Affiliate Marketing and Blogging
Affiliate marketing is one way in which bloggers utilize
their blog to generate revenue. The amount of revenue generated by a blog
featuring affiliate marketing links may vary significantly depending on the
amount of traffic the blog receives as well as the compensation offered for the
affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing essentially entails creating a link on
the blog to another company’s website. The other company then compensates the
blog owner according to a previously agreed upon contract. This compensation
may be awarded in a number of different ways. The blog owner may be compensated
each time the advertisement is served, each time a unique website visitor
clicks through the advertisement or each time a blog visitor performs a desired
action such as making a purchase or registering with the website. This article
will discuss some aspects of affiliate marketing which bloggers should
understand including selecting opportunities carefully, maximizing the income
potential for these opportunities and understanding the requirements associated
with these affiliate marketing opportunities.
Selecting Affiliate Marketing Opportunities
There is a wide variety of affiliate marketing opportunities
available. Many different companies and websites offer affiliate marketing
opportunities. In most cases the blog owner simply needs to submit the website
address of his blog along with some other basic information for approval. In
most cases the company is not likely to reject the application unless the
content of the website is deemed to be objectionable or otherwise in conflict
of interest with the company’s goals. However, although getting approved to
display affiliate links on your website is a rather simple process, this does
not mean blog owners should select these affiliate marketing opportunities
without discretion. It is a far better idea to carefully select affiliate
marketing opportunities with companies who are of interest to the target
audience of the blog.
A well focused blog that is reaching a specific target
audience should seek to display marketing links directing website traffic to
companies which complement the blog without acting as direct competition to the
blog. This helps to ensure the blog visitors will not only be interested in the
affiliate marketing links and therefore more likely to click on the links but
will also help to ensure the blog visitors do not find the affiliate marketing
links to be bothersome.
Maximizing Affiliate Marketing Opportunities
Once blog owners have selected affiliate marketing
opportunities it is time to consider how they can maximize the profit generated
by these links. There are a couple of critical factors which blog owners should
carefully consider to help maximize their profit from affiliate marketing. This
includes regularly evaluating the effectiveness of the affiliate links and
promoting the blog to maximize traffic.
Blog owners who incorporate affiliate marketing into their
blog should regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the affiliate links. This
can be done by comparing the percentage of blog visitors who click on the
affiliate links to the overall blog traffic. A blog which has high traffic but
a relatively small percentage of visitors who click on the affiliate links
should consider making changes to attempt to entice more blog visitors to click
on the links. These changes can involve the aesthetics, size or location of the
advertisements. Making only one change at a time is recommended because it
makes it easier for the blog owner to evaluate which changes are most
beneficial.
Blog owners can also help to maximize the profit from their
affiliate marketing opportunities by doing self promotion to drive additional
website to the blog. This will likely be beneficial because higher website
traffic will generally translate to greater profit from affiliate marketing. Additionally,
the blog owner may want to occasionally mention companies for which they are an
affiliate to generate interest in the advertisements on the website.
Understanding Affiliate Marketing Requirements
Finally, blog owners should pay careful attention to the
affiliate marketing agreements they enter. This is important because some
companies may place restrictions on the usage of a link to their website. This
may include restrictions such as avoiding objectionable content, not including
links or advertisements for direct competitors or restrictions on the
appearance of the affiliate links. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may
result in the blog losing affiliate privileges and the blog owner being denied
compensation.
PPPPP
Word count 710