If you have been around here for a while, by now you must know what is affiliate marketing. Just in case you are new here affiliate marketing is basically promoting other people’s products or services and every time there is a successful sale you earn commission from it.
For example am an affiliate for my hosting company Bluehost and every time someone signs up using my link I get some commission.
If you are new and you are trying to understand affiliate marketing or if you are trying to boost your affiliate revenue you are in the right place.
It is one of the most passive way you can make money from your blog and if you have read income reports from some of the most successful bloggers you have seen that affiliate marketing makes a big chunk of their income.
There is no set percentage on the commission, it all depends on the product you are promoting. Can range anywhere from 2% – 80% or even more. The more expensive the product is the more you stand to make.
Before we dive into these affiliate marketing tips for bloggers you should know that it works best if you genuinely love the product or service. Your audience can tell if you are real or you are just after the commissions.
To get started with affiliate marketing, you need to join high paying affiliate programs. This master list has more than 500+ affiliate programs to choose from. It covers almost all niches such as faith, personal finance, blogging, personal development, fashion and so on.
The biggest that bloggers make is promoting the wrong product which means 0 conversations. This master list will help you find the right product for you to promote, one that resonates with your audience. It also comes with a free tracking spreadsheet that helps you to keep track of all the affiliate programs you have joined avoiding any confusion.
Below am sharing with you 3 best affiliate marketing tips for bloggers to help you increase your revenue, even if your blog is small.
3 Easy affiliate marketing tips for bloggers to boost your income in 2023
1. Affiliate Marketing Tips For Bloggers: TRAFFIC
Well, to get started on affiliate marketing you don’t need tons of traffic but to make it passive then you need lots and lots of traffic.
A while back when I was getting started on affiliate marketing I promoted a course that I love and with less than 1500 pageviews I made $200. That was a good start but to be a full-time blogger I needed to make more.
For anyone to make a good amount of money from affiliate marketing, you need to work on traffic especially if your blog has a ton of different topics you will need to work harder compared to someone who has really niched down reason being you are attracting a variety of people.
How I boosted my traffic and increased my affiliate marketing revenue
Pinterest was a game changer for me.
In a few months, my pageviews have spiked from 2000 to more than 60k pv/mo.
Last year September traffic report
January Traffic report 2019
To get started with Pinterest, sign up for a business account which is absolutely free or if you have an account already convert your personal account to a business.
Having a business account will allow you to connect your website to your Pinterest which means you will be able to see your analytics. Analytics are awesome you will know what is working or not.
- Boards
Make atleast 10-15 personal boards. Use keyword to name them. For example, if you are a food blogger you can name one board easy dinner recipes.
After your board is named, fill in the description using the right keyword as well. For example, for that board, your description can be ‘Easy dinner recipes for two, for the kids and for the whole family too. Quick and cheap dinner ideas which are super healthy, easy to make and perfect for the lazy nights. Enjoy easy dinner recipes which are keto friendly and some are cooked in the slow cooker or the instant pot.’
Something like that, I hope you get the picture.
Personally, I have been getting good results with personal boards compared to group boards, I haven’t requested to join any in like a year but you can give it a go and join a few see how they perform.
- Make pinnable graphics
Pinterest is visual.
Your graphics are super important and much as your keyword.
I use and love canva, I find it extremely easy to use. Create multiple pins design for each blog post because some of them will obviously do better than the rest. I sometimes make like 5 or more.
The best way to promote your affiliate post is on Pinterest, so your pins need to be on point. Once you have your pinnable image(s) you can either link then directly to the blog post or to the sales page of the product.The first options work best because it gives the reader a chance to learn more (from another person’s experience) about the product.
A while back I realized a mistake I was making, I would make all the five pins for one post and use the same keyword in all of them.For example if my keyword is affiliate marketing tips for bloggers I would use that in all 5 of them. Instead now my keywords vary to something like easy affiliate marketing tips for beginners, best affiliate marketing tips on pinterest and more.
- Make use of tailwind
Tailwind is a Pinterest scheduling tool.
It’s a lifesaver.
I use tailwind to schedule my post because I can’t be on Pinterest 24/7 and manual pinning didn’t work for me.
I did manual pinning for almost a year but the more posts I got the more hectic it became, I could barely keep track of the pins and when I switched to using a scheduler my engagements and pageviews skyrocketed. It helps me to space out your pins across days.
Sometimes when I was doing manual pinning I would end up spamming my followers without knowing. Spamming can affect your reach and Pinterest has been known to suspend accounts for that.
Tailwind has helped me schedule my posts at optimized, which has made my traffic to grow drastically.
There is no set number on the number of pins you can schedule per day. I pin about 60 most times, and some people do less or even more. As long as you aren’t spamming then you are ok.
If you aren’t using tailwind yet, sign up today and get on their 100 free pin trial. That gives us a chance to give it a test drive first. Just to mention that you have nothing to worry with Tailwind, it’s a Pinterest trusted business partner.
(I will do a full post on how my pageviews skyrocketed later)
Related posts: 30 ways to drive traffic to your blog
2. Affiliate Marketing Tips For Bloggers: WRITE STRATEGIC POSTS
You can just can’t write a post and plaster your affiliate links all over and expect money to start rolling. You will have to wait for eternity.
You need a strategy.
