I won’t deny it, one of the things that got me attracted to blogging in the first place, was the illusion that I could make money doing this so called “affiliate marketing” thing.
I’d already been following and reading some great money making blogs, along with the hype about how some bloggers were crushing it online doing affiliate marketing.
At the time, I was totally inspired by the likes of John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker and Darren Rowse.
Those bloggers amongst many others, were writing home about a method they were using to generate huge incomes online.
This method of course being affiliate marketing, and a lot of these bloggers were having huge success particularly with the Amazon affiliate program.
Naturally as a complete newbie, I was motivated to want to try this for myself.
I thought, wow, all I had to do was get a blog, put some mediocre content on there, SEO it to the brink of death and whack on some dirty, eye-popping ads and hey presto!
“Let the money come rolling in baby!”
And did it?
Err… No, not entirely…
In fact I made like $30 in the space of 3 months of starting…
Were you inspired to make money from blogging or affiliate marketing in the same way, only to be somewhat disappointed by the results?
The reality is this: Doing affiliate marketing requires a lot of hard work upfront, and done correctly too.
See how I underlined correctly there.
Because the one reason many bloggers fail at affiliate marketing, is because they don’t do it right to start with, along with the other reason being – they know nothing about marketing.
Anyone who looks up to an A-list celebrity blogger, have to appreciate something very important here.
They just didn’t wake up and decide to start a blog and woo hoo, the next day they were financially made.
Nope sir, those respectable folks worked their absolute butts off to get to where they are today. But you know that already right?
So can you do it too? Can you make money with affiliate marketing?
Heck yes of course you can! But only if you work hard, and do things correctly and take your time with it. There’s no point in rushing as you’ll only get frustrated and give up!
That’s one of the many things I failed to realise myself as a newbie.
Affiliate marketing isn’t a quick solution to anyone’s financial woes, let that be said. It takes a lot of practice, trial and error and patience, like anything else in online business.
So Fabrizio do you make money from affiliate marketing too?
Yes I do make a little bit, but not nearly enough as I’d like to make. However my methods and strategies are slowing working for me.
Here’s a screen shot of one of my affiliate account’s for some validation, that I’m actually making some money from doing affiliate marketing, and not just talking about it.
A nice amount of $2,296.05 was made by promoting one particular service in just over 12 months, which I won’t disclose of course…
What I will disclose however, are the tactics and strategies that I used to help me create that income.
OK so enough talking. If you want to increase affiliate marketing sales for your blog too, and to do it without needing to increase blog traffic as well, here are 8 smart ways to crush this.
Let’s rock this!
1. Build up your online reputation first…
When I started out doing affiliate marketing with my blog, I failed to understand two very critical things.
The trust factor and online credibility.
Getting lots of search engine traffic is great, but you could have all the search traffic in the world with very low conversions, and that would suck. I mean what a waste!
Building an audience on the other hand, would mean that you would be able to market and promote relevant products and services the right way, and drive targeted traffic to your offers as and when you needed to.
My advice to you personally, if you want to increase your affiliate marketing sales, build up some online reputation and credibility first.
Here are some things you can do to help you with this:
- Make it crystal clear to your site visitors, what you’re about and what your site is about, and how relevant it is to them.
- Put yourself in front of your audience. Use a real photo of yourself where ever you can. The homepage of your blog would be a great start! This will help folks connect your website with a real person.
- Create awesome, compelling blog content! How do you you create compelling content in affiliate marketing? We’ll take a look in the next few steps and infographics.
2. Create awesome online reviews
The undisputed king of promoting affiliate products and services online is to create great online reviews, honest reviews, compelling reviews.
The reviews should focus on the product or service’s usefulness and benefits first, then talk about it’s cool features and other gimmicks.
When I find a great product that I want to review on Magnet4Blogging, I always ask myself:
- How would my readers benefit from using this too?
- How could using a particular product or service solve a problem for somebody?
Those types of questions are easier to answer if you’re actually using the product yourself of course.
The problem with a lot of online product reviews these days, they focus too much on features, specifications, gimmicks and all the other shiny stuff and fluff.
As a result for anyone writing reviews like this, it will show in their sales conversion rates, I can tell you that for nothing.
If you want to learn how to write awesome compelling product reviews that convert into sales and profits, click here.
3. Create in-depth tutorial articles and include some videos
I love tutorials and if it weren’t for the fact I’ve read and watched so many of them in the last 6 years of doing blogging, I don’t think I would be as skilled or knowledgeable as I am today.
I’m not saying this to blow my own damn trumpet either, because there’s still a lot of things that I completely and utterly suck at.
The great thing about creating tutorial articles, is that you can show people how to use a particular affiliate product or service, you want to promote.
You can then add your affiliate links at the bottom of the article should anyone be interested in learning more.
Or if it’s a video tutorial, you can mention the link to the product or service page at the end of the video.
Oh no… Not videos, I hate doing videos… I hear you moan under your breath!
Really? You hate doing videos and you want to succeed in affiliate marketing?
The statistic below might make you change your mind about that feeling.
Creating videos is powerful, incorporating them into your review articles will make them even more powerful, and more profitable for you.
Just check out how I put together this Social Warfare Plugin review, complete with a cool walkthrough video at the end. I even had one of the creators of Social Warfare, Dustin Stoutcomment on the video!
4. Create your own product comparison blog posts
There will be many folks looking to compare products or services before making a decision on which one to purchase and use.
This is your perfect opportunity to take some of the hottest products in your niche and create a comparison post for them.
When these posts are created properly they can become huge earners for affiliate marketers.
There’s an awesome post over on Rob Cobbon’s blog about comparison posts, with some great tips to take on board, so please do check it out.
From personal previous expereince, creating product comparison posts where 3 to 4 products are involved is the most profitable way to create these types of articles.
You can compare important things like usability, benefits, prices, features, support and documentation, and much more.
For inspiration check out how I created this comparison post for Genesis Theme vs Thrive Themes.
5. Create powerful case-studies about your affiliate products
Case studies in affiliate marketing can be very powerful, again if done correctly.
In affiliate marketing, a case study can be used to show how you overcame a particular obstacle or problem, using a method or strategy, combined with using a particular product or online service. One that you want to promote as an affiliate.
For instance, you could create a case study showing how you were able to increase conversion rates using some cool video software you purchased! A little bit like this one over on mhaskeganesh blogspot.com blog.
In your case studies you can include screen shots, before and after shots, graphs and charts, test results, links to additional resources and much more.
You can also add links to other relevant and related case studies to help reinforce your own case studies.
If you can create a skull crushing, problem solving case study for one or two hot products in your niche, you’re going to make more money with affiliate marketing than you ever thought was possible!
6. Write and publish some useful eBooks
Writing and publishing eBooks is another great way to distribute useful “problem solving” content in affiliate marketing.
