First, the tools, training, and community at Wealthy Affiliate can benefit the lives of more than 3.5 billion online individuals.
Second, there are 100,000 Google queries monthly for “how to make money online.”
Thirdly, and this is the best one: In order to create a very successful and profitable internet business, it’s only necessary to advertise Wealthy Affiliate to a small fraction of these people.
This guide will explain how to promote Wealthy Affiliate and make money online. Hundreds of people already make more than a regular income with Wealthy Affiliate, and that’s something you can enable others to do as well.
A. Is Wealthy Affiliate the best affiliate program to promote?
Wealthy Affiliate runs an excellent affiliate program. You can join and promote it for free to begin earning referral commission income once you read this guide on how to promote Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate is probably the best affiliate program to promote in the make money online and internet business niches.
Why is this the case? Well, they’re the real thing.
You can be positive while advertising Wealthy Affiliate. And your recommendations will be grateful! The following are only a few compelling reasons that Wealthy Affiliate is the #1 affiliate program to promote in the affiliate marketing niche.
B. Why you should promote Wealthy Affiliate to earn money online: 6 reasons
And by “different,” I mean they put their money where their mouth is.
For over 16 years, Wealthy Affiliate is fulfilling its promises to train not only newbies but also seasoned entrepreneurs how to build and execute successful and lucrative online companies.
Kyle and Carson, the co-founders, have emphasized that isn’t a get-rich-fast scam or some infinite money faucet method. Instead, it’s built on a robust and stable business plan that emphasizes training.
They do claim, however, that by following the instructions and doing the job right, you will be able to live the life you want.
Despite having nearly a million members, the Wealthy Affiliate staff is not complacent in the face of their success and is always moving ahead.
They are continually evolving, whether it is through their world-class website builders, their free hosting and domains, or the latest revamp of their complete training platform.
You’ll have a really hard time trying to find an online community that excels the active and engaged community at Wealthy Affiliate. You can find veteran marketers available there 24/7, and you’ll notice them assisting newcomers to begin.
In the Wealthy Affiliate network, members can get assistance and guidance if they’re stuck or confused.
You shouldn’t have to pitch the benefits of joining as a member since Wealthy Affiliate basically does all the selling on its own. No one has to just believe you; they can try out the entire system for free and form their own opinions.
5. You will earn recurring commissions every month.
You are rewarded whenever someone upgrades from the Starter to the Premium membership plan and will continue to receive monthly commissions for the lifetime of their membership.
And thanks to their high rate of retaining customers, you can keep earning money from the very same people for months or years.
Wealthy Affiliate is an all-inclusive internet business center that has ALL someone must know and possess.
All the business tools and resources in one place. Keyword research tools, assigned tasks with each lesson and website feedback (to name a few) means once you refer someone to Wealthy Affiliate they’ll never have to look anywhere else. Everything they need is right here.
Wealthy Affilliate offers top-notch training for affiliate marketers, including step-by-step tutorials and lessons, instructional videos, and interactive features.
When you want expert assistance, you can rely on them. Need your questions answered? Members may get help from the community via live chat and Q & A sections.
Wealthy Affiliate’ssimple website builders offer upwards of 6,000 site templates to select from. (They sure don’t cut you short!) They also provide website health-checks, and daily automatic backups.
What are you waiting for? Let’s start earning commissions!
Here’s another incentive to promote Wealthy Affiliate, just in case you needed one!
You can earn an all-costs-paid trip to Vegas (including flights and hotels!) for an action-packed, fun-filled three-day affiliate conference if you refer 300 or more Premium members to Wealthy Affiliate within a 12-month period. Not only that, you’ll get to meet the Founders and leaders, like Kyle and Carson.
To qualify for this Free incentive, all you need to do is recruit less than one premium member per day.
…Best thing is, Wealthy Affiliate will tell you exactly how to do it! That is, how to promote Wealthy Affiliate and make money online to earn serious commissions.
You will learn dozens of effective Wealthy Affiliate marketing strategies in seven phases of video training.
Upon signing up for your free account, you will receive a unique link with your ID.
If someone clicks on the link and joins Wealthy Affiliate, you receive a commission every time they do so. Whether you promote Wealthy Affiliate in person, on social media sites, on your own website, or through paid advertising, there are so many ways to profit.
Some more ideas are listed below (and there are many more besides).
how to promote Wealthy Affiliate and earn money online
In this post, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide and the best tips for how to write affiliate product reviews (even if you’re a beginner).
Writing affiliate product reviews is not only one of the best ways to monetize your blog, but also the most effective way to make money with affiliate marketing.
And the benefits are not just financial, as we’ll see. No affiliate marketer or blogger who understands the benefits of writing affiliate product reviews wants to miss out on this opportunity to boost his traffic, his authority, and his income.
But how do you write an effective product review for your affiliate website? Anyone can write a product review, but not everyone knows how to write a good one. How do you write a quality product review that builds trust and converts to sales?
That’s what you’ll learn when you read this ultimate guide to writing affiliate product reviews. (This also works for service reviews.)
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A. What Affiliate Product Reviews Do: And Why Should You Use Them On Your Blog?
A product review gives someone’s personal perspective and/or experience with a product, telling them what it can do, and whether it’s a good buying choice for them.
There are many reasons why people search online for reviews of products.
Perhaps they heard about it but aren’t sure it’s what they’re looking for,
or they’re looking to see what it can do,
whether it’s a good or bad product,
whether they can get bonuses or discounts,
what other people’s experience with it is,
how it compares to alternatives, etc.
What Types of Affiliate Product Reviews Are There?
Affiliate product reviews can be found in several formats. Here are some common formats.
1. Detailed Examination Product Review.
One of the most common types of a product review is the in-depth review which looks at all or most features or aspects of the product and reaches a conclusion about it.
2. Product Comparison Review.
Another type of product review is called the product comparison review but really is a comparison and contrast review.
In this you
present the main features, benefits,
pros, and cons of each product,
show how they match up against one another in each aspect.
Then make a recommendation on which product is probably better as a whole (or which is better for what.)
Product comparison reviews are great for making money through affiliate marketing because they allow you to share multiple affiliate links. So even they decide not to buy your primary recommendation, they may still decide to buy another of them through your affiliate link, so you still get a sale commission.
3. Product Tutorials
These are the least salesy types of affiliate product reviews. They aren’t about whether to buy the product, but rather how to use it.
If this is done in the context of solving a problem, your readers may be convinced this product is the solution they need.
They may also want to see a tutorial to see how it works before investing in it, or if it has the capability they are looking for.
However, people looking for product tutorials usually have a lower purchase-intent rate, so it doesn’t convert as high.
Product list posts can overlap with product comparison reviews and perform both roles at once, but a list post often doesn’t go into as much detail, because the main purpose isn’t evaluating products, but rather presenting the options and telling a little about each.
Benefits of Creating Affiliate Product Reviews
1. Financial Benefits of Affiliate Product Reviews
It’s important to know that online product reviews are hugely influential when it comes to product choice.
Research shows that 91 percent of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84 percent trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. And they make that decision quickly: 68 percent form an opinion after reading between one and six online reviews.
