Affiliate marketing can be a nice little boost to the bank account for entrepreneurs. We all use tons of tools, have taken courses, and worked with other creatives. If you’re recommending them to others anyway, you might as well get a little cash out of it! Affiliate marketing and blogging are the perfect combination to promote your affiliate business.
It feels too salesy to straight up tell people to use your affiliate link to sign up for a tool, course, or program. But if you naturally include affiliate links in blogs, it feels more genuine, especially if you’re explaining how and why you use the tool.
If affiliate marketing is something you’ve been wanting to learn more about, you’re in the right place! And don’t forget to download my free master list of affiliate programs for creative entrepreneurs to start finding applicable programs to sign up for.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing allows you to partner with companies to promote their products. In return, you will receive a commission on any sales made through your unique affiliate link or a code that’s submitted during checkout. Sometimes, affiliate programs will also give your customers a discount when they use your link or code to sign up.
I’ll use Flodesk as an example (this is my affiliate link, by the way!) When someone uses that link, they will get 50% off their first year of Flodesk and I get $19 when they sign up. It’s a win-win-win for me (a payout), the people I refer to Flodesk (a discount), and Flodesk (a new customer).
Affiliate marketing is attractive to businesses because they can reach other people in their target audience via the customers who already use their product or service. Essentially, companies are using you to reach your audience and you’re incentivized to help them do that.
How Affiliate Marketing and Blogging Works
Blogging is one of the best ways to promote your affiliate business. It’s a space for in-depth content and personal recommendations, making affiliate promotion more genuine.
These are some ways to promote your affiliates within a blog (and I linked some examples I have):
- Product review
- Tutorial (I don’t have an affiliate link for this one but this is what a tutorial post would look like.)
- How-to guide
- Tool recommendations
- Personal story
The goal is to make it sound natural. If you genuinely recommend the tool, it shouldn’t sound salesy. You’re simply sharing something that has helped you in your business and think others should use it, too. That’s it.
Affiliate marketing and blogging work so well together. You can mention and link your affiliates in several places, giving you a higher chance of earning a commission.
How to Choose Affiliate Programs
The ONLY affiliate programs you should be signing up for are for tools you have used and recommend. You should be able to answer questions about the tool, should someone ask. Please do not sign up for affiliate programs just for the sake of doing so. Keep your integrity intact!
With that being said, where do you find affiliate programs? Lucky for you, I’ve created a master list of affiliate programs for creative entrepreneurs. There are over 100 affiliate programs on this list, so there are bound to be a few tools in there that you have used and recommend. And if I’m missing anything, you can submit a request to add your favorite (or your own!) affiliate program to the master list.
SEO Strategies to Drive Traffic (and Boost Affiliate Income)
Every blog should have an SEO strategy behind it so you can drive more qualified traffic to your website. And when you get more traffic to blogs promoting an affiliate program, you could potentially earn more commission sales so SEO is super important! These are some ways you can make sure your blogs are set up for SEO success.
Keyword Research
Keyword research helps you find terms people are searching for related to your blog content. I use Ubersuggest to help me find the best keywords. Once you find a good one, place it strategically throughout the blog so Google understands the context and when to show it in search results.
High-Quality Content
Although keywords help Google list your blogs, the quality of the content is what will entice people to click and read. Make your blogs super valuable and add your personality so readers will learn something while relating to you.
Linking
I know, duh! But the Yoast plug-in actually lists external links as a requirement to fully optimize a blog post. So you’re meeting that requirement every time you add an affiliate link. And then, of course, you’ll want to link to other resources on your website, like blogs, freebies, services, courses, etc.
One Last Note
Don’t expect to get rich from your affiliate links. It’s just a nice little bonus that drops in your bank account. Use my master list of affiliate programs to get started with affiliate marketing and let me know if there are any you would like added to the list!
Adding affiliate links to blogs is just one of the many things I do for my blog writing clients. I make sure they have the best chance to earn that little bonus every once in a while. If you’re ready to be hands-off from blog writing but still benefit from more website traffic, content to repurpose, and possibly even affiliate link commission, let’s hop on a discovery call and chat!
AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER
Some links in this blog post may be affiliate links. I only recommend products and services I trust and believe would be beneficial to you.
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