How to Start Affiliate Marketing : Your Startup Guide

Want to learn how to start affiliate marketing? You’re in the right place!

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for bloggers to start making money.

If done right, it can be a great source of passive income that pays off for months or years.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

I recommend it as the NUMBER ONE way for new bloggers to make a passive income while you’re busy honing your blogging skills and growing your blog.

In affiliate marketing, you partner with brands and companies with products or services relevant to your site’s content. 

You then promote these affiliate products in an article or video of yours, and if someone clicks through and buys something, you earn a commission!

Like with any monetization strategy there are rules and key essential elements that you need to have in place for success.

But perhaps you are a little confused about what affiliate marketing is or how it works. Or perhaps you have tried affiliate marketing, but you’ve not made much money from it and are wondering where you went wrong…

Affiliate marketing can be challenging for beginners because there is more involved than just creating content. 

First things first: Affiliate marketing isn’t a BIG deal if you know how to sell. Anyone who knows “how to sell” can earn more money from it.

The major reason most people don’t make even a buck from affiliate marketing is this: they sell products directly to their audience without knowing their needs and wants.

What happens when you directly sell online products like that? No one buys from you. It’s as simple as that.

Maybe you’ve heard of bloggers like Michelle from Making Sense of Cents who earns $50,000 per month from affiliate marketing, and you want to experience the same success. Or maybe you have no idea what affiliate marketing is yet!

If any of those sounds like you, then read on! I wrote this guide to help you understand affiliate marketing, even if you’re a total beginner. I will explain everything you need to know, and give you actionable steps you can take to start earning money from affiliate marketing yourself.

Why It’s A Great Monetization Strategy For Bloggers

It honestly provides a great balance of risk and reward. Perhaps the easiest way to make money is by putting ads on your blog. It’s easy to set up and 100% passive.

But the problem with ads is that the low risk also comes with the lowest reward, and you’re going to make pennies rather than dollars.

On the other end of the spectrum, creating and selling your own products is probably the best way to make money with your website. But it also comes with the highest risk.

It takes time and money to create your own products and if you don’t know how to sell them properly or your audience doesn’t want them, you’ve wasted even more time and money.

With affiliate marketing for bloggers, you can promote different products and services to your audience with generally no investment of money and far less investment of time.

If you have trouble selling one product or your audience doesn’t like it, you can try another one.

And the best part is… When it gets going… It can even be mostly passive income.

What Do You Need Before You Start Affiliate Marketing

Before you jump into affiliate marketing, there are a few key essentials you need:

A self-hosted WordPress site ( BlueHost or Hostinger)

Quality theme that’s fast, and mobile-friendly (try these premium feminine themes from Bluchic, 17th Avenue, Restored316 or Pix and Hue).

Three key legal pages: Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, and Disclaimer – the last is the most important. To make things easier for yourself, get customizable legal page templates for websites, written by a lawyer.

Pretty Links (free version for beginners is fine) or Lasso (premium – it’s best if you’re focusing on Amazon, Walmart etc, and looking to create grids and other eye-catching affiliate product displays). This masks your ugly affiliate pins and helps make it super easy to add links.

A PayPal account, as many affiliate programs payout commissions this way.

The ability to create helpful content that readers love reading. This is a skill you’ll need to work on for affiliate success.

Once you have these essentials you are ready to proceed!

Affiliate Marketing General Basics

Before we delve into the details, an overview of affiliate marketing steps will help you understand the general process.

Affiliate marketing for bloggers can work in several ways. This is the most common way.

• Ensure you have a website that’s ready for affiliate marketing (start Here)
• Find a product or service that you love.
• Apply to join the affiliate program. You may need to join the affiliate marketing platform that hosts the brand’s affiliate program first. For example, Impact, Awin, Shareasale, etc.
• Once accepted, use the specific URL (tracking cookie) for that product. This is the affiliate link – usually something long and full of text and numbers. When somebody clicks the link, they will be taken to the site and it is tracked through a cookie for a specific time (usually about 30 days).
• Use Pretty Link (my preference for beginners!) or Lasso to mask the long, ugly link under your own domain. Using either plugin also helps you track your links.
• Add the link to your blog posts, social media posts, email newsletter, or Pinterest. You can also share it as a referral.
• Publish an in-depth product review post to promote the product. Don’t forget to add your affiliate link.

When somebody purchases using your affiliate link, a portion of the sale will go to you, at no extra cost to the customer.

It usually takes anywhere between 30 to 60 days before you get paid.

Payments are usually made to PayPal, or directly to your bank account, depending on the program’s payment process.

What Is The Best Way To Start With Affiliate Marketing

The best way to get started with affiliate marketing for bloggers is to begin adding affiliate links to existing articles on your website that are already popular.

The Amazon Associates program is one of the best places to start because everyone already uses and trusts Amazon.

The cookie length is only 24 hours, and the commissions are quite low, but it can be a good, passive way to earn a couple of hundred dollars per month.

I have earned over $1,000/month with Amazon when our website was at its peak traffic.

In addition to linking Amazon products, you can also do a simple Google search for affiliate programs in your niche. You’ll come across various affiliate programs and networks through this method.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

The simplest way to explain it is by earning a commission through promoting and selling a company or individual’s product.

Depending on the type of affiliate program you join (a network or independent program) there are usually four core players: the seller (the person or company that created the product), the network (a place that holds your affiliate links), the affiliate (you!) and the customer who purchases the product.

How it works is that you typically find a product you love through the seller or network, promote it through various mediums like your blog, social media, ads etc. and if a customer purchases the product after clicking your link (within a certain time – called an affiliate cookie), you earn a commission for that sale.

It can be challenging for bloggers because there is more involved than just creating content – it also requires promoting affiliate products to gain an audience.

How much can you earn? It all depends on the program.

These commissions often range anywhere from 15-70% of the product sales price.

If 70% seems high to you, it’s because it is. But the reason it’s so high is that the affiliate is doing most of the grunt work to bring the customer to the sales page.

This is why affiliate marketing makes sense as a monetization strategy for most bloggers. There’s little ongoing effort required, but great rewards, if you do things effectively.

How does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing works like this:

1. You apply to an affiliate scheme
2. Once approved, you are given a special affiliate link
3. You use that affiliate link every time you mention the product
4. Whenever someone clicks on that link and goes on to buy the product, you are paid a commission – either a flat fee or a percentage of the sale price.

(The special affiliate link helps the company track the sale, so they know which of their affiliates recommended it, so they can give the right affiliates the right commission.)

There are affiliate programs for almost any type of product you can think of. Clothing, makeup, home goods, holiday gifts, travel booking websites, craft items, etc. No matter what your blog is about, there are affiliate programs for you to join. Some of the world’s largest retailers (like Amazon) have affiliate programs.

Click here to download my FREE list of 250+ affiliate programs for bloggers!

With most affiliate programs, you will earn a commission every time you make a sale through your affiliate link (pay per sale.) However, there are two other types of affiliate programs that you might encounter: pay per lead and pay-per-click.

• Pay per lead means that you will earn a commission if someone simply signs up for a free trial, creates a free account, and so on.
• Pay-per-click means that you earn money every time someone clicks your link. An example of a pay per click program is the affiliate network ShopStyle.
• When someone makes a qualifying action after clicking on your link (either by making a purchase, signing up with their email address, or just clicking in the case of pay per click) this is known as a conversion.

In this guide, I will mainly be talking about pay per sale affiliate programs because they are the most common and the most profitable way you can earn money from affiliate marketing as a blogger.

What is an Affiliate Cookie?

An affiliate cookie is the information that gets transferred when someone clicks your affiliate link.

If the customer purchases the product, the information transferred is your unique ID which ensures you get the commission for that purchase.

There is a set duration for the affiliate cookie, meaning after a certain amount of hours, days or weeks, the cookie will no longer be valid. The cookie duration is completely dependent on each program and product, make sure you find out what it is when you sign up.

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS FOR BEGINNERS TO AFFILIATE MARKETING.

1 : Identify a product

The first step is to identify a product in your niche that you love and think your readers would love too. 

It’s really important that you only promote products that you genuinely love, and think would benefit your readers… and preferably products you use yourself.

If you start promoting products just because the commission is good, you will lose credibility with your audience, and they won’t trust your recommendations in the future**

Pick the RIGHT products

Your online success depends on the products you choose to promote.

Picking the right affiliate products to promote is the key to generating more affiliate commissions no matter what industry you are in.

So if you’re just getting started with affiliate-based marketing, how are you going to find the best products that are suitable for your target audience?

Here are some powerful ways to choose great products to promote as an affiliate marketer.

Create a list of products to promote

Create a spreadsheet and make a list of all of your competitors’ websites. The higher the number of sites the better it is for you to find great products to promote. Make sure your competitors’ list is at least 20 to 30 sites.

