If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, may I recommend this new book to you? That was it. That was affiliate marketing. When it comes to blogging, affiliate marketing is more or less the “product placement” of the textual online world. Popular bloggers can make some serious coin by linking their content to a tent company during a blog about camping, for instance. There are several related ways of making a few extra passive dollars via affiliate marketing, and here are some of the basics!
Disclaimers
There is no disclaimer in this article, but having disclaimers in your blog that is using affiliate marketing is a legal requirement. You can be creative with your disclaimer, but be sure to acknowledge that clicking on the recommend links does not mean youre readers have to purchase anything, and also let them know that these affiliate links help keep the blog alive and free to them. There is no shame in making a few dollars off of your popular blog, and if you make a vow to yourself and your readers that you will only market items you actually use and enjoy, it actually can add a level of trust in your readership… and the more those readers click, the more your affiliate marketing clients will pay you!
Be Awesome!
The more people who read your blog (and this is shareable with potential affiliate marketing clients… but can backfire if you don’t have a big enough following), the more of a chance you’ll have to team up with teams looking to push their products via affiliate marketing. If you’re just a blogger, you don’t need a massive, intricate digital and social marketing strategy, you just need quality content and the ability to smoothly tie in the occasional product push. Steady flows of content should be the norm for anyone who really wants to monetize their blog. A couple of posts per week should be your minimum if you want affiliate marketing interests to bite.
Network
Especially if you’re new to the blog game, getting some insight from others in the field is very important… and generally, bloggers love talking about themselves, as it’s kind of what they do every day. Online interaction is great, with comments and likes on posts and such, but if able, pick a few of your favorites and just reach out for a videoconference or cup of coffee if you happen to share locales. Guest posts also help both you and the other blogger, but generally you will need some of your own stellar content before a popular blogger will let you post on their site.
Niche, Please
If you live in a small town and plan on opening a restaurant, you probably want a big menu that appeals to everyone in the town. When it comes to blogging, this is not the case. Your “town” is the entirety of the world wide web, and you should aim to be as unique as possible. Whether this means adding humor to something morbid, taking weird stances on things, writing with a unique voice, or a number of other things, creating a niche will help build your audience quickly, and it will also help you zero in on which products you may be able to use to monetize your blog via affiliate marketing. Being open to feedback will also help you find a precise niche that will keep your readers coming back.
Be Creative
Just as a successful blog is a creative one, the best advice for affiliate marketing is the same: be creative. Utilizing these tips to form an intelligent strategy for how “product placement” will be best utilized within your content is paramount for keeping readership and not pushing people away with any sort of spammy content. Sticking to products you actually use is important for this customer loyalty, but ultimately, if your affiliate marketing strategy is as great as your content, you can set yourself up for a lot of passive income.
Janice Cooper is a data visualization specialist and data scientist who is always looking to share statistical information on culture, current events and marketing.