If you are promoting a product through affiliate marketing, why would you miss out on one of the most effective means of persuading them to buy that product?
As an affiliate marketer, creating product reviews is an indispensable tool–perhaps the most important–in your marketing toolkit. In fact, some affiliate marketers are successful from product reviews alone!
2. Product Reviews Target Potential Buyers
Product reviews are perfect for promoting affiliate products because they target people who are already in the buying mindset. If people are searching for a product review, it’s likely because they’re considering buying it and want to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth for it.
3. How Product Reviews Help Your Website
The benefits aren’t just financial. Product reviews also help you grow your audience through targeting search keywords, bringing new people to your blog.
4. Product Reviews Help You Build Your Email List
Additionally, an increase in traffic also you gives you the opportunity to build your email list, another of the most effective ways to promote your affiliate links.
5. Grow Trust and Authority
Writing product reviews are an excellant place to start out in affiliate marketing with a blog since you don’t need any special expertise.
It helps you establish yourself as an authority (on a particular type of product) and build trust with your audience as you provide them with value and grow your own experience.
6. You Provide Value to Your Audience
Even if you’re hoping readers will buy the product after reading your review, you aren’t writing a commercial. An affiliate product review is a content marketing method that should provide value to your audience by giving them the insight into the product (or service) they are looking for.
7. You Can Get Free Stuff!
Since product reviews can help a company grow their sales as much as 18%, merchants are often wiling to give out free copies or trials of a product in exchange for a review.
This more often with digital products than with physical products, since they don’t want to lose money without promise of return, while digital products can usually be given without any cost on their part.
Of course, they aren’t always willing to do this, especially if you are new and unknown, but you have nothing to lose by asking.
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B. How to Become an Affiliate Product Reviewer With a Blog
1. Choose a Niche.
While it’s possible to have a blog where you just review random, unrelated products, if you want to build and engaged audience that stays interested in what you have to say, you should choose a particular niche or theme topic for your blog, and write reviews for related products.
In addition, you should keep in mind your target audience–their demographics and interests–so you can give them what they’re looking for and keep them coming back.
2. Build a Website For Your Blog.
If you want full control over your blog, and not have to worry about the rules of the platform you’re on, you should build your own website on your own domain.
That also gives you the advantage of being able to embed or install popup subscription forms to gather an email subscriber base.
How to Build A Blog:
It’s quite simple to build a blog.
Buy a domain name. Choose a domain name that represents your blog niche. Domain names are available from places like Namecheap, Bluehost, and HostGator.
Get a web hosting service plan. This is where your website data willl be hosted so others can access your website when they visit your domain. Affordable webhosting plans are available from places like Namecheap, Bluehost, and HostGator, and you can even get a free domain name if you buy a webhosting plan and register your domain name at the same company.
Install a CMS (Content Management System)/website and content builder and manager like WordPress, Hubspot, Wix, etc.
If you’re using WordPress, choose a theme for your blog. You can get an attractive and professional theme from EnvatoElements.
Write blog posts. In addition to this guide on how to write product reviews, we have another guide on how to write a blog post in general.
3. Choose a Product to Review
How should you choose a product to review? There are a few things to consider.
Your familiarity with the product. It’s easier to review a product you already know and use. You’ll have more insight into it than reviewing products you’re less familiar with.
Relevance to your niche. Your audience reads your blog because it gives them useful information regarding the niche your blog is about. If your niche is cooking and food recipes, and then you start promoting VPN affiliate programs, how well do you think that will turn out?
Whether it has an affiliate program you are eligible for. Of course, you can write a review for any product, but you won’t be able to see financial returns on it unless you’re a product owner or affiliate.
How the commission is. If you’ll only get a low commision rate, you might want to reconsider whether it’s worth your time.
Your audience’s interest in that product. You are writing, not for yourself, but for your target audience. You should primarily be concerned with what they are interested in.
Your own interests. If you are uninterested in the product or topic you are writing about, it will likely come through in your post, even if unintentionally. And that’s very unproductive.
4. Join the Product’s Affiliate Program.
The process should be pretty straightforward. Just submit an application form and wait to be approved. (But since approvals are not guaranteed, you may want to apply for the program before you write your review).
If you are a member of Amazon Associates, the eBay Partner Network, ClickBank, or Fiverr Affiliates you will be pre-approved for their products and services so you don’t need to get approval for each product.
5. Write product reviews.
I’ll show you how exactly to do that below, but before we get to that…
C. Before You Write That Review: 4 Things To Do
1. Create a Score System For Rating Products in Your Reviews
A product scoring system provides not only provides you standards for evaluating products but also makes it convenient for readers looking for a quick and simple verdict on a product. (And they do want that.)
A product scoring system is composed of two elements: metrics, and a rubric.
Product Metrics. Metrics are the characteristics of a product you will be using for the overall evaluation of a product. If you are reviewing multiple products, you should keep the metrics consistent.
Review Rubric. A rubric is a measuring scale that uses various symbols, numbers or words to represent particular value levels. The five-star system is one of the most popular rubrics. So is the 1-10 scale.
Doubtless, you are often influenced in your own purchasing decisions by the five-star review rubric on, e.g., Amazon products.
2. Do Keyword Research
Are people even looking for reviews of the product you want to review? If not, it’s not worth spending the time writing a review for it–at least, a review of its own.
You may still choose to give a short review of it in a larger context, such as by presenting it as a solution to a problem in an article targeting other keywords, or in a product comparison review.
3. Gain Insight Into the Product
Without this, you can’t write a review. But how can you learn about the product?
a. Use the Product.
Nothing beats a review based on one’s personal experience with a product. It gives you authority, makes your review more authentic, and provides you with knowledge of the product you may not otherwise obtain.
You don’t always have to buy the product. It doesn’t hurt to ask the product owner if he is willing to provide a free copy, sample, or trial of a product in exchange for a review.
What if you can’t get a copy of the product or for some reason can’t buy or don’t want to buy it?
Well, although this is not ideal, you may still choose to write a review, but it must still be well-researched.
You may also want to be transparent about the fact that you have not personally used the product, but have researched the product as best you could, and are sharing what you have learned from your sources in order to help your readers make an informed decision about buying the product.
b. Research the Product
Check out the product’s website, to learn what features they advertise.
Contact the product owner to learn more about the product if necessary.
Read other reviews of the product. (Amazon user reviews are especially helpful because they are usually honest opinions (though not always the fairest). Read both positive and negative reviews.
View videos by other users.
Try the product out for yourself.
Add details about the product that other reviews don’t have to gain an advantage over your competitors.
4. Gain Insight Into Your Audience
Since you are writing to satisfy your audience, it’s imperative that you have some knowledge of them.
Before anything, you’ll need to identify who your target audience is. What are their interests, needs, wants?
While writing your review, keep in mind your ideal buyer. Creating a customer avatar will cause you to be more thorough in your assessment of them, and ensure you don’t forget your target customers.
What kinds of questions are they asking? What do they like or not like about the product? What characteristics do they value most or are looking for in a product?
