If you have anything to do with blogging, you’ve probably heard the term before.
“Affiliate marketing” is a highly effective promotion strategy, though many aren’t aware of it.
This marketing niche is pretty important for many online businesses, and yet a lot of new business owners have no idea what the term means.
Here’s a brief introduction to the subject which should clear up a few questions for you.
Source: Flickr
What is Affiliate Marketing?
So what is affiliate marketing? This is a very large question.
The simplest way I could define affiliate marketing for beginners is making money by promoting another business.
There are a lot of different methods which fall into the “affiliate marketing” category. However, when most professionals use the term, they usually mean a system of blogging.
You would write articles on your blog, including links to the client’s landing page. Every time someone clicks on this link, you earn a commission.
Another common variation involves referring someone to the client’s site whenever they take some kind of action.
Let’s say you had a customer who fills in some kind of form or gives you their email address. You’d be paid for referring them to the client’s business.
Though many methods exist, there are certain things which makes affiliate marketing go hand in hand with blogging.
Build a Community Around Your Blog
Obviously, it’s not the only way to make money from blogging, and won’t suit the style of every single blogger. However, affiliate marketing is more effective in this context.
This is due to a certain degree of trust between the blogger and their readers. As the trust grows stronger, the readers usually follow more recommendations from the blogger.
Your aim should be building a community, so to make the users feel like home. There are many ways you can achieve this, one is by focusing on the comments section of your site. Or you can create a forum, in a sub-domain of your blog. Or else, check how to use DeviantART to build a loyal community around your website.
However, there might be some cons. You can probably see that this presents a certain amount of risk. While there’s stacks of money in it, many people still see bloggers as unbiased and trustworthy sources of information. If the blogger promotes the wrong product, or makes their link far too obvious, the trust can be broken in an instant.
There are a lot of bloggers out there who make the majority of their money through affiliate marketing. However, it’s not a fool proof get-rich-quick scheme in the slightest.
The success of affiliate marketing hinges on a variety of different factors. Obviously, the blog or website in question needs a healthy flow of traffic. It’s no good having a lot of backlinks out there if no one sees them!
Furthermore, it can be tough to find products which are relevant enough for the blog. Blogs which are too general won’t get that much traffic.
However, those with a narrow niche will find affiliate opportunities hard to come by. Even if the blog’s all about consumer products, it can be hard to sell things to the readers.
People follow blogs for a wide variety of reasons, but very few use them as catalogues!
I hope this introduction has given you a better idea of what affiliate marketing is and what it means for your business or blog.
There are challenges to making this method work, but when it does it’s fantastic!
I’m new in the blogging world, thanks for the introduction to affiliate marketing.
Hi Aditi,
welcome to my blog and thanks for the kind words.
You may want to read this too:
http://nopassiveincome.com/affiliate-marketing/
Hi Erik,
Thanks for explaining Affiliate Marketing. I do a bit of it but haven’t found the best way to manage it. I think there are so many popular Affiliates out there that many of the bloggers are already promoting. Heck, I see it in my own little circle. It would be nice to be able to have a “rare” Affiliate and promote away but how often is that found?
Definitely passing this along as I know many bloggers out there are curious what it’s all about.
Bren
Hi Brenda,
thanks for sharing your views on affiliate marketing.
With all the blogs competition, I think the key is finding a niche inside a niche.
This way, you can specialize in something particular, that you will hardly find competitors.
Thanks for sharing and have a great day!
Hello Erik,
This is of so much help.
I am new to the blogging field and this post would be helping me a lot.
Indeed one need to build community and attract other bloggers to their blogs.
That would be helping to create better consumers for your work.
Thank you to share this informative post.
Shantanu sinha
Hello Shantanu,
glad you liked this article.
Thanks for commenting!
I have very little bit knowledge about affiliate marketing and its benefit. Thanks for telling us about affiliate marketing. This information was very helpful.Keep good sharing.
Glad to have you helped, Siegfried.
Thanks for revealing its benefit more and more to me; I mean affiliate marketing.
I’ve read much about it at Iftekhars Ahmed’s blog. Thanks bro.
.
I hope to start seeing the passive income in no distant time.
..
Have a nice day!
Good luck with your blog, Ybholy .
Hi Erik,
Very nice explanation on Affiliate Marketing. I think there are so many popular Affiliates out there that many of the bloggers are already promoting. It would be nice to be able to have a rare Affiliate.
You always give a unique idea. Thanks for this wonderful article,
Have a great day ahead !!
Maybe a niche inside a niche?
Wow!! Erik you are a genius man. Just gone through this article. Never read affiliate marketing in such a detail. But my problem is, for a multi-niche blog like i run, can you please tell me whether there is any scope of affiliate programs that I can target….Thanks in Advance.
Hi Kevin,
Just started on something of my own related to Affiliate Marketing. I hope informative blogs like these can help me understand the idea of affiliate marketing better.
Thanks
Hi Mayank,
thanks for the positive feedback.