What’s the Fastest Way for Bloggers to Make Money in Affiliate Marketing?

My posts may include paid links for which I earn a commission.

Last year I gave a presentation at Affiliate Summit with some of the most frequently asked questions I get about affiliate marketing. One of them was “What is the fastest way for bloggers to make money in affiliate marketing?”

There are hundreds of presentations, webinars, and ebooks out there to help bloggers learn affiliate marketing. There are tools and widgets and scripts to help with the technology. But those usually aren’t the biggest barrier for a lot of bloggers. The biggest barrier is “How do I make money off of my posts and still be authentic with my audience?”

The answer is to continue writing about things you love and use but write with an eye toward monetization.

All of the products pictured above are things that I absolutely love and shout from the rooftops about. They also happen to be products that I make money promoting on a weekly basis. Each of them solves a problem or answers a question in some way.

How do I chop salads like Subway? Easy. You buy the cool chopper that my husband gave me a few years ago and I now use on every salad I eat. What’s a great book series to read with my teenagers? The Mortal Instruments. What are good running shoes for people who overpronate? My Pink Adidas. How can I get to sleep at night? Valerian root tea.

When you write about things that you use on a regular basis, you are honest and genuine and your audience picks up on that. You can describe things in detail that they won’t find on a product page. Your review can state both the pros and the cons of the product (unlike in a lot of sponsored posts) so that it comes across as fair and not tainted.

Think about all of the products, movies, books, vacation destinations, subscription services, etc that you have probably already written about in your posts. Why not go back to the posts that are getting traffic and add affiliate links? Even if they aren’t getting traffic, add the links and push them out through your social media or newsletter one more time.

Going forward, think each day about what you are using that other people might want to know about. From the time you get up until the time you go to bed, there are probably at least 10 things you use that you could blog about with affiliate links. Make a list as the day goes on and then do a little research to see which ones you can get affiliate links for. Dig a little deeper and figure out which of the merchants convert the best (that’s a post for another day!). Add those links and start watching your traffic and clicks to see how people are responding. Then tweak your process as necessary.

No matter what networks you are signed up with or what tools you are using, any blogger can find ways to quickly monetize some of their posts with simple links. It’s an easy way to transition from blogger to affiliate marketing while staying true to your voice and audience.

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