Reading other users’ reviews, search query research, and browsing user forums can help you gain insight into your audience.
One helpful free keyword research tool to help you see what questions people are asking about a topic is AnswerThePublic.com.
If you are to write an effective review, identify what their pain points are. Most likely they are willing to pay to get rid of those problems.
Some common issues that will motivate people to buy are
making money,
saving time,
building relationships,
and fulfilling their dreams or wishes.
In addition, learning the reasons why they won’t or wouldn’t buy a product helps you be more effective because you can then counter those objections ahead of time.
Your goal is to understand the customer well so you can make the product highly appealing to him and have him realize there’s no good reason not to buy it. (Assuming it is a good product.)
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D. The Key Elements of an Affiliate Product Review
Scoring system
Pros and cons
Features and benefits
Price
Visuals (images, videos)
Objections (reasons they won’t buy)
FAQ, related questions
Social proof
CTA
Alternatives/comparison
format
E. How to Write Affiliate Product Reviews: Format and Structure
While there is no exact format for structuring your product review, you should always use some format in order to write well and convert readers.
lead with value and interesting content in the main body,
and end with a conclusion that wraps things up and gives a call to action.
A product review is no different.
The following is a suggested format and step-by-step process for writing affiliate product reviews.
1. Create a Headline For Your Affiliate Product Review
Create a headline that immediately lets them know the subject–a review of a such-and-such product.
It’s also important to include your product keyword in your title for SEO purposes. For example, it should contain something like “Aweber Product Review” or just “Aweber Review.” Following that, you can add a secondary keyword or something unique to catch their attention.
2. Write an Interesting Introduction for Your Affiliate Product.
Your introduction is for drawing your readers in and introducing the product.
You can also gain their attention by making a strong or bold claim about the product and what it can do for them. (Just don’t mislead.)
You may choose to discuss other claims made about the product, and then proceed in your review to evaluate whether those claims are true or not.
It may also be good to mention what kind of users the product targets, so people know whether they are that target category, and hopefully gain their interest if they are.
Don’t forget to bring up any aspects of the products that are important or interesting for your readers to know.
3. Give a Short Summary/Overview With Your Verdict And Ratings.
Not everyone will read your full blog post or review. Some just want quick information. So it’s best to include your affiliate link as early as possible in your review (and throughout your review). Preferably in the form of a button, to make it more click-enticing.
In addition, you should consider immediately following your introduction with a short summary of the key product features (in a chart, table, or bullet points list) or a product comparison table if you are revwing multiple products at once.
4. The Main Body of Your Affiliate Product Review
Now we’ll get into the real substance of your affiliate product review.
In your middle section, you’ll go into detail discussing the product, including your own experience with and opinion of it.
What can you include in the main body of your affiliate product review?
1. What The Product Is About and Why It Matters
What kind of product is it, and who is it for? Why should one use it? What makes it unique, and stand out among its competitors?
Who is the product for, and who will best benefit from it?
2. The Product (& Company’s) History
Who is the product creator, and why did he create the product? What has it done for people? How has it changed things for the better?
3. Your History With the Product
Relate your own experience with the product whenever it’s helpful.
How did you come accross the product? Were you searching for a solution to a certain problem? What were your initial impressions of the product? Why did you choose to get the product?
What was your experience with it? Did it live up to claims made about it? How did your first impressions change, if they did? Would you get or use it again or recommend it to others? How has it helped you?
Here you can include your own screenshots, pictures, or videos of the product, and before/after photos.
(You don’t have to answer all these questions.)
4. The Product Features and Benefits.
Detail all the main features and explain how the product works, and how it will help them.
F. Common Mistakes Made By Affiliate Product Reviewers
1. Giving Every Product a Rating of “5 Stars” (or Other Bragging)
I know it’s tempting to rate all or most of the products you promote as 5-stars (or an equivalent). You want people to think this is the greatest thing ever so they’ll buy the product through your affiliate link and make you money.
But did you realize that this tactic will make you way less money in the end? It’s a bad idea for at least two reasons.
First, it harms your credibility. Since every product has drawbacks, portraying products as perfect displays your bias, so folks will be less inclined to trust your reviews.
Secondly, mentioning some negative aspects of a product often boost conversions. This is not because people like it, but because it makes you seem less biased and more credible in your evaluation.
2. Sounding Like (or Being!) Salesmen
This is yet another one of the most common mistakes made by affiliate marketers writing product reviews.
As an affiliate marketer, there are indeed times where it is appropriate for you to make the “hard sells”. Nevertheless, you’re quite mistaken if you think a product review is one of them.
A sales page is one thing. A product review is another. If you’re pushing a hard sell, you’re writing an advertisement, not a product review!
Instead of trying to push a sale, inform the readers about the product, so they can feel that buying the product is the right and best decision for them.
Moreover, you may have noticed–as I have–that many of the “product reviews” out there sound exactly like the merchant’s sales page. In fact, in plenty of cases, that’s exactly what they are.
They just copy and paste the sales page, maybe change a few things, and glorify it with the name of a “review.” (They even leave the pronouns the same, as if they were the product owners!)
And that brings us to the next problem.
3. Writing Plaigerized & Fake Product “Reviews”
Whether you’re plagiarizing the sales page, copying someone else’s review and claiming it as your own, or writing a fake review, it’s a bad strategy that will hurt your business in the long term.
You may fool some people, but many people will see through it, especially if they’ve seen the same material used by others doing the same thing.
It undermines your credibility.
Though plagiarizing may be the easier route, it causes you to miss out on a great opportunity to develop your own voice and a fan base that wants to hear your unique take.
Of course, it’s not possible (or even desirable) to be completely original. Since you’ll need to talk about the same things others are, there will be a necessary degree of repetition. But it’s still important to put things in your own words as best you can.
Plagiarism also causes problems with SEO. Google doesn’t like duplicate content. And regularly posting duplicate content could cause Google to take action against your site, lowering your rankings, or, in the worst case, removing you from indexing altogether.
4. Using the Word “Scam” in Their Review Calling Products a Scam
Recently, having questions about a certain product, I looked for a review of that product. One of the search results had a headline containing the words “SCAM EXPOSED!”.
Upon visiting that clickbaity headline, I discovered that the review had nothing to do with exposing a scammy product, but rather was trying to sell it.
It shouldn’t surprise that I did not trust that review and quickly looked for another one.
If the product is a scam, then promoting it makes you a scammer too!
On the other hand, if the product is not a scam, then calling it such is dishonest and can hurt the reputation of an innocent person or business.
Either way, it’s wrong. A person of integrity does not stoop to such tactics, even to make a few bucks.
(This, of course, does not rule out you making a review that exposes a genuine scam.)
5. Needlessly asking if a product is a scam
Unless you have reason to believe that a part of your audience thinks or is likely wondering if a product is a scam, then it’s pointless to ask such a question.
If the product comes from a well-known or established company with a good reputation, or if that’s true of the product/service itself, then most people aren’t asking if it’s a scam or not. They’re more interested in other questions–such as whether it’s the best product for them.
In fact, presenting the product as a potential scam may unintentionally trigger a negative emotional reaction, making it even harder to sell to them!
