Affiliate marketing is a fabulous way to monetize your blog and make money online.
You don’t need a huge following and a million subscribers to your newsletter/email list to make a good living with it, either. In fact, I’m about to share a strategy that could make you $175 in the next hour.
Now, before I go on, I need to tell you that this post may contain affiliate links. Actually, it is full of them because that is what affiliate marketing is all about! You can read more about my disclosure & privacy policy here.
When I started blogging, I was dead set against affiliate marketing.
I thought it was too “salesy”-maybe even a little spammy.
Certainly not for someone like me who was writing for the right reasons.
I had dreams, mission statements, wise words of wisdom & a vision board packed full of ideas to help women, mothers, basically anyone who went through puberty and had a pulse.
I thought that monetizing meant selling out.
I was a fool.
See, even with a small page view number back then I was leaving money on the table.
A lot of money on the table.
But I didn’t want to be associated with some of the internet’s super gross business models that funnel people from sales email to sales email and never perform an actual service.
I did not want my site to be pop up central offering opt-in after opt-in.
I still don’t.
But when a fellow blogger sat me down and explained that affiliate marketing does help people and doesn’t waste their time when done correctly -I was on board.
So let’s take a quick look at what this affiliate biz is all about & how you can earn a living by helping your readers by promoting specific products or services.
Definition: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a popular (and free) way of monetizing your blog, newsletter, and social media channels by referring readers to someone else’s products or services. When the reader makes a purchase, you get a commission.
The key to successful affiliate marketing is promoting a service or a product that you love and use that will benefit your readers.
You may have noticed that most of the articles you click on refer you to a course or workshop.
That is an affiliate link!
That course they are recommending has worked for them, and if you sign up then they get a commission!
See, with affiliate marketing you are telling your readers about the product just as if you were telling your family about it sitting around the dinner table.
Except in this scenario, your dinner table is the internet.
Let me break it down for you like this.
Imagine it’s the holidays, and you’ve got a major crowd at your house-a crew of 35 men, women, and children. You’re still high off of the new InstantPot you bought two months ago because you were the only person you knew still using a Crockpot. Anyway, this InstantPot is the best thing that’s ever happened to your life. You can steam, boil, slow-cook…you get my drift. You’d marry this InstantPot if you could. Now, I bet you’re going to tell Aunt Sally, Cousin Bethany, and “Aunt” Phyllis who’s not really related to you but she comes to every family gathering anyway…everybody at your house is going to know all about that InstantPot.
By the end of the night, you could have sold 100 InstantPots according to Phyllis because you are so jacked up about all of the features & benefits.
On the other hand, if you talked about the world’s biggest ball of yarn all night and you don’t sew…but you’re popping it into every conversation you have…Nobody is going to listen to you.
And they may think you’re an idiot.
Same goes for your blog/website.
Make sense?
You see, if you share products and services you love, that has been successful for you & will help your readers solve a problem or add value to their life, then you’ll find success with affiliate marketing.
Now, I don’t want to be misleading here. I did do my homework before I jumped in and started adding links to my site. I studied the success of Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, writer of the award-winning personal finance blog Making Cents of Cents. Michelle earns over $100,000 a month blogging, and $50,000 of that comes from affiliate marketing.
In other words, she knows what’s up.
She offers a program called Making Cents of Affiliate Marketing – How to Build A Six-Figure Blog Without Millions of Visitors or Selling Your Soul. I took that program and it changed everything since Michelle offers lifetime access to the materials I still consider myself a student because I refer back to it periodically when I need trusted advice. If you’re serious about making money blogging, then you owe it to yourself to take this course.
You can learn more about it here.
Getting Noticed
I started from scratch. Zero. Nada. Nothing.
My blog had about 50 subscribers no page views to speak of, and I didn’t know how to use google analytics. I believe it was June of 2018 when I got the best piece of blogging advice ever. I’m not naming any names here, but she is a big enough deal to have written several Best Sellers & I hired her to do a blog review mostly because I wanted to be her friend & also-money & success. She gave me fabulous advice in many areas, but by far the best tip was: take Pinning Perfect. It will help you SO much.
Understatement of the year.
I enrolled and implemented every strategy Anna & Melissa served up. And I went from 0 – to over 65,000 followers on Pinterest & my email list is steadily growing. As of today it is at around 21,000. (Today is November 24, 2018) So, yeah, sign up for Pinning Perfect if you’d like a little boost:))
Read this article. And prepare to be inspired.
Affiliate Rules
Ok, this is by no means a comprehensive list of affiliate Do’s & Don’t’s-but there are a couple of you’ve just gotta know affiliate rules I have to tell you before I go on.
Make Affiliate Links “No Follow”: Here’s an article from Yoast that explains it better than I can!
Add An Affiliate Disclaimer: By law, you must have a disclaimer on every post with an affiliate link! WordPress has a plugin for this called FMTC Affiliate Disclosure Plugin (You can customize the default disclaimer if you prefer.)
Consider Using Advanced Tracking Links: These are used to track your conversions. If you’re a beginner save this for later! You can set this up easily with Amazon.
Now onto the affiliate programs!
Amazon was the first affiliate program I joined. It’s easy to use, and you can find products in every category. If you’re having trouble brainstorming what you could promote just browse around Amazon using the nifty drop down tool on the left hand side of their search bar.
Oh, and people trust buying from Amazon. That’s a biggie!
But what if you’re not sure about what to promote?
You’re just starting, and maybe you haven’t figured everything out yet, but you want to make money.
I get it. I’ve been there!
This is where the easiest affiliate marketing program thing comes in. Ebates!
Everyone loves to save money!
These are the current cash back offers from Ebates! As you can see there is a wide variety of merchants from Bloomingdales to Walmart!
Every time you shop online at an Ebates merchant, they give you a % of cash back.
Oh, and you know those coupon and promo codes you can enter at checkout for extra savings?
I used to spend tons of time searching for those.
I have a thing where I refuse to check out online without a coupon or promo code. I’m slightly addicted to saving money.
Because Hello, Once I Got 50% Off!!!
Anyway, Ebates finds those codes for you! No more googling “promo code for xyz!”
If you’re not already in love, grab a hat and get ready to hang on because guess what?
When you sign up as an affiliate and refer someone that signs up- you get paid!!!
Yes, I just used three !, but I had to.
Right now, Ebates is offering $25 for EVERY REFERRAL. There’s no limit to how many people you can refer.
No limit.
How many people do you know that want to save money? Can you think of 7? I did the (easy) math, and if you sign up 7 people, you make $175.
All you do is share your link that Ebates provides.
Right about now I bet you’re thinking that there must be a catch. It sounds too easy.
I thought the same thing so I tested it out by referring my daughter first. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up and receive my unique referral code. I didn’t have to enter a credit card number or give up any information that I didn’t mind sharing.
I didn’t have to pay to join because it’s totally free.
After I sent my daughter the link and she started using Ebates, I got paid.
The only negative thing I can say about it is that now my teenager does even more shopping because Ebates offers cash back on her favorite stores like Sephora and Macy’s.
Ebates is also easy to use.
You may want to bookmark this post I wrote about how to use it… HOW TO USE Ebates TO GET PAID WHILE YOU SHOP
When you find a sweet deal you can share with, oh, I don’t know…your family, friends, and readers.
Again, there are no limits.
It’s an easy sell because it’s not selling it’s sharing.
Which is what a good affiliate marketing strategy is all about.
Sign up here and give it a try.
Why not?
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