One of the primary goals of starting a blog is to make money from it. No doubt about it.
Blogging requires a lot of hard work, and we bloggers definitely want something in return for that hard work and patience.
Yes! I am talking about monetizing your blog!
And do you know what’s one of the best ways to monetize your blog? AFFILIATE MARKETING. Even if you are just a beginner, you can start monetizing your blog with affiliate marketing.
That’s how effective it is!
So, if you are just starting out with your blogging journey and want to start your blog monetization process, then this guide is just for you.
We’ll discuss every single thing about affiliate marketing for bloggers right here, in this single post.
- What is Affiliate marketing
- What do you need to start affiliate marketing
- What to keep in mind before starting affiliate marketing
- The best affiliate marketing programs
- How to do affiliate links promotion
- Legal requirements for affiliate marketing
And much more little topics in detail.
Let’s stop with the chit-chat and jump straight to this!
Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products, tools and services which I trust. For more information, read the full disclosure here.
- WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
- WHY BLOGGERS DO AFFILIATE MARKETING?
- WHAT DO YOU NEED TO START AFFILIATE MARKETING?
- HOW TO DO AFFILIATE MARKETING FOR BLOGGERS IN 4 STEPS
- SOME LEGAL REQUIREMENTS FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING
- HOW TO MAKE YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS LOOK PRETTY
- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AFFILIATE MARKETING
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Before we discuss how to do affiliate marketing, let’s first understand what affiliate marketing actually is.
I’ll explain this is very simple terms.
Affiliate marketing means promoting someone else’s products or services, and when your audience makes a purchase of that product or service promoted by you, you earn some commission.
Here’s an graphical representation of how affiliate marketing works ↓
Please keep in mind that your audience doesn’t have to pay any extra amount in order for you to earn commissions from your affiliate links.
In my opinion, affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize your blog because anyone can do it. You don’t need some kind of degree or diploma to do it.
You just need to follow the correct strategies! We’ll discuss more on that later.
And the amazing thing is that you don’t need to create your own product in order to monetize your blog. You can promote someone else’s products (or services) and can make money.
That’s pretty cool!
Here’s a fact about affiliate marketing ↓
The global affiliate marketing industry is worth over $17 billion
This number is insane. The scalability and flexibility of affiliate marketing is huge!
Let me tell you another great thing about affiliate marketing: PASSIVE INCOME!
If you promote a service or product through affiliate marketing, then you’ll earn a lifetime commission, which means earning passive income.
That’s the dream of every blogger!
That’s why this is the best way to monetize your blog. We’ll discuss more on what you’ll need to start affiliate marketing later in the post.
Moving on!
> Related: How to promote your blog for free to get massive traffic
WHY BLOGGERS DO AFFILIATE MARKETING?
You may have seen a lot of bloggers (Including me!) say that affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize your blog and why you should do it?
There are many many reasons why bloggers should do affiliate marketing:
- Easy blog monetization: With affiliate marketing, you can monetize your blog easily by promoting products and services relevant to your niche.
- Low cost for startup: In order to get started with affiliate marketing, you won’t need to invest a huge amount in it. All you’ll need is a self-hosted blog of your own, which is very cheap to get started.
- Passive income: Affiliate marketing is passive income. Once you get started with it, you can continue generating income overtime.
- To diversify monetization: In this era of internet, it is highly recommend to diversify your income streams. Solely relying on one or two income streams is not a great strategy. Don’t put your eggs in one basket!
- Flexibility and scalability: Affiliate marketing is highly flexible and scalable. If your audience gets bigger, your income also increases which is a great thing!
Apart from these points, affiliate marketing is really really profitable and it’s aiming to thrive even more in the future.
WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE STARTING AFFILIATE MARKETING
There are many many things which you have to keep in mind before you actually get started with affiliate marketing.
But here’s the most important thing ↓
Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. You have to put some effort and strategies into it before you actually start earning something.
Look at this quote about affiliate marketing ↓
“Affiliate marketing is not a ‘push-button’ solution. It takes focus and commitment, and a certain choreography to make it happen the way you want it to.” — Pat Flynn
What I am trying to tell you here is that like any another form of marketing, affiliate marketing requires some strategies.
You have to do some research before applying for different programs such as which products do you want to promote, what’s your target audience, how are you going to promote that product etc. etc. etc.
