How to Make Money from Affiliate Programs With Your Blog How to Make Money from Affiliate Programs With Your Blog
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July 25, 2007 by Gaman
There are several ways bloggers can make money from their blogs. Text-Link-Ads, Sponsored Reviews and AdSense are some of the most widely used advertising programs by bloggers to monetize their blogs.
In contrast, making money by selling products or promoting affiliate programs is somewhat under- utilised probably because most bloggers find it’s harder to convince readers to part with their hard earned cash.
Hence, many chose the path of least resistance by plastering Amazon product banners for example and hope someone will notice and is tempted enough to purchase the product. Unfortunately that’s the worst way to make money from affiliate programs via your blog.
You will only make money when
The ad is highly related to your article
The ad is strategically placed where it gets the most attention
The ad offers the solution to a problem as highlighted in the article
The ad satisfies the reader’s needs as highlighted in the article
The reader is in the buying mood, although this is not always necessary
Understand Your Readers
Now instead of plastering the affiliate program banner ads, here’s a better way to do it. First and foremost you need to understand your readers. Blogs in general are used to share information and your users visit your blog seeking for good information not to buy products.
Here’s where it’s crucial to realise that when you thought you need to sell something to make money from affiliate program, don’t. Instead, give them the information that creates an open to purchase mindset. They are probably not even aware that you are about to sell them something.
For newly published posts, often they are mostly read by your regular visitors. They already know you, so establishing trust won’t be much of a problem. Ask yourself, do they read your post to gain knowledge that they can use or keep themselves abreast with the latest happenings around the net?
Once your new posts are crawled by the search engines, the keywords the users used to search your blog give you an idea of their level of interest as well as the kinds of benefits they seek.
Write a Product Review That Targets Your Readers Personality
If majority of your readers are your regular readers, not those coming from the search engines, you need to write in a manner that targets their personality type. Write a helpful review, sprinkle new information that could help address their needs and solve their problem, avoid promotional tone in your language that sounds like you are about to sell them something.
The good news is, if you are already doing a sponsored review in your blog, you are half-way there. Only this time, you are reviewing a product they will make you money when your readers purchase it.
While highlighting the products features is important, focusing on the benefits are more important in the review. What will the readers get out of it? Try to make your copy so benefit-focused that they want to read on.
In your attempt trying to convince your readers, it helps if you believe in the products yourself. Don’t just recommend something because of the potential income you could make, but do it because you really think it’ll benefit your readers.
Review Pay per Lead Products If You Don’t Feel Like Selling
You can always recommend pay per lead products instead of the pay per sales ones. My previous post 10 Tips to Help You Make Money With Google Referral 2.0 contains good pointers to help you get started promoting pay per lead affiliate programs.
Some of you may recall that I’ve written about Helium.com where I recommended it as a way to monetize your old blog posts. What if I tell you I was actually paid US8 for each user who sigh up with them?
Unfortunately, while Helium.com accepts registration from all over the world, I am only compensated when the registrant comes from the US . I got a couple of registrations from the review but I didn’t make any money from it since they were mostly non-US leads.
That’s at least until the post is crawled by the search engine and starts appearing in the search engine results. BTW, I came across Helium.com from CJ.com
Here’s another example, the other day John Chow wrote a deal for 250 free business card to promote your blog. I knew right off the bat he was promoting an affiliate program. But he did it in a way that it appears as though it’s just one of his regular posts. So far he made $64.10 from it. That’s how to promote affiliate programs in your blog.
Actually I’ve promoted several affiliate programs in Sabahan.com, and one of the most successful ones is the Day Job Killer ebook review. I think I made about $350 dollars from that single post alone.
I recommended the ebook because I really believe in it. So far, using just one technique from that ebook will allowed us to add an extra minium USD200 to my bottom-line every month.
Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Besides AdSense, affiliate program is one of the most popular ways to make money from your blog or site.
Unfortunately most site owners idea of making money from an affiliate program is by slapping banner ads on their sites.
In addition, some may think that as long as you blend your ads with your site and make them look like the AdSense ad format, you are good to go.
I can tell you that that’s a very good way NOT to make money from affiliate program.
To make money from affiliate programs, you need more than banner slapping on you site. You need to research for profitable niche, create a site which offers values to your visitors, select the best affiliate programs to promote and attract traffic to your site.
I’ve skipped some steps there but that’s the idea that Allan Gardyne of the fame AssociatePrograms.com talked about in his latest Affiliate Program Tutorial.
Allan gives out tips on getting started in affiliate programs. It’s a 19 steps clear and helpful report.
If you are new to affiliate program, I am sure you’ll find the article useful. Check it out here.
Best of Luck Further to You and Yours Online Affiliates Business.