Once you’re done with it, start finding all the affiliate products your competitors promote on their sites. Yes, just do it.

Then, make a list of all the potential products that you think are suitable for your target audience. 

Brainstorm all the products that you’re already using to run your blog (hosting, email marketing software, domain registrar, and so on), then find out ways to promote those products to your target audience.

You can also use marketing platforms for finding a ton of products to promote on your affiliate-based website. Here are a few of them where you can sign up for free.

• Commission Junction
• ClickBank
• Amazon Associates
• eBay etc

That being said, here are a few tips for finding the best products for affiliate promotion.

The first thing you need to remember for successful affiliate product selection is NOT to pick too many products at once. 

It’s better to choose 2 to 3 products when you’re just starting so you can get a better idea about what they are all about including their pros and cons so you can promote them more effectively to your blog audience.

Before you pick a product to promote, make sure to start using it so you’ll get a sight of their features and benefits. This is especially true when it comes to promoting internet marketing products.

Consider high-priced products. The more we get into marketing, the more we’re realising the importance of promoting high-priced products.

 Not only do they give you a huge commission per sale but most of the high-priced products usually offer top-notch features so they can be sold out in almost any industry.

2: Find the affiliate scheme

Next, you need to find out who sells that product and whether they have an affiliate scheme. Depending on the product, you may want to look at the manufacturer of the product and/or the retailer.

One great place to look is Amazon. There are many, many products that you can buy through Amazon and Amazon has its affiliate scheme. You can find more details of Amazon’s affiliate scheme here.

3: Apply to the affiliate scheme

Once you have found the relevant affiliate scheme, you need to apply. Sometimes you will automatically be approved, other times you will need to wait for approval. Sometimes there are very strict criteria, other times there are no criteria at all!

Once approved you will be given your special affiliate link. You will only make money if someone clicks on that special link and then goes on to buy the product.

4: Insert your affiliate link into existing blog posts

While I don’t recommend this as THE BEST way to make money from affiliate links, it’s worth taking care of the low-hanging fruit first! You have, most likely, already written blog posts which mention the product you are now an affiliate for. 

Go back into those posts and turn every mention of the product into a link – taking care to use your special affiliate link.

It’s also worth taking a look at your top 20 blog posts and seeing if a mention of the affiliate product can be added. If so, mention the product and link to it, using your affiliate link. (Only do this if it makes sense!)

5: Do keyword research to find keywords BUYERS are searching for

A much better way of making money from affiliate links is to write blog posts that target keywords the ideal buyer for your affiliate product is typing into Google.

Imagine someone who is the perfect customer for your affiliate product… what words might they be typing into Google?

If you are a bit stuck, use Google to help you. Start typing in the queries that you can think of first and Google will show other related questions in the ‘People also ask’ section.

Now use my keyword calculator spreadsheet to help you determine which of these keywords have high search volumes / low competition (In other words, the search terms you are most likely to rank for / will send the most traffic to your website.)

6: Write blog posts which ‘sell’ your affiliate link

The next step is to write those blog posts… and write them in such a way that they ‘sell’ your affiliate product. Now, I don’t mean a ‘hard sell’… that rarely works. Instead, what I mean is a ‘subtle sell’. 

Write a genuinely helpful post that solves the reader’s problem… and which leads naturally to a place where the logical next step is to buy the product. Typically, a ‘soft sell’ like this is much more effective than a ‘hard sell’, which tends to be off-putting.

7: Promote your affiliate posts

The final step is to promote your affiliate post everywhere: on social media, on Pinterest, to your email subscribers… and anywhere else you can think of!

8: Rinse and repeat!

Don’t just stop at one affiliate product and one blog post! To maximize your affiliate commission, you need to sign up for several affiliate schemes and write several blog posts for each affiliate product.

The more affiliate products you recommend, and the more affiliate blog posts you write, the more commission you will earn!

Keeping it legal

Before you get started, there’s one more thing you need to take care of and that’s making sure you are following the various regulations around affiliate links.

Most countries require you to properly disclose your affiliate links (so your readers know you more you get a commission for recommending a certain product).

Typically, this needs to be above or alongside your first affiliate link. You need to make it clear that your blog post contains affiliate links and that you may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

You should also include a disclosure page on your website that explains in more detail about how your blog earns money from affiliate links.

Although not a legal requirement, you should also make sure you set your affiliate links to ‘nofollow’ – this tells Google, and other search engines, to disregard your link for ranking purposes. This is because Google doesn’t want people to buy or sell links.

If your link is an affiliate link, there is the possibility that you will get paid a commission as a result of linking to that product, and therefore your link must be ‘nofollow’

And finally, always take the time to read the terms and conditions of any new affiliate scheme you join. You may find that they have extra rules which you need to comply with.

How To Keep Track Of Your Affiliate Links

If you take affiliate marketing seriously, you will most likely end up an affiliate for many different products through many different affiliate schemes.

If you are not organized, this can quickly get messy! I highly recommend you create a simple spreadsheet to keep track… or better still add an ‘affiliate schemes’ tab to your content calendar.

When you join a new affiliate scheme, make a note of the name of the scheme, the link to the main affiliate portal (where you can see your stats / generate new links, etc.), and your main affiliate link.

By being organized and keeping track like this you will save yourself a lot of time and make more money! (So many times bloggers miss out on revenue because they plan to put the affiliate link in later when they’ve found the relevant link… and later never happens!)

Note: When sharing affiliate links on your blog, social media, and email list, you must always disclose that you are using an affiliate link. You can read more about the FTC’s rules for disclosure here.

How to use affiliate links in blog posts

Using affiliate links in your blog posts is one of the best ways to get started with affiliate marketing. It’s also passive income because once you write the blog post, you have the potential to earn from affiliate links in the post for years.

These are my top tips for writing blog posts that make conversions:

Install the Pretty Links Plug-in

The first thing you need to do before you start writing blog posts that contain affiliate links is to install the free Pretty Links plug-in if you have a WordPress blog.

Pretty Links creates a shorter, custom link for all of your affiliate links and allows you to easily insert them into your blog posts. 

It also tracks how many clicks you get to each link, which helps see how well your links convert.

This will save you a ton of time and hassle when inserting affiliate links into your posts. Also, if any of your affiliate links ever change, you will only have to update the link in Pretty Links once and it will update all of the links on your blog.

Use a Grabby Headline

I hate to use the term “clickbait” but that’s what you should be going for with the title of your affiliate blog posts. 

You want to use an attention-grabbing headline that makes your reader think, oh, I’ve got to click that post!

Of course, when they do click on your post, you need to make sure you are delivering the promised value of your attention-grabbing title.

Write a “How-to” or Tutorial Post

Some of my highest-converting affiliate posts are in the style of a how-to guide.

Example: In my post How to Start a Profitable Blog, I include an affiliate link for Bluehost, my web hosting provider. When someone starts a blog after clicking my link, I earn a commission from Bluehost (at no extra cost to them.)

People searching for how-to guides and tutorials want to learn how to do something, and they are usually ready to act. My post helps people learn how to start a blog and gives them actionable steps to achieve it.

Write a Review Post

Review posts also do very well because people searching for them are typically already interested in buying a product or service and are just one step away from actually making the purchase.

You can write a review post about almost anything: books, beauty products, hotels, online courses, subscription boxes, etc.

If you write a review post for a product, give an honest review. Don’t just go on and on about how wonderful the product is, but explain why you liked it, how it helped you, who it’s good for, and if there’s anything you disliked.

People are more likely to trust you if you’re honest and real instead of sounding like a walking advertisement for the product!

Write a Round-Up Post

Round-up posts of affiliate products are a great way to provide value to your readers while promoting your affiliate links.

For example, if you are a beauty blogger, you could do a round-up of the best skincare products of the year. Or if you are a travel blogger, you could write a holiday gift guide for travelers. In both scenarios, you can include your affiliate links for all the products on your list and make sales that way.

Explain the Benefits

When writing any type of blog post, you must explain exactly HOW the affiliate product you’re promoting will help your reader.

For example, if you are writing about an amazing shampoo that you use, don’t just say “I love this shampoo!”

You would want to say something like “I love this shampoo because within a week of using it, I noticed that my dry, damaged hair became healthier and shinier.”

This clearly shows the benefit of the product and is more convincing as to why the reader might want to purchase this product too.

Share Your Personal Experience

Hopefully, as an affiliate, you are promoting a product or service that you have used. (I highly recommend that you do!)

Make sure to share your personal experience with the product! Your initial expectations, how they were met, your results with the product, etc.

Do you usually read a few reviews before you buy a product online? Most people do, because they want to assure themselves that other people have had a good experience with the product.

Sharing your own experience with the product you’re promoting is a good way to build trust and increase conversions.

