Earlier this week an article was published on MomCentral discussing why affiliate programs don’t work for Mom Bloggers. The Savvy Blogging Team respectfully disagrees with this article and here’s why…
First, can we get rid of the term “mom blogger”? In my opinion there are two types of bloggers, hobby bloggers and business bloggers.
If you don’t make any money from your blog (and don’t want to) you are a hobby blogger. This means you don’t have any ads, affiliate links, sponsored posts, or brand/ blog partnerships. You write because you love to write or share your family’s adventures, but it is a hobby.
If you make even one penny from your blog you are a business blogger. You might think that your blog is a hobby, but if you are submitting your social security number to Adsense, Amazon, or any other organization you a running a business. You will need to pay taxes on your blog income, just like any other business pays taxes on their income.
So if you are a blogger and are planning on putting even one small ad in your sidebar, you are no longer a hobby blogger.
Now, how can affiliate programs work for business bloggers that do not post about coupons and deals on a daily basis? It’s simple.
Use affiliate links organically in your content when you talk about products you love.
You aren’t going to make much money from affiliate links by throwing up a 300 x 250 ad in your sidebar. You will make even less money by placing a skyscraper ad at the bottom of your sidebar. These ads are not effective for affiliates, especially if you aren’t writing to the coupon crowd.
What does work is signing up for affiliate programs for your favorite products and then using those links in your posts.
For example, I’ve been using cloth diapers for the past two and a half years. I’ve written several posts about my experience as a mom who used disposable diapers with six kids then switched to cloth with baby #7. These are interesting, content rich posts.
In each post I have an affiliate link to the store where I purchase my cloth diapers. (Which is disclosed at the bottom of the post, of course.) Over the past several months I’ve made several hundred dollars from this affiliate link. Not only do I a see a spike in affiliate earnings when I publish the post, but I see residual income over time because these posts have evergreen content and are read on a daily basis by people who find them via Google search, or people who are new to my site.
Amazon is a popular affiliate program, but the percentage is crummy. You really have to sell a lot on Amazon to make a large amount of money. That being said, Amazon makes linking to products extremely easy and it takes less than 30 seconds to add an affiliate link to a post. So it’s worth doing if you have a relevant product for a post you are working on.
If you are writing about a favorite book, toy, camera, kitchen tool, or even food you can link to it on Amazon. While your reader might not click and buy that specific item, if they buy anything on the site you earn a commission.
The key to earning with affiliates is to think strategically about your links. Throwing up any and every photo deal link or Chili’s coupon is probably not going to convert for the non-deal blogger. But sharing relevant content that contains affiliate links will convert with your readers.
In my opinion bloggers, who write content rich material every week have an advantage over sites that just post links with similar traffic. With every post you are building a relationship with your readers. People value you, your website, and your opinions!
When you recommend a product that you love (and you really must love it) readers can feel the authenticity in your writing. They significantly more likely to click-thru and purchase the item, especially when compared to sites whose only content is links.
Do you need a hundred thousand readers a month to make affiliate income? The simple answer is no, but traffic does matter. You won’t make money from any source if no one is reading your content. But, you can successfully monetize a smaller site as long as you are purposeful with your links.
If you are strategically inserting affiliate links and not seeing a return, you might want to spend more time on content development than affiliate marketing for a short time. While we have all known or heard of bloggers who make an income from day one, that is not typical and business blogging is hard work.
It is easy to dismiss blogs who have higher traffic when it comes to earning with affiliates, but my own experience shows this to be misguided.
While my unique visitors have tripled since the end of my first year, my affiliate income is ten times greater. If traffic and affiliate income were directly related my affiliate income should have only tripled. I believe my affiliate income increased disproportionately to my traffic because I learned how to use affiliate links effectively for my audience. It is important to try out different strategies to see what works for your readership because every blog is different.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. While you can make money with affiliate links it isn’t the only way to make money from your website. Affiliate links are just one way to monetize. It is important to diversify your income so that if one stream dries up you still have several streams flowing.