Against the rules!
Add to the above the fact using “negative words” in your review like “scam” is often forbidden by the terms of the affiliate agreement.
In general, then, it’s best to avoid negative words like “scam” in your reviews (and review titles). Unless you are actually trying to discourage them from buying the product.
6. Overusing Headlines (and Other Over-Repetition)
I’ve come across someone’s product review channel on Youtube and saw that every video contains the headline and banner “…is scam or legit?”
Apart from incessantly displaying his ignorance of proper English grammar, it’s not wise to continually use exactly the same headline in your reviews.
Not only does it get old and look unprofessional, but also makes you look unoriginal. It gives the appearance that you don’t put much thought into your reviews. You’re just following a template. It’s harder to appear credible that way.
6. Not Giving Enough Information About The Product
If you leave your readers unsatisfied with your review because it doesn’t give them the information they’re looking for, they likely will go visit another review site that does.
And that means if they make the purchase, it will be by clicking on someone else’s link, and you lose out on the commission that was just within your grasp.
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G. How to Write an Effective Product Review that Sells: What to Include
1. Product Features and Benefits
Detail all the main features and benefits, explain how the product works, and how it will help them.
You can use the format of writing a subheading for each main aspect of the product, followed by a paragraph or a few about it.
Showing how each feature will benefit your readers will prevent your list from becoming a dry boring list of specifications and will be more effective.
Keeping in mind your target buyers, relate the features and benefits to their pain points, by relating how the product will help them with those issues, or help them do what they want.
2. Product Pros and Cons
That you will want to include all the great things about the product is a given. But many fall to the temptation of omitting the cons, or telling people there is none. While they think to increase conversions, they are actually hurting them.
Including the negatives about a product greatly increase conversions, according to studies.
This is because you need to build their trust in your recommendations. And since everyone knows there are drawbacks to every product, your opinion seems spurious, or at least biased, when you say there are none. So they’ll not put much weight in your recommendations.
You don’t need to mention every single con about a product, just the main ones they are likely to encounter, and keep it brief.
Note also that the cons need not be an inherant flaw in the product or service, but can be a subjective objection, such as that it is too simple or too advanced for their purposes. It’s possible that what is a con for one person, may not be a problem for another, and could even be a plus. So there’s no need to be afraid to mention cons.
The cons can be balanced out by telling them how the cons can be overcome or minimized, or how the positives outweigh the negatives.
Moreover, to soften the cons, you can refer to them not as bad things, but as opportunities for improvement, where you would like to see more from the product.
If there are too many cons, or they are severe enough to turn off buyers, then perhaps recommend other similar product they can check out, and, if possible, include your affiliate links and/or links to your reviews of those products.
In fact, that could even be the whole purpose of your review! To show that a particular product is undesirable, and which is better. That can be an effective tactic.
Have trouble finding cons? Then remember that a con might not be in what a product does, but in what it can’t do. You can also check out other reviews to see what they don’t like.) The cons can even be about the company itself (as can the pros). The product can be ok, but the company has terrible customer support, for example.
3. Mention Alternative Products And Make Comparisons
Why mention alternatives?
Not everyone is going to be convinced to buy the product you’re featuring in your review. But why let them leave your site to search for a similar product and lose out on a potential customer? You can fix that by mentioning alternatives and linking to them with your affiliate links and to other reviews if you havethem.
Unfortunately, however, it’s not always possible to make a commission from the alternatives, but even if you lose a customer (that time), your loss may not be entire. If he finds your review good, he may decide to return for your opinions on other products.
Additionally, including alternative problems could actually help you sell the main product you’re reviewing, by comparing it to others and highlighting its advantages over others.
4. Social Proof: Case Studies and Testimonials
Your review will be reinforced if you include not only your own opinions and experience but others as well. Especially if they are case studies. People love case studies. And if the featured people were in a similar position as them, they’ll be more likely to believe it will help them too.
5. Product Pricing And Bonuses
It’s best to include a pricing section in your review since people want to know how much something costs before making their decision about buying it.
While a high price could discourage them, you may have convinced them that it’s worth the money.
A low price will incentivize them to buy the product. Even more, if you have bonuses and/or discounts to offer.
You could use a product chart or table for displaying the price.
But do be aware that you can’t always include the price, especially if it frequently changes. Amazon in particular strictly bans you from mentioning the price of any product in your affiliate promotionals.
Also, don’t forget to tell them where to buy it (using your links)!
6. Add an FAQ Section
Adding a Frequently Asked Questions section is great for SEO and may get your answers featured in Google Answers even if your page doesn’t rank at the top of the search results.
7. Craft Your Conclusion
Having written the main body of your affiliate product review, all that is left is to wrap it up with a conclusion summarizing the main points and giving your concluding thoughts.
You’ll give your verdict on the product(s). And if you find it worth buying, you’ll advise them to buy it, telling them where to buy it. Or if not, recommend an alternative.
Just don’t forget to make it easy for them to buy with your affiliate links. Create a clickable button (image or CSS).
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H. Key Elements to Include in an Affiliate Product Review: Summary
We’ve already touched on most of the key elements, so let’s look at a brief list of them, and then touch on a few that haven’t been mentioned yet.
A scoring system
Keywords for SEO
An attention-grabbing headline and introduction
The target users the product is for
Product features and benefits
The pros and cons
A highly visual format
Effective writing style
Details, and descriptive examples
User tips
The pricing & other relevant purchase details
Your verdict and honest opinion
Comparison with other products
Product alternatives
Social proof/testimonials
FAQ
Conclusion
Comment section
1. A Highly Visual Format
It’s no secret that people are highly attracted to visual formats. Entire social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are visually-based.
Even in your blog posts, it’s essential that you include visuals like images and videos.
Your product reviews can contain your screenshots, pictures, or videos of the product to show what it looks like, and let your readers see it in action for themselves.
Not only does it keep their attention more, but makes your review more believable and convincing.
Oh, and though this should really go without saying, always include an attention-grabbing featured image or banner in your posts. You can easily create one using a tool like Canva, which I often use for the same purpose.
2. Format the Text
In addition to breaking up the text with visuals, format the text to make it more appealling so you won’t overwhelm them with plain text.
Employ frequent subheadings, short paragraphs, bullet points, lists and more. Consider adding review/summary/features boxes to your review as well.
3. A Comments Section
Allowing comments on your blog or website enable a sense of community. It’s also great for SEO, because Google takes lots of comments to mean users are getting a great experience from your blog.
On the other hand, you’ll need to be able to deal with spam comments, which can hurt your SEO.
I. How to Write a Compelling Affiliate Product Review: Tips & Style
1. Just Be Honest
One thing I’ve continually emphasized in this guide on writing affiliate product reviews is the need to be honest. To make it in the long term (or even the short), it is essential to build trust and authority with your audience. Without honesty, that cannot be accomplished.
That’s why many product reviews add “honest review” to their headline (but it isn’t necessary to do that).
Don’t pretend the product is perfect. Be willing and admit both pros and cons. Avoid overt bias, which will hurt your reviews.