Show Proof

Some people are a really hard sell. Just explaining the benefits of a product or sharing your experience with it is not going to be enough to convince them to click on your affiliate link.

It never hurts to include proof of your results in your blog post. Doing this can help convince a reader who is on the fence to make a purchase!

For example, going with my shampoo example from above, maybe you could include a before and after shot of your hair when using the shampoo.

Don’t Be Too Salesy

When writing posts with affiliate links, make sure you don’t come off as too pushy. Pushy statements like “BUY NOW!!!!” and “You NEED this product!!!” aren’t going to come off too well with your readers.

Instead, focus on writing as if you are speaking to a friend. It builds trust with your readers and helps you establish a connection. It’s much better to build a community with your readers rather than constantly just pushing products.

Include a Call-to-Action

This is a key element that many people forget in their affiliate blog posts.

A call-to-action is exactly what it sounds like.

You are inviting your reader to take the next step – purchasing the product. The best place to include it is at the end of the blog post.

Let’s say you are promoting a book about organization and decluttering in a blog post. A good call to action would be: “If you’re ready to take control of your home and declutter your life now, grab your copy of this book today!”

Offer an Incentive

A great way to increase conversions is by offering a freebie to anyone who purchases through your affiliate link. (Check the terms and conditions of your affiliate program first, because some programs may not allow this.)

The freebie should be small and relevant to the product you’re promoting. You can include your incentive at the end of the post with your call to action.

Don’t Go Overboard on the Links

Try not to put too many affiliate links in your post or it can get crowded and distracting. It’s best to include no more than one paragraph.

Make sure that you include your link when you are describing the benefits of the product/sharing proof and again with your call-to-action.

Other ways to make money with affiliate marketing

You can make money in other ways than just using them in blog posts, as I touched on earlier. There are many ways!

Some of the most profitable ways I earn money from affiliate links are by promoting them on Pinterest and sharing relevant offers with my email list.

You can get creative and test out different methods of promoting affiliate links! For example, if you have a strong following on a particular social media platform, you can share affiliate links with your audience there.

Do I need a lot of traffic or followers?

I have found that you do not need a ton of traffic or followers to start making money with affiliate marketing.

I made my first affiliate sale on my blog with less than 1,000 page views. I made my first affiliate sale on Pinterest with around 300 followers. And I made my first affiliate sale to my email list with less than 200 subscribers.

While you do not need to be getting 100,000 monthly pageviews on your blog, or have 10,000 social media followers, there are a few things you do need to do:

• Only promote products you truly use and love and are proud to stand behind. People can tell if you are being fake and trying to make a quick buck.
• When writing blog posts that contain affiliate links, you should always be providing value to your reader. Explain how and why the product is helpful, and show examples from how you have personally used the product.
• Follow the 80/20 rule: Spend 20% of your time creating content, and 80% of your time promoting it. No one will click your affiliate links if you aren’t getting your blog posts out there and getting traffic!

What Is The Goal With Affiliate Marketing?

The affiliate marketer’s main goal is to earn affiliate commissions by promoting affiliate products. Of course, it also helps to build traffic and gain followers, but the primary focus should be on building your affiliate income.

Affiliate marketing is a mutually beneficial partnership between affiliate marketers and affiliate merchants.

The goal of your blog is to help people – so it’s important not to promote affiliate products just because they offer high affiliate commissions. 

Of course, affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money – but your focus should always be on helping people first and foremost! 

Building relationships with your readers and gaining their trust by sharing affiliate products that are genuinely helpful to your audience will help you earn more affiliate sales. No one wants to purchase from someone who is just trying to make a quick buck.

How To Drive Traffic To Affiliate Links

The most effective way to increase your affiliate sales is to drive more traffic to your content and your affiliate links.

SEO

Focusing on SEO is still the most effective affiliate marketing strategy because it helps you increase your organic traffic and get more conversions with affiliate links.

High quality content

Besides SEO strategies like optimising titles & meta descriptions, writing great content that people will want to read is vital for success.

Give away a downloadable step-by-step guide for free or a training around how to use the affiliate product. Then when they upgrade to a paid plan you’ll earn a commission for the referral.

By delivering valuable content and giving it away for free, you will be able to help more people, while earning more commissions yourself.

Promote relevant products

Focus on affiliate products that are relevant to your target audience and will help them achieve their goals, so they can become loyal readers who buy affiliate products you recommend.

Crate in-depth reviews explaining why you like a product, exactly what it does and how it has helped you.

Social media

Use social media channels like Pinterest and Instagram to promote affiliate products related to topics you are covering in your blog posts – and drive more affiliate traffic to your blog.

Related: Pinterest Strategy for Bloggers – How to Drive Traffic from Pinterest

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is one of the BEST places you can promote your affiliate links.

Why? Because there are a shit ton of people using these platforms and you get way more exposure to those people than through your blog – especially if you’re starting.

Not everyone is going to find your blog immediately, but social media is where a much bigger chunk of potential customers hang out.

And once you figure out where your customers are you can make really good money from social media alone. just like me!

I make a really decent amount of affiliate income from Pinterest (I show you how to do the same in my e-book How to Make Your First Affiliate Sale in 24 Hours) and the best part is that this strategy is automated. This means that now that I’ve set it up, I don’t have to put in much effort to maintain the affiliate sales.

There will be some platforms that limit you from full automation like Facebook and Instagram, but the ones that you can fully automate will more than make up for the effort required for the others.

I recommend trying different things out on social media. Share in Facebook groups, try them on Twitter, use Pinterest and get pinning, give Instagram a go and any other platform you use for your business.

Just make sure you’re adhering to the rules for each platform or group and not coming off as spammy.

Build an email list

Building an email list is another great way to drive traffic to your affiliate links, because people who subscribe to your list are more likely to buy affiliate products you promote.

Offer a bonus

Offer your readers a bonus if they purchase an affiliate product through your link. Just ask your reader to send you an email with their receipt.

Affiliate banners on older blog posts

If you have any older blog posts where affiliate banners can be relevant, add them there as well. In this way, it will help drive traffic back to those old articles and increase conversions with affiliate links.

Cloaking your links

Link cloaking is the process of shortening and hiding the affiliate link URL provided by an affiliate program. Link cloaking protects your affiliate commissions by making your affiliate ID less visible. Also, it makes your affiliate links more visually appealing to your readers.

Take an affiliate marketing course

To become successful in affiliate marketing I highly recommend you to take an affiliate marketing course like The Affiliate Marketing Training Bundle.

Best Content For Affiliate Marketing

Here are some tips on what content to create to drive traffic to your affiliate links:

Product reviews

Product reviews are great affiliate marketing tools because people trust recommendations from other customers.

If you have affiliate products in your niche, include affiliate links when you write product reviews on specific items/brands, etc., so potential buyers can find the information they need to choose a reliable affiliate product that will be helpful for them.

Including affiliate links in your product reviews makes sense from both the reader’s and vendor’s perspective – as they will receive a commission if someone buys an affiliate program after clicking through your link

Tutorials, how-to’s and DIY projects

Tutorials also provide affiliate marketing opportunities because they are helpful for people to solve problems or accomplish their goals.

If you have affiliate products in your niche, mention them when writing tutorials on how-to’s and DIY projects – so potential buyers can find the information they need to choose a reliable affiliate product that will be helpful for them.

Email newsletters

Use affiliate links in your email newsletters as well as your blog posts, so the affiliate links you share will be seen by more people – and can lead to increased affiliate sales.

Email marketing is a great way to generate some extra income from home on autopilot – as long as you focus on bringing valuable content to readers first and then promote affiliate products that they might be interested in.

Affiliate marketing and email newsletters go hand-in-hand, as affiliate links can be included anywhere within your newsletter content to make it easy for readers to find affiliate products that they might like – instead of making them search for those affiliate offers on their own.

Resource page

Create a resource page or favourite product page on your website with affiliate links to your favourite products in each category that fits into your niche.

This is a great way for webmasters and bloggers to share affiliate programs they are promoting with their visitors, so you can increase chances of earning affiliate commissions by letting people know about affiliate offers/products related to topics you blog on.

CREATE A RESOURCES PAGE

A resources page or tools post is a great way to share with your audience what you’re currently using for your business and projects. You can do them a few ways, either as a page or a post. You can create a page on the tools you’re currently using, a list of tools on a particular subject or an all-around guide.

Here are some examples:

Mom Blogger – favorite kid-safe products, toys, cleaning products etc..

Fashion Blogger – favourite online stores, discount hacks & rewards programs etc..

Business Blogger – favorite courses, software & hardware products, books etc..

Food Blogger – favorite kitchen tools, recipe books, photography class etc..

Implementing an Affiliate Disclosure

When you are creating affiliate content you want to make sure to disclose affiliate links.

You need to disclose your affiliate relationship with brands in accordance with FTC rules and guidelines – so potential buyers know they are clicking on an affiliate link that will give you a commission if they buy your recommended products/services after clicking through.

