There are a number of very popular affiliate programs available to bloggers who are interested in monetizing their blog. Amazon Associates Program, Clickbank Affiliate Program, Commission Junction Affiliate Program and Linkshare are probably the most widely known. Today I’d like to give you a few tips that should help you get the best results out of any affiliate program that you choose to run with.
1. Consider Your Audience
This one is a given - but it is worth putting yourself in the shoes of your typical reader and consider what he or she might be looking for as they visit your blog. Are they shopping for specific products? Might they be interested in related products or accessories? What would entice them to purchase? Have your reader in mind rather than the product. If you take this advice by heart you will be doing your readers a favor as well as making a few dollars on the side.
2. Genuine Recommendations and Personal Endorsements Work Best
There are literally hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of products and services for you to choose from to recommend to your blog’s readers but, unfortunately, making money from them is not as easy as randomly adding links to them from your blog. Your blog’s readers come back to your blog time and again because something about your writing resonates with them - they trust and respect you, and perhaps the quickest way to destroy this is to recommend that they buy products that cannot possibly benefit them.
So far, I have had the best results from affiliate programs whenever and wherever I give an open and honest appraisal of the product - including both its strenghts and its weaknesses. People want to know exactly what they are buying first, therefore you should tell them about what possible limitations a product might have - they will be grateful for your honesty and buy it anyway if it meets their particular need.
3. Only Link to Quality Products
We all like to make sure that we are getting the best value for our money - your readers are no different in this respect than anybody else and they are more likely to make a purchase if they can rely on you to find the best products for them. Choose products and companies with good reputations, quality sales pages and safe payment options. There is nothing worse than writing a glowing review of a product only to send your readers to a page that looks cheap and untrustworthy.
4. Contextual Deep Links Work Best
A while ago, when I started using the Amazon Associate Program on one of my blogs I naively thought that all I had to do was put an Amazon banner ad (linking to Amazon’s front page or – alternatively – to special offers) at the top of my blog. I assumed that my readers would see it and surf over to Amazon and buy up big - thereby making me rich and happy. Alas, nothing could have been further from reality.
That is the reason why I always stress that bloggers should learn a little bit from contextual advertising when it comes to affiliate programs. The secret of contextual ads like AdSense is that when visitors are reading a post on a particular topic on your blog they will be shown an advertisement for a product that is closely related to that topic so they are more likely to click it than if they saw an ad for something else. The same is true for all affiliate programs. A banner to a general page on every page on your site will not be anywhere near as effective as multiple links throughout your blog that advertise products that are relevant to readers reading a particular part of your blog. 
So if you are writing a blog about digital cameras and have a review for a particular product - the most effective affiliate program that you could link to from within the content of that page would be one that sends your readers directly to a page selling that specific model of digital camera. This is how I use the Amazon program today. It is more work than AdSense-style contextual advertising because you’re not just putting one piece of code into a template but rather need to place individual links on many pages - but it is worth the effort.
5. Consider the Positioning of Links
The key factor in AdSense optimization is the positioning of ads. I keep telling fellow bloggers to position their ads in the hotspots on pages (like the top of a left hand side bar - or inside content - or at the end of posts above comments – directly below the header, etc). The same principles should be applied to affiliate advertising.
6. Traffic Levels are Important
While they are not the sole factor - traffic levels are obviously key when it comes to making money from almost any online activity. The more people see your carefully placed, relevant and well designed affiliate links the more likely it is that one of them will click on them and go on to make a purchase. So do not just work on your affiliate links - work on building a readership. Not just this, consider as well how you might direct traffic on your blog toward pages where people are more likely to see your affiliate links.
7. Diversify without Cluttering
Don’t put all your affiliate efforts into one basket. There are plenty of products out there to link to so there is no need to just work on one. But do not clutter up your blog with too many affiliate program links. If you do so you run the serious risk of diluting the effectiveness of your links and annoying your readership.
8. Transparency
Do not try to trick your readers into clicking links that could make you money. While it may not always be feasible to label each and every affiliate link I think at least some attempt should be made to let people know what type of link they are clicking on. Consistency is important with this so readers of your blog will always know what to expect. You could, for instance, put a note beside or under affiliate links to let readers know that this is what they are (unless the wording of a link makes it obvious that the reader will be taken to some sort of shop, ie a link my say ‘buy the XXX product’ or ‘get the latest product on XXX’). But the best and easiest way to go about this is to use side-wide diclaimers to inform your readers that you are using affiliate links.
Please read Part 2 as well.
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