2. Understand Your Target Audience
As explained earlier, the more you understand your target audience and their interests, the better you can craft appealing and relevant content for them.
3. Be Personal in Your Affiliate Product Review
A product review shouldn’t be a mere list of specifications. That’s not what people are looking for. Well, not that alone. They want to hear an authentic perspective on a product from someone familiar with the product.
Use a personal, a natural, conversational, yet authoritative tone in your affiliate product review. Make sure to speak directly to your readers, and use terms like “you” and “your”.
Moreover, use your knowledge of your target audience to speak their language, using their vocabulary and appealing to their interests. It helps to browse user forums and comment sections.
Consider including (relevant) stories in your review. They’re very effective for engaging their interest and connecting with your audience.
4. Use The AIDA Technique to Boost Your Sales
For many years, marketers and salesmen have used and taught the AIDA method for persuading customers. AIDA is an acronym standing for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.
a. Attention
The headline and introduction to your product review needs to capture their attention and keep it. Tell them why they should pay attention to what you have to say.
b. Interest
Having caught their attention, you must also capture their interest by being empathetic and engaging their emotions.
c. Desire
It’s not enough to get them interested. To get them to buy the product, you must make them want it.
Appeal to their emotions. Show how it will help them fulfil their wishes or solve their pain points.
d. Action
This, your call-to-action (CTA) can be to get them to buy the product using your affiliate links, subscribe to your blog, or check out your other reviews.
5. Build Your Authority
Your ethos or authority takes time to build. When you become a trusted source for helpful and honest reviews, you will see not only your traffic but your conversion rate increase.
In addition to the quality of your content, it also helps to employ a professional webdesign, include a profile picture (which can increase conversion rate), and include testimonials for social proof.
6. Social Proof
Concurring material from other sources makes your review stronger and more persuasive.
This can include short testimonials, quotes from other users, case studies, before and after pictures, embedded Youtube Videos, and other sources.
It’s even more effective if the people whose experiences are featured were in the same place as those reading because it leads readers to consider whether the same results can be acheived by them as well.
7. Include the Downsides of the Product
Both Pros and Cons are needed for a balanced, and hence more convincing, review.
8. Go Into Depth
Your affiliate product review should be the last they’ll ever need to read about that product(s).
Not only because you’re trying to be helpful, but because if they find you’re review inadequate, they may visit other reviews and purchase the products through someone else’s affiliate links instead of yours. So by being skimpy you’d lose a commission that could have been yours if you had put more work into it.
To convince your potential customer to make the purchase,your affiliate product review should contain all the elements necessary to help and persuade them to make that decision.
That includes:
informing them so they know if the product is for them (and if it’s not, you can recommend an alternative affiliate product)
showing them why need they need the product: how it will help them overcome their problems or acheive their goals
giving them all the features and benefits of the product that make it great for them
telling or showing them how the product works, tips for best use, and how he can use in integration with other tools (if applicable)
case studies; yours or other’s experience with the product
letting them the pros & cons of the product
comparing and contrasting the product to its alternatives and why it’s unique
FAQ: answering the questions people want answered
explaining why it’s worth the money
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9. Give Them An Education
You may be desperate for a sale, but just telling them to buy a product doesn’t work. At least not unless they’re already convinced. But in that case hard-selling wouldn’t be necessary. They wouldn’t need a hard shove or command, but a gentle nudge.
While appealing to their emotions is one of the elements of persuasion (does Ethos, Logos, Pathos sound familiar?), you should also give them logical and factual reasons to buy it.
Seek to persuade with education.
People can spot a salesman when they see one. And if you just sound like a salesman who’s all about telling them to buy the product, your review will lose credibility and trust. People don’t read reviews to hear sales pitches. If they want that they can go straight to the merchant’s website.
That isn’t to say you can’t ever emphasize that you think they should get the product, but it mustn’t be based on your desire to make a sale. But rather by convincing of the genuine value the product provides to them.
10. Bribe Your Readers to Buy the Product
Ethically, that is.
Offer them a coupon or discount (if you can arrange that) or bonuses. Bonuses are one of my primary motivators for buying a product. Sometimes I will get a product mainly because I want all the great bonuses being offered, even if I may not want to get the product by itself.
11. Copy the Pro Marketers
No, I’m not talking about copying and pasting their reviews. I’m talking about imitating their formats and styles. See what they’re doing, and what works for them, and implement it in your own reviews. Additionally, reading their reviews may bring to your attention aspects of the products that you missed.
But of course, it’s still important to develop your unique style to make yourself sound more authentic, develop authority, and attract an following.
You can also improve on what others have done, and observe to avoid mistakes they may have made.
Make them your models.
12. Follow a Format
While no product review format is absolute or set in stone. Some general forms have emerged that are highly effective. You may want to take a look at some product review templates, and adapt them for your use.
J. Bonus Tip
Try converting your affiliate product review into different formats, such as a YouTube video (find out how to crush it with YouTube here).
Most of the tips and principles here on how to write an affiliate product review also apply to video affiliate product reviews on Youtube or other social channels.
K. Conclusion
Whew! That was a long post, and it took me a long time to write this post on how to write an affiliate product review.
Let’s wrap up the key points.
Writing affiliate product reviews is one of the most effective ways to make money online with affiliate marketing on your blog, with many side-benefits.
But in order to be effective and successful in the long-term, you’ll need to provide genuinely helpful, honest, insightful, and thorough content that appeals to their desires and addresses their pain points.
Gain insight into your target audience and product, and follow the tips and steps in this how-guide, and you’ll be well on your way to writing effective and profitable affiliate product reviews.
Note to You:
Hey, I’d like to ask one small favor of you.
Given how much time and work I put into creating this complete guide as a helpful and informative guide for you to write successful affiliate product reviews, I’d appreciate it if you’d share this post on social media, (and link to it on your blog if you have one). I want as many people to benefit from it as possible.
Thanks for reading. If you found this review guide helpful, please share your feedback in the comments below. (Likewise if you have any tips of your own you’d like to share.)
SUBSCRIBE to get more affiliate marketing tips and resources like this.
Why Is Content Marketing Essential to Your Business?
For many decades, mixed trends have been witnessed in the growth and development of businesses and corporations.
‘Mixed trend’ in the following sense: Some have overgrown and remained at the top for decades.Some have remained the same, and their impact is almost not felt. Some declined and have become the example of failed systems. Yet others’ very existence has been forgotten.
What attributes should these entities possess to keep their grades on the positive side of their operations?
Perhaps offering great quality products or services. Or having effective and efficient factors of production.
Building a strong customer base needs much more than just the product you offer to the market. The solution being implied here has existed for more than 3,000 years and has evolved as time goes by.
Neil Patel says he was proved wrong when he estimated it was around maybe 50, 70, or 90 years. The more technical know-how advances, the more options for its advancement crop up. A decade can’t pass when we are just using one option.
What is the answer?
A clear strategy for implementing this technique opens goodies for your business by first building customer loyalty. Consumers undergo three main stages for you to earn their loyalty. And mark you, the proportionality reduces as you move from step 1 to 3.
