Time and time again I would try something new that I heard was working for other bloggers and then I would fail miserably.

Time and time again I would try something new that I heard was working for other bloggers and then I would fail miserably. This process repeated for years until I got to the point where I realized I was not going to put in any effort because it was not worth my ROI.

 Increase your blog’s income from affiliate companies with my FREE checklist. This will show you the 10 steps I took to increase my income from $50 per month to more than $4,000 per month with affiliate links.

What is Affiliate Marketing?
You spend a lot of time building your audience, don't throw it all away to make a quick buckCLICK TO TWEETIncrease your blog’s income from affiliate companies with my FREE checklist. This will show you the 10 steps I took to increase my income from $50 per month to more than $4,000 per month with affiliate links.
Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate Marketing Success Tips:

Yes, I threw in the towel. Thankfully, it is not really in me to give up. Making money with affiliate links was like this unattainable object that I NEEDED to conquer. Before this point I always felt slimy about inserting affiliate links into my blog posts. I felt like it was misleading and I was just sending people to buy something so that I could make money.

This is one of the reasons why I was not making money from affiliate sales …. I was doing it ALL wrong!

I had to take a step back to realize that I needed to have certain strategies in place. About six months ago I made a commitment to tackle affiliate marketing and set a few goals that seemed to be a little bit ridiculous at the time since I have rarely made any money with affiliate links. By this I mean I hardly even made $50 per month from this revenue stream.

I am all about diversifying my income and knew that there were ways that I could increase this monthly total. My process is still a work in progress, but I can say that I have successfully increased my affiliate income from about $50 per month to over $4,000 per month. Plus, I no longer feel like I am getting over on my readers.

I am providing them with genuine products or services that I feel can help them. My goal is not making money, but providing value to their lives. Figuring out new tricks and applying them to my business model have helped me to create an excellent source of passive income from my blog.

Today, I am going to share with you things that I have learned about making money with affiliate links and how you can apply these tricks to your own blog. In this post you will learn how affiliate marketing works along with tips to help you become successful to make money in my Affiliate Marketing Basics Beginners Guide.

By definition, according to wikipedia:

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.

In simple terms, it means that you will be rewarded for helping businesses promote their products or services on your website. You can receive a commission for driving the buyer to the seller’s site once they make a purchase. This can include text links, banner ads, email opt-in programs and a few others.

Although affiliate marketing is a quick and somewhat inexpensive way to start making money online, it can be difficult to actually make money if you do not take the necessary steps. Before I offer my advice on how you can get started I wanted to share with you some tips on ethics. You spend a TON of time growing your blog and building a loyal audience, you do not want to just forget all of this to make money.

Only recommend items that you use and honestly believe in. Your readers will be able to see right through you when you are just trying to make a sale. In the past I would link to anything that sort of related to my post whether I used it or not.

This was WRONG.

I have now created my own affiliate marketing plan and have my own policies and beliefs that I uphold. Before I jumped back into trying to make money from affiliate programs I sat down and created guidelines for myself. Here are two of my non-dispute policies:

I will NOT recommend a product or service that I have not used

I will NOT link to anything that is not helpful to my audience

I honestly love when a blog I follow provides links to products and services that they personally use. It takes out the guesswork and actually helps me. As their reader they are providing me with something I will use. Plus, I trust their opinion, so if they are recommending it I value it much more which increases my chances of purchasing it.

The products or services that you suggest need to be meaningful to your audience. Like anything else in blogging, you need to be providing value to your readers. This also applies to affiliate marketing. You do not want to just recommend random items that have nothing to do with your blog’s focus.

Related: Finding your Blog Niche

To increase my income from affiliate sales I made sure I was linking to relevant items naturally throughout my posts. I needed to provide products and services that would be helpful to my readers. You know your readers the best.

Just because you see another blogger rocking it with an affiliate program does not mean that you will have the same success. You want to be selective when it comes to what you will and will not promote on your blog.

Even if your audience is similar to other blogs you still need to hone in on your reader’s interests and show them how you can improve an aspect of their life. The products and services that you put in front of your blog’s audience needs to be something that they would actually use.

An example of an affiliate program that I promote on Simply Blogging Along is Bluehost. I use them to host this site, so naturally I would recommend this to my readers. Plus, I have readers coming to my blog to learn how to start a blog. It just works. I am genuinely recommending a product that I use and they actually need it if they are interested in starting a blog.    

If you are ready to diversify your blog’s income with affiliate programs then one of the first things you need to do is decide what you can promote and which company to use.

Exercise: Take out a pen and paper and make a list of products or services that you use and could promote on your blog.

Once you have that list you can start to find affiliate companies to join. Some of the more popular networks include Amazon Affiliates, Commission Junction, Flex Offers and Sharesale. The next step would be deciding the company that offers a program for the items you placed on your list. Some of the terms you may come across with affiliate programs include:

Pay Per Click – With this program you will get paid on the number of visitors that click on your link or banner which directs them off of your site and onto a seller’s website. This means you get paid just for the act of clicking even if they do not make a purchase.

Pay Per Sale – You will receive a percentage of the final sale after a purchase is made using your unique tracking link.

Pay Per Lead – You receive a commission when a referred visitor fills out a form to provide contact information such as an email address to a third party site.

Be sure to read over all of their terms before you begin to promote it on your blog. Many companies have stipulations as to how you can promote the links. Now that you have decided what affiliate programs are a good fit for your website you are now ready to use your unique tracking link. This link is specific to you and it allows the affiliate company to track any sales coming from your site.

Not only are there unique links, but they offer banners, images and other ways that you can promote the product or service. All you need to do is copy the html code and paste it into your blog. So, once someone clicks on your unique link and makes a purchase you will receive a commission. You can then track your stats to see what works well with your audience.

You can also make money by becoming an affiliate for books, e-courses, e-books and other products that people in your niche sell. I am an affiliate for a few different products that I have used in the past or are currently using when it comes to my blog and business. This is a nice way to collaborate with other bloggers while providing your readers with good resources.

I have found that in order to increase the amount of money I make from affiliate programs I need to keep track of what works and doesn’t work with my readers. Every company that I use provides stats including click through rates and conversion rates.

It is extremely useful to know how many people click on a link and complete the purchase and how many people click on it and leave my site. It helps me determine if I am presenting it correctly and if it is something my audience actually wants.

From my own personal experience I have learned what works and what does not work when it comes to affiliate marketing. You can download my free checklist to help you make small changes to your blog to help increase the income you make from affiliate companies.