Whichever way you look at it, there are ways to make money online with your blog. Whether you are looking to sell your services by engaging your customers, or provide a product online which people pay for and download, you probably have a number of ideas about ways to generate revenue, if you are not doing them already.
Affiliate marketing is arguably the baseline of ongoing profit, when it comes to your blog working on your behalf, night and day, to generate revenue. While most blogs use other people’s products as a secondary source of income, by gaining commissions, it is actually possible to run a business solely on the principle of selling other people’s products.
Here’s why affiliate marketing is an extremely useful way of boosting your blog income…
It enables you to boost your productivity online, with minimal effort.
While sound affiliate marketing choices involve more than simply sticking a link on your blog and hoping that people will buy through you, the effort involved is still quite low in comparison to creating, producing and marketing your own products. This is because the people who have developed their own products have usually devoted time and energy to perfecting them, and will be more than happy to enable you to promote the products on their behalf, using their resources.
It offers the opportunity of generating revenue through third parties, without any associated risk or pressure
When you offer people’s products through your site and generate commission, you are acting as an advocate of the product and stating your recommendation to your clients. However, you are not bound to any contract or expected to sell a set number of products, and the time you spend upon the third-party wares is entirely up to you.
You don’t have the in-built shyness associated with pushing your own products and services
Most of us feel uneasy when it comes to selling our own products, as we feel naturally inhibited about telling people how great they are. When you sell on behalf of other people, it’s much easier to wax lyrical about their products and services without struggling to find a balance between promotion and arrogance.
It’s widely acknowledged that people respond well to recommendations by experts, and as an expert in your own field you are likely to be able to sell openly and honestly, advocating products which you believe in, without holding back.
In its most simple form, affiliate marketing opens your business up for the generation of extra revenue. At its best, some blog owners find that they can sit back and let their site work on their behalf, as a primary source of income. Strong affiliate marketers use their blog for generating reviews and previews, providing comparisons between products, supplying suggestions for customers and generating feedback on their site.
Letting tools do the hard work for you
Most sites that offer affiliate schemes have all the tools for you. Some even have emails and blog posts already written (though it would be much better to write your own), others have free content to offer as a bonus to your readers, and most have banner adverts for you to use. It’s very easy to get set up and started.
By taking some time to choose the right, good, relevant products to promote, and getting a suite of services set up on your site, your blog will be able to bring in extra revenue with a small amount of effort, and provide an enhanced service to your customers when they come along for support and advice about the best products to purchase.
I think the trick to affiliate marketing for me has been finding products that are quality and that appeal to my particular audience. That can be difficult.
That’s true Amy, often that’s half the reason people create their own products as well, as nothing out there fits and/or is good enough!
Bruce and David I could not agree more about affiliate products in the health niche … quite dubious.
Great post Joel on bringing forth the importance of affiliate marketing.
Krizia
Thanks Krizia
It helps to know that someone I trust or recognize has used the product before I invest in the blogger’s suggestions and recommendations. It helps if I’ve already taken their advice on other things before – especially recommendations for useful plug-ins. After spending so much time reading your blog, I know I can always trust your judgement, Joel 🙂
Ah thanks Cheryl, much appreciated! If you ever want to buy a $1m diamond ring I’m your man for the commission 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for the post. I am dipping my toes into the affiliate marketing pool. I fiugred I would give it a year and see how the sales go and then make a decision then. It just seems like an easy way to sell a lot of product I may not have sold otherwise.
I think with an established well known site like yours there would be plenty of scope to have relevant and useful affiliate offers that could help add recurring income without recurring work. Worth testing gently first, like anything!
Affiliate marketing really works if done correctly and it has given me a new source of income stream. I love affiliate marketing. 🙂
I’m glad it works for you Raymond!
I like affiliate products if they are good ones. I have bought many and sold a few. In the health field many of them are really dubious. I agree with what you have written here. It is congruent with my ownexperience.
I think in most fields a lot of them are really dubious but I can imagine health being a bigger minefield! Thanks for stopping by Bruce.
I echo Bruce’s frustration of products in the health field being dubious. We have the additional problem that as health professionals our reputation and standing would be affected if recommending anything that falls short. You can argue that everyone should use that criteria for recommending – but in reality its all to easy to try and make a quick buck tweeting or blogging about anything that “looks” OK
Very true David, and lots of people do just that and don’t care about the consequences. That said it probably makes me trust some people’s opinions a lot more as I know and respect them so when they promote something I would take it much more seriously than some of the others who promote everything that comes their way.