Disclosing your affiliate relationship doesn’t have to be that tricky. 

I highly recommend getting the Legal Bundle which includes templates for all of the required legal pages.

CREATE A TUTORIAL, LIST OR ROUND-UP POST

These types of posts can be very valuable resources for your audience. Make sure they’re giving away a lot of helpful information, otherwise, it’s just going to look like you’re link-dropping without giving anything of substance first.

Tutorial posts are one of the best types of affiliate marketing posts because they show your reader exactly how to do something step-by-step.

What have you learned that you can lay out step-by-step for your audience? Is it a tech hack? A simple and delicious recipe? A decor item that can be DYed? Maybe a system you follow in your business? Whatever it is, outline it and get to work!

Melyssa Griffin does this so well with her post on how to create your own resource library and she now makes thousands from that single post. My post How to Start A Profitable WordPress Blog also makes a good amount of income too.

When it comes to your lists and round-ups, make sure they’re relevant and unique. They are the most common type of post but they can be really useful if you spend some time on them.

Related Post: 50 Ways to Grow Your Business

WRITE A REVIEW ON THE PRODUCT

Writing a review about the product, service, or software you’re using is an awesome way for your audience to learn about the things that are helping you in your business or projects.

The key to writing a good review is full-blown honesty. That means not holding back on the things that annoy you about the product and expressing the things you love about it. A review is your opinion, and people want to hear unbiased opinions about products or services they could be interested in purchasing.

Best Affiliate Marketing Platforms For Beginners

So now that you know the general basics of affiliate marketing for bloggers, let’s get into the details.

However, the first question to ask is what kinds of products and services can you sign up for?

any types of products and services have affiliate programs.

Depending on your blog niche and audience needs and interests, you can choose from:

• Digital products (e-books, courses, templates)
• Physical products
• Services
• Bundled packages (e.g. Ultimate Bundles)
• Online software (SaaS products such as Podia, Reword, etc.)

Focus On Products and Services You Love

When choosing products and services for affiliate marketing, always start with those that you know, have used and love.

Why is this so important?

When it comes to affiliate marketing for bloggers, the best way to convert a casual reader into a customer is through content that sells them on a transformation.

You want them to click the link and purchase it – that’s your goal!

To do so, the best way to inspire and persuade them is to speak about the product or service from experience. In other words, show them the proof.

Here’s what you’ve got to do next:

• Write down all of the products and services that fall under your blog niche that you’ve used in the last few months.
• Look at your blog content. What are potential products and services that you can add as an affiliate link to each post?

Write them all down! This will be the start of your ongoing affiliate marketing initiatives.

Best Affiliate Marketing Platforms For Beginners

Many brands choose to host their affiliate programs through an affiliate network. Knowing about the best affiliate marketing platforms for beginner bloggers is super helpful.

Choosing affiliate products for a new blog can be overwhelming at first, but it gets easier over time as you learn about the industry and find out what works best for your niche market.

First things first – choose affiliate products that are relevant to your niche market. I always recommend starting with a product that you already are using and loving.

You must choose relevant affiliate products because it will help build trust with readers and increase conversions (sales).

Go to the website of the company you want to promote and look in their footer for their affiliate program is a great way to find affiliate programs to join.

When you click on the link, it will redirect you to a page that gives you more information about the affiliate program. Make sure you read the affiliate program terms before joining them.

Some affiliate programs will instantly accept you as an affiliate partner as soon as you’ve completed the application process.

Others have a slower approval process than others.This approval process could consist of looking at your website, checking the level of traffic that your website has, checking your social media following and engagement rate, etc.

Unless the company specifically demands specific criterias that must be met before applying to their affiliate program, don’t let the fear stop you from applying.

The worst that can happen is that you get a rejection. Then you can just try to apply to the program again at a later time.

As a new blogger, you need to know what to look for before applying to an affiliate program.

As mentioned above you need to choose products relevant to your niche.

Also, I love to use affiliate programs that have a recurring commission. This means that when someone subscribes to the affiliate product, you get paid on that subscription for as long as it lasts.

A few of the most popular affiliate marketing networks for new bloggers include:

Awin

Awin is an affiliate marketing network that offers affiliate programs for a range of brands and businesses.

Commission: Varies depending on the product and affiliate manager.

Clickbank

Clickbank is an affiliate network that hosts affiliate programs for all kinds of products.

Commission: 50%+ commission rate on the majority of offers available in their marketplace.

ShareASale

ShareASale is an affiliate marketing network that offers affiliate programs for all kinds of brands.

Commission: Varies depending on the product and affiliate manager.

Peerfly

An affiliate marketing platform where you can promote thousands of different affiliate offers to your audience and earn up to $500 per sale or more!

MaxBounty

A leading affiliate network that offers affiliate programs in multiple niches for all kinds of brands and products.

Commission: up to $500+ per sale depending on the product you are promoting.

Amazon Associates Program

If your blog is about reviewing products, then you can join the affiliate program for Amazon.

Commission: up to 15% of every sale you generate on your website, plus many other perks.

Flex Offers

FlexOffers affiliate network is a popular affiliate marketing platform that hosts affiliate programs for thousands of different brands and products.

Commission: Varies depending on the product and affiliate manager.

CJ Affiliate

CJAffiliate offers the largest selection of affiliate networks online, with over 400 supported across affiliate marketing, display advertising, paid search, and affiliate management.

Commission: Varies depending on the product and affiliate manager.

VigLink

A platform where you can find affiliate offers in any niche of your choice!

Commission: Varies depending on the affiliate manager and the product you are promoting.

Clickbooth

A popular affiliate network that hosts affiliate programs for a wide range of products in multiple different niches, including SEO tools & services, dating sites, and more.

Commission: 15%+

Most affiliate networks want to know how and where you plan to promote their products. So, just write down a few affiliate marketing ideas at the beginning of your application.

Each program has its own guidelines so make sure you read through the information so you don’t break any rules.

After being accepted as an affiliate partner, you’ll have access to the affiliate dashboard to find the affiliate links and banner images offered by the affiliate manager.

Jasper is your AI writing assistant trained to generate original, creative content.

Commission: 30% monthly recurring for as long as the customer stays subscribed (No limit).

If possible, look at the commission percentage an affiliate program offers. The higher this is, the more you can earn affiliate money.

The amount of information and training an affiliate program offers is also very important! I love affiliate programs that give me a lot of support if I have any questions about how it works etc. – this makes life easier for us bloggers  

A few affiliate products I promote with recurring commissions include:

Canva Pro

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows you to easily create invitations, business cards, graphics, and more using professionally designed templates. You can also upload your photos and add them to Canvas templates using a drag-and-drop interface.

Commission: 25% of a full year’s subscription.

ConvertKit is an email software that allows you to promote your latest project and collect subscribers with beautiful landing pages, sign-up forms, and link pages that make your work stand out.

Commission: 30% monthly recurring

Tailwind is a social media scheduler that allows you to schedule Pinterest pins and Instagram posts with just a few clicks.

Commission: 15% per month recurring until canceled at any time.

Create Content For Your Affiliate Links

Creating high-quality content where you can include your affiliate links is one of the most important steps in becoming a successful affiliate marketer as a new blogger. The key is to deliver useful content to your readers, and then promote affiliate products that will be of benefit to them.

For example mention affiliate products in a post about how-to’s or DIY projects; include affiliate links when you write product reviews on specific items/brands etc.; add affiliate banners into older blog posts where they complement the topic you are writing about.

Since affiliate marketing is all about trust, it’s really important to make sure you provide valuable content for your readers and not just a sales pitch.

Once you have built a relationship with them by providing value in the form of helpful advice or information – they will be more likely to check out affiliate products that can help them solve a problem or achieve their goals.

If you can include affiliate links in your articles, images, and videos without looking spammy – then affiliate marketing will be very profitable for you!

affiliate marketing for bloggers

AFFILIATE NETWORKS

Affiliate networks are the middlemen between the companies and the affiliates. They host a collection of programs under their umbrella rather than just a single program. Each program’s commission rates differ depending on the advertiser. i.e ASOS offers 8% while Boohoo offers 15%.

These are the affiliate networks I’m currently using below:

Skimlinks – easiest program to start with, user-friendly website, pays out via PayPal with a $10 threshold (WOOP!!!)

Shareasale – lots of awesome programs, site is a bit difficult to navigate, pays out via check or bank deposit with a $75 minimum threshold.

CJ by Conversant – lots of crap to wade through but has some great programs, pay out via check & bank deposit with a $100 minimum threshold.

Note: Don’t be afraid to shop around to find the best rates. Some companies host their affiliate programs from their website as well as using bigger networks, but they can offer a higher percentage on their programs.

