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Last week, I covered how to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing. Of course, that just begged the questions: What should a blogger look for in an affiliate network ?

Now, affiliate marketing is a business model that emerged long before blogs ever existed, and it evolved to  help the merchant make sales. Helping webmasters make money was only an incentive to help merchants make those sales.

The result was that affiliate webmasters built websites that were more oriented toward promoting products. User experience (UE) was only an afterthought — i.e. make the just bearable enough so that they don’t leave before you can refer them to the advertiser’s site.

Blogs, on the other hand, are a social medium. They stand out from mere websites because they let you hold a conversation with your users/readers. It only makes sense, then, that UE is one of your priorities. After all, if you neglect UE, sooner or later you won’t have any readers left and no traffic to try and monetize through any medium, never mind affiliate marketing.

If you’re going to monetize through affiliate marketing, you’re going to need to find and affiliate network or affiliate program that’s more relationship focused . That is, you’ll have to choose a network that (1) is more than self-serve, and (2) will provide support to all affiliates equally.

These attributes are important because as an affiliate blogger , you have to do more than just buld your traffic. You have to retain it. The affiliate marketing potential of a bloglies in the influence it has over its readerscommunity. That influence stems from a relationship you develop with your readers. It only makes sense, then, that you work with an affiliate network than appreciates that importance of relationships.

If you aren’t already an affiliate blogger , it will help to have some help along the way. After all, when you first join an affiliate network or program, it takes some time to figure out its ins and out.

Every network has has an array of products to promote, and affiliate managers often know which products work best on which sites/blogs. Being able to chat with one those managers will help you choose which products in the network to focus on promoting.

Affiliate networks/program are also all powered by different affilate software. If you want to really optimize your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll want to get the most out of that software and the analytics it provides. Dedicated affiliate manager can also help you with that.

Finally, some affiliate programs offer more marketing tools than others. As a blogger, there are a few different ways you can promote products (e.g. sidebar ads, in-post links, etc…). An affiliate management team that’s willing to look over your site, recommend tools (and programs that offer them), can save a lot of time and energy when it comes to setting up your affiliate account.

Providing support across an entire network requires staff and that can be costly. Consequently, some networks only provide support to some of their biggest affiliates. This happens with both smaller networks that don’t have a lot of resources, and massive networks that prefer to work with so-called super affiliates . In either case, such networks only want to invest in support when they see an immediate return.

On the other hand, there are network that see affiliate support as a longer-term investment. That is, they believe in the long tail , and know that if they invest in an affiliate, that affiliate will become a better affiliate and make both of them more money. They also know that that affiliate will also stay more loyal, and continue to (effectively) promote products within the network for years to come.

As a blogger, you’d probably be more comfortable with a network that offers such dedicated support . First, they’ll be there through your growing pains, giving you the kinds of support mentioned above. Secondly, they’ll listen to your (and other affiliates’) feedback, and that intelligence will trickly back into the network/program, making it a better, and more competitive place for both advertisers and publishers.

To succeed as a blogger, you have to passionate not only about your topic, but about your readers/users. You have to build a community and develop relationships with its members.

If you’re going to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, then, it makes sense to choose an affiliate network/program that shows a similar appreciation for relationships and treats its members as a community. A network/program that takes the time to develop a relationship with you and it other members will not only provide better support, but will better understand what you and the rest of the network members (the community) need to succeed. Not to mention, that relationship approach is also likely to attract better advertisers who are actually interested in growing their program, rather than just moving a couple extra units during a seasonal down-turn.

A huge part of blogging is generating traffic. Otherwise, you don’t have any readers, and then it’s kind of like you’re writing emails to yourself, and that just makes you kind of creepy

One the interesting things about generating traffic as a blogger, though, is that blogs are very SEO friendly. This means that long after you publish a post, it’ll generate organic traffic. As an affiliate blogger, then, you have an opportunity to make commissions on sales that you refer long after you write about them. In fact, longtail traffic is probably the largest opportunity that affiliate bloggers have to make money.

Last week I posted about how categorizing your affiliate contentis important to reap the benefits of longtail traffic. This way, when users search for product reviews months (or years) down the line, they have a better chance of finding your reviews, and you can make a commission on any sale that results from their interest and your content. Another way to enhance the search engine visibility of your content is through deep and internal linking.

Deep & Internal Linking
Now, every time you mention a product, you have two linking possibilities: (1) you can use an affiliate link and possibly make a commission on anyone that clicks on it, or (2) you can link back to a previous review and build the authority of that previous content.

