Archive for Affiliate Articles
Want to earn money on your blog?
Posted by: | CommentsSo I was asked again today ‘How come I don’t earn much money on my blog?’ Then I went to visit the blog and it was – yes another random blog offering giveaways and general chatter with 9 million (ok that’s an exaggeration) 125 banner buttons and award badges all over it.
The keys to earning money on your blog/s are:
1) Have unique content.
2) Blog about something you know so you can provide valuable content.
3) Treat it like a business and have a plan.
4) Know how to design a layout that encourages ‘conversion’ not just clicks. Regardless of how your advertisers pay you – if they don’t see a return on their investment, they will not return.
So let go of your generic blog and plan to build 1-3 NICHE content blogs.
So here’s some tips to figure out what your blog niche should be:
1. Make TWO LISTS – One of your passions & One of things you do well.
2. Make a list of all the things that are in BOTH lists and select 2-5 of these.
Here’s my example list:
Childrens fashion
Early Childhood Education
Homeschooling
Now that you know what topics you likely have enough knowledge and interest in it’s time to dig deeper…
You need to understand what people will search (keywords) to get to your site and how much potential traffic those keywords (your niches) have.
Google has done the homework for you. They KNOW how many people have searched for your topics, and that information will tell you what sort of traffic potential your blog has.
3. Go to Google Keywords and search for your topics..
Here’s some interesting results in my searches under ‘childrens fashion’:
The top search was clothes girl 1,500,000 and the competition wasn’t hat high (about 3/4 bar)
baby girl clothing came next 1,000,000 and the competition was really high.
An interesting surprise was ‘smocked clothing’ 40,500 and not too high for competition.
4. Now you need to consider the money making potential.
Go to Google and search for your keywords- look to see how many ‘sponsor ads’ you find in the side bar.
Check The top three Affiliate networks to see what sort of CPA program offers are out there. What sort of commission do they offer ? Most campaigns need a min 12% to convert. Check their EPC rates.
It’s the publisher hat I am always talking about. You need to know your audience and your publication/blog’s potential reach if you want to earn ad revenue on your blog.
Not Earning Affiliate Revenue ?
Posted by: | CommentsA few common reasons why you may not be earning affiliate revenue:
1) You have too many outgoing LINKS on your pages. (Side bars can kill your affiliate revenue if you have too many banners, buttons, and things that don’t earn you revenue.)
2) Your affiliate links aren’t generating enough clicks. (see number 1)
3) You aren’t promoting your affiliate links across more than one venue. (i.e. you are only placing links in your sidebar.)
So how do you solve this? Take one of your programs (we’ll use TotSites as an example here ) and create a plan.
1) Place a converting banner in the top fold of your side bar. I hate to say it – but 125 buttons do NOT click. Their click ratio – well stinks- compared to a 160 by 600 skyscraper. What is it they say – go BIG or go home 
use an ADSERVER to get the most of your space.
2) Use your old content. Go through your old posts and put the 500×100 banner across the bottom of your posts. This way you don’t take away from your post’s content but give your readers somewhere to click when they are done reading your post.
3) Create a weekly post on a relevant topic that contains the sites KEY WORDS. For Tot sites these could be any post related to your children. Schedule them to come out over the month.
4) Social Media-> If you have a Facebook page or group share your affiliate links on your wall. Tweet your links out using a free service like hootsuite.com to schedule a unique tweet every 3-4 days.
5) If you have a newsletter, plan to feature one of your affiliate programs in each one. Email the program manager and ask for a product ‘bio’, product image, and company logo.(if you don’t have a newsletter – it is time to get one- check out Mail chimp. It’s free for up to 500 subscribers.
6) Promote your affiliate links onsite, through social media, and email.(OK I repeated that – but it is important to NOT put all your eggs in one basket.)
7) Build traffic to your site.
Have realistic expectations of the numbers it takes to convert an ad on the Internet. Less than 4% of the clicks to any one ad will result in a sale.
9) Create quality SEO ‘d posts and pages relevant to the ads located on the page.
10) Unless you have a VERY niche site with very targeted banner ads – The side bar banner ads won’t be your bread and butter. Your pages are. Place your banners and text links in your content.
Getting visitors to your blog with blog SEO
Posted by: | CommentsA blog needs visitors (or traffic). If you want your affiliate programs to earn you revenue then you need qualified visitors looking for the products you promote in your post.
So how do you get the search engines to bring you those visitors ? With some blog SEO.
There are some ways to automate blog seo. If you have a wordpress blog there are a few blog seo plugins. However if you don’t understand why you need seo and how to seo your blog posts manually maybe you should hold off on the seo automation.
Quick and dirty tips (ok not really dirty) for blog post SEO
1) CONTENT - Google bots will read every word in each of your posts. For the best results you need at least 2-3 paragraphs and each post should relate to a specific topic. Know your topic ahead of time.
2) Know the keywords you need to include. You may think that ‘coupon organizer’ is the blog seo keyword that will get you the most qualifying traffic, but Google and the search engines HAVE the numbers. The KNOW what keywords people search.
So use a handy sidebar tool like Wordtrack SEO blogger or Google’s keyword generator and use the top searched keywords.
Using Wordtracker SEO Blogger on I typed in ‘grocery coupons’ and it gave me a list of 30 TOP searched keywords on Google to include
3) Title tags – The top keyword should be in your Title
i.e. Organize your ‘grocery coupons’ savings with the couponizer
4) Meta tags: Blog Seo means including your keywords in your meat tags along with a description using your blog SEO keywords. This is a bit harder in blogger or blogspot. There are many great videos on you tube explaining how to create SEO meta tags in blogger.
Good SEO is about quality content rich in keywords.
If you are creating content for a specific affiliate program, consider writing 2-5 posts at once, using a different but relevant ‘content idea’. Then schedule your posts over a three month period.
Share a Sale Tip
Posted by: | CommentsWorking with affiliate merchants can earn great revenue when your audience suites the affiliate products you run.
However, like everything in life, you always should have a few ‘insider secrets’.
Most of the programs at Her Affiliate are run through the Share a Sale network. This means outside of the affiliate programs I manage you will have access to MANY other affiliate programs at Share a Sale as well. Our programs run through Share a Sale are managed, so you know the chances of them ever being ‘inactive’ are pretty slim. Should you join other programs that aren’t actively managed you may see that the merchants occasionally are deactivated by Share a Sale.
This means all the hard work you put into putting up banners and links could be fruitless when they don’t link through. Today’s’ tip is to make sure you utilize these links should your ‘merchants’ be deactivated.
Simply Log onto your share a sale account and under account settings insert a redirect URL.
One simple step to cover your Share a Sale affiliate program links ….
