Tips for Using Affiliate Programs

You have created a blog, but now it is time to actually make some money from it. Sure you can sell your own eBooks and products from the site directly, but that won't give you the income you are most likely hoping to find. To actually make money from blogging, bloggers turn to affiliate programs.

What exactly is an affiliate program?
Affiliate programs, such as Google AdSense or Amazon Affiliates, pays bloggers and site owners a commission each time a customer purchases an item showcased on their site. Often these commissions range from two to nine percent and depend on a variety of factors such as traffic amount, sale price and number of sales per site.

Who is your audience? 
If you don't know who reads your blog, then you should not be using affiliate programs. Ask yourself what type of blog you host. Do you review electronics? If so, then affiliate banners and advertisements you link should also focus on electronics.

Are you being genuine?
No one likes a pushy salesman and even more so no one likes a fake salesman. The products you showcase or advertise on your site should not be random -- they should be products you actually back up and support yourself. Therefore, if you are talking about your favorite camera, provide a link for customers to actually buy that camera.

Do you correlate your advertisements? 
Advertisements on your site should correlate with what you are talking about in that particular blog post. Even though general electronics is what you talk about, don't have just general advertisements for electronics. Instead, showcase items that you are talking about right there in that particular post.

Where do you place your advertisements? 
If you simply place banners at the bottom of the page, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Consider where customers go on the page, where they click and place your advertisements there.

How do readers find your blog? 
If you cannot answer that question, then you most likely will not be successful using affiliate programs. A successful blogger has over 1,000 page views per day to their site, not 100. Start driving traffic to your blog through social media, email and even forums. Anyway you can drive an extra visitor, the higher the chance is that you will make money from your blog.

Are you pushy and obvious? 
The point of a blog is to have customers come and read the interesting material you offer, not see a sales pitch. Do not make the fact that you want money from your blog obvious. Instead, subtly offer products and place links so that customers who show up, read your material and buy later.

Are you keeping track of your blogging stats?
A successful blogger keeps track of what products customers buy from the site and what products don't get any attention. Use tracking and statistical reports to determine what advertisements are successful and keep posting them.