If you’re wanting to learn about affiliate marketing for bloggers…
You’re in the right place!
Because in this post, I show you exactly how to get started with affiliate marketing as a blogger.
Moreover:
Follow these steps & I guarantee it’ll fast track you to your first $1,000 & beyond.
Let’s get started…
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Before diving into the nitty gritty, let’s first cover what affiliate marketing is, incase you’re not 100% sure.
Affiliate marketing is the process of selling other people’s products & earning a commission for each sale referred by you:
[Image Source: AuthorityHacker]
Whenever you want to promote a product, you’ll get a “special link” known as an affiliate link.
Every product you promote will have it’s own unique affiliate link, with all affiliate links being unique to you.
You place these affiliate links online (within blog posts, on social media etc) & when someone clicks on your affiliate links, these clicks are tracked back to you.
And if someone who clicks one of your links makes a purchase, you’ll get credit for the sale.
Affiliate Marketing For Bloggers
(How To Make Your First $1,000)
Step 1: Choose A Product To Promote
The best way to choose (find) products to promote is by joining affiliate networks.
An “affiliate network” is a place where companies go to make their products & services available to affiliates.
These affiliate networks often house thousands of products across many different industries.
As the affiliate, you can join these affiliate networks & browse their “marketplaces” for products to promote on your blog.
There are heaps of affiliate networks online.
Here are 5 that are really popular:
You can also do a Google search for independent affiliate programs.
These are affiliate programs run by the company also selling the product.
For example:
If you’re in the pet care niche, you could search for something like “pet care affiliate programs.”
You would then see independent affiliate programs you could join:
All you do is search “your niche + affiliate programs.”
Another option is to promote products you’re already using.
They don’t have to be online products.
They could be products you use around your house or work etc too.
For physical products look at Amazon.
They have millions of products available across virtually every industry.
Step 2: Promote Your Affiliate Products Within Blog Posts
There are many ways to promote affiliate products on your blog.
But the best way is inside of blog posts.
And when it comes to promoting products in blog posts, there are 2 strategies that work really well…
Strategy 1: Product Reviews
This works great & it’s easy to do.
All you do is write a review about a product.
You can review just 1 product.
Or you can do product comparison style reviews & review similar products side by side.
For example, here’s a product comparison post I put together comparing the best autoresponders for affiliate marketing:
If you do product reviews of any type, be as thorough as you can.
List the pros & cons of the product or what you like/dislike about the product.
Or you could mention things like key features of the product.
Like this:
Or even add a user experience section.
Like this:
The more open & in-depth you are with your reviews, the better they’ll do.
Also, always add some kind of call to action (CTA) within the review.
A “call to action” is where you tell people what to do.
Like this:
Whether you use a button or just have plain text, it doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that you have at least one CTA for each product you review & tell people what you want them to do e.g “try the product.”
Strategy 2: How To Posts
This type of post is where you teach people how to do something.
And that something should be based around an affiliate product.
To really make these types of posts work though, the product you’re promoting should be relevant with the content.
For example, I have this post that teaches people how to create an affiliate website:
The main product being promoted within the post is BlueHost, a web hosting company:
This product is relevant because you need web hosting to create a website.
And just like with product reviews, you want your how to posts to be as in-depth & thorough as possible.
The better the post is, the better it’ll perform.
Also:
Consider adding images into your post.
This could be screen shots of something, images of the product etc.
Images help readers visualise something & it helps in breaking up a bunch of text.
You’ll see images throughout all of my posts, including this one you’re reading right now.
Again, it’s because images help a reader to visualise something & it makes for a better experience. (As opposed to a whole bunch of text on the page & nothing else.)
When adding images though, be sure the images make sense & actually belong within the post.
Then of course, add your affiliate links into the post where it makes sense to add them.
And here’s a few possible how to post ideas, based on different (made up) products.
This is to show you how easy it is to write these types of posts, regardless of the product…
- Yeti microphone: “How to Create a Home Studio & Sound Like a Pro for Under $200″
- Dating course for men: “How to Be The Shy Guy That Get’s All The Girls, Even If You’re Broke & Ugly”
- Improve your golf swing: “How to Improve Your Golf Swing in 7 Days or Less…GUARANTEED!”
- Calorie tracking app: “How to Quickly Track Your Calories, Even if You’re a Busy Mom.”
Advanced Affiliate Marketing Tips
(For The SERIOUS Affiliate)
So you know how to do affiliate marketing with your blog now.
Now let’s take a look at some advanced affiliate marketing tips…
Tip #1: Cloak Your Affiliate Links
There’s a term in the marketing world called “link cloaking.”
Link cloaking is where you disguise your affiliate links & brand the links to your own domain.
Most affiliate links are long, ugly & don’t look trustworthy.
For example, instead of your affiliate links looking like this:
https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=694&u=2084434&m=69&urllink=&afftrack=
You can make them look like this:
https://yourdomain.com/share-a-sale
Link cloaking is a great way to “tidy up” your affiliate links.
It’s easy to do & you can do it with software such as PrettyLinks or ClickMagick.
Tip #2: Do Email Marketing
Most people who visit your blog will leave & never return.
So it’s vital you do email marketing on your blog.
That way, you can keep in contact with people via email & build a relationship with them.
And you can bring them back to your blog as well as sell them more stuff.
Check out this post where I show you how to get started with email marketing as an affiliate.
Tip #3: Promote Subscription Based Products
Subscription based products are products that charge a customer on a monthly or yearly basis.
These types of products are some of the best types of products you can promote.
Because when you get a sale, you’re paid over & over again until your referral cancels their membership.
FAQs About Affiliate Marketing And Blogging
Q: Can You Do Affiliate Marketing On A Free Blog?
Yes you can.
You can do affiliate marketing on any type of blog.
Q: Is Affiliate Marketing Still Profitable?
Yes it is.
And it’ll remain profitable for a very (very) long time.
Q: Which Type Of Blog Is Best For Affiliate Marketing?
The type of blog doesn’t really matter.
If “stuff” can be sold from that blog, then any blog type will work fine.
Q: Can I Use Affiliate Links On My Blog?
Of course.
Unless stated otherwise by the company who owns the products you’re promoting.
Q: Can Affiliate Blogs Really Make Money?
Absolutely.
There are heaps of affiliate blogs making money.
Q: How Do Beginner Bloggers Make Money?
Most of the time it’s through affiliate marketing.
Conclusion
And there we have it.
How to do affiliate marketing as a blogger.
No matter what type of blog you have, product reviews & how to posts will work great.
But don’t forget:
Whatever you decide to create, make it awesome & helpful.
Because ultimately, the more you help your audience, the more they’ll reward you with sales.
Now, over to you…
“Are you ready to promote products as an affiliate on your blog?”
Let me know in the comments below.
I’d love to hear from you!