AMAZON ASSOCIATES

Amazon Associates is the easiest program to get into that houses pretty much every product ever in one place. Everyone starts on a 4% commission rate until they sell 7 or more items and your commission rate goes up to 6% and so on until you hit the highest tier of 10%.

Amazon Associates is a great place to start because it’s a worldwide trusted company. People know it and use it.

The only downside is that you can only make a commission on the products you sell to people who purchase in your country.

Meaning if you live in the US and Sarah from the UK clicks your link and purchases the product you recommend, you don’t receive a commission for that purchase. For someone like me living in New Zealand this is a royal pain in the ass!

However, there is a way around it! If you use GeniusLink, it overrides the country restrictions and allows you to earn commission through Associates on purchases made all over the world. But with all the awesome shortcuts, it does cost $9 a month to use on the lowest tier.

To be honest, it’s only a worthy expense if you’re making a lot of sales through Amazon. If you’re not, I wouldn’t bother. In my eyes it’s way too much effort for minimal results. Use the free 14-day trial to see how you do.

CREATIVE MARKET

Creative Market has an awesome little affiliate program offering a 10% commission on every purchase a new member makes for an entire year.

That means if a customer clicks your link and buys a graphics pack for $40 in Jan, then buys 20 stock photos for $7 each in June, a font pack for $30 in July, and then a WordPress theme for $85 in September, you get 10% on each of those sales. It’s a pretty unique incentive.

Another thing I thought was cool is that you can use your earnings as credits to spend on Creative Market. It’s a great way to cut down or eliminate your business costs.

INDEPENDENT AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Bloggers and entrepreneurs like ourselves host affiliate programs for their products. 

Whether that’s digital products, services, memberships, software, or physical goods, these programs tend to have higher commission rates solely because there’s no middleman between the seller and you.

This is how I run my affiliate program and it’s honestly my favorite way to make money and pay others for their hard-earned efforts. 

I don’t have to worry about paying for a network which keeps my costs low and allows me to give a higher percentage of commission to my affiliates.

The easiest way to join independent affiliate programs is to check the website you purchased a product from. Do they have an affiliate program for that product? If so, go on and join up!

How Do You Apply for Affiliate Programs?

Next on my list of affiliate marketing tips for bloggers is how to apply to programs, easily and quickly.

Applying to and joining affiliate programs can be tedious. With my productivity hack, I’ll help you speed it up.

First, we’ll get you set to apply for affiliate programs with these steps:

• Copy the first paragraph of your About Me page to your clipboard. It should be about what your site is about and who it serves. If you don’t have this, you’ll need to fix your About Me page – do that with the help of this workbook:
• Open up a fresh page in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, and copy your brief About Me intro.
• Write all the ways you can promote affiliate content: for example, added to relevant blog posts, a favorite tools/products page, your social media, a newsletter, etc.
• Include information about your audience reach: how many followers you have with your social media accounts and your monthly pageviews.
• Save this content as you’ll be using it as a reference for applications for affiliate programs.

I’m just trying to save you some time in typing everything out! It’s easier to copy and paste when you have to fill out the questions when you’re applying to affiliate programs.

This is what an application for a brand program looks like. Note the section at the bottom asking for brief info as to how you’ll promote the affiliate links.

Once you’ve applied, that’s all you need to do!

The brand will look at your site, and see if it’s a good fit and if it has the required legal pages.

The Disclaimer is very important as it covers your affiliate disclosure. You’ll need this to prevent any fines from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

This is why I strongly recommend you purchase this legal template bundle – it’s a worthwhile investment for your peace of mind.

Now you wait. You’ll either get accepted or rejected. Don’t feel bad if you get a rejection. In the beginning, I had many.

Sometimes the brand doesn’t see your site as a good fit for their objectives. That’s fine. Move on! There are other brands that will happily work with you.

Now, where do you sign up for these affiliate programs?

Finding Affiliate Programs on Brand Sites

What you need to know next about affiliate marketing for bloggers is how to find the best programs to join.

Here’s how to find affiliate programs when visiting the brand’s website:

• Check on the brand’s page – or Google the brand and “affiliate program”, Usually the brand will have something about affiliates at the bottom footer with other key page links. It may
• Some brands may have an affiliate program that they manage. This is the case with bloggers who are using platforms such as SendOwl, Podia, or Thrivecart
• If a brand is using an affiliate marketing network platform, you’ll be directed to it. You’ll either sign up to the platform or log in if you already have an account.

How To Join Affiliate Programs

What products and services can you become an affiliate for?

There are so many affiliate programs out there! Fashion, beauty, travel, home goods, crafts, business, blogging, and personal finance are just some of the niches you can find affiliate programs for.

One way to find out if a company has an affiliate program or not is simply by Googling “(Company) Affiliate Program” and see what comes up.

Some companies have affiliate programs that are part of affiliate networks, which I talked about a little earlier. My favorite affiliate network that I have used personally is Skimlinks but there are others out there.

What To Do After You’ve Joined? 

Essential Steps To Take To Keep Organized.Next Steps After You’re Accepted For An Affiliate Program

Sometimes advertisers may decline your application.

However, if your site is a good fit niche-wise, looks professional and it has the necessary legal pages, you should be approved without issues.

So, what do you do next?

Here’s what I do:

• I log in to the program, or affiliate network, and grab my affiliate link – this is usually a general text link.
• In WordPress, I open up PrettyLinks and create a new masked link. This helps me keep my links organized as well.
• If there are visual assets, such as a logo, I download them from the affiliate platform. I then add the logo and my masked affiliate link to my blog tools & resources page.
• I do a search through my blog posts to see if I have mentioned the product in the past. I add the affiliate link to these mentions. I also give some context and reasons why it’s so great.
• Next, I take relevant existing blog posts that are a good fit for the affiliate link and add the link to them. If it makes sense, and I have access to ads from the advertiser, I’ll add them sparingly to these posts.
• Finally, I write product reviews for the affiliate links.

How To Add Affiliate Links

Making affiliate marketing part of your blog is easy. These are a few easy ways you’ll add links:

• To new or existing blog posts on relevant subjects: affiliate products/services are mentioned as a useful tool or resource that solves the problem
• Product or service review posts that are only about it
• Tools & Resources pages
• Once you have it published, it’s there for people to click the affiliate link and potentially purchase it.

Disguise Your Affiliate Links

This is a really important part of affiliate marketing for bloggers that is often overlooked at the beginning.

Most of your affiliate links will be pretty ugly. The URL itself will be an ugly jumble of random characters.

When someone clicks on your link and is directed to a page with an ‘ugly’ URL like that, they may be a little turned off. OR when you post a visible link like that on social media (like FB), it just doesn’t look as professional.

PrettyLinks is a free plugin that allows you to disguise your links and literally make them look ‘prettier.’

Not only do your affiliate links look a lot better and more professional, but they are also a lot easier to remember. You can easily include your links on your site or on social media without having to go look them up.

Also, if your affiliate link ever changes, you only have to update the link once in this plugin as opposed to having to update every instance of that link across your entire website, courses, emails, etc.

Before we started using this plugin, I used to store all of my affiliate links in a spreadsheet. I would have to look them up every time I mentioned one in an article or in my Facebook groups.

This was a major time sink. PrettyLinks is free and a great solution to use before you start putting random links all over your website.

Adding Affiliate Links to Your Blog Content

One of the most important things to know about affiliate marketing for bloggers is how to properly add links.

There’s a good way and a bad way. I’ll show you the good way so that you don’t get penalized by Google.

Always use “nofollow” with affiliate links.

This tells search engine bots to ignore the link when your site is crawled and to not pass on any good “link juice” to the other page. It also keeps Google from viewing you as spammy.

How do you add affiliate links to your blog content?

Without Using Pretty Links

This requires keeping a Google Sheets list of all your affiliate links for reference.

• Add your affiliate link to the product name (best to use the name as anchor text).
• Click so that your link is “Open in new tab” and “Set to nofollow”.

Using Pretty Links – A Productivity Hack

• Highlight the anchor text and click the little down arrow on the blocks bar.
• Click Pretty Link
• Write the name of the brand or affiliate link name you used to create the Pretty Link
• Click so that it’s “Open in new table” and “Set to nofollow’

What about “Sponsored”? You can add this if you’re collaborating with a brand, where they are paying you to add a link or you’re reviewing their product that they have provided you. 

Anytime there’s an exchange of money from a brand to you, to add a link (no follow included), you should note it as “sponsored”.

Adding Ad Banners & Affiliate Links to Images

When it comes to ads, use WordPress’ Custom HTML block and add the HTML code here. Make sure to add “rel=nofollow” to your affiliate link.

Add Your Affiliate Link Disclosure

There’s one more important step when adding affiliate links.

You need to disclose that you have affiliate links in your blog content.

