As you know there are unlimited ways of making money online, and deciding what is best for your business model can be really tricky. Well today I am going to be talking about affiliate programs, as they are one of the best ways to get started making money online. Actually I am going to talk about the best way to implement affiliate marketing into your blog as it is one of the better ways for bloggers to generate income.
Below are 6 tips to help you convert more sales when marketing affiliate products on your blog…
- Market to your niche – Make sure you promote things that are relevant to your readers. If you are running a Martial Arts blog, don’t try promoting a “Guide to Making Money Online” just because it pays a 75% commission. Stick with affiliate programs related to your blog’s audience. I see people all the time trying to sell things that have nothing to do with their blog’s niche and I just don’t get it!
- Don’t just rely on banner ads, instead promote affiliate products in your posts – I find it amazing that many bloggers still think the way to monetize their site is to sprinkle some Adsense ads throughout their blog, and display some affiliate banners on their sidebar and they are done. You are not going to sell many affiliate products that way. To get people to buy affiliate products you need to write about them in your posts. You can write a whole post dedicated to one affiliate product, or you can write a post on a broad topic and recommend one or more products throughout the post.
- Know your product – The best way to promote something is to try it yourself first, so you can give an honest review. Not only that, but you know the ins and outs of how it works, and if you have used it a while you can tell people how it has worked for you. If you just can’t afford to purchase the product first, make sure you learn as much about it as you can before you try and promote it.
- Only recommend quality products and services – Do you want to get a bad reputation fast? Then start recommending crappy products to your readers. That will do it! But seriously, if you want to be successful and be known as a person that people trust… make sure you only recommend really good products. If you do, those past buyers will be much more inclined to purchase whatever you’re promoting next. Plus, they might even write some nice comments thanking you for your great suggestions, which can only help your sales conversions… as well as your reputation as an honest marketer.
- Try and keep out the competition as best you can in your posts – Usually when I am promoting an affiliate product in a post I try and not have any Adsense ads in the post, as those ads could actually steal your affiliate commissions if clicked on. Sure, you might have made 50 cents for the click, but you might have lost a 50% commission or more if they decided to purchase the product through that link instead of yours.
- Display ad banners in your post that relate to what you are trying to market – Instead of displaying a bunch of rotating random banner ads (which I did in this post)… when writing posts to promote affiliate products I usually display banner ads that relate to whatever product I am writing about. I like to keep my reader’s mind focused on what it is I am trying to promote. If the affiliate merchant doesn’t offer any good banner graphics, I usually just create my own banner ad and use that. If you are not good at creating banners yourself, you can always use 20DollarBanners. You can save 10% on your order (packages not included) with the coupon code “mmodotcom“.
Those are the major things I think about when promoting affiliate products in one of our blogs. Of course the key to converting more sales is to get more traffic. So if your blog does not get a lot of traffic, don’t expect to be making a lot of money just yet. Hopefully, if you stick with it and your site becomes more popular and your traffic grows… so will your sales.
How about you? Do you have any tips for promoting affiliate products on your blog? I am sure everyone would love to hear what works for you.
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Mike CJ on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 3:08 am
The only thing I would add, and perhaps this isn’t for everyone, is that I do always disclose to my readers that if they buy through my link, then I will earn a commission.
Mike CJ´s last blog ..An Apology
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:32 pm
Good point Mike. Do you mention it in each post, or do you have a broad disclaimer on your site? I would imagine you could lose a lot of sales if you mentioned it in each post.
I read somewhere that is good to post somewhere on your site that you use affiliate links when promoting most products, but we have not done that yet.
Ricky on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 3:59 am
Hey I am looking for some affiliate marketing program. I guess you are the best person to ask. I hope you know my email address lol. You can pass some links as well
Ricky´s last blog ..404 Error Page SEO Plugin[Must Have]
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:32 pm
What do you want to sell Ricky?
Ricky on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 7:14 pm
Anything related to my niche.
Benjamin Cip on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 4:15 am
I promote affiliate products from both banner ad and post review. I never promote a product I didn’t try. I always want to make sure that the products are worth for my readers. As as matter of fact, I have a copy of every products I promoted.
Benjamin Cip´s last blog ..How To Increase Your Blog Traffic
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:34 pm
I have noticed Ben that you do a great job in the way you promote affiliate products on your site. Have you had much success with just banner ads? We have seen a few sales here and there, but we get the most sales when we write about a product or service.
Benjamin Cip on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 11:08 am
I have more success with the banner ads if I have a blog post about the products. Just the banner can attract curiosity of your visitors, but if you have a well written review that make people interested in your product, then there are high chance that people purchase it right away. I noticed thanks to the ninja affiliate plugin tracking that some products don’t need to be reviewed to receive clicks and purchase for them. This is probably due to their popularity in the blogosphere.
