Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing


If you do not want to run ads on your blog, or you are looking for an additional way to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money provided you have plenty of readers to market to.


Affiliate marketing does not have to be blatant “hey buy this” advertising, rather bloggers can subtly slip in a review or recommendation for a product and include their affiliate link in their blog.


If you can find an affiliate product that is relevant to the topic of your blog and you do a good job of slipping it in, you can stand to make some tidy profits. Affiliate marketing generally pays more per sale than you would make per click with other forms of advertising, but you have to have visitors that both click on your affiliate link and purchase the product.


The best way to make sure readers purchase the affiliate products you market is to pick products your audience will be interested in and that are relevant to your blog. If you blog about outdoor living, chances are no one will respond to your affiliate marketing attempts at selling PSP downloads.


Make sure the product you are trying sell will appeal to your readers and that you can do a good job of including it in your blog without seeming to preachy or desperate. Keep your marketing attempts natural and make sure they fit in with the flow of your blog.



There are plenty of places to go to find affiliate marketing opportunities. Many websites such as Amazon and eBay have affiliate programs. Your favorite website or company may even have an affiliate program and it can’t hurt to look, especially if they are related to your blog.


You can also find affiliate marketing opportunities on websites that specialize in connecting companies with publishers. The good thing about using one of these websites is that you have a huge list of products to choose form and the website will manage your payments and track your selling statistics. Here is a list of websites you can use to find affiliate marketing opportunities.



Clickbank – The most popular affiliate marketing website, Clickbank offers bloggers a dizzying array of products to market as an affiliate. All of their products are digital products, such as e-books and reports.


You can find things on virtually every product, arranged by category. So no matter what you blog about, chances are that you can find an affiliate product on Clickbank. Payouts range from a few dollars per sale to fifty dollars or more.



Commission Junction – This affiliate website operates in much the same way as Clickbank. Companies add their products to the Commission Junction marketplace and publishers add links to these products in their blogs. Commission junction offers a wider variety of products, however, some require visitors to buy a product for you to get paid and others require visitors to sign up for newsletters or fill out a form.



Link Share – Another affiliate website that connects affiliates with products to market. You can pick from a wide variety of products to market on your blog and like Commission Junction, you do not always have to sell something in order to get paid. Sometimes the required action is to get visitors to sign up for a newsletter or fill out a form in order to get paid.



Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money from your blog. Remember to keep your marketing attempts natural and try not to “sell,” rather rate or inform. Most affiliate websites that connect you with products to market will keep track of your earnings and statistics which makes them very convenient.

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Other Advertising Options

Other Advertising Options


There are plenty of other advertising options if you do not want to go with Adsense. A search for “Adsense alternatives” will net you a long list of other advertising opportunities.


Some work in much the same way as Adsense, others provide inline ads or banners. You should try a few different advertising programs to see which one works the best for your blog.


Some advertising opportunities are similar to Adsense and display text ads; others display contextual ads, the double underline words in the body of your text, and others work with graphic ads. Here is a list of other advertising sources for your blog, any of which may be the perfect advertising solution for you.



Clicksor – This advertising solution serves contextual ads within the body of your blog. These ads are simply words that are underlined twice and when clicked, send users to the sponsor’s website.



TargetPoint – Cost per click ads that display ads relevant to your content. They claim to pay out 50% of click revenue and offer many customizable features.



Adbrite – They have a few different advertising options including text ads, banner ads, inline ads, and full page ads.



Chitika – This advertising option is designed specifically for blogs and there are different advertising programs to choose form including text ads, inline ads, and graphic ads. Most of them operate on a cost per click basis.



Veoda – They also have different ad options including text, graphical, flash and inline ads. The good thing about Veoda is that they do not require a minimum number of visitors to sign up and do not require tax information which is good for small blogs that are just starting out.


Kontera – This is another inline advertising source where ads are placed as highlighted words that display a message when they are hovered over.


Text Link Ads – This site allows purchasers to buy text ads on blogs for a fixed monthly fee. The more popular your blog is, the more your ads will cost and the more money you will make.


Affiliate Sensor – This advertising solution combines the best of text ads with affiliate marketing. You earn revenue through Clickbank, an affiliate marketing program, without having to market directly in your blog. Text ads are placed, matched to your content, on your blog that link to Clickbank products.


AllFeeds – You can display a variety of ads through AllFeeds, from contextual ads, popaway ads, and text links. You can also display news and whether right form your blog with this service.


Bidvertiser – You only display ads from the highest bidder with this advertising soloution and you can block ads that you do not want to appear on your site. The payout level is set relatively low at just $10.


As you can see, there are plenty of other advertising solutions for your blog, and there are plenty more out there besides the ones mentioned here. You can always sell ad space directly, to companies or businesses that are related to your blog topic.


There are a few things you should remember before placing ads on your blog, however. Unobtrusive ads will seldom drive traffic away, but too many tacky ads will cause visitors to leave. You want to find a good balance where you can earn income but not chase off visitors. Make sure your ads are relevant and not annoying. Make sure that they do not take up too much space or become the focal point of your blog.

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