How to Make Money Off Of Affiliates
Most bloggers who are blogging to make money already have some experience with affiliates most likely but for those of you who don’t an affiliate is simply someone who sells a product for someone and receives a commission. You can also get leads that pay money too and this can actually be easier in the beginning and I would recommend that if you’re new you work with getting leads rather then sales. People are more inclined to join something free then to buy something, especially off of a new blog which doesn’t have too much reputation so for the first while stick with leads. I actually wouldn’t even introduce affiliate sales or leads into your blog until at least one month after you begin it. Also it’s only one month if you post everyday if you post less frequently then give it a couple months before introducing affiliates. The last thing you want to do is bombard all your new readers with affiliate ads, instead you want to first build up a readership and then move forward with affiliate ads.
Once you’ve decided to start working with affiliates you need to decide how you’ll go about the task. Some people will make a separate page for affiliates and list them all on one page so that it’s somewhat tucked away and then only people interested in the offers will have to look through them. Other people will add banners or links into their sidebar pointing to the affiliate and then others will make a new blog post with the affiliate lead or product. I find that creating a new post for the product or lead is the best way to go about getting sales, because this way you can write a review of the product and let people know a bit about what there buying. You’ll notice you get more sales from the products and leads that you offer some guidance or knowledge on rather then just posting a banner or link.
When you’re placing links on your blog that point to affiliate URL’s you should use a cloaking plug-in so that you can make friendlier URL’s. A lot of people won’t click links if they know it’s an affiliate link and it’s easy to tell because most affiliate networks use there URL to forward you to the affiliate product. There are plug-ins for WordPress which make this simple though and a quick Google search will do the trick for finding the right plug-in. I’ve noticed on blogs where I cloak my affiliate links up to 30% more action on the links then when I simply use the affiliate link normally and when you’re dealing with money 30% is a fairly large percentage.
That’s about all you need to do in order to display your affiliate links properly so that you can maximize your profits and apart from that all you should be concerned about is making sure the affiliate banners and links you use on your blog fit in the blog. Meanings don’t promote a shoe affiliate on a hat blog, only choose affiliate leads or products that are directly involved with your niche. Also ensure you don’t overdo any affiliate ads because people will quickly become turned off from your blog if everything is an affiliate ad. You should use them sparsely throughout the blog posts to make sure you don’t come off as someone just trying to make a quick buck. People are far more inclined to buy something off of someone who has taught them stuff through the content on the blog, so make sure you continue writing solid content and mix in the affiliate ads as you go.