Benjamin Cip´s last blog ..Gr8ecom Webhosting Review
Liane YoungBlogger on Sun, 6th Sep 2009 7:10 pm
Depends on the product reputation of course. I agree Benjamin. Products like the Ninja Affiliate plugin needs little to no promotion at all. Word of mouth plays better for those kinds of products.
Liane YoungBlogger´s last blog ..The Shortest Guide Ever for You to Make a Knock-out Blogging Victory- Revealed in 5 Minutes
Typhoon on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 5:10 am
I don’t promote affiliate products much with the help of blog posts..Only if someone asks for review in return of money or testing that product, then I do it.
Mostly I promote them by banner and text ads on my blog.
Typhoon´s last blog ..The importance of cloaking affiliate links & how to do it
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:35 pm
How does that work for you? Do you get much conversions from just text ads and banner ad?
Compute Live on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 6:36 am
I have not started with affiliate marketing, just waiting for my blog to grow more…
Compute Live´s last blog ..Registry Mechanic Genuine License Key for 1 year
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:37 pm
I think it is just a good thing to do even when you don’t have a lot of traffic just to get the hang of it. You can always re-post it later when your traffic has increased.
Extreme John on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 6:44 am
I love number two and it’s one of the biggest points that can be made to anyone looking to make money online, also be diverse and offer the “other” product, something you don’t expect people to click on that has nothing to do with the actual post type.
Sorry Doug I had to add my two cents, haha.
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:43 pm
Definitely John… number two is by far one of the best ways to generate income with your blog. You don’t want to do it everyday, but throw in an honest review once a week or every other week and that can work nicely.
Not sure what you mean by “other” product though? Can you be more specific with that one?
Blaine Bullman on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 7:35 am
Great tips Doug. I agree with Extreme john about tip 2, it’s my favorite tip there but number 1 is so important, relevant and targeted affiliate products are key.
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 2:49 pm
Yes, # 1 and #2 are definitely the most important… but the other points if used make a difference as well.
Thanks for stopping by Blaine… and we do appreciate the comment. Hope to see you again
Asswass on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 1:03 pm
Great post as always Doug. The only thing is that in the MMO niche is very difficult to make affiliate sales. Why? just beacuse your readers are trying to the same thing as you.
Asswass´s last blog ..Rule #7 of Radical Marketing: Create a Community of Clients
Doug Dillard on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 3:03 pm
Thanks Alfredo! I agree to a point about the difficulty of making sales in the MMO niche with affiliate products… but the key is really the type of traffic a blog gets. Many of us, (yours and our site included) get a lot of the same people visiting our site each day and many of them are bloggers in the same niche. Of course most of them will not buy what your are marketing, as they are probably marketing the same thing. But as each site grows through word of mouth, and even more importantly… through search engine traffic, they will get more and more people that are new to the world of the MMO niche. At the same time each one of us (who sticks it out) will become more and more experienced in the niche and hopefully start to become know as somewhat of an expert in the field. As that starts to happen selling things will become much more easy. The key is to keep working hard, learn more and more each day, and keep writing posts that people (hopefully) want to read.
I am sure that is a little oversimplified, but hopefully you get the point.
Asswass on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 7:50 am
I understand your point Doug and well said
. I was just talking about how difficult is for us to sell affiliate links today. Maybe in a future we will make a ton of money with affiliate posts.
Asswass´s last blog ..How much would you pay for Hiburrito.com and Asswass.com
earningstep on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 6:19 pm
basic tips that affiliate need to know about… i review about affiliate in my blog today
earningstep´s last blog ..My monthly report – EarningStep dot com august report
Lee Ka Hoong on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 1:47 am
I think we can get more sales by creating a landing page for the product that we’re trying sell instead of posting in our blog post. I’ve seen many people doing these but I’ve yet to give it a try. Do you have any experience with landing page Doug?
Regards,
Lee
Lee Ka Hoong´s last blog ..Professional Web Graphic Banner Design
Doug Dillard on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 1:51 am
Landing pages work great Lee… but using just your blog, how do you get them there without posting about it?
Will McCulloch on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 2:21 am
Hi Doug,
Just been reading your interview on Jared’s site – and glad I came over here too. This post is pretty interesting to me as I’ll soon be developing the affiliate side of my own new blog … and the tips above are very useful. Thanks!
Keller’s site contest is a brilliant idea – and I’m sure we’ll all benefit greatly. Glad to have come across you on it.
Best wishes from Hamburg
Will
Will McCulloch´s last blog ..buildarentalportfolio.com
Money-Era on Fri, 2nd Oct 2009 1:15 pm
You just need to differentiate yourself from the crowd. How are you going to stand out from many other affiliate marketers?
How are you going to promote your business?
What are you going to do in order to be high is Google?
