Here at ShoutMeLoud, I am continually sharing ways in which you can earn money from a blog.
One of the most effective ways is through affiliate marketing.
In affiliate marketing, you choose a product related to your blog niche, create product awareness, and then when somebody buys a product using your affiliate link, you receive a referral commission from it.
*Note: There are other promotional networks such as social media marketing and email marketing, however in this article I am sharing tips that you can use on your blog to promote an affiliate link.
Also see: 8 actionable tips to increase affiliate sales
At the conclusion of this article, I will also be sharing one mistake which most of the affiliate marketers are making! Read on:
5 Working Tips To Promote Affiliate Products:
1. Write Review post:
Nothing beats a killer review post about a product!
A review article introduces the product to your blog readers, and at the same time, your opinion guides them in understanding why they should be buying it. Here are a few things that you should always remember when writing a review post for your affiliate product:
- Reviews should be honest. Most of the time, people just focus on the good points about a product and fail to mention any downsides. An honest review should include both sides of the coin. Remember to also add product images, and give all the useful information you have to offer about the product.
- Write a review in a personal tone, as people are looking for a personal recommendation in review articles.
- Pick a product that you are more likely to use yourself.
- Take advantage of star ratings in search engines to get a higher CTR for your reviews. Your results in SERPs will look like this:
2. Blog post promotion:
A proper technique is to use affiliate links inside your blog posts and then promote those posts. For this, you should always write highly targeted posts.
For example, write an article that a user would search right before deciding to buy something. Write posts based on a buying-intent keyword.
This will increase your sales by at least 200%.
Examples:
- Best [product name] (online)
- Best [product name] site
- Best [product name] website
- Best + product type + in (current year).
- Discount [product name]
- [Product name] coupon
- [Product name] coupon code
- [Product name] discount
- Buy [Product name]
- Buy [Product name] online etc.
Specific post title examples:
- Which GoPro camera model should you buy for shooting underwater?
- How to save money on international flight bookings to Cancun?
Which brings us to….
How-to articles:
A DIY kind of article always works well for affiliate product promotion.
If your product is technical or needs instructions before one can use it, you can write a tutorial guide on how to use it properly.
Such tutorials are not only handy but will also help you improve your search engine rankings. “How-To” articles always perform great on search engines.
Here are a few examples, for better understanding:
Such tutorials are not only handy, but will also help you to improve your search engine ranking. “How To” articles always perform very well in search engines.
3. Use Twitter to promote the Affiliate offers
Twitter is the top 3 social networking sites, and a great platform for promoting affiliate products and links to make money. However, you have to understand the rules of game to make Twitter work for affiliate marketing.
One technique that works on Twitter for promoting affiliate products or links is using the auto-plug feature. This feature enables you to auto promote any thing when any of your tweet goes viral.
One of the tool that I use for this technique is called Tweet Hunter, and I have written in-depth about it in my review of Tweet-hunter.
Also, read my guide on Twitter auto-plug feature to master the art of promoting affiliate products on Twitter platform.
4. Use coupon codes:
Believe it or not, money-saving is always the biggest marketing incentive. Whenever a customer is buying a product and he sees a coupon box, he searches for “Product Name + coupon”, and with the resulting coupon code, you still receive a good commission for the sale.
Remember, your goal as an affiliate marketer is not just to share the coupon, but to make the customer click your affiliate link, else the sale will not count as yours’. (There are exceptions for certain affiliate programs where coupons are considered as sales.)
You can also consider writing a monthly blog post for coupon codes. (Example: Web Hosting Coupon Codes for October 2020), etc.
If you notice on various coupon sites, they will always ask you to “Click to view coupon”, “Click to go on the merchant site” and so on. The reason for this is to drop the cookie. Here is an image as a reference:
5. Use featured post:
Be it a review post or be it a coupon code post, your goal is to get more views on these posts. Apart from On-page SEO, you should give more visibility to such a post by placing it as a featured post.
There is a handy feature in WordPress that allows you to stick any blog post on your blog’s homepage. Here is how you can do it:
In the “edit post” section, click on “Visibility” and put a check mark beside “Stick this post to the front page”. I have tried this with a few pillar posts at ShoutMeLoud, and it has really increased my reader base.
