One of the time-tested ways of monetizing your blog is through affiliate marketing.
As an affiliate marketer, you will use your bog posts to promote products and services and earn a commission should people purchase these products and services after reading your post.
The affiliate does not own the products or services being promoted but earns a cut of the sales revenue that the owner gets from sales coming from readers of the affiliate’s blog.
There is no shortcut when it comes to affiliate marketing and this article will show you a proven way to become successful in this field.
Steps 1 – 6: Get set for affiliate marketing
When you want to succeed as an affiliate marketer, you must start by setting up the correct business model.
Here is how to go about it.
#1: Decide on the business model.
There are two main business models that affiliate marketers subscribe to:
Create a resource blog
A resource blog is one where the merchant, or owner of the affiliate product or service that you are marketing, embeds a banner advertisement or affiliate link in tutorials and informative articles that you write on your blog.
In this model, you have to create regular updates and fresh content so readers can keep reading about the products or services on offer before finally making a purchase.
Create a review blog
A review site depends on your experience with the products and services that you are writing about. They give readers your perspective of the usefulness of a product or service and encourage them to make a purchase.
When you create a review, you include a link or banner advertisement that takes the reader to the merchant’s website.
Review blogs do not need regular updates since you are talking about your one-time experience with the product or service.
The only task you do regularly in this model is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure your blog stays highly ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
#2: Create your blog
This is where you decide which type of blogging host will best suit your business model.
Some people create their own premium blog, which means paying for a domain name plus hosting upfront.
This may not favor those who are just starting out.
You may also join an established affiliate marketing company such as MoreNiche, which gives you a blogging platform to post reviews or resources that will encourage people to buy the affiliate products that the main company is promoting.
In this case, you can choose from various products and services being promoted and then write about them.
You may also join an affiliate program that deals with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. This way, you can make money from advertisements that are not hosted on your blog.
Take a product or service and post an ad on Facebook. Once people click on the advertisement, they are directed to the merchant site, without having to go through your blog.
You will earn money from the clicks on the Facebook advertisement.
Affiliates Directory, Link Share, and E-Commerce Guide are a great place to start when you want to earn money through external PPC advertisements.
#3: Choose your preferred niche
To succeed as an affiliate marketer, you must select a niche, or comfort zone.
You don’t have to be an expert in the niche that you choose; You just need to have a healthy interest in the topic, so blogging about it comes easy.
Oprah Winfrey is not always an expert in the topics that are aired on her show, but she does bring in experts who have great insights into the topic.
Her enthusiasm is airing topics that matter and she gets help from experts to add credence to her shows.
Another thing to note is that you initially have to create a lot of content before people start noticing you as an affiliate marketer. Choosing a comfort zone ensures that you don’t get burned out quickly.
#4: Choose the products and services to promote
The niche that you choose may have various products and services to promote.
For example, if you are promoting fishing gear, you have to decide whether to promote fishing rods, fishing boats, fishing tackle, fishing bait, etc.
The choice of your niche will also determine how much work you have to put into promotional blog posts before you get some money from your efforts.
If you have not yet narrowed down your niche, you can start with Commission Junction, which offers a wide range of products and services to promote, and you can choose the ones you are comfortable with.
If you want to sell digital products, then you can start with Clickbank, E-junkie, PayDotCom, and Amazon Associates.
These provide a wide range of software and e-books that you can promote.
If you want to go for The PPC model, then Google AdSense would be your best bet. The PPC business model will not bring you a lot of money compared to the others discussed in this article.
Top 53 High-Paying Affiliate Programs For Beginners to Join 2022
#5: Find established affiliate marketers to work with
Working with other affiliates will help you grow faster. This is one area where collaboration bears great results.
There are innumerable ways in which you can engage established affiliates and share commissions, but you have to prove that you are worth the effort.
This means creating content that people love; If you have a huge following on your blog, then established affiliates may consider working with you and benefiting from your followers.
If you and another affiliate marketer are promoting related but non-competing products or services, you can both benefit from cross-promotion.
#6: Get readers for your affiliate marketing blog
When you have decided on which platform you want to use for your affiliate marketing business, you should get people to read about these products on your blog.
Create newsletters to send to your subscribers through direct email. Promote your blog on social media platforms, give away free content to other blogs or websites, which will link back to your blog, and so many other techniques.
Always encourage your readers to share your content at the end of your blog post since this will increase the number of people who read about the products or services that you promote.
Try and get links secured on high-traffic websites.
Steps 7 – 11: Grow your affiliate marketing business
Now that you have set up your affiliate marketing business, chosen your niche and products, and hooked up with some affiliate marketers to work with, it is time that to grow your business.
#7: Learn from the experts
Join online communities and forums that are dedicated to affiliate marketing. Here you will meet other affiliate marketers who will give you insights as to how your business can grow quickly.
Most of these online resources are free and have a wealth of information to offer you. Feel free to ask questions where you do not understand.