If you do not answer these questions, it might be very hard for you to compete.
Money-Era´s last blog ..Hostgator make money story
TechZoomIn on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 10:34 am
Affiliates are really on rock now. I never made money through affiliates but interested to join very soon…
Thanks for your guide dude..
TechZoomIn´s last blog ..Easy Tools to Share Videos on Twitter
P.K.ARUN on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 1:20 am
To be frank it is really helpful even i am not writing any post regarding affiliate products i am planning to do in future. Thanks for sharing this beautiful tips.
P.K.ARUN´s last blog ..Googlepedia: search Google and Wikipedia at a time
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 1:22 am
I don’t use Adsense anymore, but number 5 was a really neat point. I don’t think I would have ever thought of that. I mean, it makes sense. Putting Adsense is going to show related sites. It is basically like creating competition for yourself.
The Gooroo @ iBlogPlanet´s last blog ..The Bear Marketing System And GDI
Jared P Little on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 6:15 am
#2 is really important, I seems to get a lot more clicks on text links within a post vs. any of my sidebar or banner ads. Also you need to play with different links and find a way to track it. I use gocode plug in. I setup a diffent link for each placement then I know if I can getting clicks.
Via the banners or via the text. You also should track you clicks on your banners as if you not getting any then it might not be a good one for you niche.
Number 5 makes a lot of sense I didn’t even think about that till now. I actually remove infolink cause the .18 cents it made me isn’t worry losing the visitors at this time. Maybe once I have more traffic it will make sense.
Good luck in the contest Doug.
Jared P Little´s last blog ..Month 5 Internet Marketing Blog Business Recap and Review
Curious Little Person on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 11:53 am
Affiliate marketing is the best! i seriously believe that it’s one opportunity that everyone can cash in
I might sound strange – but i’ve just tried with my last post to promote an affiliate product with the help of a blog post
Hopefully it goes well!
Cheers
Sandeep
Curious Little Person´s last blog ..Powweb Offers Easy Web Hosting
Doug Dillard on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 12:06 pm
Sandeep… your back
Your new theme looks awesome! Did you lose all your old posts, as I do not see many posts anymore?
As for you comment… yes I think affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for making money online. Especially if you don’t have a lot of money… people can do affiliate marketing with really zero money to get started.
I wish you a lot of success with your money making ventures… and it is good to have you back
Melvin on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 8:34 pm
Well I always thought there is a vast difference between promoting an affiliate product as an affiliate and promoting an affiliate product as a blogger. When promoting into blogs, usually reputation is what counts most while hardselling is more important on the former one..
Melvin´s last blog ..Wordcamp 09 Philippines
Christie on Sun, 6th Sep 2009 1:55 pm
I’m just getting started with affiliate products, and yep, I can see where #2 would be very important. I know when I search for something on the internet and then am reading about it, clicking a link in the post is a lot more likely to have me buy it than just looking at the sidebars. Guess I need to go back and add some affiliate links to my posts!
Christie´s last blog ..Gut feelings
Een Rockstar on Mon, 7th Sep 2009 12:02 am
I just try out affiliate marketing..Using a video marketing is also a good way to promote a product..But it needs some skills to do it..
Another way that I use is to write article and submit to article directory and link it to my squeeze page..when someone subscribe to my list he will redirect to the product’s landing page that I promote.
Een Rockstar´s last blog ..3 Easy Steps to Content Research
Sire on Tue, 8th Sep 2009 1:13 am
Promoting something that you are passionate about always leads to more sales. This is probably because your enthusiasm for the product is obvious in your post and it can become infectious. The affiliates that have made me the most money are the ones I have tried and recommended.
Sire´s last blog ..Blog Me This You Blogging Fools
Trey - Swollen Thumb Entertainment on Tue, 8th Sep 2009 12:28 pm
hi Doug, I don’t think that I had heard the advice before about being careful that your adsense ads don’t steal clicks away from your affiliate posts, but that is some really golden advice.
As for whether or not to disclose to your readers that you get paid if they buy through your link, I don’t think that there’s a one size fits all solution. It depends on how much you value the trust between you and your readers. A lot of people know that most blogs are set up to be monetized, but some people are ignorant of that fact. They might view it as a breach of trust if they find out that you’re benefiting from their activities and not just providing a public service.
In my case, I would probably put it in my “About” page or something, and make it real clear there. That way my regular readers would know about it, but someone clicking through who probably won’t return anyway wouldn’t know.
Trey – Swollen Thumb Entertainment´s last blog ..New Category: Blogging World
Qwertyweb on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 3:20 am
Looking for some great affiliate networks that will pay for life , coz all those ppc networks suck and ppm rate is always not that huge . Finally ppa will only be the leader in making money
Qwertyweb´s last blog ..Watch videos with a friend in Yahoo Messenger