6. Use banners on the sidebar:
When you are getting targeted organic traffic to your blog, banner advertisements work great. For me, a great part of the conversion comes from banner clicks. Prominent banner placement is a worthwhile task. One of the mistakes which many of us regularly make is to add too many banners, which only serves to confuse the reader. To avoid this problem, follow this one rule of thumb:
Never place banner ads for similar products on your sidebar: Banner ads work as a recommended product. With multiple similar products, you are confusing your readers in their decision of which product to buy.
It is a good idea to place products that are related to a certain niche within that particular niche.
For example, in a blog post about WordPress tips, you can place a banner ad for: Themes, Plugins, Hosting, Services, etc.
If yours’ is a multi-niche blog, you should consider using the WP Advanced Ads plugin for your ad management.
This plugin will help you to show ads based on category and geographical location. You can also run A/B testing of different banners.
Bonus tip 1: Use Sticky ads plugin to stick an ad in WordPress sidebar. This is a free plugin and you can learn more about it here.
Bonus Tip 2: When placing ads, link out to the website directly instead of your review post. One big mistake many affiliate marketers make is they try to link an ad to their review post or another internal post.
This is wrong because a product landing page is always optimized for higher conversion, and will obviously be better optimized than your own review post. In the past year, I have started linking directly out to the product landing page instead of my review post, and this has resulted in my conversions skyrocketing.
Learn all about Affiliate marketing in one eBook: Buy from ShoutMeLoud store
Here are new affiliate links promotion ideas that works in 2023-2024
- Mention Products in your most epic/popular post
- Create a course/series article around the product
- Host a product giveaway
- Comparison post
- Create a post when the product adds a new feature
- Create an alternative products post (Ex: Aweber alternatives)
- Write a post on why I switched from X to Y
- Create a resource page
- Create videos explaining about the product
- Create list post & include the product
- Create Coupon/deal specific post for product
Let me know if you have other tips that we can follow to promote affiliate links.
Also see: 8 actionable tips to increase affiliate sales
If you have found this article useful, please remember to share it with others on Facebook & Twitter.
For further reading:
![10+ Best Affiliate Networks & Marketing Platforms of 2024 [Mega List]](https://www.shoutmeloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Best-Affiliate-Networks-431x230.jpg)
![12 Best Recurring Affiliate Programs: Make Passive Income For Life [2024]](https://www.shoutmeloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Best-Recurring-Affiliate-Programs-431x230.jpg)
well i have never seen a ad on your website i have just seen a native ad advertisement so how so do your earn money from affiliate marketing
@Abhay
One can generate more sales with links within the article rather than banner ads. (Especially in affiliate marketing)
I have been trying to find one question which i believe is found no where over the internet. How do you get accepted by affiliate programs especailly if you are a newbie blogger ? Does the process starts something with . Good blog (with all the required plugins theme pages etc ) + Good content which leads to more traffic like a daily of 1k or more And than when you apply for an affialiate account you get selected ? Is that the right process ? Or can you just simply apply for a particular affiliate program and they are willing to provide you the link ? When did you Started affiliate marketing ? When you had enough traffic or was it way before that ?
Sometimes Affiliate Marketing Goes Very Hard . it also drpends on your visitors and mainly on you . I didnt get a sale till now . Let’s see when i will get a Commission By Applying the abovementioned Points
Hello Harsh thankyou for sharing this valuable information. I am confused with which affilate programme should I use Amazon or Flipkart.
Can’t I use both ??
Thank you in advance and your post on fb where you said if one man can do it then you can do it too always gives me hope that I can be a blogger too..
Having a fan base or a place where your audience gathers and can interact with you like on FVB pages or twitter, when you have an interaction with your audience then you can have idea what product you should use for affiliate. For example, in one of my old blogs, people were used to ask me about the best smartphone in the this price range with these specs and I made a right away made a post regarding this with a affiliate link on it. Use such tactics, I’ve made quite a lot and of course great post.
I’m going to start a fashion website and sell products on my site. But I don’t sell products myself and think to put affiliate links in my site. So I want to know, is this possible to do or not? Please Harsh Agrawal, I want your help!
Let me try and help you Shehara. So yes it’s cool that you’re looking at setting up a Fashion Website and sell products there, but it’s important to work on the type of website you’re considering to build.
