Affiliate Marketing Tips for Your Blog
CHRISTINA GALBATO: One of the
best ways to monetize your blog is through affiliate marketing. In this video, I'm
going to be giving you the rundown on what
affiliate marketing is and why you should be using
it, the best affiliate programs to join, and how
you can maximize your earning potential using
affiliate marketing. [UPBEAT MUSIC] First, let's get you familiar
with what affiliate marketing actually is. Affiliate marketing is when you
link to a product on your blog and make a small commission
if someone visiting your site clicks the link and
buys the product. Having affiliate marketing
as part of your monetization strategy is really important
for a couple of reasons. First of all, it allows you to
create "set it and forget it" income. You set the links up
once on a blog post, and as your traffic
grows and that blog post is seen more and
more, you'll begin generating more and more income
from people making purchases through that link.
This is what's known
as passive income and what is considered to
be the best type of income that you can make
in the online space. Second, it's another
stream of income that you can add
into your business. It's incredibly important
as a web creator to never rely on just one or
even two streams of income. You never want to put all
of your eggs in one basket. There are a ton of
programs out there, but these are the most
popular and most reputable. First, Amazon Associates. Amazon's affiliate program
is absolutely worth signing up for because there
are a ton of products on Amazon that you might find yourself
promoting or talking about in your blog
content organically, no matter what your niche is.
Amazon Associates pays up to 7%
commission on any purchase made after following your link. What is extra cool
about Amazon Associates, though, is that the
commission is not just given when someone buys the
specific product you link to but any product
in the next 24 hours after clicking your link. Next, Booking.com. Booking.com is a
hotel booking website and it's a great
affiliate program to sign up for if your
blog focuses on travel. And the commission
rate is high, 25%. The one downfall of
Booking.com's affiliate program is that the cookie duration
is not long at all, meaning that if someone
does not book directly after clicking on your link,
you won't get commission. Still, if someone has
searched Google for a blog post about the best
hotels in Mykonos for their upcoming
trip, for example, that likely means that
they're ready to book. And the chances they
click on that affiliate link on your site and
book a stay immediately is pretty high. The next program is
rewardStyle, a great affiliate program to sign up for if your
blog covers lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and/or wellness.
They offer between a
5% to 15% commission, and they work with
over 4,500 brands. Pretty much any product
you recommend or talk about will be on rewardStyle. RewardStyle also
owns LIKEtoKNOW.it, which is their mobile
platform that allows you to monetize your Instagram. Now, let's talk about
the top five ways to maximize your earning
potential using affiliate marketing. First, never forget to place
them organically in blog posts. The vast majority
of the blog posts you'll publish on your site
will talk about or recommend some kind of product or hotel. So whenever you speak
highly about something, go find the proper
affiliate link. I know this is a pretty
straightforward tip, but it does take a
little bit of extra time to find the right affiliate
links for the thing that you're recommending, and so
this step shouldn't be skipped. Second, create
roundup blog posts to generate affiliate income. This is a bit different
than the first method because it isn't
just placing links where they fit in a blog post. This is really about
creating a blog post solely for the purpose of
placing affiliate links and generating income and,
of course, giving value, but the focus is much
more on revenue generation than it normally would be.
A roundup blog post is usually
a list of like 10 to 40 products that you recommend that
fit a certain topic or solve a problem. For example, if you're
a travel blogger, a great roundup post
might be about the 10 best hotels in Tulum with Booking.com
links to those hotels. Thirdly, create
seasonal content. Seasonal content
is content that is only relevant at
specific times of year. For example, this
post of mine called "30 Holiday Gifts for
Female Entrepreneurs" always sees a spike in
traffic and therefore a spike in affiliate income
around the holidays. Fourth, if you have a
list of email subscribers, don't forget to drop
your affiliate links in your weekly emails
to them, for example, if you're mentioning a
trip you went on and linked the dress you wore that everyone
was asking you about over on Instagram. Pro tip, I limit the number of
affiliate links in one email to a max of one
or two per email. The next strategy for
placing affiliate links is to create a shop
page on your blog. This is a page dedicated to
sharing your favorite products that relate to your niche with
every single product linked with an affiliate link.
If you're a travel
blogger and photographer, you could have a
shop page dedicated to your favorite
photography gear. You could link to this page
on your blog's top menu or on your blog's
sidebar or as a header or footer within your blog. Affiliate marketing
is an easy way to set your blog up for
success for years to come. So I hope after
this video, you're feeling ready to start using
affiliate marketing to monetize your blog. I have lots more
videos coming soon that will help you monetize
through brand collaborations, online courses, and more. Bye for now. [UPBEAT MUSIC].
