One of the quickest and most popular ways to begin making money on your blog is by affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a way for you to be compensated for making recommendations, referrals, and/or reviews to your existing audience and blog traffic. Your recommendations can be made in the form of a post, an email, or even discount codes. As the affiliate, you are given unique tracking links and every time one of your followers clicks a link and makes a purchase, you get paid!
It sounds pretty simple. However, if you’re new to affiliate marketing, there are some things you will want to consider and some best practices that will make your life a lot easier:
- Identify your ideal affiliate relationships. What makes affiliate marketing so effective is that you’re recommending a service that you can personally vouch for – or at least on which you’d stake your reputation. It’s for that reason that you want to choose your affiliate relationships wisely. Start by making a list of all of your favorite products and services. These can be restaurants, cleaning services, or even your favorite websites. Then, begin prioritizing this list based on what you think your blogging audience will be most interested in.
Pro-Tip: You certainly can, and should, have multiple affiliate relationships and products that you promote on your blog, but you’ll want to be careful not to overwhelm your followers with too many affiliate links. It will come off as annoying, commercial, and disingenuous.
How many are too many? That’s your call and depends greatly on the look, feel, and purpose of your blog.
- Apply to many affiliate programs. Based on the list that you came up with, you can begin applying for affiliate programs. Simply search online for the service or product at the top of your list. Most companies have affiliate application pages that can be easily searched and/or clicked from their homepage. Begin applying to the affiliate programs from your list, and begin comparing commission/payout structures, referral windows (cookie durations), and other affiliate agreements to determine what best fits your needs and the needs of your followers.
Pro-Tip: Want to broaden your affiliate scope? Consider joining an affiliate network (it’s free) where you can search for and be paired with potential companies interested in becoming affiliated with you.
- Create content frequently. Regardless of the purpose of your site, your followers are coming to you for fresh ideas, entertainment, deals, and content. Within that content is where your affiliate links will live. If your content becomes stale, boring, or out of date, your links will not accrue much interest or engagement. Your affiliate links don’t’ have to be reserved exclusively for tutorials or review posts either. You can have affiliate links in the form of ad banners with graphics and ad text, discount codes/offers, or even video content.
Pro-Tip: Always be upfront and transparent to your followers about your affiliate relationships. This will convey a sense of trust that your followers will respect.
- Make changes. It’s not very likely that you will hit a homerun right out of the gate. A lot of what will make you a successful affiliate is your ability to test and make changes with your affiliate link placement, ad copy, and even the relationship itself. It’s common for many affiliates to discover that the product or service that you love doesn’t necessarily resonate with your audience. Changing things up often, reviewing your analytics, and re-testing will allow you to see which links/offers perform best. You can even use some of your affiliate commissions to pay to boost those specific posts!
Pro-Tip: While making changes might be necessary, be sure to be patient to allow a sufficient sample size to help you make the best decision possible. Affiliate momentum takes time.
Remember, your success will largely depend on the quality of the content that you’re generating. Never sacrifice the quality and integrity of your site in order to ramp up your affiliate commissions – you’ll end up with adverse results. While you focus on fresh, positive, and engaging content, your followers will increase along with your affiliate commissions.
Before you go! One of the first things your followers will notice about you is your website, and its design and functionality. Consider becoming a MOJO Marketplace affiliate and earn commission by referring the MOJO web products and services for WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and more!