This post may contain affiliate links, read the disclaimer here.
If you want to make money online, affiliate programs are the best place to start. In this post, I reveal my best tips to make money online fast with affiliate programs using my own experience. I am a blogger who has created multiple blogs, taken tons of courses, and experimented a lot. I am going to reveal how I made $300 on my newest blog even though I had only written 12 blog posts. You can do it too if you choose the right affiliate programs and understand how to promote them on your blog.
The Benefits Affiliate Programs to Make Money Online
Promoting other people’s products for a commission is an excellent way to make money online when you are just getting started. Don’t waste your time creating digital products that may not sell. Instead, experiment with affiliate programs and see what your people are interested in. Affiliate programs are a low-risk investment. For example, if you want to promote an online course, you are investing in yourself and your business. If you like it enough to recommend to your audience, your investment will be returned to you tenfold!
Choosing the Right Affiliate Programs
Blogs Don’t Make Money, Businesses Do
Whether you have been blogging for a while or are just starting, you need to know how you are going to make money. If you don’t, you are just wasting your time and working aimlessly. To understand how to set the stage for your blogging success, read 5 Things You Should Know Before You Start Blogging That Nobody Will Tell You.
How to Pick Your Affiliate Programs
Picking your affiliate programs will depend on your niche but, ultimately, you will promote products and/or courses you purchased yourself and love. Think of whatever products you use as they relate to your niche and find out if there is an affiliate program you can join. Make a list of your higher-priced options and start focusing on these. In my case, I decided to focus on business courses that had the biggest impact on my blogging journey. If you need help narrowing down your niche, sign up for me free course Blogging for Network Marketers.
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Types of Affiliate Programs
These are the most common types of affiliate programs:
- Digital products: No matter what your niche is, chances are you can find online courses and resources on that topic. Look for digital products in your niche and purchase them if they have an affiliate program. If you find them useful, you can promote them.
- Shopping platforms: Amazon Associates is the best example. You can become an Amazon affiliate and promote anything that people buy on Amazon. Just be aware that your commission as an Amazon associate will not be very high.
- Affiliate platforms: Sites like ShareASale and Clickbank.
Make sure you always disclose when you are an affiliate.
Writing Blog Posts Related to Your Affiliate Programs
After picking your affiliate products, you need to understand that selling them will require you to write while keeping these products in mind. Write multiple blog posts to talk about the different ways your affiliate products benefit your audience.
Types of Blog Post You Can Write to Help Promote Your Affiliate Programs
Don’t worry that you will be repeating yourself by writing too many blog posts to make money with affiliate programs. You can use various angles and offer value in different ways. Every piece of content needs to be created with your affiliate programs in mind. Moreover, remember that the more content you create on a specific topic, the greater your chances to rank on Google for that topic. Here are some examples of blog posts you can write:
- Reviews: Reviews are always the ultimate way to promote affiliate products. Compare your favorite products with similar products that didn’t help you as much. Explain why the affiliate product is superior.
- Listicles and Roundups: You can share lists of similar products that will help your target audience (like Best Anti-Inflammatory Supplements and Top 17 Anti-Inflammatory Foods or my Blogging Courses RoundUp)
- Your Story: This is what I did in this post. I am sharing how I made money online with affiliate programs and promoting my email funnel at the same time (notice how I encouraged you to sign up for my free Blogging Course and how I promote some affiliate products within my story).
- Videos: Create video reviews for the affiliate programs you are promoting and embed them into your blog posts. YouTube can be a great source of traffic. Furthermore, many topics are better presented on videos (for example, comparing to platforms or WordPress themes).
- Problem-solving posts: Think about the problems your affiliate products solve. Write posts about ways to solve these problems and include your products in the solutions.
Keeping Track of Your Affiliate Links
If you are serious about making money online with affiliate programs, you need to know about Pretty Links. Pretty Links is a free plugin you can install on WordPress to store all your affiliate links.
Using Pretty Links, you will allow you to keep all your links in one place. Moreover, you will be able to customize your links and avoid the weird affiliate link numbers and symbols. The plugin lets you know how many people clicked on the links, which can be useful information. Lastly, you will never have to go through all your posts and change all your links if one of your affiliates links changes. All you will need to do is change the Target URL. Are you convinced yet that you need this plugin?
Creating a Funnel to Promote your Affiliate Programs
Some people might sign up for one of your affiliate programs right after reading about it on your Website. However, most people will need to learn more.
Create a Free Product Related to the Affiliate Product
To help your readers understand how they can benefit from the affiliate program you are using to make money, create a valuable freebie that they will get if they give you their name and email address. For this, you will need an email service like ConvertKit or MailChimp. You can start with MailChimp for about $10 a month. That’s what I did for about 2 years until I decided to bite the bullet and pay the 30 bucks for ConvertKit. I never looked back! The ease of use and the added functionalities are definitely worth the extra money.
Grow Your Mailing List
Not only will your freebie allow you to promote your affiliate program, but it will also help you grow your mailing list. Should I remind me that the money is still in the list? Growing your mailing list is an integral part of making money online. Do not expect to run a successful online business if you neglect email marketing. In my course My 5 Step Formula to Growing Your Network Marketing on Instagram, I explain how you can grow your mailing list right on social media. This course is for you if you need help with creating your freebie using canva.com, creating your landing pages, setting up your email autoresponder, etc.
Establish a Relationship with Your Subscribers
You probably have heard of the dating analogy in online marketing before. You don’t meet someone for the first time and ask them to marry you (or have sex with you). Instead, you get to know each other. That’s what your email funnel will allow you to do. To be honest, I don’t know if my first sale came straight from one of my blog posts or my email marketing funnel, but I do know that a funnel is one of the most important elements of your online business. Through a series of emails, you get to tell your story, explain how your affiliate product helped you and how it can help your subscriber. It is the most powerful way to make money online.
In Summary
The main reason I was able to make money on this blog without writing hundreds of posts, is that I wrote each of my posts keeping in mind what I was promoting. That’s what you need to do too! Writing many blog posts using the same topics from different angles will increase your chance of making a sale fast and help you rank on Google. It’s a win-win!