Affiliate Marketing

Okay, so you've bought a domain name & hosting, set up WordPress, chosen a theme, optimized your blog, and added some content. Now how do you make money from this thing?

One of the most popular and effective ways of monetizing a blog is by using affiliate marketing. Basically, you become a salesman for a particular company / product, and you receive commissions on everything you sell.

Many bloggers are affiliates for Amazon or Ebay. If we made a blog on “bamboo fly fishing rods”, this would be a good option because it is a physical product, and chances are good that people searching for that keyword might want to buy it.

It's extremely easy to sign up as an affiliate for these websites.

Another highly popular website is Clickbank. Clickbank specializes in digital products like eBooks and software. Affiliates love to promote these products because they usually offer high payouts ($15+ per commission).

A quick search on the Clickbank marketplace and I was able to find “Deadly Fly Fishing Tactics – Revealed” which might be okay to promote to someone looking for bamboo fly fishing rods. However, it's not terribly targeted like an ACTUAL bamboo fly fishing rod for sale on Amazon or Ebay would be.

Keep these things in mind as you choose a product to promote. You want to be as targeted as possible.

Other websites where you can find products to promote are Commission Junction, PayDotCom, and Share A Sale. Also, sometimes individual companies offer affiliate programs on their websites. There's also CPA (Cost Per Action), which is in a whole other ball park. Do some research and see what you come up with.

When you find a product you want to promote, you'll receive an affiliate code to put on your website. It's good to put some kind of ad on the sidebar of your blog, which you can do by accessing the “Widgets” page and adding the code into the “text object” box.

 Also include text affiliate links throughout your blog posts. But not too many, otherwise it'll look spammy.