Affiliate Marketing 101 How to Promote Affiliate Links

Affiliate Marketing 101: How to Promote Affiliate Links

*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure.

Are you wanting to get more income from your blog, but wondering how to promote affiliate links?


Promoting stuff on your blog can be scary.

After all no one wants to be seen as pushy and salesy.


Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money blogging. And yet it’s one of the harder stepping stones for bloggers to master to turn a profit from blogs.

Learning how to promote affiliate links with your blog and audience will help you turn your blog into a money making machine (literally, it’s technically an object sitting on a computer 🙂 )


Affiliate Marketing 101: How to Promote Affiliate Links | 13 Ways You Can Promote Affiliate Links for Your Blog
Make More Money Blogging By Learning The Right Way to Promote Affiliate Links On Your Blog

What’s Needed to Promote Affiliate Links

First things first, the easiest way to get your foot into the affiliate marketing world is to get your own blog.

So if you haven’t yet, now is the time to set up your blog. You can use my step by step tutorial here to get your blog started.


After you have your blog up and running, the next thing you’ll need is content.

You’ll want to get some blog posts up before you start applying for affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs like to see that you have something with some content before they approve you to use the program.

If I’m starting up a new blog, I make sure I have at least 5 fully written blog posts before I apply with that site for affiliate networks and programs.

Once you have content, you need some affiliate programs or networks to join. I have a post that will show you which affiliate programs and networks are best for new bloggers here.

I also have a list of affiliate programs and affiliate networks you can download by signing up below:


What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is where you (the affiliate) promotes products or services for a merchant and send potential customers to that merchant. If the referral you sent makes a purchase, you then get a commission percentage or flat fee for that purchase.

Many products or services have affiliate programs that you can join to make money by doing promotions.


This is where affiliate links come in and why it’s good to know how to promote affiliate links.

If you want more details about all the affiliate marketing basics, check out my post Affiliate Marketing 101: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners.


How You Can Promote Affiliate Links

1. Blog Posts to Promote Affiliate Links

I know “Well, Duh.”

Yes we’re bloggers, so blog posts are going to be the #1 way we promote affiliate links.

Blog Posts after all are going to be most likely the first thing your readers see from you.

They are what the search engines send people to the most on your site, so be sure to use them as ways to promote affiliate links.

Now this doesn’t mean everything that you write a blog post on has to go back somehow to an affiliate link.

Writing blog posts around affiliate links is not the way to run a blog.

Sure it’s fine if you want to write a blog post about a product that you are in an affiliate program for, you just don’t want to write everything this way.

Again the goal is not to look pushy or like a walking (or in this case typing) ad.


Types of Blog Posts You Can Use to Promote Affiliate Links:

  • Reviews
  • Case Studies
  • Lists
  • Tutorials
  • Product Comparisons

With any of these, you can review, teach how to use, compare, etc with any product or service you’ve used.

This could be the hosting company you have your blog hosted on. Or it could be an eBook or Course you took. It can even be some clothes you bought.

There are affiliate programs for most things you use and buy, so the sky’s the limit!

In addition to these types of posts, you can also use affiliate links in your regular posts.

You can add them as an additional resource or reference for the topic your blog post is about.


2. Resource Page

Creating a resource page that shows tools and services you use for your blog and for your niche is a way you can promote not only affiliate links but also your own products.

BloggingYourBlog has a resource page that displays the tools and services I use and have used for this blog.

Just always make sure that you are not putting up links to products that won’t deliver for your readers.

It is best to make sure you stick to what you know works. And if there isn’t an affiliate program for that particular product or service, still put the link on your resource page.

3. Your Own eBook

Create your own eBook and you can use this to promote services related to what the eBook is about.


This is a double whammy for making money with your blog.

With an eBook you can charge a set price for the eBook, and then use affiliate links within the book to get affiliate commissions.

SendOwl is a great option to use as a way to deliver and receive payments for your eBooks or any digital products you have.

4. Your Own Course

Courses, just like eBooks, give you an extra way to make income while promoting affiliate links in the course.

You can also do a freebie course, but still include your affiliate links in the course.

Free courses are usually shorter and can be hosted on a course platform or be in the form of daily emails over a few days to a week.

You can use course platforms like Teachable or Thinkific to host your course.


5. Pinterest to Promote Affiliate Links

Pinterest is great for traffic, but it can also be great as a way to promote your affiliate links.

With Pinterest you can promote affiliate links, but one word of caution: do not cloak your affiliate links or use a tracker that changes your links in any way. Pinterest will mark that pin as spam and that will look bad for your account.

Also always make sure to disclose that you are using an affiliate link. And check with the terms of service or the affiliate manager of the affiliate program to make sure you can use the links on Pinterest.

With affiliate marketing on Pinterest, usually digital products convert the best. This would be things like social media templates, fonts, eBooks, printables, and courses.

6. Facebook Groups

If you have your own Facebook Group, then don’t pass up the opportunity to promote your affiliate links in there.

For other Facebook Groups that you don’t own, you can recommend your affiliate products or services to others in that group. BUT! Only do this if you are allowed.

Always check the rules in Facebook Groups or with the groups admins. Don’t risk getting kicked out of the group over trying to promote an affiliate link.


Also make sure this isn’t the only thing you are doing within the group. Always try to add value to the group by helping others out.

Don’t just link to an affiliate offer and add nothing to the conversation.

7. Using Banners

You can add banners to your site to promote your affiliate links.

Many programs will give you banner images you can use for this.

Or if you would prefer to make the banner fit the theme of your blog better you can use Canva or PicMonkey to make your own image and place it where you would like on your site.

Many bloggers will place banners in the sidebar or within the content of their posts.

