When newbie bloggers start blogging, they only set their eyes on Google Adsense to make money from blogging. It has been happening for a decade, and still, a lot of starters do this every day. I want to talk to the newbie bloggers reading this blog post, who are going to do the same thing, meaning, they’re planning on money making blogging through Google Adsense. Let me clear this; I don’t have a problem with Google Adsense, it’s perfect for bloggers – the problem is your timing because you’re just starting out and it won’t work out.
A lot of bloggers might get angry or overwhelmed from reading the first paragraph – I want to tell them that I’m on their side and trying to help them out. I know that Google Adsense won’t make you any money at the beginning of your blog’s journey because you won’t have any traffic on the blog; it’s useless to put the Adsense ads and expect from blog to make money when it’s clear that it won’t happen.
So many of you would be interested in knowing that what they should do adopt instead of Adsense program. I’ll be happy to share the solution with you:
Start Affiliate Marketing
I’ll explain how affiliate marketing can make a difference for you if you’re a newbie blogger. Before I proceed to explain the key steps one should take to start and succeed in affiliate marketing, I’d like to define it for some of you who don’t have a clear idea of affiliate marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a monetization strategy in which we promote a product or service and make a commission on every sale that happens through us.
Steps You Should Take To Make Money as a Blogger Through Affiliate Marketing
Now, you might have a better idea of what happens in affiliate marketing. Let’s move to the important steps you should take to make money online through affiliate marketing:
Fix Your Blog Problems
Let’s admit that when we start blogs, we don’t have everything perfect. On the contrary, everything seems imperfect. What probloggers do is that they keep going forward and evolve their blogs over time. So what I want you to do is fix your blog problems. Everything you want to know about succeeding in affiliate marketing lies in it.
Let’s elaborate it: when you have a problem, you’ll look out for a solution, and when you find and apply it, it means you have improved your blog. It could be through a new service, plugin, ebook, or a course. The best part is that during this process of solving your problems, you have had the first-hand experience of dealing with a problem and finding a solution.
You could use the same experience with your readers by sharing with them and referring to the solution that you bought for yourself – as I said before, it could be a better web hosting service, a CDN subscription, new web theme, additional plugin, or anything else. So keep fixing your blog.
Choose the Affiliate Products Wisely
Choosing the right affiliate products is the key to success in affiliate marketing. You might not want to choose the products to promote that you aren’t personally using because it won’t be fair. One of the best lessons you can learn right now in affiliate marketing is that personal experience matter a lot. For example, if I tell that ABCD web hosting is good; you should buy that, it might not make much difference, but if I say that I use Bluehost Web hosting and I like it. It would bring new energy into the discussion. That’s how you should be choosing the affiliate products to promote it.
Don’t be too Pushy and Salesy
You should remember that readers and subscribers of your blog aren’t there specifically to buy stuff. In reality, they’re there to read your content and take help from your experiences. So don’t become aggressive in selling stuff to them. It includes promotion of products in the blog posts as well as sending promotional emails to the subscribers.
Deliver Value More than Anything
If you genuinely want to succeed in blogging, then don’t compromise on delivering value to your audience. In fact, make it a priority as a blogger. Every time you publish content, ask yourself whether or not it delivers value. When you keep doing that, the readers would start to realize that every time they read your content, they get something out of it. It would build trust and loyalty, which will help you in the long run. What happens with the trust and loyalty in affiliate marketing is that it becomes the most important thing in the process; when you tell them about any product that it’s good, people believe your opinion and they buy it.
Don’t Pick a Dozen of Products to Promote
Promoting a product as an affiliate marketer isn’t about picking up everything you see around. In fact, you have to be very careful about choosing the number of products to promote. You can’t promote a wide range of products and expect readers to buy those products. In short, try to promote reliable and less number of products. If you promote two or three relevant products, it’s way better than promoting ten different products that are not relevant. So what I’m trying to tell you is that you have to be very careful with your products pick; don’t try to promote a dozen of products at once on the same blog.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a great blog monetization strategy if you understand it well. Affiliate marketing doesn’t mean just to promote any random product to make a commission. In fact, the selection of the right product is the most critical part.
I have tried to share my learning of affiliate marketing with you and how exactly I’m trying to make money online through it. I also promote Bluehost and Elegant Themes. These are the services I have personally bought and tested and used, and I’m quite happy with them. So I love promoting the products I like using, which is something every affiliate marketer should do.
What else would you recommend me doing in affiliate marketing?