Promote Affiliate Marketing - How To Guide
As a blogger, you are more than likely continually looking out for various ways of earning money. Sponsored posts and advertising can bring in good mone. But they can be irregular, so it is essential to have a variety of income streams available.
One way of earning a decent amount of money without having to do very much work is through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing generally involves choosing a product or a service (usually related to your blog niche). Next, creating awareness around the product. So when someone buys the product or uses the service using the affiliate link, you receive a referral commission from it.
Getting to grips with affiliate marketing is pretty straightforward. But if you are a total newcomer to the process, this article will help you look at a few different ways of promoting it on your blog.
Review Posts
This is probably one of the best ways of promoting affiliate marketing. People naturally turn to the internet when they are looking for reviews of products and services. So if you have strong, informative posts about whatever you are trying to promote, you are more than likely going to get click-throughs.
These reviews will often convert into purchases. A review post introduces the product or the service to your blog readers. It guides them towards understanding why they should be buying it or using it.
Bloggers are increasingly being referred to as 'influencers',. It is because people are recognizing how their opinions matter and can influence people.
When writing a review, you should always make sure that they are honest. It can be tempting when you are trying to promote something through affiliate marketing to only mention the positive points about a product and to neglect any issues.
An honest review should include both. You should also add any images, if relevant, and any vital information (price, location, etc.).
It is also a good idea to use a personal tone in review posts, as people have come to your blog looking for personal recommendations. For example, if you are writing about the Fat Joe affiliates scheme, possibly one of the best [SEO affiliate programs] , it is better to say 'These are the benefits that I got from using the service', rather than 'These are the benefits people have found from using the service' - your readers want to know what YOU think'.
How To Articles
These are becoming increasingly popular, and DIY style articles work particularly well for affiliate product promotion. These do well especially if your product needs instructions for use or technical guidance.
For example, if you are an affiliate for a website hosting company, you could write an article around putting into place, or adding additional domains, with an affiliate link or three to the product or service.
These sorts of tutorial posts are not only good for promoting your links but are also useful for improving your ranking in search engines. If you concentrate on getting your SEO (search engine optimization) right, your post will do well.
Coupon codes
Everyone loves saving money, and it can be one of the most significant incentives for customers. Whenever a customer is looking to buy a product and see a box for coupon codes or voucher codes, there is an excellent chance they will go to a search engine and look for 'Product name and coupon'.
If you have any of these codes on your blog, and the customer clicks through, you will still receive a commission for the sale. However, it is important to keep in mind that as an affiliate marketer is not just to share the coupon code, but to get them to click through using your link.
If customers don't do this, the sale will not be counted as yours, and you will not get the commission unless you have been given a unique voucher code by the company that links it back to your blog or website.
Some coupon sites may ask you to click through to see a coupon code. This is quite a canny way of doing it as it allows them to implement the cookie on the customer's device. So, if they decide to go through to the product website at a later date, you will still receive the commission.
Featured posts
Whatever type of post you are including your link on, your ultimate goal is to get as many views as possible on that post. Obviously, you will be focusing hard on the SEO, promoting across your social channels and sending out to your email subscribers, but you can also give it more visibility by placing it as a featured post.
If you use WordPress as a blogging platform, there is a feature that handily allows you to 'stick' any post on your blogs home page. This means that anyone who visits your blog will see the post without having to search through older ones.
Banner Advertisements
If you have targeted, organic traffic on your blog, banner advertisements can work wonders for your affiliate promotion. They work even better if they are placed in a prominent position, above the fold.
The fold is the point where the readers will need to scroll down, so having them above that is your best bet. Don't crowd your blog with banner ads though. This can be very overwhelming and off putting for your readers, and never place similar ads on your sidebar.
A prominent banner ad is your recommendation of a product. So, if you have several recommending similar products, you are sending out a confusing message to your reader. They may not know which product or service to choose.
As you can see below this is one product I love and am an affiliate for. I have banners on the bottom of the blog as well with this product I recommend. Would you like to see this ad at the top of my pages?
Social Channels
Using social media to promote affiliate links can be quite tricky. Many of the networks discourage you from doing so. Followers can also be fickle. They might not care that you promote these links on your blog but are turned off by them on social media. However, if done correctly, you may have a few click-throughs.
Firstly, you need to be selective and go for quality over quantity. Choose the affiliate links that are most relevant to your niche. Pick ones that will bring you in the most significant income, and stick to those. Don't overshare either. Roughly two out of every eight posts you share should be promotional.
Hence, try to stick to that ratio when you are thinking about affiliate links. You might want that passive income, but you don't want to be driving your followers away!
Online CoursesIf relevant, you may be able to incorporate affiliate marketing into any courses that you offer your readers, whether free or paid. Let's say, for example, you have a five-day productivity course. You might want to throw in an affiliate link to Evernote.
It won't feel like a forced promotion, because you are offering solutions to problems that your readers may have.
Email Lists
Email lists are an important marketing tool for any business. They can be harder to build up than a social media following, but they belong to you. Facebook, Twitter and the like could remove your profile without warning, or close down, and you would lose that audience.
Your email list is a community that trusts you and want your personal opinions delivered directly to them. They are already engaged enough to have signed up to your list. So, capitalize on that and give them your affiliate link.
In Conclusion of Affiliate Marketing
The most important thing to remember when it comes to affiliate marketing is trust. Don't promote any old thing, and build up a level of trust with your audience. Without that, driving affiliate sales will be near impossible.
How are you using affiliate marketing on your blog today? Do you have any additional tips to add to this? I'd love to know more in the comment below!
