Earn Money With Affiliate Marketing Through Your Blog

It has been discussed many times, but I personally think that it has been proven right over and over again; The best way to monetise a blog, is with affiliate marketing.

With this blog post, I’m going to try to cover all the things I’ve learnt about affiliate marketing in the year or so that I’ve been making money with it.

I’ll also share with you ways on how not to use affiliate marketing and also how you, with a little help, can get started with it.

Stay tuned, this is going to be a profitable ride 🙂

Hold On, I’m A Beginner Here- What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing simply means promoting somebody else’s product and getting a commission. It can be anywhere from 1% up to 70%+,  but the most common area is in the 20%-50% range.

Affiliate marketing is known to be one of the best online business models out there and has made a lot of money, for a lot of people.

It basically allows anyone, anywhere to make money on the internet.

Doing Affiliate Marketing On Your Blog

Whatever your blog is about, I am sure you can tie in a product or an eBook to it that you can sell and make an affiliate income from.

Take Amazon for example…..

Think of all the products there are on Amazon; Every single item on there can be affiliated and promoted and you can get anywhere from 4% up to 20% (depending on the product & sales volume).

Let’s say you have a blog about “home gardening”.

Think of all the ebooks, tools, seeds, pots, vitamins, etc you can sell. If you really dig in, I’m sure you can find 1000s of products you can promote and link to from your blog.

For more on the Amazon Associate program, see here. We’ll be discussing other affiliate networks below.

What Is The Earning Potential of Affiliate Marketing? 

The beauty of it is that there is no limit really as to how much you can earn. It all comes down to how much traffic you can get and how good are you at “selling”.

Let’s keep with the home gardening example.

Say you get 100 visitors a day and you convert a (very) modest 1% of your visitors into a sale. So that is one sale a day. If the eBook / product / service you’re selling can make you $10 with every sale, that is $300 dollars each month.

Now just as you went from 0 to 100, you can easily go from 100 to 200 visitors a day. That means you doubled your income. If you can work your way up to 500+ visitors a day, you’re now making a full time income.

Also might I add, the 1% conversion rate is very minimum, if you do it right, you should be around the 3%-6% conversion rate mark.

An Opportunity To Create Passive Income

Businesses survive on repeat customers, getting new customers is great and all, but having a loyal, repeat customer base is the best way to run a sustainable blogging business, well any business for that matter.

If possible, you should always try and promote services that have a recurring subscription.

Back to the $10 sale-a-day with the home gardening niche; imagine if that $10 is a recurring monthly income rather than a one time fee. This is where the numbers start getting interesting.

One customer can keep their subscription going for 4/5/6 months or more… If your customer stays on for a year, that one sale is now $120!

This is how I like to run my business. Everything I promote here on aBlogOnBloggin.com has recurring income possibilities. The main two things I promote here are Wealthy Affiliate and Elegant Themes and they both have a monthly and/or yearly subscriptions.

This means that anybody that subscribes to them, I will get a commission not just once, but for as long as they remain a member.

Is Affiliate Marketing….. Honest!? 

Unfortunately when you talk about affiliate marketing, most people think that it is a scam and a “pyramid type” thing, which is absolutely not true.

A long time ago, I used to be subscribed to a lot of “online marketers” and the way they did affiliate marketing was just dishonest and it left a bad taste for me and for a lot of people.

I remember getting anywhere from 5 to 10 emails a week from a guy pushing 5-10 different programs / systems / products etc…

Obviously, the guy didn’t care about the products, he didn’t take the time to check if it’s legit; he just sent out the link and hoped for the best.

That is how affiliate marketing and the “make money online” niche got a bad name. The term somehow started to translate to “ripping people off”.

Although this unethical system has worked before, I think people have caught up to this and are not trusting “gurus” anymore.

How To Do Affiliate Marketing The Right, Ethical Way

I have one formula: Do not promote anything to anybody that you wouldn’t promote to your mother.

[Tweet “If you want to build a business that you’re proud of, build a business that doesn’t rip people off.”]

When you’re looking to promote a product as an affiliate, make sure you:

• Do your research about the products.
• See if it brings value to people’s lives.
• Is ethical in itself.
• You use it yourself. <= Very important

There are a lot of products I can promote to you regarding blogging, but I believe that if I’m not using the product myself, I have no right to make you buy it.

If you can genuinely pitch the product to your mother and you don’t feel ashamed by it, then it’s good enough for your readers.

I Want To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing

To get started with affiliate marketing, you need to become a registered affiliate with an affiliate network.

My favourite affiliate networks are:

• Clickbank
• Amazon
• Share-a-Sale
• Wealthy Affiliate (only for people in the “online marketing” niche)

These are what I use, but there are a LOT more affiliate networks you can choose from. Here is a list of the top ones.

Most networks require you to have a site up and running before you can join so if you haven’t got a blog already, make sure to start one before you do. Here is a checklist that will help you do just that.

Once you get approved, you can start promoting products on your blog to your readers and make money!

If you’d like to know more about affiliate marketing and how it’s done properly, then be sure to join this amazing training center. Yes I am an affiliate for WA, but you can get started for free.

PRO TIP:

[Tweet “Affiliate networks are 100% free to join, if you’re asked for money, walk away. “]

Final Thoughts About Affiliate Marketing

It can be a bit tough to get your head around it at first, but once you understand it; you’ll see that it’s one of the best ways you can earn money through your blog.

Affiliate marketing is here to stay and the money associated with it is growing. $250 billion is to be spent online in 2014 and if you can affiliate yourself with the right company, then you can get a piece of that pie.

The size of the pie will all be determined by how much you work.

Let Me Know What You Think

What do you think about affiliate marketing? Do you think it’s something you can do? Have you tried it before? Was this article helpful?

Let me know your thoughts below and feel free to follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my newsletter, I’m sure you’ll like what I have to offer.

Till next time…

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PS: Watch this video below, it’s from the Affiliate Summit. While it’s not important for you to know what the Affiliate Summit is right now, it will help you understand how affiliate marketing can change people’s lives!

Enjoy!

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