Your post should tell a story.
Paint a picture for your audience in a way that at the end of the post, they can already imagine using the product.
- Round up posts
Write a post that is featuring a few products, maybe from 5 to 10. Don’t go all crazy trying to find a million products to include in the post, you will end up confusing your audience.
Make sure that the products are solving a central problem that your audience is struggling with. Simply write an honest review of the products. That’s why it’s easier if you have used the products before because you will be able to highlight the pro and cons.
For this to be a hit you need to include products in the different price range. Basically low and high so as to give your readers options.
Once you are done writing the post, then create a collage pin. Collage pins they are eye catching and using the right keywords will lead to many people clicking on it. In the collage, pin includes the pictures of the products you are promoting.
- How to Posts
This is my favorite kinds of post to write. This is where you create a tutorial post revolving around the product or service.
For example, I have a post on how to start a blog through Bluehost. That post gives you a detailed step by step guide on how to set up your blog without any hiccups.
How to posts converts way better because the audience is able to familiarise themselves with the product.
- Comparative posts
For a comparative post, you compare a few products which make it easier for your readers to choose between them. If the products are solving a problem you can be sure your conversions will increase too.
For example, a part of my audience is new bloggers who are interested in blogging tips, I can write a post and compare like 4 eBooks sharing all the necessary information from the price to how they will benefit from each eBook.
This will help to make the purchase decision faster.
- Create a post specifically for your Affiliate Product
This works for some and for others it doesn’t. About a year ago I wrote a post around this course Blog by Number by Suzi up to date I still make sales from it. It was thorough, honest and well detailed. See the post here to clearly understand what I mean.
As I mentioned before affiliate marketing is all about strategy. I can’t wake up one day and decide to sell to my blogging audience an ebook on parenting. It will be weird, a big turn off and I might end up losing some of them.
If you haven’t been writing such posts, you need to do it slowly so that your reader can ease up to it and be creative on your blog post title.
For example, I have these two posts:
The easiest way to start a profitable blog in 2019. In this post, I outline how the course helped start a successful blog. Instead of naming the post something like Blog by Number Course review, yes that can work too but I went with that title because it was more appealing.
Same case with these post How I made my first affiliate. In the post, I highlight how I used tips from this affiliate marketing bundle. That title is better and more eye-catching than Affiliate marketing bundle review or something like that.
3. Affiliate Marketing Tips For Bloggers: Email List
If you want to increase your affiliate revenue, growing your email list should be a priority.
Am sure you have heard the famous saying that money is in the list. If you treat your subscribers well they will be your loyal customers.Your email list is your biggest asset when it comes to blogging.
For most bloggers their sales come from their email list. Even though you are a new blogger it’s still ok to start an email list.
Your email list is a place where you can communicate directly with your audience which helps you to build trust and a better relationship with them.
I use convertkit which I absolutely love because it’s super easy to use. Am not so tech savvy and convertkit has helped me grow my blog through automations. It makes it easy to customize and embed forms in your posts which in return makes it easy for readers to subscribe.
I have been able to create so many free email course and it helps me send out my freebies. Creating sale funnels is so easy it’s like a walk in the park.
Check out these two posts below, you will understand why you need to start an email list if don’t have one ASAP and how you can grow one using Pinterest.
5 Amazing hacks to grow your email list with Pinterest
5 Reason why every blogger needs to build an email list Asap
You can check out convertkit here and in case you have any question feel free to ask me.
Other ways to promote your affiliate links
- Add a resource page. See mine here
- Create pages. Once you have a guide create a page which you can place on your menu. For example, I have a How To Start A Blog on my menu.
- Use Google Analytics to find your most performing posts (5-10 posts)
On your Google analytics dashboard simply go to Acquisition > Social > Landing page. At the top, you can choose the duration you want.
With that, you will be able to know the most visited posts on your website. Those are the blog posts that are getting the most traffic on site. Which means you have easily figured out what your audience is interested in and what they are struggling with and you need to utilize that.
The next step is to think of affiliate products you can easily add in those 5-10 top posts. Products that are solving their problems.
For instance, for my second top performing post is healthy instant pot recipes I could recommend to them an instant pot they can buy or an instant pot recipe cookbook.
- Maximize on your Top 3 Affiliate Products
With time you will be able to tell which affiliate products are working best for your audience. From the affiliate commission, you can analyse the products that are helping solve your audience’s problems. Those are the products your readers are willing to spend money on.
Now you need to create more posts that are solving your reader’s products revolving around those top 3 affiliate products.
For instance, from that healthy instant pot recipes if I noticed many people are purchasing an instant post then I can write a post like Must know instant pot hacks for any beginner.
That’s it for now, hope you have found this post on easy affiliate marketing tips for bloggers super helpful. Kindly repin any of the pins graphic above if you enjoyed it.
RESOURCES I LOVE
Blog By Number Course
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Dare to Conquer
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What I love most about Dare To Conquer are the challenges like how to reach $1000+a month with ads, how to gain your first 1000 email subscribers, launching your blog and getting 10k pageviews and how to create your first paid product.
Still hesistant about diving in? Join the free 12 Day Blogging Bootcamp and get a little taste of what Dare To conquer is all about.
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You might also like:
The ultimate guide to working with brands
How to make your first $200 blogging