8. Email List to Promote Affiliate Links

Your email list will be very valuable when you are looking for ways to promote your affiliate links.


Make sure you start building your email list from the moment you start your blog.

Your email list allows you to start a one on one relationship with your readers who have subscribed.

Forming a relationship with your readers is very important. This relationship will build trust, and that increases your chances of your subscribers purchasing products or services you recommend.

You can send out newsletters featuring your latest blog posts. Or you can also send out mini posts with information that your readers would like to know about, and that will help them.

On some of these emails, you might find that a product or service that you are an affiliate for would fit well within the email.

Just make sure you aren’t stuffing links in every chance you get.

Again you don’t want to come across as a pushy salesman. Always make sure you are giving your readers value and not just trying to make a sale off them.

To be able to build your email list and email your subscribers, you will need to get an email service.

The main email services I recommend are MailerLite or AWeber, depending on your niche and what you are using your email list for.

There are some subjects that MailerLite will not allow in their emails so you might end up not getting approved. If that happens then it’s best to go with AWeber.

The great thing with MailerLite is that you can use the email service for up to 1,000 subscribers or 12,000 emails per month for free!

You can start getting your email list going with MailerLite here.

9. A Thank You Page

When people subscribe to your email list you can send them to a thank you page.

On your thank you page you can add resources or products that you think might interest them.

Some of those resources or products can be affiliate links.

You can have different thank you pages depending on how that reader subscribed. And you can base the thank you page and offers based on which opt in or page they subscribed from.

This gives a better chance for conversions on your affiliate links since you are able to tailor the offers based off that person’s initial interest.

10. Use Your Opt Ins to Promote Affiliate Links

You can make many kinds of opt ins to help entice people to subscribe to your email list.

You can use these to promote your affiliate links.

Opt ins can be anything from checklists to eBooks to mini courses.

With opt ins like small eBooks and mini courses, there are many opportunities to promote affiliate links within them.

For checklists and smaller opt ins you might find it a bit harder as to where you can fit in your affiliate links with these.

Sometimes there will be places in the opt in where affiliate links can be put in naturally.

Other times you might find it easiest to just ad a bonus page at the end of the opt in that is like a thank you page. On this page you can put in related links that the person might be interested in based on that particular opt in. And some of these can be for affiliate offers.

11. Old Content to Promote Affiliate Links

Go back and look over your old content and revamp the content.

This is a good thing to practice for many reasons, not just so you can promote your affiliate links.

You might find as you revamp old content, that certain products or services go with the topic of your old post. And these might have affiliate programs that you have found since you wrote the original content. When this happens you can add in the affiliate links while you’re sprucing up old posts and pages on your blog.

Could be that you talked about getting, let’s say a Pinterest Course in an old post. And you have since then actually taken one that really helped you out. Put that in the post with the affiliate link for the course.

12. Social Media Marketing

You can use your various social media accounts for your blog to help promote your affiliate links.

Two things to make sure of though:

First is that the affiliate program allows direct linking from social media.

Second is to always always always make sure you disclose that you are using an affiliate link. Not doing this will not only get you kicked out of affiliate programs, but it is against FTC regulations and could have the possibility of landing you in some bad spots legally.

13. YouTube & Webinars to Promote Affiliate Links

YouTube

YouTube is the latest and greatest thing out there to promote just about anything.

You can promote your blog, your products, or even affiliate products or services.

Many YouTubers will do tutorials, reviews, and educational videos that will refer to a product or service that the link to is provided in the description.

As always you will want to make sure you disclose that they are affiliate links.

Webinars

Webinars are also big right now, and you can do webinars from your YouTube Channel or FB Live.

With Webinars you can interactively engage with your audience and educate them on topics or products.

Webinars can be like a course, but just live and more informal than a course.

You want to make sure when using webinars that you are giving a high-quality, educational, engaging, and entertaining experience to your audience.

If you would like more information on how to make great webinars to promote your affiliate products, LiveChat has an awesome post that goes into great detail about everything you need to put on webinars as an affiliate marketer.

How to Promote Affiliate Links Recap

  1. Blog Posts
  2. Resource Page
  3. Your Own eBook
  4. Your Own Course
  5. Pinterest
  6. Facebook Groups
  7. Banners
  8. Your Email List
  9. A Thank You Page
  10. Your Opt Ins
  11. Revamp Old Content
  12. Social Media Marketing
  13. YouTube & Webinars

Affiliate marketing is an awesome income opportunity for bloggers. But knowing where and how to promote affiliate links is what makes the difference between no or little income and having a money making blog.

When you first start out with affiliate marketing do not be discouraged if you aren’t seeing the results that you wanted right away.

With affiliate marketing you have to find your groove.

And there is so much to learn about how to sell and how to blog, that it will take time to find the right way for you to promote affiliate links successfully.

So keep trying, you will get there.

Additional Resources for Affiliate Marketing

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

Knowing where and when to promote affiliate links is a big key to being successful with affiliate marketing as a blogger.

One great resource I’ve used when it comes to learning strategies to use with affiliate marketing is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is created by Michelle from Making Sense of Cents blog.

In this course Michelle teaches the strategies she used to go from making nothing to making over $50,000 per month with her blog.

If you are looking to increase your blogging income from affiliate marketing, then the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course is a great resource that can help you reach your goals.

If you would like to learn more check out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing here.

Other Affiliate Marketing Posts:

Affiliate Marketing 101: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
Affiliate Marketing 101: Affiliate Programs for New Bloggers
The Best Recurring Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
Tips For How To Be Successful At Affiliate Marketing
Blog Post Types You Can Use To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Do you have other ways that you promote affiliate links?


How to Promote Affiliate Links for Bloggers
Affiliate marketing 101: 13 crafty ways you can promote affiliate links and make money blogging.


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