Are you looking at creating an informative website wherein you’ll be educating your users on Fashion Tips and Tricks based on your personal experiences, or knowledge, or the changing seasons? If yes, then that’s an absolutely cool way to build your traffic and get user attention; once you’ve done that giving your recommendation by including links to certain products or services would work perfectly and you will steadily be able to generate Affiliate income. On the other hand it wont be a cool thing to just randomly include Affiliate Links or Banners to different brands on your website in the hope of earning.
Hope this helps
Nicely said Harsh. The central theme of your article is that content is very important whether that be a Featured Post, Review Article, How To Article or Recommendation. In Affiliate Marketing this definitely helps a user understand the value the product or service has to offer and naturally warms them up to wanting to know more about the Merchant.
I was a little confused about the last part, bonus tip. Are you suggesting that an Affiliate links out directly to the Landing Page rather than a review page? Normally this link going out to the Merchant would be from within a review page right, or some content page.
Can we promote bluehost on tech blog? Is it good? Can we make 1 sale per month? Please help me.
Well you have written a great post about the aff. marketing.Thanks for sharing the best ways 4 promoting the affiliate products. I am just planning to start affiliate marketing so this article will help for me a lot. I will try to follow these techniques that you discuss in this article…
As i am new in the aff. marketing so if you don’t mind
Can you please guide me ???
and can you please suggest me that from which aff. product/company i start with????
(As i am new so i want to start with free aff. program)…
Thank you
Good post dear
earning through affiliates is good idea but i think these day many website offering false affiliates program .when you try to access affiliates earning data those website show zero click or no earning so i think you should choose good affiliates program
thanks
yes off-course harsh, coupon codes always works good eespecially in case with Indians. everybody including me loves to save money because it’s really hard to earn it.
Great Tips to promote affiliates. thanks for sharing.
Hi Harsh, You have written great content, I strongly Recommend Your bonus tips and I also using direct link with product name instead of Review post and It increase my earnings.
Hello Harsh !!! Your blog is really Helpful for me 🙂
I want to know that is this necessary in Affiliate Marketing To Promote Product Basicallly on Blog or Website ?? Or I can promote it on facebook page , twitter …..??
@Yogita
You can always promote products on your social media sites like twitter/Fb…but you need to add value at the same time to ensure you don’t annoy your followers.
all of the above techniques are awesome but review posts is one of the best ways to promote an affiliate product. this strategy work great and can give lots of leads to us.
Really this is the best way to promote as your main income source is Affiliate marketing from which you make $5000 + .Hey Harsh it would be great if you would write a post on How you make $5000+ with affiliate marketing 🙂 Pls if you can then pls write on it as we all would love to read it 🙂
Thanks for sharing the effective ways to promote affiliate products. I am just planning to start affiliate marketing so this article will be a great help for me. I will try to follow the techniques you have mentioned.
@Animesh
Glad that you find this article informative. Feel free to ask follow-up questions..
Well written harsh, I am really motivated toward aff. marketing and i am going to follow these points.
Thanks
Hi Harsh,
That’s a comprehensive guide to become a successful affiliate marketer. I mean a super one like Zac.
That’s almost the best and every possible ways to squeeze out affiliate income through a blog. A job well done. Congrats for that.
Well, I’d also like to add up that even though these methods are the best ways to earn through a blog via Affiliate Marketing, I believe that we must have the top crucial key for conversion. The “Trust-Factor”. Your audience must trust you and you need to roll out the right recommendations to them at the right time to keep the trust bond stable and do more conversions. Right? What do you say about it Harsh. Thanks!
Cheers!
@Amal
Indeed trust factor matters a lot especially for a blog which is getting repeat readers. A website which is created for different purpose (Coupon websites or highly affiliate sites) which only uses coupon for marketing, there placement and targeted traffic matters the most…
Hey Harsh,
Writing review posts and sharing coupon codes work great for me. In fact, sharing coupon codes is the easiest way. Here are 2 tips from me who wants to make sales from coupons.
1. Use ‘DRP Coupon’ Plugin.
2. Always add coupon codes on the starting part of your blog posts as most of the time this type of sale comes from Search Engine.
BTW thanks for sharing this useful post.
@Istiak
Thanks for your awesome comment and suggestions.. I will give a shot to DRP coupon and completely agree with your point on placing coupon at the top, as it helps users to quickly get the coupon. Specially people from search engine just want the coupons, and that’s why coupon websites work great…. Keep adding such valuable comment Istiak.
This is very important article I have found here.This information is very required for new blogger or newly working on affiliate marketer.Thanks for sharing this information.