It requires time, efforts and patience.
So if you are looking for ‘quick money making method’ than I am sorry but affiliate marketing is not for you.
But if you are ready to put in the work and follow the right strategies, then you are most welcome to get started with it.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO START AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Before getting started, you’ll need to set up some things which will help you with affiliate marketing.
Let’s discuss them one by one.
1- YOUR OWN BLOG / WEBSITE
Since this guide focuses on affiliate marketing for bloggers, you’ll definitely need your own self-hosted site / blog.
To start a blog, first decide on your blog niche and then you have to buy your own domain and hosting. I recommend to get started with Hostinger to start your blog in a budget.
I also have a full tutorial on how to start a blog on WordPress for beginners. You can also check it out!
After purchasing a domain and hosting, you can start designing your site. Elementor website builder is what you’ll need to design your blog for free! The look of your blog design matters a lot to getting approval for an affiliate marketing program.
KEEP THIS IN MIND!
The more professional your blog looks, the more chances there are of you getting approved for an affiliate marketing program.
Once your blog is all set up, you can start promoting your affiliate links on it. Every time someone makes a purchase from your affiliate links, you’ll earn a commission from it!
And this is how the whole blog monetization process works.
2- A BUSINESS EMAIL
Professionalism matters a lot in affiliate marketing.
And in order to maintain professionalism and branding, you’ll need a business email for your site and to apply for affiliate programs.
Many web hosting services like Hostinger offers free business email along with the hosting plan. After starting your blog, you can create a free business email for your site.
Using a business email to apply for affiliate programs increases the probability of getting approval. So, you can’t miss it!
3- A PAYPAL ACCOUNT
Most affiliates pays you through PayPal. So, it is most necessary to create a PayPal account.
You can create a PayPal account to accept payments from any country and in any desirable currency.
Just share your PayPal email with your merchants and they’ll be able to pay you very easily, hassle free.
4- A WORDPRESS PLUGIN
Normal affiliate links looks ugly. They look something like this: https://www.abcaffiliate.com/ak5j=sfN
These types of links looks straight up spammy and ugly. People may not click on them thinking them as suspicious.
To fix this, you can install a WordPress plugin called Pretty links to mask your affiliate links and make them look pretty. I use this plugin too and adore this too much!
You can mask your affiliate links using this plugin and make them look something like this: https://www.abcaffiliate.com/yourdomainname
This way, they’ll look more clean, non-spammy, pretty and non-suspicious.
Here is one of my own affiliate link for reference: MailerLite [affiliate]
HOW TO DO AFFILIATE MARKETING FOR BLOGGERS IN 4 STEPS
Let’s discuss the most important topic for which you’ve been scrolling for.
Affiliate marketing, according to me, is one of the most brilliant thing ever. Anyone can do it. You can do it! Just follow the below mentioned steps.
How to do Affiliate marketing for bloggers in 4 steps:
1. Decide what to sell
2. Explore Affiliate programs
3. Sign up for Affiliate program
4. Promote your Affiliate links
Let’s discuss each one of these steps one-by-one in detail.
STEP 1: DECIDE WHAT TO SELL
The very first step is to figure out what you wanna sell to your audience. It can be a service, product, course, tool, etc.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical product or a digital product. What matters is whether that product provides any value to your audience or not.
Don’t choose a product to promote as an affiliate just because it has high commission rates. If that product doesn’t aligns with your audience’s needs then the high commission rates won’t matter.
Here’s how you can decide what you can sell / promote as an affiliate:
- Find out what your audience needs. Your blog / website has a niche. Now you have to figure out the demand or needs of your audience in that niche. For example: If your blog niche is related to gardening and you’re promoting kitchen utensils then, obviously, no one would buy them. It doesn’t align with your audience’s needs.
- Make sure that the product / service provides value to your audience. That product / service must help your audience.
- Check out the products yourself. See if they are good or not. Find out if your audience will like it or not. Is there a demand of that product? It’s always recommended to promote products that you yourself have tried and tested to build trust with your audience. This increases the conversion rate.
After deciding what you want to sell / promote, the next step is to explore some affiliate programs.
STEP 2: EXPLORE AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
Before we proceed further, let’s understand the difference between an affiliate program and an affiliate network. These two terms are often mixed up with each other.
