibility to your readers , and that comes from emailing them great content and value ( no pitching!).
To get people on your list you have to offer a free product, either an ebook or video series.You can either make your own,the best option as the content will be unique and will brand you,or start with a PLR product,but only one that has had limited release.PLR products that are sold to everybody have their “uniqueness” devalued very quickly.Do this first and selling affiliate products will become easier.
Best Wishes
Andrew
Hi Andrew
Thanks for the great post and you are very much on the mark with your advice especially when you talk about no pitching, just building credibility. There are so many products you can get right now that are only being released to 100 or less people which make them a very good item to use when giving away free products to your email list.