The Savvy Blogging team members earn income from affiliate links, ad networks, sponsored posts, writing freelance articles for other websites, private ad sales, newsletter sponsorships, brand ambassadorships, focus groups, traditionally published books, self-published e-books, and more.
It’s time to think more about how to use affiliate links so they will convert well for you…and it’s time to think about how to incorporate these other sources of income for your blog and your business.
With a little experimentation and practice, Mom business bloggers can indeed make money with affiliate programs!
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Smockity Frocks Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
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Julie @ The Family CEO Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 10:44 am
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Just over the weekend, I looked up my affiliate link performance through a website that sells an online course and has a store that sells related products. I had written two or three posts — keyword optimized, of course — that recounted my experiences with the program. I was stunned, stunned! to see that just from Google traffic to those couple of posts, my affiliate earnings were already up to $100 (they have an extremely high commission and a high price point item in the online course). I can either cash it out or use it as store credit. I was so thrilled!
I definitely plan to do more posts like that because there’s always something new to tell about my experience with the program and obviously people are looking for it on Google!
Find a niche affiliate program/product that fits you, make sure the posts are keyword optimized, and write. It will be profitable organically for you, I think, with little “work” after the post is written.
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The best thing about this post? I can totally hear your voice. Love it!
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The Happy Housewife Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
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Jennifer - The Bargain Sleuth Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
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I am so happy with my quality fans (as opposed to quantity fans) as I try to keep my site fairly local. And I am making money now with strategic affiliate links and doing all the other things mentioned in your article. Each month is better than the previous one, but I’ll never run around and say I’m ONLY doing it to help others like I’ve seen some other business bloggers masquerading as hobby bloggers. Yes, I want to help people, but hey, if I can get paid for the full-time hours I put into my site at the same time, more power to me (and you).
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Now I need to work on the content affiliate links!
Bernice
10 first steps for a simpler life
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As I read, I totally found myself nodding along. Even though I am a “coupon blogger”, I believe strongly that authenticity is key. My links convert extremely well given the size of my audience – and I think a big part of that is the trust.
In a recent reader survey, I even had several readers remark that they might see a deal on 10 other sites, but if they see it on my site, they know it’s legit – and are much more likely to buy it. And that’s with less than 50K page views a month
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I’ll be sharing this post wide and far – it’s incredible!
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The Happy Housewife Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Congrats on your success with affiliate links! You have a wonderful site, I can see why your readers are so loyal!
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I have a love for reading and writing and tend to read what I can and promote those who write on the topic. That as well as biblical motherhood, discipleship or other resources that help with my walk with Christ. Talking about these comes extremely natural for me because I naturally love them, and people can tell the difference.
I get businesses contacting me frequently to promote products that simply aren’t relevant to me or my readers {such as GlowCrazy}. Is the product bad? No. It just doesn’t fit in with what I write about. Just keep it real!
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As someone who blogged for 18 months without monetizing at all, this was timely as I started signing up for affiliates last month. Thanks for the informative article!
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I made about $60 my first month, collectively. I definitely need to be more strategic in my posts. If you happen to visit my blog sometime, feedback would be great!
Thanks!
Candace
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As someone who’s paid out thousands of dollars this year to bloggers who have promoted my product, I say AMEN to bloggers who find and
promote the products that co-brand with their content. It’s a win-win-win.
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The products you love + organic links = perfect!
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Another opportunity to use affiliate links is for ebooks that are relevant to your audience. I’ve had a few bloggers who signed up to be affiliates for an ebook I released at the beginning of the month and they’ve already earned over $200 each in 14 days! They didn’t even post about it more than once…they just sent a few messages on facebook and twitter.
I’m definitely going to add more ebook affiliate marketing into my strategy (so if you have one that fits my audience – busy moms – let me know
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Unique visitors tripled but affiliate income increased tenfold? Wow!!
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Heather Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
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The Happy Housewife Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 8:20 am
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