An affiliate program means when a company offers its own separate affiliate program for the promotion of their products or services. For example, many marketing tools such as MailerLite for email marketing has its own separate affiliate program.
On the other hand, an affiliate network is where many different companies uses a third party platform to offer their affiliate programs. For example, ShareaSale is one of the biggest affiliate network where you can find thousands of affiliate programs all in one place.
Now that we have cleared the difference between an affiliate program and an affiliate network, it’s time to explore some good affiliate programs and networks for you.
You can check out this post on best affiliate networks for bloggers where I have discussed about the top affiliate networks.
My top recommendation is the ShareaSale affiliate network where you’ll find products and services of many different niches all in one place.
All you have to do is sign up with your professional email, fill in some info about you and your website, tell them how you are planning to promote the products and then you’ll definitely get approved after some days. (You can always reapply if you didn’t get approved the first time, don’t worry)
My experience with ShareaSale has been nothing but good. Definitely a top choice if you are just starting out. You can get started here ↓
STEP 3: SIGN UP AS AN AFFILIATE
After deciding what you want to promote as an affiliate and found the right affiliate program, the next step is to sign up as an affiliate.
To find the affiliate program page, you can either find the affiliate program link of a product on the footer of its official website OR you can simply search on Google too.
Visit the affiliate program page and keep in mind the following things:
- Always use your business email to apply for an affiliate program
- Add a link to your website / blog (your blog must be well designed and professional)
- Your blog must have some published content before applying for an affiliate program
- Your website / blog must have published legal pages: privacy policy and disclaimer
- Explain in detail about how you are planning to promote as an affiliate of the product / service
You can use the following template to explain the details of your promotional strategies ↓
I plan to promote [Product Name] by creating easy-to-understand content that shows how it works and why it’s useful. This will include writing reviews, making how-to guides, and comparing it with similar products on my blog. I’ll also share this content with my email subscribers, on my blog resource page and on social media to reach more people and drive traffic to the affiliate links.
It’s always good to add more details if possible.
For beginners, I recommend to sign up for a limited number of affiliate programs. Don’t sign up for hundreds for affiliates. Just aim for a core product or service and keep promoting it.
And one more thing. Do not sign up for low quality and cheap affiliate programs. Only join reputable and trusted brands. Always provide the best to your audience.
After you get approved, the next step is to give a pat on your back. Yes!! You did it!! Celebrate your win because you worked hard for it.
STEP 4: PROMOTE YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS
All the efforts you have made till now have come down to this step. How you promote your affiliate links matters a lot, because if your promotion strategy is wrong, then everything will go down the gutter.
You must be careful where you use affiliate links.
But don’t worry, I totally got you!
Let’s discuss how you can get more clicks on your affiliate links ↓
1- YOUR BLOG POSTS
Since you have a blog and your aim here is to monetize it through affiliate marketing, you can start creating content based on your affiliate products.
Write honest reviews, create tutorials, listicles and other types of posts surrounding that affiliate product. Place your affiliate links there and ask your audience to buy or sign up for that product.
Make sure to create high-quality content, as it is more credible and increases the chances of people finding it. Publish high quality content consistently and learn how to promote it.
More traffic to your blog means more affiliate sales. That is your main goal here.
2- YOUR WEBSITE RESOURCE PAGE
Apart from the blog posts, you can place your affiliate links on a separate page of your website called the resource page.
I have a resource page for my blog too where my audience can find essential blogging tools and resources, all in one place.
It’s not mandatory to add a resource page to your blog. It’s totally your choice and depends on your niche but it’s a good way to promote your affiliate products.
3- YOUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Building an email list is a very good way to build a loyal audience for your blog. You can send updates, promote your content and promote your products to your email subscribers. I have a full tutorial on how to build an email list with MailerLite. You can check it out!
But do you know what else you can do with an email list? PROMOTE YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS!
You can add a section such as ‘my favorite resources’ to each email campaign and add your affiliate products there.
Whenever your subscribers read that email, they’ll probably take a look at that section and they may find it helpful.
Other way is to send emails related to that affiliate product. This is a much better way in my opinion.
Rest is totally your choice 😉
4- PROMOTE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Posting on social media is another great way to promote your affiliate links.
Create social media posts related to that affiliate product and place your affiliate links there. (Don’t forget to tell your audience that the link is an affiliate link!)