This key component can make your business popular to a target group, or even globally. It’s what makes people know how valuable your products are.
Let’s say it’s beyond the financial capability of the company. Or even the routine product promotion that’s always implemented by the sales and marketing departments.
When done correctly, the technique is a hub of enormous treasures that makes other companies appear right above others. Even though they don’t enjoy economies of scale.
Just in this discussion, you’ll discover it. It goes beyond the basic foundation for establishing a business or legal obligation in any business environment. Are you still trying to figure out exactly what I’m implying?
Try to ask yourself. What makes you consume the product or service of a given business more than offers from other businesses?
All right, you know it. If you’re not sure, here is the answer. You tend to be loyal to certain products or services since you have valuable facts about them.
For instance, you’ve developed an interest in online marketing or shopping, because cybermarketspace.com has provided valuable content about the same.
Creating valuable content for marketing plus a perfect content marketing strategy is the elephant in the room. Content marketing is the driving force for the success and popularity of many businesses. This is the source of all the benefits enjoyed by businesses in terms of scope, sales, profits, and a large loyal customer base.
But hold on. Do you ever ask yourself what content marketing is?
Content marketing is the process of planning, generating, dispensing, sharing, and publishing valuable content on media channels–social media, print media, blog posts, websites, and press statements, among other viable hybrid channels. It involves sharing valuable content that is essential, engaging, and captivating to the target audience.
To gain actions from profitable customers. Take note, content marketing is specific and targets certain people. It’s pretty easy to differentiate it from advertising and marketing promotions. And the information being presented must be valuable to you.
Long-term strategies must be set out since the engagement and building of strong bonds with the target audience is not an overnight activity.
Furthermore, developing high-quality relevant content needs resources as well as consistency. The care and promotion strategy builds trust, which later will be transformed into loyalty and sales.
The target audience responds in cycles to actions in content marketing–evidence that valuable content you provide doesn’t just automatically receive a positive response to your business.
Explore the discussion below.
The 4 Steps Of The Buying Cycle
When the target audience receives your content, it initiates important things as follows:
1. Awareness: The target customers may have needs. Yet, they don’t have a clear way to solve it. Upon receiving your content, they now become aware of your services or products and associated benefits.
But that is not enough for them to make a decision. Hence, they have to explore deeply.
2. Research: Being aware creates curiosity. The customer starts seeking authentic solutions. This is mainly through research to educate themselves extensively. For instance, if an online marketer is informed about affiliate marketing, he/she tends to explore further, to try and find out more about the terms and conditions. And to access its viability.
3. Consideration: After in-depth research on key components, the target audience starts making comparisons. Just to see which of the different options is preferable cost-wise. This influences the step to be taken which goes either way.
4. Purchase: After careful evaluation of satisfaction, the target audience now makes an informed decision. A transaction is made, thus the service or product is bought.
Content marketers should note that the proportion of customers who reach the fourth stage is quite lower compared to the preceding steps in the cycle.
So, Why is Content Marketing Important?
The benefits of content marketing are very great. It’s estimated that companies that have implemented it effectively have realized over 1000% in growth over the past decades. Content marketing does massive responsibilities such as:
It makes your leads aware of the services and products you offer in the market
Inspires, informs, captivates, and converts due to its value and relevance
Good publicity since there is a good relationship between the business and the target audience
Demonstration of how the services offered, address target group challenges faces
Target groups develop strong connections with your brands
Certainty in returns of investment when executed appropriately
It supplements social media marketing by providing additional content. SEO is much realized from such contents
Other digital promotional channels depend on content marketing for relevance
Considering the numerous benefits, content marketing opens many other profitable avenues to individuals or businesses. If exploited properly, the benefits are just enormous.
Why? The consumers trust every step you take, as the content marketer, including all your affiliates, and term it as authentic.
What does this imply?
Your associate brands are given priority as opposed to others. Just because all your deals satisfy their interests. Hence, a perfect opportunity to take your business to the next level, by becoming an affiliate marketer.
Affiliate marketing is a strategy to promote your brand and sales growth. Since it’s simple, easy, and cost-effective operation-wise.
Affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s or business’s products, and in return, you get a commission when sales are made. This is the concept of affiliate marketing. It works perfectly when you associate with networks that interest your target customers and you too.
3 major parties are involved in this setup. That is the user (customers), the affiliate (you), and the merchant (owner of the products or services). The affiliate, therefore, links the user and the merchant.
The affiliate is paid on performance or per sale and vice versa. Affiliate marketers with great viewership and trust from their customers are likely to earn more as their followers will easily consume brands they associate with.
And this is how content marketing interlinks many business promotions.
Importance of Content Marketing to Affiliate Marketers
Content marketing is the best strategy for affiliate marketing currently. For a very simple reason.
Content marketing is a well-thought process and will always be on point. It’s easy to make decisions on a niche of your interest and the proper channels of conveying content to target groups. An affiliate marketer who capitalizes on the strength of content marketing is likely to enjoy a range of benefits as below.
Benefits of Content Marketing to Affiliate Marketers.
Contents strengthen the asset base, as it ensures a steady flow of income in the years to come. Even when the content was posted a long time ago. This is a real asset and can last beyond the affiliate’s lifetime.
Content promoted by an affiliate attracts huge traffic on the site. Thus giving a high ranking page on the Google search engine. It’s also easy for the affiliate marketer to determine the interests of the target groups and better their sales.
The offering solution is simplified since site analytics can give all the insights.
Existence of audience who are ready to buy the products as long as they assisted in making the final decision.
Wider viewing since affiliates can be shared in platforms such as blogs, social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn): depending on the preferred promotional channel by the affiliate marketer.
Last of all, content marketing builds trust. The success of business activities is anchored on trust. An affiliate marketer enjoys this milestone cultivated by effective content marketing strategy.
Well, you’ve discovered the power of content marketing and its influence on affiliate marketing.
But,
Are you still wondering how you can turn this to reality? It sounds complicated to some extent. And you are in deep thoughts on how to kick start the whole process?
Keep reading this article to excavate the essentials needed in this process. Just to understand the underlying epic principles for effective and sustainable affiliate marketing. Plus the 7 strategies of content marketing that affiliate marketers have to look into the successful running of an affiliate program.
In the discussion below, are comprehensive guide strategies to implement in any content marketing.
Well, you’ve discovered the power of content marketing and its influence on affiliate marketing.
But,
Are you still wondering how you can turn this to reality?
It sounds complicated to some extent. And you are in deep thoughts on how to kick-start the whole process?
Keep reading this article to excavate the essentials needed in this process, to understand the underlying epic principles for effective and sustainable affiliate marketing. Plus the 7 strategies of content marketing that affiliate marketers have to look into for an affiliate program to run successfully.
In the discussion below, are comprehensive guide strategies to implement in any content marketing.
How To Do Content Marketing As An Affiliate Marketer:
7 Top Content Marketing Strategies for Affiliate Marketing
1. Establish Sound Goals.
Content marketing is a program delivered effectively when objectives and goals are set and is monitored by targets and indicators.