This is required, as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that anybody who purchases from the site knows that you have the potential to receive a commission from your links.

To do this properly you first need the proper legal pages for your site. In this case, the Disclaimer.

Get a customizable Disclaimer template in the legal bundle (best deal) and set it up on your site.

Where you add the Disclosure is important. You need to add the brief disclosure paragraph BEFORE the first affiliate link appears in your blog content.

PRO TIP: Sometimes, if you’re doing a sponsored post with affiliate links, you’ll want to note that you are being paid to do the review. Make sure you make your post not only “nofollow” but also “Set to sponsored”.

1. Easiest Way to Add Your Disclosure – WordPress Blocks

This is a productivity hack – one of my best tips when it comes to affiliate marketing for bloggers.

Use WordPress blocks’ feature where you can save your own customized block (as a pattern).

I crafted my Disclosure (the one you see near the top of this post), and I saved it. All I have to do is type in the name I gave that block, and it appears automatically.

The only downside is that if you change it later, it will save as the changed version – and change over every other instance of that saved block on your site. So, write a standard Disclosure and leave it as is.

Alternative Customizable Method

Keep your saved disclosure statement handy.

If you need to edit it, copy and paste the text and use a regular paragraph block to recreate it. With this new block, you can now make changes to the copy.

2. Using A Disclosure Plugin

Some like to add their Disclosure just below the title of a blog post or a specific spot in their post. To do this, you need to use a plugin.

HOW TO CREATE AN AFFILIATE MARKETING WEBSITE

Do I Need A Blog For Affiliate Marketing?

While you don’t need a blog for affiliate marketing, it is by far one of the easiest and most profitable ways to make money from affiliate marketing.

Without a blog, you might have trouble getting approved for some affiliate programs and it can be harder to develop an audience and earn money from your affiliate links. So, in short, having a blog is highly recommended.

If you don’t already have your blog, make sure to check out my step-by-step guide to starting your blog in less than an hour. (You can also get web hosting for your blog for just $2.95 a month from Bluehost AND get your domain name for free when you sign up through savvy cents boss.

The first thing you need to learn about affiliate marketing for new bloggers is that you need a profitable affiliate marketing website. Your website will serve as a place where you will promote affiliate products.

Your website can be a blog, but it doesn’t have to be! A great way to start affiliate marketing is by simply sharing affiliate links on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.

You can hire a web designer to create affiliate marketing websites for you, but I suggest that you learn how to do it yourself! It’s not hard and will cost you less than $100 if you use Bluehost like me

Once you have set up your website it’s time to create automation sales funnels. You can do this by creating different opt-ins or freebies. 

Once the reader puts in their email address they’ll be funnelled to an upsell and subscribe to your email list where you can promote more of your affiliate offers.

4 Steps To Starting Your Affiliate Blog

Step 1: Choose Your Products

It’s critically important that you choose to represent products you can really get behind, and that are relevant to an industry you want to write about.

Your credibility is on the line and it’s important to always prioritise value for your readers if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer.

Revise Your Existing Content

If you’re already running a blog for your business, you probably already know these products intimately as they relate to your own industry.

For example, let’s say you run photography classes online. You’ve probably already written several blogs that include advice about physical products, lenses, tripods, and gimbals, etc.

You’ve probably also got plenty of opinions on the best editing software. These are all opportunities for affiliate marketing.

Think About Your Interests

If you’re starting a blog from scratch, the most important thing to consider is whether you can sustain your interest in that industry over time.

You’ll need to write in-depth about the products and the industry, and regularly update your blog. For your blog to go the distance and sustain its success, you need to write about something that genuinely interests you.

You also need to choose products you can happily promote to others. If you can write passionately and persuasively about a product, you’ll be more likely to drive sales for those products, and therefore get better commissions.

Research Affiliate Programs In Your Industry

Now you should have a list of products to research. Check to see if your preferred brands in that industry have affiliate marketing programs. Not all will, but you’ll find that it’s more common than you might think.

Brainstorm & Research Related Industries and Products

Hopefully, you have a healthy list of affiliate programs for products that directly relate to your industry.

But don’t stop there! Think about other products your audience will find useful.

Step 2: Set Up as an Affiliate

With your brands picked out, it’s time to set yourself up as an affiliate!

Some affiliate programs have an application approval process. In these instances, you may need to work on your blog and social media presence to meet their requirements. Other affiliate programs, however, let you start from scratch.

Take some time in this step to read through all the information provided by the affiliate program. You’ll want to pay attention to:

• Payment amounts
• Payment schedule
• Legal obligations
• Restrictions

Be sure to look at the information carefully and follow the steps needed to become an affiliate partner. This can be a lengthy process depending on who you’re doing business with.

As you know, affiliate programs want your help in selling their products. Even if it takes some time, they’ll make the setup process worth your while in the end.

The commission you earn per sale will depend on the program and the product. The more value the product has, the higher the commission is likely to be.

Don’t be surprised if their affiliate requirements and approval process look very different from your own.

Step 3: Promote The Products

With everything in place, it’s time to turn your blog into a cash machine.

If you use Easy Affiliate to run your own affiliate program, you’ll know that as an affiliate marketer, you are assigned a unique URL for linking to a brand or product.

Use these links effectively and ethically in your blog posts. You aim to use links strategically to maximize click-throughs while enhancing the experience for your readers.

Affiliate Link Use Best Practices

Optimise Placement

While it’s essential not to overload your content with links, strategic placement can increase click-through rates. Consider placing links at the beginning, middle, and end of your content.

Include a Call-To-Action (CTA)

Encouraging readers with a clear CTA boosts engagement and click-through rates, guiding them on the desired action to take with your affiliate link, whether it’s to “Learn More,” “Buy Now,” or “Check Out the Deal.”

Relevance is Key

Don’t shove your affiliate link just anywhere. Ensure that the products or services you’re promoting are relevant to the specific content of the post.

Things like product reviews allow you to go in-depth on a product, which provides plenty of opportunities to drop in your affiliate link.

Take some time to look through Google for investigational keywords. Words you’ll come across frequently include:

• Best
• Review
• Compare
• Alternative

These words help you to figure out the types of posts to create.

Avoid Overloading

Don’t saturate your content with affiliate links. It can make your content seem insincere and can be off-putting to readers.

Use Nofollow

If you repeatedly use the same link across your blog it may affect your SEO rating.

Adding the “nofollow” attribute to affiliate links signals to search engines that the link is commercial, not an organic endorsement, helping maintain your site’s SEO integrity.

Use a Link Cloaking Tool

There are two main reasons for using a link cloaking plugin:

1. Scammers use bots to look for affiliate links in blogs and then attempt to hijack them. Link cloakers hide these affiliate links from bots.
2. Affiliate links are long, awkward, unbranded and frankly, ugly. Link cloaking can improve the user experience by making them more appealing and shareable.

Some affiliate programs, like Amazon, don’t permit cloaking their affiliate links, so check your affiliate agreement before using a link cloaking tool. But overall, link cloaking is considered best practice amongst affiliate marketers.

Include an Affiliate Disclosure

Be transparent about the use of affiliate links in your blog. Include an affiliate disclosure explaining to your readers that your blogs contain affiliate links.

Choosing a Link Cloaking Tool

Link cloaking plugins include other features and benefits that can help you as an affiliate marketer.

Here are some advanced features from two of the most popular link cloaking tools: Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates.

Auto-Linking

Both these tools provide automatic keyword linking to convert specific keywords into affiliate links across your site. This is really useful if you already have a lot of blog content and want to save time manually placing links throughout your site.

Advanced Reporting

Both plugins also offer detailed affiliate marketing reports to monitor link performance so you can see what strategy works for you.

As you start to see results, take some time to see what brought people to you. You can use Google Analytics to see exactly what keywords people used to find your site.

Organise Links

Both tools enable you to sort affiliate links using categories. When you’re juggling multiple affiliate programs and many more unique URLs, this feature comes in super handy.

Group links by product, program, platform, campaign, or any other criteria that help keep everything organized and accessible.

Pretty Links has the added feature to sort links further by tags, adding another dimension to your link organization strategy.

Schedule Links

ThirstyAffiliates lets you schedule affiliate links in advance. This is particularly useful for time-sensitive promotions. Put a start and end date on your affiliate links

to ensure they’re only active during the promotion period. This way, you can plan your campaigns ahead of time and ensure that outdated promotions don’t confuse or mislead your readers.

Smart Uncloaking

ThirstyAffiliates offers a unique feature that automatically uncloaks specific links, which is essential for those who use Amazon affiliate links.

As we’ve already mentioned, Amazon’s terms and conditions prohibit link cloaking, so this feature ensures you remain compliant by revealing the original Amazon link when necessary.

Step 4: Get Paid – Repeat

The documents of the businessman’s work turned into money and flew out of the computer 

As you develop more posts on your website, the chances to make sales will increase.

