Affiliate marketing can be super intimidating at first, but I’ll break it down to be as simple as possible. I’ve even included some super simple walk through videos.
Here are my top five tips for affiliate marketing. I use these tips all of the time, so I can definitely say that they work.
Think of affiliate links as assets for your readers instead of a paycheck for yourself. I’ve actually improved posts by including affiliate links, my favorite post that is making me money almost every day is this DIY candy buffet tutorial, I improved this post a ton by adding affiliate links long after it was published.
You can add affiliate links to posts after they’ve been published. Check out your top viewed posts, then take a long hard look at those posts to see if they could benefit from affiliate links.
Writer’s block? Put together an affiliate widget for a fun little post on your favorite things. I’ve even included simple instructions in the videos below.
Affiliate links help make the best ever gift guides, I love making gift guides. (normally geeky gift guides, because that’s what I do!) Pro-tip: Get your holiday gift guides out at least a month before the holiday. This year I’m starting Christmas gift guides in September, not even joking.
You don’t need your readers to buy the exact item that you linked to, as long as they enter the site with one of your links and make a purchase you’ll get a percentage of the sale. Get your readers to the website, then it’s the websites job to make the final sale, and ecommerce sites are pretty darn good at getting you to add a few items too many to your cart. But I seriously needed that Lord of the Rings sword, guys, and it just kind of…fell into my cart.
So now that I’ve told you my favorite affiliate marketing tips, you can sit back, relax, and learn how to use Amazon Associates and/or CJ.com for affiliate links. These are the only two websites I use for affiliate marketing and I love them. They’re both pretty similar, except that Amazon can only be used with items sold on Amazon (which is a lot!) and CJ.com works with a lot of different websites (they have a crazy amount of retailers to work with, and good ones too!)
How to use Amazon Associates (affiliate link) for affiliate marketing:
How to use CJ.com for affiliate marketing:
I hope this post helped you feel more comfortable with affiliate marketing!
Written by, Brittany, the geek behind the blog. Sharing tips and stories from the trenches on navigating life homeschooling and homesteading as a stay at home mom.