3 Simple Affiliate Marketing Tips Smart Bloggers Follow To Earn Money
Have you tried to earn money from your blog and heard that affiliate marketing is one way to do it? If so then I have some affiliate marketing tips that will help you get started.
No lie, it can be hard to earn money from affiliate marketing even though it really is one of the easiest methods of earning money from blogging (placing ads on your blog would be the easiest).
The truth is very little about blogging is easy (have you noticed that) even though it kinda looks that way on the outside. Why should affiliate marketing be any different?
Well trust me…it’s not. And yet plenty of bloggers have earned money through affiliate marketing so what is the secret.
Well, today I’m going to share some tips that I believe will help you understand how to make money through affiliate marketing even if you’ve never earned a dime with it before.
Now, before we get started, I want to let you know about my Christian Blogging Business roadmap.
It is a checklist of sorts to help guide you from before you launch your blog all the way through the monetization phase as well as a prayer to pray over your blog and business as a reminder of the ultimate reason why we blog, for God’s glory.
Just enter your email below and the link for the roadmap and some other blogging resources will be sent to your inbox!
This post may contain affiliate links which means I get a commission if you purchase something after clicking on one of those links. But don’t worry. I’m not going to recommend something I don’t really believe it because that would just be wrong.
Okay now, let’s dig into the meat of this post which is to help you understand a little bit (or maybe a lot bit) better about how to make affiliate sales.
3 Simple Affiliate Marketing Tips Smart Bloggers Follow To Earn Money
1. Smart Bloggers put their affiliate links in hiding.
Now, this is not something I have tried yet even though I read this tip quite a bit. So what this means is that an affiliate marketer will sometimes cloak or hide the original affiliate link with a prettier cleaner looking link.
For instance, some affiliate links are like this:
affiliatelink.com/adslfjalasljdfalsdjfla
The idea is behind cloaking a link is that some people will not click on a link that looks crazy and spammy like my above example.
So some affiliate marketers use a service like Pretty Link or Bitly to turn the above affiliate link into one that looks like this:
affiliatelink.com
If you saw a link like the latter, you wouldn’t have an issue clicking on it. If you saw a link like the former you might be like, naw, I’ll just Google this company that the blogger is talking about and go to the site directly.
Again I have not tried this one myself but prettifying the link must be a thing if so many people suggest it. It definitely doesn’t hurt to try (except it’s not free). I mean half the battle is getting someone to click the link. Removing any barrier to that is sure to help.
Keep in mind that the link will still be your affiliate link and you will still get the sale if the clicker buys from that company after clicking your link.
Something important to keep in mind though is that you have to check with the affiliate merchant (the company that is actually the owner of the product you’re promoting) to make sure cloaking a link is allowed.
Some companies won’t let you do that so just check and make sure you’re in compliance.
2. Successful affiliate marketers focus on their audience’s FFGD
Ummm, say what? What is FFGD?
FFGD is fears frustrations goals and desires.
If you know what you’re audience’s fears, frustrations, goals, and desires are then you can play a little match game and pair them up with products that will help them achieve their goals or solve their frustrations (or problems).
Like recently, I promoted the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit on this blog and to my email list.
Why?
Because ya’ll are bloggers and I know that the GBT had a lot of good information (and it truly does…it’s pretty dope this year but unfortunately that sale is over) and I knew that it could help bloggers looking to go further in their business.
If I wanted to sell the Essential Oil and Herbs Ultimate Bundle I probably wouldn’t do so well. Why’s that?
Because I don’t know if ya’ll are interested in essential oils or herbs, that’s why.
This is very important. If you don’t read anything else read this.
You have to make sure that the product that you are promoting is a match for your audience’s needs, frustrations, fears, problems or goals.
This means you have to know your audience and their needs, frustrations, fears, problems and goals. Then you find the products that help solve, fix, support those needs, frustrations, fears, problems, and goals.
Make sense?
3. Bloggers Who Are Successful With Affiliate Marketing Write Helpful Content About The Products They Promote.
If you want to be able to sell products to your readers you have to write helpful content that will paint a picture for how this product is going to help them.
Show them the BENEFITS of the product and how it will enhance their lives. Now there are lots of different ways to promote an affiliate link but some are more effective than others.
You might casually drop an affiliate link into a post as you mentioning it in passing. This works pretty well for less expensive items or items that someone would get from Amazon.
Like if you casually mentioned a bible journal that you use in your bible study and you leave a link to it on Amazon, you might get some people who buy it.
A more effective way is to create detailed blog posts reviews about a product like I did with the Genius Bloggers Toolkit here.
I actually did a 2 part blog post series about the GBT and I related the benefits of the GBT to Christian bloggers specifically as ya’ll are my target audience. I wanted Christian bloggers to see that the GBT could benefit them in specific ways.
Doing it this way, showing my readers the benefits and how much I liked it (and I really do! I love it actually) paid off in the end and I hope that if you bought the toolkit, that it’s been helpful to you too.
Another way to promote affiliate links is by writing helpful content to your email list. Your email list is filled with people who have trusted you enough to give you their email address which is pretty major and personal.
If they trust you with that then they probably also trust you when you recommend a product. Tell them in detail how this product or service has honestly helped you in your life.
Now, you will lose some subscribers when you email them. It’s just a fact of life.
Please don’t let that deter you. I personally like it because it helps me focus on all the people who are still subscribed. That let’s me know that they still want to hear my advice and that’s a blessing.
Do These Affiliate Marketing Tips Make You Want To Get Started?
Bottom line, if you find a product that has been helpful to you and you think it will help your audience, let them know about it. Don’t look at it as selling to them because ultimately that’s not what it’s about.
It’s truly about, I have this product that I believe will help my readers/subscribers and I want to share it with them so they can benefit too.
If you look at affiliate marketing from this perspective does it make you a little less squeamish to “promote” affiliate product to your readers?
Let me know in the comments below if these affiliate marketing tips helped you or if you have more questions.
Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you all later!
Related Post
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Thinking About Doing Affiliate Marketing? Here’s 5 Tips To Know!
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