Basically, you face a trade-off: do you stack up on affiliate links and hope to convert current readers, or do you link back to previous content and increase the search ranking of an older post?

Well, consider how you’re mentioning the product. If it’s one of the post’s main points or items, then use an affiliate link. However, it’s just a passing mention of the product, then link back to a post that features the product and contains an affiliate link itself. The anchor text you use to link back to an older post will help boost its search ranking, and that will give it traction over time. In turn, that older post has a better chance attracting organic traffic and then converting some of it into sales.

Similarly, if the newer post also features the product, you’ll probably have an opportunity to use the product’s name more than once. So the first time you do so, use an affiliate link, and the second time you mention the product, link back to a previous post. That way, you cover all you bases.

Six Links of Separation
Internal linking is like building a your net or web out of your blog. The more links you have tying your content together, the stronger your web is: with each post it grows larger, and with each link it gets stronger. Build it large enough, and you catch a lot of traffic. Build it strong enough, and you’ll be able to refer that traffic down just the right sales funnel, and make a commission in the process.

If you need extra income, you should consider doing affiliate marketing…

Monetizing a blog can be difficult, especially when you’re just starting out. How can you tell what your readers actually want?

This was my greatest challenge when I launched my blog.

Prior to the launch of my blog, I had read several e-books and posts – and the authors advised that I monetize my blog with affiliate offers.

As a newbie, I followed the laid out rules. I even filled my sidebar with affiliate banners and started blogging.

Day in and day out, I’d log into my clickbank account, hoping to see $50 – $100 in sales but nothing happened.

I was fed up and decided to take a better more logical approach. It was when I started promoting health affiliate products.

If this sad story sounds familiar, hang on and I’ll show you the 5 things you must NEVER do when promoting any affiliate product. It worked for me and I’m sure your own case will not be different.

I made a terrible mistake when I first started my affiliate business. Of course I didn’t know the negative effect of using hype at the time, but I was using it nonetheless.

If all you do is exaggerate the benefits of a particular offer, without considering your ideal customers’ interest, you’ll lose the trust they have for you.

Hype is an ugly marketing trick. Have you ever felt unhappy when the so-called gurus tried to exploit you? Making money as an affiliate marketer calls for honesty and integrity. Potential customers are counting on you to show them the way.

Don’t disappoint them with your hype and dishonesty. The bottom line is to promote only offers that are truly helpful. If there is any part of the module that isn’t so good, make it known to your readers.

Does this sound weird? After all, as affiliates we’re supposed to sell in order to make commissions. All right, I understand you perfectly, but there is a clause there.

The truth is that affiliate marketers are not supposed to sell anything. In fact, it’s not their primary duty.

The role of an affiliate marketer is to motivate, inform and educate potential buyers. If you try to sell the offer, when you eventually lead the prospects through to the salesletter, converting them would be difficult.

Instead, presell in an honest manner and creatively lead the person to the store to complete the sale. Use valuable content to teach people what to do. Teaching sells so well online – use it.

That’s how to pre-sell. Share your best information and don’t hoard any no matter what happens.

I know a lot of affiliate marketers who send new products every week to their subscribers. This can be irritating and I advise you don’t do it.

The email list is a vital component of your blogging business. You should nurture your subscribers and get them to trust you.

Once you can achieve that, it’d be a lot easier to monetize the list and make more money.

Bear in mind that sending an affiliate offer that you know would be helpful to your list isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why you should collect leads in the first place.

What I’m saying is that you should minimize promotional email blasts. Balance the free information you share with premium offers. That’s how to build a reputation online, which money can’t buy.

The sidebar is a viable spot to add affiliate banners. But don’t overdo things and confuse your readers.

You’ve got to understand that people came to your blog because they’ve got needs in their lives. Every day, millions of people search the web, looking for answers…

Quality content is the only answer you should provide. Yes, with quality content you could easily recommend a helpful affiliate product and make money too.

If you do place advertisements on your sidebar, there is no need to have more than four banners of your favorite affiliate products – keep the sidebar clean.

Preferably, promote offers you currently use to run your business, or promote products you would try yourself. It’s the easiest way to persuade readers to purchase and share with others.

And when they buy through your link, you’ll earn a commission and who knows how much that’s going to be.

What are you waiting for to start making money via affiliate marketing? Remember, bloggers who don’t make enough money from this profitable business model don’t have the required knowledge to make it work.

What you need to get started is an affiliate marketing coachthat knows what works, and knows how to take baby steps to achieve your internet marketing objective. Leave a comment below if you enjoyed this post. Thank you for reading…