The foremost strategy in affiliate marketing is the goal you want to realize. Fail to set that out, and all efforts are just a waste of resources.
But, it’s not about setting any kind of goal. The goal has to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound). This is actually what drives and motivates the whole process.
As much as you are sensitive about your services, ensure that they lead to revenue generation, more audience conversion, product loyalty, and improvement in your engagement with target groups.
2. Determine and Document Your Pointers.
Targets and indicators were mentioned as goal drivers, right? The pointers are sometimes termed key performance indicators and should suit the SMART goals. Pointers can either be quantifiable (target) or qualifiable (indicators).
Generally, they gauge the actual performance of your SMART goals.
For instance:
Income can be measured may be on daily, weekly, or monthly sales. Along with other factors like site traffic, requests for certain services, and more.
The level of awareness is determined by traffic on the site, followers, and subscribers on-site, and social media.
Loyalty can be in terms of referrals, customers returning, and shares on other channels.
Connection with customers is indicated by the number of likes, backlinks, shares.
Collaborations can be seen by the number of new partners.
You can also determine other pointers you’d include in measuring your progress.
The relevance of your marketing strategy lies in the niche you’ve chosen.
Remember, when deciding on a niche, you need to think of your audience. Why? They are the key subject here who determine your positive performance. It’s their interest that you serve.
The kind of content you deliver, in most cases, may not be your passion. It’s what the market needs. As a content or affiliate marketer, you need to ask yourself a number of questions. The checklist of questions below is essential when deciding on the right niche.
What is their need?
Are there challenges they would like to address?
Do they need my service or products, and why?
How can I achieve it?
What’s the convenient way to reach them?
4. Choosing the Channel For Your Content.
Upon deciding the marketing niche, reaching out to your target audience follows.
Choosing the right and specific channel for your content is crucial. The niche approach can easily give the best channel to use.
For example, gaming content is passion-oriented. Social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tiktok among others can be effective.
Content on addressing a problem is specific hence channels such as blogs and websites can be suitable. The channel you choose needs to reach as a large proportion of your target audience as possible.
5. Create a Budget.
Content marketing needs money to finance the SMART goals of the content marketing strategy. For instance, some channels of marketing need membership premiums while others are subscribed.
Presenting some of your content needs special software for like Adobe, canvas, Acrobat, and many more. All these need subscriptions for different business plans.
You also need to know whether you’ll require a camera for video and other decoding and devices.
Do you also need to outsource skills? And how much are they likely to cost? These and other questions are important to ask when budgeting. Thus, ensures you do not have deficits in your budgeting plan.
6. Generate and Distribute Content.
This is the heart of any content marketing strategy. The content you create connects you with your target audience, builds relationships, and creates conversions. There has to be a certain level of consistency in your content creation activities. For instance, daily, weekly, monthly and preferred intervals.
Do you remember the preferred channel you chose? That’s where you can post your content. The content can be of different types and forms: Ebooks, video and images, podcasts, voiceovers, newsletters, and many more that suit your audience.
Content can also be optimized using keywords, keyword research, and other SEO strategies.
7. Monitor and Evaluate Your Outcomes
The only way to determine that you’re realizing your SMART goals is by assessing them using the key performance indicators checklist you outlined from the start.
It is possible to execute this on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis among other methods of monitoring you’ve preferred. Possibly you’ll determine whether you’re achieving the content marketing goals you outlined in the beginning. And therefore make necessary adjustments.
After 3 months or your preferred duration, it’s good to evaluate the long-term impact of your content and determine its influence on the target audience. For instance:
How many audiences have I reached?
Were there conversations?
What about referrals?
How many audiences come back for the service?
Which do I need to improve in the next phase for me to generate impact?
These and many other questions as per your results can help you improve your marketing strategy and positively impact your affiliate marketing plans.
It sounds fantastic, right? You have the ball; it’s now in your court. With all these strategies, you can start something new. A step that will improve your current marketing operation. Take the initiative to rise to greater levels.
StoryChief is a complete content marketing solution for all marketing channels. It’s for content planning, social media, SEO copywriting, insights, and more — Double your website traffic, nurture leads and increase sales. Easy collaboration for your team.
Quuu helps you save time and grow your social media following by sharing relevant curated content entirely on auto-pilot–hand-curated content powered by AI.
LowPost helps you engage with your audience, boost your search engine rankings, and increase your traffic by creating engaging content and stories that are customized for your brand.
PostAffiliatePro goes hand in hand with what you’ve learned in this post on content marketing strategies for affiliate marketing. It’s a complete affiliate marketing platform that lets you track your links, measure your results, set up an affiliate program, manage affiliates, pay commissions, boost your lead generation, and more.
They even have a guide on how to craft a content marketing strategy for affiliate marketing.
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If you are one of the 2.7 billion+ Facebook users, isn’t it time you started cashing in the time you spend there?
In this ultimate guide, you’ll learn how to make money online using Facebook for affiliate marketing. Why miss out on the business opportunities available to you on social media?
Read on if you want to learn how to do affiliate marketing on Facebook, discover what methods are available to you, and learn how to take advantage of them.
We’ll look at the 7 ways to promote your affiliate links on Facebook, including the mistakes to avoid, and how to do it the right way.
A. Why Use Facebook For Affiliate Marketing?
For one thing, Facebook is THE biggest social network in the world, with the number of active monthly users comprising nearly a third of the world’s population. You are likely one of those people.
For another, affiliate marketing can be a lucrative way of making money online by earning a commission for promoting other’s products.
To be successful at affiliate marketing, you need to promote your links to a wide audience, and on a variety of platforms. You need to go where the people are to make any money.
Hence, affiliate marketing and Facebook go hand in hand. Even if you don’t promote your affiliate links on Facebook directly, you can use it to increase traffic to your website or blog. Then, promote your links there, and get people to subscribe to your blog to increase your income through email marketing.
Social media is also one of the top ways to do affiliate marketing without a website. (Though, affiliate marketing with a website is highly recommended.)
If you aren’t using Facebook and other social media sites to build or grow your business and income, your business will be stunted, and you’ll get shortchanged on financial opportunities that you can start taking advantage of today.
Just find an affiliate program you want to promote, sign up or apply to it, and when (or if) accepted, you’ll be given a special URL to promote, and often other promotional materials too.
Then, if people buy the product using your affiliate link, (which will redirect to the merchant’s website,) you’ll be credited for the sale and paid a commission for it.
Affiliate marketing works best in conjunction with a website or blog, but at the very least you need a Facebook Business Page (or group.)
To create an engaged audience, don’t just promote random stuff, but choose a particular niche or topic you are interested, and promote products related to that niche.
Below we’ll get into specifically how to promote your affiliate links on Facebook.
C. The Two Strategy Types For Promoting Your Affiliate Links On Facebook
Available to choose from are two general strategic options for promoting your affiliate links on Facebook, and social media in general. Both may be necessary.
1. The Direct Method.
You can promote your affiliate links by sharing them directly on Facebook. However, certain restrictions apply to when you can do this that don’t apply to the second method.
2. The Indirect Method.
This is where, instead of sharing your affiliate links, you link to a blog post or other landing page that contains your affiliate links.
