How NOT to Make Money from Affiliate Ads | Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

There's always lots of buzz about the money to be made from affiliate advertising.

Some bloggers certainly do make good money from affiliates but it's very easy to get nothing for your efforts.

As a new blogger, these are the lessons that I have learnt - the hard way - about getting the best response to affiliate ads.

I would love to hear your tips - and if you've got a post on making money from blogging do link it up at the bottom of the post.

Five things NOT to do!

1. Scatter affiliate ads everywhere

Although, many affiliate programs have attractive display ads - these units, on their own, rarely make you money. Typically, you will make more money from CPC and CPM ad networks in the premium ad slots on your blog.

2. Sign up for 100s of affiliates

You will make most money from affiliates by personally recommending relevant products. You can't do this for hundreds of advertisers that you know little about.

3. Sign up for any affiliate with high pay outs

When you register for an affiliate network, you will be able to see the advertisers who make the highest pay outs. Unless, these advertisers have products connected with your content, it is very unlikely that you will make any money out of them.

4. Market products you know nothing about

If you haven't used a brand or product, thoroughly research a product before advertising it in any way. Don't just check out their website. Look out for bad reviews on e.g. Amazon and by Googling them. Smaller brands might be willing to give you trial use or a sample product. You undermine your readers trust in you if you recommend a poor product.

5. Leave ads up for weeks at a time

If you do put up display ads keep putting up fresh copy and move them around else readers will become blind to them.

Five tips that CAN help you make money

1. Tie brands to your content

Affiliate programs allow you to create your own text links that you can build into your content. Your readers are interested in your content and will be interested in links that are genuinely relevant to and add something to that content.

2. Focus on a brands you know and love

People are more likely to click on a link if you can honestly say that you trust a product.

Make a list of all the brands that you love and try to sign up for their affiliate programs. (Don't be disheartened if some reject you!) You will then be able speak with real insight about the product.

3. Give your recommendations authority

Your links will be more useful to your readers if you compare the product you are recommending with alternatives. You could for example provide links to a more expensive and a cheaper alternative - obviously these could also be affiliates.

4. Work your old content

If no one reads your old content, they won't get a chance to click on your affiliate links.

Make sure people keep coming back to your old posts by putting picture links in your side bar, creating index pages such as these the Six Sisters use and by pinning your posts.

5. Provide very targeted latest deals

Everyone likes great deals but there are lots of sites specialising in them and readers don't want to be bombarded with them if that's not what your site is about.

But your readers probably will appreciate some very targeted deals in your niche that they might not have the time to track down themselves.

If you've got a newsletter, you could add a few latest deal links from relevant advertisers that you really trust. You could also add a page that listed these deals.

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