6 Principles For Effective Affiliate Marketing On A Blog

Affiliate marketing on a blog differs ever so slightly from affiliate marketing on a website. First and foremost, you have to keep in mind that you are running a blog. If people come to your blog, they are coming to read the content!

So, while you keep your focus on writing excellent content on your blog, you can follow these six principles to effective affiliate marketing without harming your blog.

Begin by letting your blog make a great first impression

When you think of affiliate marketing on your blog, don’t get all excited and place dozens of ads all over your blog page hoping to make some money. Any first-time visitor to such a blog will just know that your blog is there to sell them something.

Take your time and set up your blog correctly. Get traffic coming in. Build rapport with your visitors. Let them learn to trust you and get to know you before you actually promote something to them. You wouldn’t want to purchase something from someone you’ve just met so make sure your followers know you first. When you do start promoting, you can place it as part of your content, rather than a killer advert in the middle of your page.

Promote products like you would to a friend

Don’t go promoting products you’ve never used. Would you do that to a dear friend or a relative? Stick to products you know and have used and that you really like. Remember, when you have a blog, people will be coming to your site because they are interested in what you have to say. You should feel responsible towards your readers when promoting something to them so do it wisely and honestly.

Share the knowledge rather than have a link or an advert somewhere at the bottom of your page, you should actively promote products. People won’t be very convinced to click on an advert. However, they will be much more persuaded to click and buy if the promotion was within your post. So talk about the product or service. Share your experience and the knowledge you have about it. That’s surely going to get you more clicks and, in the end, more payments.

Content comes first

When you are working on affiliate marketing, don’t base all your content on the advertising. Keep in mind that it is your great content that drives people to your site. It is the traffic you want so you are able to build a good target audience. So work on your content as you would on any blog, and then slip in some links or talk about a product. Let your content drive the links and not the other way around.

Watch out for competitive products

If you were to tell me that one brand of toothpaste is great and then mention several others that were also amazing, I would be a little skeptical. You want your audience to believe that you really do trust the product you are promoting. This is why, when promoting products of the same category, stick to a minimum of two per category.

Besides the matter of trust, you don’t want to confuse people about several products in a category. This will end up bad for you because then they will be at a loss to purchase.By focusing on one or two products in the same category and reminding your readers of them, they will eventually notice that these are special products and they should give them a try.

Go for the gold

Promote products that you know will make you money and don’t waste your time on the ones that won’t. Of course, there is no magic formula that tells you which products to choose based on their dollar generating power! You have to go through a little process called trial and error. As you go along, you will learn what works and what doesn’t and you should keep this data in mind when you are picking what to promote.If something doesn’t work, throw it out and move on to the next and in this way, you won’t overcrowd your blog with ads that are useless and just take up space.