Warrior Forum, Digital Point, and aBestWeb are great places to get started. They have forums and resources where you learn from those who have been in affiliate marketing for a long time.
The forums are a great place to create networks for purposes of cross-promoting one another.
#8: Build lasting relationships
There is a lot of work that goes into affiliate marketing and you have to be patient when waiting for the income to start streaming in
Affiliate programs will give you traffic for the products that you promote. However, outside of that traffic, you must create relationships with your readers and affiliate partners.
- Continue looking for affiliate partnerships that will further propel the growth of your business.
- Get to know which mode of communication is best suited to your affiliate partners. Your partners may be living in a different geographic region, access their emails at different times, and prefer certain ways of communicating.
- Get insights into what your affiliate partners need from you.
- Learn to bounce your ideas across your network and see what your affiliate partners think about them.
- See how you can help an affiliate partner boost their blogs and they will do the same for you.
#9: Seek targeted traffic
To earn money from affiliate marketing, you need people who don’t just read your content and move on, but those who read and then click on your affiliate links.
Here are some ways in which you can get targeted traffic coming to your affiliate marketing blog:
- Article marketing – With this method, you will optimize your blog so that it ranks high on the SERPs. A high ranking means that you get a higher volume of visitors, and increases the chances that they will click on your affiliate links.
The articles that you write can be posted on a variety of blogs relating to the products or services you are promoting.
These articles will have a link back to your blog, where people will be able to click on your affiliate links.
- Email Marketing – Add a CTA on your blog posts where you encourage people to give you their email addresses so you can send them updates and offers.
The generated email list will work wonders when you send targeted emails that will encourage your readers to click on your affiliate links.
The emails should ideally be in the form of newsletters with engaging images and/or videos.
- Free advertising – this is where you place free advertisements on listing sites such as US Free Ads.
Whenever someone clicks on the ads, then you and the advertising list will earn from PPC affiliate business programs.
- Paid advertising – You must be able to create attractive ad copy, coupled with engaging graphics to get a high number of clicks.
When you use paid advertising in a PPC affiliate marketing business program, you earn money from the clicks irrespective of whether the reader buys the product or not.
This is where Google AdSense comes in since they will make t easy for you to earn money and even give you an advertising code.
#10: Write exception PPC advertisements
PPC adverts will earn you a steady stream of income as long as they can encourage people to click on them.
This means that you have to craft your advertisement with care so readers are drawn towards it and will feel compelled to click on it.
When writing your ad copy:
- Make sure that your readers know what solution or benefit they will get from the product or service in your ad
- Use keywords that will entice the readers since they are related to an issue they might be facing.
- Read about keyword research, and how to use them, in this article.
- Learn how to use landing pages to guide your readers towards clicking on the advertisement. These can be populated strategically within your landing page.
- Always use advertising copy that compels users to take action.
#11: Quality always trumps quantity
Don’t just think about building a large network of affiliates. Think about the benefits your business derives from these affiliates.
You need affiliates who can help bring quality traffic to your blog. If you have an affiliate partner who benefits a lot from your blog and does not provide much for yours then this is a relationship that you should stop.
Ensure that you and your affiliate partners are having strong, mutually beneficial relationships with one another, whether they are experienced or newbies.
Steps 12 – 14: Have realistic expectations
Affiliate marketing is not a walk in the park and you must have realistic expectations right from the start if you want to succeed.
#12: Be ready to work hard
Some bloggers enter affiliate marketing thinking that they will get rich quickly.
It takes a lot of effort to get your affiliate marketing business to earn you money. The early stages are the most difficult, but if you stay your course, the going becomes easier as the income stream becomes automated.
The affiliate marketing business model is highly competitive, so you must be ready to work hard to gain the upper hand.
There are established affiliate marketers who can spend some of their income on paid promotion while you may have none. Know how to work round the clock to beat these guys.
#13: Learn the ropes of the business
You must be able to discern which products or services offer you the best opportunity when it comes to earning money from affiliate marketing.
Learn how you get paid and the commissions offered for each product that you promote.
Know how PPC ads will earn you money when people click on them.
Some of the commissions you earn will depend on how many people buy the products and services you promote within a specific time.
For example, if you get 10 people to buy a product over a week, then your commission may be higher than when you get the same 10 buyers over 30 days.
#14: Understand your targets’ demographics
You should know the demographics of your target readers and prospective buyers when creating advertising copy or articles to promote products and services on your blog.
Developing personas is a great way of going about this.
Knowing your demographics will help you understand where best to reach out to them.
For example, some people frequent social media a lot, and you can create advertising copy or content for social media platforms.
Takeaway
If you have been dreaming of making a passive and steady income from your blog, then it can become a reality when you enter into affiliate marketing.
With the knowledge given in this article and personal persistence, you will definitely make it in the affiliate marketing world.
Once your blog gets a respectable following, the rest becomes easy since your readers are already primed to take your advice; tell them that a product or service is great and they will buy it and earn you a commission.
