Combining Your Blog And Affiliate Products

Chances are if you have been blogging for a while now or you are wanting to possibly create profit from your blog, then you have probably heard of affiliate products or affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing a company or business rewards partners or “affiliates” for every new customer or visitor that is brought in by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. For marketers who are looking for another way to produce income this is a very attractive business model. Because there are so many types of affiliates and business models, the success you achieve from them depends on which ones you use and how you choose to market or promote them.

Using affiliate services and products for your blog produces several benefits. If it is more traffic you want, then you not only attract those who are looking at your blog but also those who are looking for the product you are offering. You can welcome new readers to your blog while at the same time earning extra income from any products they may decide to purchase using one of your affiliate links.

Another benefit is that are many dependable affiliate products and programs available. The affiliate products that are out there have brand awareness and name recall. This makes it possible for your readers to not need a long introduction to these products. Because these are online products, there is no need to you to carry a large inventory or have a store front. Customer service, shipping and any other traditional storefront business headaches are gone. Once you put your affiliate links on your blog, you can begin to market or promote the merchants you have chosen any way you like.

This means the merchants you choose have a wider market to use to sell their products and it isn’t necessary for them to have an over the top advertising campaign because they now have the ability to use the leads created for them by their partners or affiliates. It’s an ingenious way to generate income for all involved.

Types of Affiliate Products

Do you want to add some pizzazz to your blog by sharing affiliate products? You should check out what is available and then match them up to your readers and your blog and you. There are digital products like video courses, software, legal advice as well as e-books. There is an extensive list for you to choose from.

There are other ways to earn an income aside from what you are actually promoting on your blog. Listed below are some of the more well known ways:

• Pay per sale. If you have a reader who visits the merchant site because of a link from your blog, you will receive a percentage of that sale. This is called commission based earning.
• Pay per lead. This is an option where the merchant will pay you for every visitor to your blog that fills out an application form or questionnaire.
• Pay per click. This is like the pay per sale model. The difference is that you are paid for each visitor that you send to the merchant you have chosen through a link on your blog. This link can be a text ad or a banner ad. You receive commissions regardless of whether or not the visitor to your blog ends up buying anything.
• Flat-fee referrals. This is an option where the merchant will pay you a flat fee for each referral you direct their way. This doesn’t have any dependence on what the visitor buys from the merchant.
• Single-tier programs. These are programs that reward their affiliates based on direct transactions that they have produced. But doesn’t include any additional signups.
• Two-tier programs. This is a model where the affiliate is rewarded for bringing in new affiliates and direct sales transactions.
• Multi-tier programs. This model contains several options that merchants will reward their affiliates who are able to produce sales of products as well as bring in new affiliates.

Using Affiliate Products

So hopefully by now you have made the decision to try using affiliate products in your blog. But before you decide on a program, please take the time to look at the following:

• Be informed about your blog’s audience. Your visitors are coming to your blog because they appreciate what you have to say. So when you are choosing your affiliate products be very mindful of what will compliment your blog and the niche you have created for yourself. Think about the products your readers will be interested in. For example, if you sell subscriptions to a cooking magazine, and your blog focuses on bicycling, you are probably not going to sell many subscriptions.
• Personal recommendations are always best. One important part of having affiliate products on your blog is marketing and promoting them. This is the reasons why having relevant affiliates is best. If the affiliates are not relevant then they will be out of place. Or will sound like a hard sell which you definitely don’t want. Your credibility as a blogger will be established when you can personally recommend or endorse a product you are selling on your blog. Not only do you want to bring more traffic to your blog, you also want to make sure they keep coming back. Always be honest and open about the products you are recommending on your blog.
• Focus on quality. You know that everyone wants quality. And this includes your affiliates as well. Make sure you do your research and find the products whose reputations are good and that have good reviews.
• Use contextual links to bring readers to you. You have several options to use when displaying affiliate links. The most successful ones are the links that get the most clicks when they are set in context. It is important to remember that readers come back to your blog because they like what you have to say and share with them. If you have an article about bicycling and you give them a link to a bicycle parts website, then the readers you have are more likely to click on it than if it is just sitting on the top of your blog or sidebar.
• Don’t clutter your blog. With affiliate programs. Your blog could just become one big advertisement and will drive readers away from you more than it will attract new readers. Be choosy about which products programs will be helpful to your readers and your blog.
• Always be open and honest. Be transparent about using affiliate programs on your blog. Always inform your readers that they are clicking on an affiliate link. You can’t fool your readers. They are smart enough to realize it and will stop coming back to your blog.
• Track and plan accordingly. Most good affiliate programs will let you track your statistics and data so you can design your blog or the posts you plan to use later on. You should be able to see which of the links you use have generated the most or the least responses and make any adjustments you feel are necessary.
• Don’t lose focus. It is important to remember that the use of affiliate products is just one way to bring more traffic to your blog. But the main thing you should be doing is continue to develop more relevant blog posts that will draw your readers into your blog. Don’t get so focused on adding as many affiliate links as you can that you quit creating relevant pieces of content.