As long as you’re following the legal obligations of the platform, you’ll enjoy regular payouts. Keep seeking new products you can promote to maintain a steady flow of income.

Also, make sure there’s a common thread running between the products you promote.

If you decide you’d like to branch out into new territory, your best bet is to start a new blog.

This will help to maintain your position as an authority in one subject and will prevent your blog from looking like an affiliate marketplace.

Affiliate Marketing Website

Your Blog Niche Matters

There is an average market price for products in every blog niche. For example, the average weight loss course usually costs a lot less than the average finance or investing course.

I have learned from experience that sales in the health and wellness industry are pretty volume-focused.

Weight loss is one of the most-searched topics in the world, so there is a ton of traffic to be had. But the average product price is pretty low.

People are used to paying low prices, so trying to get them to pay $500 for a weight loss course is pretty difficult.

This is why we priced our weight loss program at $47 and focused more on higher volumes of traffic rather than higher sales prices.

Because of this, we found it a little harder to scale our affiliate marketing income with lower-priced products. Instead, we focused on creating our own, which provided us with a higher margin.

In the business niche (this website), products, services, and software are generally priced a lot higher and therefore have a higher commission. 

Here’s a great example: Our post on webinar software.

I say all of this to just help you set the right expectations about how much you can earn from specific products or in a specific niche. Generally, you’ll want to focus on higher-priced products to make a lot of money in affiliate marketing.

OR generate tons of traffic.

Affiliate Marketing Will Teach You How to Sell

Perhaps THE most important lesson learned in affiliate marketing for bloggers is that it will teach you how to sell better.

We made our first real bit of money with the health blog selling a yoga product through affiliate marketing. Selling those first few products marked the first time we started making actual income online. Our first $20-day, $ 50-day, and $ 100-day were all a result of promoting that first product.

But more importantly than the initial bit of income, it taught us HOW to sell. So much so that when we decided to create our product, we made sales right from day 1 of launching our product.

However, there are downsides to affiliate marketing for bloggers.

You Don’t Own Affiliate Products

As I stated above, less risk means less reward. Because you don’t own the product, you can’t control the price of the product or your margins. If the sales page kind of sucks, you can’t do anything to improve it.

You are also generally limited in how you can promote the product. I discussed this above relating to company affiliate rules as well as government rules and disclosures.

But perhaps where the BIGGEST risk lies is that you don’t actually own the product or control your stream of income.

For example, let’s say you make 85% of your income from the sales of ONE affiliate product.

If a company decides to lower its affiliate commissions or make changes to its affiliate program that are NOT in your favor, your income stream can be immediately cut off.

Poof.

Gone overnight.

Your money tree has been struck by lightning in the night.

It’s just how it goes. You’re always taking that risk when you don’t own the product.

Now, it is incredibly rare for an affiliate program to do this. If you’re both making money and the customers are happy, why stop?

It’s just something that you must be aware of if you are putting all your eggs in that basket.

And finally, one of the best parts of affiliate marketing is…

The Process is Similar to Selling Other Products

If you can sell an affiliate product, you can sell your own product(s). Trust me.

That’s because the sales process is always, always, always about the relationship you build with others. A proper relationship looks something like this:

• Establish initial curiosity and intrigue.
• Allow for a follow-up.
• Increase the strength of the relationship.
• Close.

This is the same no matter what you are selling. But, I will say that 95% of six-figure bloggers make their money from selling their own products and services.

Even affiliate marketers end up learning that it works better to own the product than to just promote it. But here is the most important lesson of all…

You should start with affiliate marketing to teach you HOW to sell before investing the time and money in creating your product(s).

How to Scale Your Affiliate Marketing Income

Are you ready for the cold, hard truth?

99% of people will never make six figures just from Amazon links. Trust me. I’ve tried.

The people that are making that much money with Amazon have millions of website views every month, and with those kinds of views, you can still make a TON more money with your own products.

Most people making six figures with affiliate marketing are all selling higher-priced affiliate products.

• Promoting expensive courses (think $200+ range)
• Marketing expensive equipment (drones, cameras, etc.)
• Reviewing expensive services (hosting, CPM software, etc.)

Lower-priced products are still a great place to start because they are easier to sell than expensive products. But as you get better at selling and learn more about your audience, try selling more expensive products.

How Much Does Affiliate Marketing Cost?

It costs you nothing to start affiliate marketing. There is no fee to join affiliate programs. The only startup cost is buying a domain name and hosting, which you can get for less than $100 per year if you’re using Bluehost.

You will need a website or blog, and it helps if you have knowledge about affiliate marketing already. It’s important that your site is set up correctly before you share affiliate links – otherwise, people won’t trust what you’re promoting!

FAQS 

How Much Do You Get Paid?

The truth is that you can make A LOT of money from affiliate marketing, but how much you will make will depend on several factors. In particular:

• How much traffic you get
• How ‘engaged’ your audience is
• The value of the affiliate product
• The % commission
• Whether that commission is ‘one-off’ or ‘recurring’
• The number of affiliate products you recommend on your website
• How well you ‘sell’ those affiliate products

As a general rule, you will make more money by focusing on ‘high ticket’ items and affiliate schemes with a high % (ideally recurring!) commission, than you will if you recommend a cheaper product with a low % commission.

Big affiliate marketing programs pay good commissions, but you can also earn a lot with smaller affiliate platforms or even directly from affiliate products that are available on the bigger affiliate networks (Amazon Associates for example).

There are two different options when it comes to how much you can get paid per conversion (AKA sale) with affiliate marketing.

1. Flat rate. You get paid the same amount per conversion. For example, my hosting company Bluehost pays a flat rate when someone signs up for hosting through my link. The flat rate starts at $65 per sale, but that amount goes up once you start making more referrals.
2. Percentage. You get paid a percentage of each conversion. For example, let’s say you’re an affiliate for a product that costs $100, and the commission rate is 20%. You would earn $20 per sale you refer.

You will get paid by the affiliate program or affiliate network, most often via Paypal or direct deposit to your bank.

How often you get paid depends on the affiliate program. Keep in mind that some affiliate programs may have a 30-to-90-day delay on payments, while others require you to reach a minimum sales threshold before you can cash out.

How Are Affiliate Links Tracked?

Once you sign up for an affiliate program, you will be assigned a unique affiliate link. You must use this link in your blog posts, social media, emails, etc. if you want to be credited for the sales you generate.

Any time someone clicks on your affiliate link, the action is stored by a “cookie” in that user’s browser. Different affiliate programs assign different time frames to cookies which will determine whether or not you are credited for a sale.

Longer cookie windows are better for your chances of making a sale. You can usually find this information in the terms and conditions of an affiliate program when you join.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account certain actions that can remove cookies. Clearing your browser history/cookies, browsing in incognito mode, or switching from one device to another (ex. phone to laptop) can all mess with cookies and cause sales not to get tracked. This is just a fact of life with affiliate marketing!

Affiliate Programs Vs. Affiliate Networks

Some brands, especially smaller ones, may have their independently operated affiliate program that you can join.

However, there are also affiliate networks that give you access to many different affiliate programs. One of the most popular affiliate networks is Skimlinks. It’s free to join, and you will have access to thousands of affiliate programs all in one place. I like affiliate networks for this reason!

Affiliate networks often give you access to the affiliate programs of thousands of brands, which makes them easier to use and keep track of.

What Are Some Tips For Affiliate Review Posts To Boost Conversions?

Here’s an overview of where you can add them:

• On Instagram (in your profile link, or your Instagram Story with the link sticker (just note in text that it’s an affiliate link).
• Pinterest pins
• If you have a Facebook group or on your blog’s Facebook page
• In your newsletter
• Included in your freebie lead magnet
• A podcast
• YouTube video walkthrough
• Online courses and digital products (ebook, workbooks, etc)

How To Write Product Reviews That Convert into Sales?

At the end of the day, you want to get people clicking your affiliate link to purchase a product or service.

But how do you entice them to do so?

By writing in-depth honest reviews.

Affiliate marketing for bloggers is easy because you can do product review posts on your site!

Here are key steps to writing a great review:

• Introduce the reason why they are interested in that product (the pain point)
• Share why and how you purchased it – show them you know about the product first-hand
• Share the results: demonstrate how this product or service solved your problem with visuals (this is the social proof)
• Provide the details of the product: key features and benefits
• Pros & Cons – what you like about it, and what you didn’t. This part is important.
• Wrap it up with another reminder of how it helped solve your problem and how it can help your audience too.

One Last Tip for Maximum Passive Income

When you’re signing up for affiliate programs, look for these two things:

• Recurring commissions – where you consistently get a commission once somebody purchases a product/service with a monthly or annual subscription.
• Affiliate programs with a generous payout (e.g. 30% or more) on items that are reasonably priced for your target audience.

