Affiliate Links: The Best Way to Market Them

Affiliate marketing is a great way to generate income with your site or your blog. There’s a number of ways to include affiliate referral links or banner ads that can be highly effective and a few ways that can be just plain annoying to the visitor.

First, if your blog is solely for the purpose of posting affiliate links, you’ll find that you’re not going to get many subscribers. People revisit and subscribe to blogs that provide real value and if they land on your site only to find a collage of links and promotions, they won’t stay long. So, the purpose of your blog should be serving the reader, not yourself. Yes, you can profit from your blog if you’re truly being of service to your subscribers. The more service and value you provide, the more you’ll earn in the long-run.

The best avenue to is to be selective with what you choose to promote and how you choose to promote it. First, identify the purpose of your blog and provide real content that is valuable to the viewer. Ensure that your purpose is clear to the visitor. Invite them to opt-in to a list and to subscribe for further information. Then, carefully choose affiliate networks and promotions that fit with the purpose of your site and would also provide real value for your reader. Your subscribers do want to know about services and products that can benefit them.

For instance, my blog is designed to help home business entrepreneurs generate high-quality, high-converting leads for their business. I’ve chosen to include affiliate links for products that are valuable to this niche and would assist my subscribers. Some promotions I have on the site are for e-mail management services, pay-per-click sites, banner advertising resources, branding tools, etc. The links and promotions all fit with the purpose of the site and I ensure that whatever I am promoting, I have personal experience  with.

To further the benefit to you and your subscriber with affiliate promotions, from time to time you can write a blog post about a particular service that would be of real value to the reader. Give them the details about the product or service, an example of how you have used it and, most important, give them an example of the real results that you have experienced using the product or service. What people most want to know is how the product or service can benefit them to produce a real result. Avoid rabid promotions of products simply to earn commissions as this can wear out your subscribers and you’ll find they’ll stop coming by. If your subscribers feel you respect their “space” and time, they’ll respect your offers and will be more likely to purchase, increasing your overall revenue.