Only a selective social media platforms works best for affiliate marketing. For example, Facebook, twitter, Pinterest works great for affiliate marketing whereas Instagram is a big no-no for it since it is not very ‘link friendly’.
You can also start your own YouTube channel to promote your affiliate links. Create tutorials and how-to videos related to the affiliate product and place the affiliate link in the description.
SOME LEGAL REQUIREMENTS FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING
Before I explain the legal requirements, please note that I am not a lawyer and this is just for educational purposes.
It is legally required to put a disclaimer of your affiliate links in your posts, pages, or wherever else you are using them.
Let’s discuss more in depth.
CREATE AN AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE PAGE
An affiliate disclosure page is a legal page where you have to explain everything about how, where and why you are using affiliate links on your website.
You can generate an affiliate disclosure, also known as a disclaimer page, using Termsfeed
Go to Termsfeed and create a disclosure for your website, copy it. Then create a new page on your site and paste the disclosure.
And that’s it!
DISCLOSURE IN BLOG POSTS
If you are using them in your blog posts, then you have to make a short affiliate disclosure that you are using some affiliate links in that particular post.
Something like this ↓
This post may contains affiliate links which means if you make a purchase from it, I’ll get a small commission with no extra cost to you. For more information, read the full disclosure [link to your disclosure page] here.
You can create your own disclosure however you want. Just let your audience know that you are using affiliate links in this post.
Here’s how you can easily add a disclosure to your blog posts:
Go to your dashboard < Appearance < pattern < add new pattern < Name the pattern as ‘Affiliate Disclosure’. Craft your short affiliate disclosure and then publish it.
While writing your blog posts, you can add this pattern as an affiliate disclosure like this ↓
And that’s it!
SET YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS AS ‘NO-FOLLOW’
There are two types of links: Do-follow and no-follow
Do-follow links are those types of links which search engines like Google allows to point back to your website and passes ‘link juice’.
No-follow links are opposite of do-follow links and doesn’t pass any link juice.
You have to set your affiliate links as no-follow links to prevent it from passing any link juice. Search engines like Google considers affiliate links as ‘paid promotion’. This may result in Google penalties.
To set your affiliate links as no-follow, go to your WordPress blog editor → Choose the blog post containing affiliate links → click on the affiliate link → edit link → tick the option ‘set as no-follow’ → Save.
Refer to this image ↓
And you are done!
HOW TO MAKE YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS LOOK PRETTY
Remember when I discussed before that the normal affiliate links look very ugly, spammy and suspicious.
We don’t want that! Let’s fix this!
Install a WordPress plugin called Pretty Links and activate it. After activating, go to plugin settings and do as shown in the image below ↓
Add the title of your affiliate link → Paste your affiliate link as the target URL → Add affiliate product name in the Pretty Link field → Save and Publish.
And you know what else you can do with this plugin? You can add affiliate links directly in your blog posts in the WordPress post editor.
Like this ↓
That’s pretty handy, right?
And just like that, you’ve reached the end of this post. I have explained everything about affiliate marketing for bloggers right here in this one single post.
But before we wrap up, let’s discuss some frequently asked questions.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AFFILIATE MARKETING
Can you really make money through affiliate marketing?
Yes, it’s 100% possible to make money through affiliate marketing. You just have to follow the correct strategies.
Anyone can do affiliate marketing, that’s the beauty of it.
How much can you earn from Affiliate marketing?
It depends. On a lot of things.
Your niche, your marketing strategy, your website traffic, the types of products you are promoting and much more.
But I CAN say that it’s possible to make around $1,000 per month just from affiliate marketing.
What are some mistakes to avoid for affiliate marketing?
Here is a list of mistakes to avoid:
- Don’t promote products you don’t believe in
- Don’t bombard your audience with a bazillion affiliate links
- Don’t ignore what your audience needs
- Don’t forget to add affiliate disclosure before promoting
- Don’t promote too many products especially at the beginning
- Not being patient
Can I do affiliate marketing as a complete beginner?
Yes! Of course, you can!
This tutorial is especially for beginners and just like I said anyone can do affiliate marketing. You don’t need a degree or diploma to do it.
Just follow the right strategies, keep learning and working hard. You’ll definitely find success in affiliate marketing.
As the saying goes, “An expert in something was once a beginner”.