Once you have this figured out, you’re set!

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers: Grow Your Passive Income

Now you can see that affiliate marketing for bloggers is a great way to make a passive income.

Once you get started, affiliate marketing doesn’t require much work on your part.

While the learning curve is there, it’s not that difficult. This is why I always recommend affiliate marketing as a monetization strategy for new bloggers.

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

How to Make Your First $200/Month with Affiliate Marketing

As I stated earlier, these are the affiliate marketing for bloggers strategies that we used to earn our first bit of income.

• In the first month of using affiliate marketing, we made $173.
• The next month, we made $924.
• The following month, we made $2,353.

It was with a combination of the strategies below that we were able to more than double our affiliate marketing revenues within the first few months of earning anything with our blog.

Below are the best places to start adding your affiliate links to your blog.

1. In Articles

The first place that you should start adding affiliate links to is your posts.

You can add affiliate links wherever you discuss relevant products or services, but perhaps the best way to get clicks and generate affiliate sales is through review articles.

Our two favourite types of review pages are:

• Product comparisons
• Reviews of a specific product or service

Product Comparisons

I use these types of review articles mainly with Amazon products, because they are less expensive and usually an easier sell. Even if someone doesn’t decide to purchase a product from your article, the articles are still very good at getting clicks to Amazon, which can result in future sales.

Another example of a different kind of product comparison review article is our review of MailChimp and ConvertKit for email marketing.

Review of a Specific Product or Service

When you are reviewing a specific product or service, you generally want to include the following:

• What the product or service is
• Why it’s useful
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Possible comparisons to other products
• How to get started using the product (with affiliate links)

A good example of this type of review article is our review of ConvertKit for email marketing. In this article, I discuss why we love ConvertKit so much and why it’s different from other email marketing services that we have used in the past.

You can also create a different type of post that educates the reader on a specific topic and offers a solution (in the form of an affiliate link) at the end.

An example of this is our article on how to build an email list.

2. In Social Media Posts

You can generally include affiliate links in Facebook posts, YouTube videos, Instagram posts, and Pinterest pins. Just make sure that you read over all rules and disclosures for each platform before you add your affiliate links.

On Facebook, I sometimes include affiliate links on our page when I link posts or videos: or when I refer students to our affiliate links when they ask about certain software:

3. In Emails

You can link affiliate products in your articles all day long, but selling affiliate products in your emails is a way to step up your game.

Sending emails to your audience allows you a chance to build a better connection with your reader by…

• telling them more about yourself,
• explaining why you do what you do,
• and providing them with valuable and useful content.

The people on your email list are going to be the people that know you best and trust you a bit more, which means they will be more likely to purchase from you.

You can use affiliate links in your emails in two different ways:

• One-Time Broadcasts
• Email Sequences (Sales Funnels)

We’ve done both with great success!

Advanced Affiliate Marketing: 6 Tips for Making Six Figures

For all of you preferred video learners out there, here is a video on Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers from our YouTube Channel below.

Affiliate marketing is a huge part of our monetization strategy for our business, and we’ve learned a lot along the journey to the $20k/month mark. These are our top tips below for earning six figures through affiliate marketing on your blog.

1. Pay Attention to Your Competitors

There are quite a few successful blogs out there making six figures solely from affiliate marketing, but here is the interesting thing about it. You also won’t be able to find many that disclose specifics on affiliate earnings.

This is because affiliate marketing for bloggers is highly competitive and relatively easy to copy. After all, the products exist out there for anyone to market.

It’s a little different when it’s your product and only you can promote it.

It’s for this reason that most people are pretty tight-lipped about their specific strategies for affiliate marketing for blogging. But even if you don’t know how much they are making, pay attention to what your competitors are promoting and how they are promoting it.

Take a look at some of the top blogs in your niche and look for:

• What products and services they are recommending to their audience
• Where they are promoting these products and services (articles, emails, etc.)
• How they are promoting them (what they are saying, how the content is structured, etc.)

This can give you ideas of what might work for your audience — IF you blog on similar topics or have a similar audience.

How Do Commissions Work?

There are three types of ways you can earn your commissions:

Percentage of the Sale: This is when you receive a set percentage of the sale of the product. Before you join the affiliate program, it will tell you the percentage amount.

You’ll find that percentages will be higher for digital products (around 30% – 50%) as opposed to physical products (around 4% – 8%). i.e. Abby from Just A Girl & Her Blog offers 40% on her Ultimate Blogging Handbook which has a $27 or $97 price point.

Commission Per Lead: This is where you get paid a fixed amount when the company or product you’re promoting acquires your customer as a new lead i.e. signing up for an account.

get paid a fixed amount, usually low (think one cent to a few dollars) when someone uses your affiliate link to sign up for an account but doesn’t necessarily purchase. i.e. Shareasale pays you $1 for every lead you refer that signs up to the company.

A Fixed Amount: This is where you will receive a set commission regardless of how much the product costs.

This agreement is made in the beginning when you join the program and is usually quite a good amount. i.e. Bluehost offers a $65 commission on any hosting plan that’s purchased through your link whether it’s 12 months or 3 years.

What Are The Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing?

The biggest benefit of affiliate marketing is that you get to earn money without having to create a product.

Instead of spending weeks or even months creating your product, someone else has done the hard work for you! All you have to do is recommend that product and every time someone buys it (through your link) you will earn.

Affiliate marketing is also great because anyone can do it. Many other ways of monetizing a blog require you to have a large audience, a big social media following and/or a sizable email list… or at the very least they require you to be an established blogger.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can make money from it right from the start, even if you have a small blog. Better still, as your traffic and audience size increases, your income will grow without you having to do anything else!

And finally, affiliate marketing is mostly passive and therefore very scalable.

Admittedly, there is a small amount of work you need to do initially: applying to affiliate schemes, creating blog posts that will attract the right kind of visitors to your website (people who would be interested in buying the affiliate product) and inserting your special affiliate link into those blog posts.

But once you have done this initial work, the income is almost 100% passive… meaning it is incredibly scalable.

There are many benefits to affiliate marketing that make it a great source of income for bloggers. Some of the benefits of affiliate marketing:

• Passive income. Once you have created content containing affiliate links, you don’t have to do anything else. I have several blog posts that consistently earn me a couple hundred dollars a month, just because they get a good amount of traffic every month and contain affiliate links.
• Easier than products or services. While many bloggers create their products or offer services on their blogs, both of those things are time and skill intensive. Affiliate marketing is super easy to set up and start earning.
• Good for new bloggers. Unlike other forms of passive monetization (such as placing ads on your blog), you don’t need hundreds of thousands of page views to start earning a decent amount of money with affiliate marketing. This makes it a great option for new bloggers looking to monetize.

The Pros & Cons To Affiliate Marketing

PROS

• It’s the quickest and most cost-effective way to get started with generating income in your business.
• Your earning potential is uncapped! Meaning you do the work once and can continue to make commissions on the product for years to come.
• You have full control over what kind of products you want to promote.
• The products fill in the gaps of what you don’t offer and round out your business nicely.
• You’re selling a product that is already popular in the market and, therefore proven as sellable.
• You can track what, when, where & how you made the sale helping you to focus on those avenues.

CONS

• The affiliate program or network could suddenly discontinue the product your promoting, change the platforms they host their affiliate program on or cancel their affiliate program altogether.
• There’s always the possibility that the seller won’t pay you your commissions.
• You can’t control the payout frequency or threshold.
• If it’s a popular product you have a lot more competition to work with, especially if they’re promoting on the same platforms that you are.
• Some programs don’t allow you to track extensively where you get your sales from which can be a nightmare.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you’re looking for a way to make money on the internet, affiliate marketing is one of your best bets!

It’s easy to get started with affiliate marketing for new bloggers and doesn’t require any technical know-how or upfront investment. And when you have an audience that trusts what you say, it can be lucrative! 

Affiliate marketing is legit, but NOT a get-quick rich scheme. So don’t expect quick results. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Although you don’t have to be super smart to increase your affiliate sales, you need to work extremely hard if you want to succeed.

In a nutshell, you must know how to sell to REAL people.

You can’t make that simply by promoting your products that your readers are not interested in. You have to find out their needs and wants, then promote the products that solve their problems.

Blogging is one of the easiest and best ways to start on the path to earning some passive income for you or your business.

Just keep repeating these four steps and make the most of the tools at your disposal, and you’ll keep making money.

Take a look at ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links to maximise the effectiveness of your affiliate links.

It’s that simple! Expand on the different steps, and your rewards will be even greater.

Most importantly, have fun! You’ll find that the more engaging your content, the higher returns you’ll enjoy.

Free List Of Affiliate Programs For Bloggers

Want access to my free list of the 250+ best affiliate programs for bloggers, organized by blogging niche? Sign up below and I’ll send it your way!