Joel,
I agree, you can make money via affiliate marketing – it can be the easiest way. But it is still hard work. You still need to have the passion, get the traffic, write reviews…
There are a lot of rubbish products out there and I would recommend you only promote services and products you have personally used – your on-line reputation is as stake!
Andrew
You’re right, people think it’s easy money and I do exactly what you do – only products and services I have used and would recommend to a friend. Cheers Andrew.
Affiliate marketing … looking good on paper, in fact, some kind of new gold rush … yet, like with most things – the devil is in the details. I guess some guys/gals are getting the hang of it faster than others. As for yours truly, I had to go full circle before coming back to the beginning – you need a working sales funnel before you even think about marketing – affiliate or otherwise. That said, I enjoyed reading your post because it encourages by providing an objective and balanced view.
I agree Beat, thanks. Like a lot of things it has got a bad name from some bad practices – multi-level marketing is another – makes it hard to tell the good from the bad and I think your approach is very sensible. Doing something for the right reasons is always better than doing something just for the money.
Thanks, Joel.
I’m probably a good example of the power of affiliate marketing… although a rather stubborn and reluctant one.
I don’t really like affiliate marketing in theory… I would rather be encouraging people to buy my products rather than someone else’s… inspite of this, I still get a check for $50 to $100 every few months based off some affiliate products I wrote posts on about 2 years ago.
Every now and then, I think about doing a few more product reviews… it might make a good break from the challenge of putting together my own digital product.
Will this post be the boot in the ass that I needed?… We’ll see. 🙂
keep smiling,
Benjamin
That’s the beauty of it really, getting email notifications of sales for “doing nothing”. Of course all the hard work was at the front end with no guarantee of reward but it’s nice when it happens. Good luck with it all!
Hi Joel –
I have made a little money with affiliate marketing. Not too much. But I keep getting checks on my own E book from Clickbank and from Amazon on a self published book.
I think it makes lots of us feel awkward to write about a product and then say if you buy it, I will make money.
Have to get over that.
On your own stuff, people assume you will make money.
It’s nice to get even the small checks sometime! I think it’s becoming more and more acceptable to promote products that will make you money – as long as they’re relevant and you are honest about it all. Thanks Corinne.
some how after reading the post and few comments i can say one thing that Affiliate marketing is a good way to boost your business with a mix of your own product and other top products, but at the same time one must have time to spare… cause at the end of the day money doesnt comes free..
some how after reading the post and few comments i can say one thing that Affiliate marketing is a good way to boost your business with a mix of your own product and other top products, but at the same time one must have time to spare… cause at the end of the day money doesnt comes free..
Thanks for this info. I have considered affiliate marketing and dabbled a little with some success, but not sure whether to jump in all the way or not. Still a few too many irons in the fire whereas I need to narrow my focus as far as earning money online. This type of information is very helpful in making decisions as far as time and expense involved. What we really should do is make our own products!
I think dabbling is a good idea, build slowly and get practice in. A good mix of affiliate products and your own works well I think. Thanks Edie!
Good information Joel. I have some of my own product, but an needing to sale more affiliate product. With your in site, guess I better step it up and start working on that. There are a lot of people out there that do have good product and by selling others products it helps them out too.
thanks Joel the great information again. It is appreciated.
Debbie
Thanks for the comment Debbie, affiliate products can be hard to sell, but highly relevant products are always in demand.
Hi Joel, I think that we can sell any product, however we should have the right marketing approach… i have been associated with FMCG product selling in US and Canada… I guess every one heard the term “As seen on TV” i have promoted their products for 3 years and sold million of products… may be i’ve been lucky…
Joel, really captured the essence of being an affiliate. I’m an affiliate part time and it’s a really good way of making money without the usual customer service, product development and other time crunch activities.
What do you think of Clickbank lately, seems overcrowded as well as not putting out much quality products? Refund rates seem to be very high from that site now as well.
Dwight Anthony
Financially Elite Blog dot Com
Thanks Dwight. Clickbank and I have a love hate relationship. It’s costly, unintuitive, and you’ve hit the nail on the head with the refund rate. Buy, download, refund – a lot of people do that. Product wise, I haven’t looked recently but I’ll take your word for it.