Many who are new to blogging may be impressed by the blogs they see that have advertisements. For new bloggers there can be the misconception that blogs with advertisements must get a lot of traffic because companies bothered to advertise on the blog space. The fact that “real” and affiliate advertisements are often indistinguishable leads to this problem. The actual truth is that a blog with zero hits a day can put affiliate advertisements on a blog – immediately.
Much of the time, you don’t even need to pass a review to have your blog listed. And even if there is a review process, this just entails determining if the blog is offensive or illegal – not well written or it gets a lot of traffic. While some affiliate programs are for high-trafficked and well-established sites, this is not always the case.
Stay Away from Adsense and Amazon
Here I’m not going to talk about Google Adsense or Amazon affiliate links. I would make the argument that you should not include these on your blog. For a new blog, you’re likely going to make pennies on Adsense – whereas with a good affiliate program, you can make $50 or even more per sale. Yes, with Adsense every click is money. But also every click takes away from clicks on the higher-paying affiliate programs I’ll list below.
The same goes for Amazon. I remember one time I sold a $2500 plasma TV through my Amazon Affiliates account. I thought I’d struck gold. How much did I make on Amazon commissions that month? Zero. It’s not the amount of money you bring in, it’s the number of sales, and if you don’t pass a very difficult threshold, you won’t be seeing any revenue. Additionally, Amazon pays a low commission per sale, compared to other affiliates that offer 25% or more.
If you were to choose between Amazon and Adsense, I’d say go with Amazon because customers can buy anything and you’ll still be credited – for instance, I was advertising a book on my site when someone bought a TV through my link – but it’s still a difficult way to make reliable money. If you have a product-centered blog, then the Affiliates program can work. But just putting an Associates box in the sidebar is far from effective. The fact is people use Amazon and Google because they’re easy to use, not because they’re easy to make money.
Today’s Blog Affiliate Programs
In today’s internet, that just doesn’t make any sense because new affiliate programs are as easy to set up as Google and Amazon – the pioneers in blog affiliate programs. These are general affiliate programs that are appropriate for all blogs - including established blogs. If you run a flower shop, you’re going to want to find some gardening based links, for instance. But these referral programs are good for blogs of all topics:
This general affiliate link is useful for all blogs. Pay Per Post is a way to quickly become a professional blogger, as companies will pay you to blog about certain topics. There are complaints that this corrupts the purity of the blogosphere by injecting money into blogging. I don’t buy it: monetization and blogging aren’t enemies. Fact is, bloggers are able to make money using pay per post.
Add widgets according to your blog’s topic. Alternately, you can become a Widgetbucks referral affiliate, which offers 5% on the referrals on anyone who signs up for 12 months. Often, affiliate referrals dry up after 45 days.
Topic-related text links with 50% payout for each sale. Give the price of these text links, the payout possibilities are high. Also has a good referral program, but requires Java in the sidebar, rather than plain HTML.
A wide range of links, from product links to text-based links to automatic keyword-based links. A great service for a product-affiliated blog. Money can be earned from referrals (called “leads”), not just purchases, opening up more money-making opportunities. Includes a good referral program for new member sign-ups.
Most every web host has an affiliate referral program that offers large payouts per sign-up. Examples are ThinkHost, BlueHost, and HostMonster – three of the most popular web hosts. They require no approval process to enter the affiliate program. Just sign up (using the affiliates link at the bottom of the page) and you can add a badge to a web page.
Affiliate Networks
Clickbank has a number of different affiliate programs that you can sign up to immediately based on your niche. An example in the affiliate marketing niche: Affilorama. There are programs of every stripe and bloggers can begin making links immediately.
This is a more advanced network. While you will likely be accepted into Pepperjam immediately, it is possible that you will not be approved by individual affiliates within their network. This blog has been approved for some, rejected for some. Given the number of affiliate programs in Pepperjam, it’s one of the main places you should go to find affiliate programs.
Affiliate Program Scams
No affiliate program is perfect. So don’t be scared off by the number of angry posts you see about a particular program. There are bad reviews of everything. Everything. Including Adsense and Amazon Affiliates. Do it: type in Adsense scam or Amazon Associates scam. Every major brand has complaints – customers are never 100% happy. And there are just as many, if not many more, posts saying that transactions went smoothly. At the very least, putting an affiliate referral badge on your site can earn you a commission on sign-ups, which costs you nothing.
One final tip: Bloggers love to add a series of widgets on their sites for Mybloglog, Blogcatalog, an extended blogroll, and buttons to every directory imaginable. Though some of this is OK, as it can lead to good relationships and increased traffic, overloading your site with outbound links will just take away hits from your affiliate ads. If you’re really trying to make money online, weight your sidebar with affiliate programs, instead of other eye candy. However, that’s not a license to add 100 affiliate banners to your page. Not only will Google ban overuse of affiliate links on a page, but people will not study, and click on, a link if there’s too much information.
