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Raise your hand if you're ready to start making some passive income from affiliate marketing.

My guess is if you're still here, you raised your hand. I mean, who doesn't want to make some money from their blogs right?

Whether you raised your hand because you're ready to learn how to actually make some money from affiliate marketing or you raised your hand because I said something about money and you were like…uh yeah, I'm in, but have no idea what affiliate marketing is, no worries.

I'm going to go over exactly what affiliate marketing is as well as the top 5 types of blog posts that are the highest converting for affiliate marketing.

Please note that there are affiliate links within this post which means I receive a small commission if you choose to purchase using my link at no extra cost to you.

 

What is affiliate marketing? 

The idea behind affiliate marketing is simple. After signing up to become an affiliate, you promote other people's products through blog posts, Pinterest, youtube videos, and/or social media.

When someone uses your link (given to you by the affiliate company) you make a commission.

Commissions range anywhere from a few cents to a few hundred dollars. It simply depends on the company.

You can promote as many products as you want or as few products as you want and pretty much anything you can think of has an affiliate program.

The beauty of this is that the company you are “selling” for is doing the hard stuff for you. You're just telling your audience how much it helped you, how much you enjoyed it, whatever the case may be.

The key to affiliate marketing is to be genuine and honest.

 

How do you get started with Affiliate Marketing?

First things first, you need to have some kind of place to put your affiliate links online to promote them.

Of course, I'm going to recommend starting a blog because it's evergreen, it's yours, you don't have to worry about algorithms deterring your traffic. The list is endless..so just start a blog!

Having a blog will also help you join more affiliate companies because they are looking for real websites for their products to be promoted.

If you have any questions about starting a blog please don't hesitate to ask.

Now that we've got all that out of the way, once you have a place to promote your affiliate links/products you need to join some affiliate companies!

So how many should you join?

Which ones should you join?

I personally do not recommend joining a whole bunch right off the bat. Take a look at your niche, think about which types of products you could promote then join 2-3 affiliate programs that have those products.

The easiest way to find affiliate companies is to simply look at products you are already using yourself, that you love and would have no problem sharing with your best friend.

Go to google and see if they have an affiliate program.

If you are a blogger that writes about blogging, check your hosting company for an affiliate program.

Amazon, a site that's pretty much perfect for most niches, has its own affiliate program called, Amazon Associates.

Although they are well known, Amazon does have a low commission rate they are also pretty particular with how you can use their links so make sure to read up on their disclosures.

Etsy also has an affiliate program as well as WP Engine, Shopify and Ultimate Bundles.

Go to this post to learn more about which affiliate programs are the best for bloggers in any niche.

Another simple way to find affiliate programs to join is to look at courses or ebooks you've purchased. Most of the time they will have an affiliate program you can join as well!

 

What are the Top 5 Types of Blog Posts that make money with Affiliate Marketing?

You've set up your blog, you have a few posts, you've signed up for a few affiliate marketing programs and you're ready to start making some income!

So..now what?

Which posts are the best to have on your blog to boost your affiliate income?

 

How to's/Tutorials

“How to” blog posts are simply that, they are showing your audience how to do something.

These posts can be about anything that fits your blog and audience. Well known examples are “how to blog” blog posts.

You can put in an affiliate link to their hosting company of choice, domain website of choice and sometimes other courses that dive more in depth.

If you have a mom blog you write a post on “how to increase your milk supply” and then link to a product that helped, or “how to help your baby sleep through the night”.

Same with DIY or lifestyle blogs.

Think about “how to” posts you can write, then think about products that helped save you time, made a particular task easier or saved you money and link to it.

 

List Posts

List posts are simply just that, lists leading to a specific goal. What that goal is is up to you and your audience.

Maybe that's a blog post about the “top 10 books to read this summer” or “the 20 best summer skirts under $50.”

As you can tell from my own blog, I love writing list posts….
Top 7 Blog Niches that Drive Traffic
12 Things to Do in your first 90 Days of Blogging
5 Best Affiliate Programs to make money in All Niches

You get the picture.

List posts are perfect for affiliate links because you are given the opportunity to really show your audience why these particular things are great.

Why should they buy these 20 skirts under $50?

List posts also give you the opportunity to add multiple affiliate links. Remember, just don't go overboard.

Try to avoid writing a massive wall of lists with just affiliate links.

This isn't as helpful to your audience because you're not discussing the product, it doesn't help a ton with SEO and overall isn't as interesting to read.

 

Review Posts

These types of posts can be higher converting because you are simply sharing a review on a particular product.

You're showing your audience what you liked, what you didn't like, what worked and so on.

You are very literally reviewing a particular product whatever that may be pertaining to your niche.

Try to be detailed with these posts so your audience can really get a feel for how this particular product actually worked for you. Give them an insiders look into the product or service!

If you would like an example of a review post that I've done and how to write one for yourself you can check mine out here.

 

Recommendations/Tools and resources & Essentials 

Whoo, this is a long one but the idea here is to write a post detailing your best recommendations and/or tools you've used that have helped you, saved you time, money and/or even essentials you find helpful.

There many different ways you can go about writing these types of posts. They can be list posts, resource libraries, they can even be a review post. It comes down to your audience and what they will find the most helpful.

Another type of recommendation/essentials post are gift guides. Gift guides are usually done around the major holiday's and do work well with some audiences.

These types of posts are usually not evergreen and tend to be mostly seasonal. Make sure to have a mix of evergreen posts (posts that are relevant all year round) and seasonal posts.

 

Interview Posts

Interview posts work really well if you interview the creator of the product or service.

This can be a course you took online or a particular service you bought from someone that is willing to be interviewed by you.

These work really well because you are able to give background into the creator while also giving your two cents and a mini-review of the product or service as well.

 

Grab this Course

There is so much to learn when it comes to affiliate marketing, driving traffic, creating posts, making graphics…because, there's so much more to it than just slapping thousands of affiliate links throughout your posts.

That's where this course comes in.

Paul Scrivens created one of the best courses on affiliate marketing and I highly recommend checking it out.

You can take a deep dive into affiliate marketing and check out Scrivs course, Dare to Conquer Affiliate Marketing here.

Or check out the course bundles here.

 

If you wouldn't share it with your best friend, don't share it with your audience. 

The best practice with these types of blog posts is to have a nice mix of everything. Remember, not every post is going to set up well for affiliate links and try not to go overboard with them.

Make it natural, helpful, genuine and honest.

Always make sure to disclose when there are affiliate links within your posts and make sure to do so before the actual affiliate link.

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