Ok – it’s time to kick the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog into overdrive and talk about a few ways that you can make money from your blog.
Let’s start with Affiliate programs (this will be a mini series).
What is an Affiliate Program?
To oversimplify it – an affiliate program is a system that pays you a commission when people buy a product having found that product via your blog. Let me use an example. If you click on this link for Jeremy Wright’s upcoming book – Blog Marketing (something I’m genuinely interested in reading myself) you’ll be taken to Amazon.com’s page for that book. IF you purchase it I will get a small commission for sending you there (the commission is somewhere between 4 and 9% of the price at Amazon – depending upon how much you sell, what the product is and a number of other factors).
Affiliate programs come in a massive array of shapes and sizes and on thousands of different niche topics. Over the next few days I’m going to speak about a few Affiliate programs that you might wish to try out and then will give some tips as to how to use them most effectively.
This series continues at – Amazon Associates Program, Clickbank Affiliate Program, Commission Junction Affiliate Program and Linkshare’s program. Also read the final post in the series – 10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on your Blog.
Great topic for a mini series Darren – I think we all have the tendancy to focus on making money from AdSense, but affiliate links can also be added to the mix. I’m interested in finding out they can be used effectively.
Rob.
Looking forward to hear what you have to say about affiliate programs.Earlier in August I written something about Amazon associates program.
Looking to hear more about Adbrite.
I feel affiliare programs to be a tough sell for me. I would have to have some serious content for that, and I know I am not there. Now, to participate in affiliate programs is a different story. I am an Amazon affiliate (have not seen a dime, but still hopeful) and I am thinking of creating a post or two about my hosting company since they have an affiliate program also.
Wow, this will be a great series. I can feel it :)
Looking forward to some very useful info,
Can you also send me about a million visitors who are looking to click and buy ? ;-)
Please include information about how to add affiliate programs if you use a PHP-based blog program, which doesn’t make it easy to add HTML (or JavaScript code) to your page.
[…] This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs […]
[…] This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs […]
[…] This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs […]
[…] We’ve now looked at a number of popular affiliate programs for bloggers and today I’d like to finish off this series by giving a few tips that should help bloggers get the best results out of any affiliate program that they choose to run with. […]
[…] Some like Darren Rowse of Problogger.com would like to think bloggers can make good money off affiliate marketing. I used to think so too, but my belief in the revenue potential of affiliate marketing and blog is unraveling fast. With the types of readers I attract, I can’t see how I can make anything substantial through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is not for everyone. Let me tell you why. What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is really just the online electronic version of the traditional referral/commission system. Hear it straight from Wikipedia’s mouth: Affiliate Marketing is a widespread method of promoting a website, in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder’s-fees to individuals who introduce new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay-per-click), registrant (Pay-per-lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay-per-Sale). […]
[…] This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs […]
I have been reading on the web about affiliate programs lately. Something I would be really interested in know is how do I get started with affiliate programs?
larrydag, I recommend you to start on http://softwareprofit.com/ affiliate system. They’ve got free trainings for affiliates and free promo materials, so you’ll have all tools to start and a person to teach you.
Hello
I am Lucy, I have found your website while searching for some info at Google. Your site has helped me in a big way.
G’night
With the big hoopla around Text Link Ads moving their site, I guess I am ignorant on this whole affiliate issue and why you have to cloak your link URL’s. I have been trying to understand it. So let me ask this. It’s OK for Google to sell link ads via Adsense? You can put Adsense on your site but you can’t have other paid links or ads on your site without fear of penalty? This is a sincere question. I think that there is something I am missing. What about Amazon associate program or Auction Ads? Will you get penalized for them? Can someone clear this up for me?
I have focused alot on AdSense alone. Thanks for the information on affiliate programs!
I have a question. can i use affiliate programs on my blogspot blogger. if somebody can answer this i will appreciate it
Interesting comment, I have seen plenty of posts like this one but you always have a refreshing way of putting things, RSs subscribed, thanks.