This is useful, not only for when you aren’t allowed to directly promote your affiliate links, but because it can be used as a non-overt way of selling products. At the same time, you can provide value to your audience, and potentially build your email list at the same time.
Now let’s look at:
D. The 7 Ways to Promote Your Affiliate Links On Facebook
Several options for promoting your affiliate links are available to you. Some do better than others.
Facebook Page vs. Facebook Group: What’s the difference?
First, I want you to be aware of the differences between a Facebook Page and Group.
While there is a lot of overlap, the key difference is in the level of interaction.
In a Page, you’ll basically just post things, and people will comment their reply, and you can respond if you wish. You can also enable a messaging feature.
But in a group, the level of interaction is much greater. Other people too will post and comment, etc.
Generally, the higher the engagement level, the better. But a large group can be more than you can handle alone, so you’ll have to hire moderators.
Another difference is the level of reach. Groups generally don’t suffer from organic reach issues, but pages do, so you may be forced to pay for ads to get followers for your page.
A third difference is that you can’t create a private community with a Facebook Page as you can with a group.
1. Promoting on Your Personal Profile
Everyone on Facebook has a personal profile, and you can’t do affiliate marketing on Facebook without one. So if you already have lots of followers, doesn’t it make sense to start promoting your affiliate links on your personal profile, right?
Well…it’s certainly the easiest way, but the least productive.
Your personal profile is meant to be personal, not a business. Your “friends” will probably not be happy to have their feed filled with your endless advertisements.
If you do promote affiliate products on your personal page, keep them few and far between. Also, sharing them indirectly through sharing blog posts may be more effective, since you’ll be providing them with useful or interesting content, not just promotionals.
But marketing on a Facebook Page or in a Group is preferable to using your profile.
Apart from your website (if you have one), your Facebook Page is the most important and prominent online profile representing your business or brand.
A Page gives you an official and authentic presence online.
If you want to build a business brand online, including an affiliate marketing business, then you need a Facebook page. It helps greatly with credibility, creates interest in your brand, and brings free traffic to your website.
Facebook Page FAQ
a. How should I use my Facebook Page?
Facebook pages are great for sharing updates, especially in conjunction with your website or blog, and sharing relevant articles, posts, videos, contests, quizzes, polls, or other content that is engaging and keeps your audience interested.
You can also share (and this is what you are more interested in) your related affiliate products.
But I just want to caution you against posting your affiliate products there too often. Facebook Pages already have issues with getting people’s attention. You need to regularly post engaging content, and keep affiliate posts secondary. (See the Pareto section below.)
But don’t worry, even your “engaging content” can be promotional in nature if you use the indirect method. For instance, sharing posts from your blog, or videos that contain your affiliate links in the description.
b. How often should I post on my Facebook Business Page?
There are no rules about how often you should post, and even the ‘experts’ don’t all have the same opinion.
I would say it largely depends on the level of interest in your Page, and how interesting content you share is.
Some people recommend posting once a day on average (up to 3x per day for a big business), others have success posting only 1-3 times per week. Whatever works for you.
But since the average lifetime of a Facebook Page post is just slightly under 24 hours, the once-per-day suggestion makes the best sense to me. It keeps you consistently in the audience’s attention (so you’re not forgotten), but not so often that it overwhelms them.
c. How do I start a Facebook Page?
NOTE: This is not a real Facebook Page. I’m just using it for illustration purposes.
Login to your Facebook account and go to the homepage.
Click the “Pages” tab from the menu on the left.
Then, click the “Create New Page +” button on the left.
Enter the required details, including (1) giving it a name, (2) choosing the relevant category, (3) writing a short description.
After that, click the blue “Create Page” button.
Add a profile photo and cover photo to your Facebook Business page.
Save your changes.
If you choose, you can then add other details about your business, including contact details, address, website, etc.
You can also change other settings, and add a CTA (Call To Action) button.
d. How can I build an audience for my Facebook Page?
1. Ask your friends to like your page.
You can send them an invite to like your page (via “Invite Friends” feature), or send a message to those you know would likely be interested in your page (based on their relevant interests) inviting them to like and share your page.
However, you won’t get a ton of followers that way. But if you’re just starting out and in need of an audience, any new followers help.
2. Expand your audience with paid ads.
Since organic reach is not high for Pages (thanks to Facebook changes a few years ago), one may need to pay for ads to get more exposure and engagement for your page and attract new followers. (One is inclined to suspect that this is intentional.)
Facebook Ad Center for promoting your Facebook Page.
You can promote your Facebook Page using Paid ads in the Ad Center. Enter it by clicking the “Promote” button on your Page.
3. Start a Facebook Group.
You can use both a Facebook Page and Facebook Group in tandem with one another. There’s no reason why you should be restricted to one or the other.
(More on creating and using Facebook Group below.)
4. Build from the success of other groups.
This doesn’t mean simply spam other groups with your page.
Rather seek to build credibility with the people in other groups, so when they see you are a valuable and helpful member they’ll be more likely to allow you to share an occasional link to your page or group.
Also, when you first join a group, Facebook allows you to join as either a Facebook Page or use your personal profile, so you can represent your business in a group.
5. Engage with your audience.
Providing great content and building a fanbase is also a wonderful way to grow that base, since your current followers will like and share your content, and invite others to join them in your page or group.
6. Email your list.
Invite the people on your email list to like your Facebook Page (and join the group, if you have one) to recieve updates and posts from you in their feed, and letting them know the benefits of following.
Additionally, you can include links to your social channels at the bottom of your emails.
As a sidenote, you can use your Facebook Page to build your email list. If you use Aweber’s autoresponder, you can integrate their service with your Facebook page. (I recommend this.)
7. Place Links elsewhere.
Includes links to your Facebook business profile on your website or blog, and your other social profiles. Even in your website’s menu.
8.Be mindful of SEO.
Make your posts search engine-friendly.
Put a long tail keyword at the beginning of your post title, and use keywords in your posts that other people are looking for.
Some Facebook groups allow promotion of your affiliate links, so that’s a way to do affiliate marketing on Facebook.
However, many groups will delete it as spam and may block you. So check the rules beforehand, and consider using indirect methods instead.
Also, it’s highly unlikely you will be very successful promoting in spaces that allow affiliate link promotion since the members are already inundated with other offers. There’s no reason to pay special attention to yours.
Rather than depending on other groups, it’s better in the long run to build your own group, and hence have complete control, and be able to dominate it.
A group can be used to increase interest in your brand and products, and other things you offer.
How to start a Facebook Group:
[Note: This is not a real Facebook Group. It’s just for illustration.]
Choose a niche for your Group: the topic your group is to be centered around.
When logged into your Facebook account, select “Groups” on the left of your Facebook homepage.
Click on “Create New Group +”.
Set the required details, including (1) your group name, and (2) whether your group is private or public, (3) visible to others or hidden.
You then have the option of inviting your friends.
Create a unique url, that includes your group name (if possible), so you don’t have boring numbers as your url.
Add a group picture and cover image. (This can include your logo.)
How to Grow Your Group
Most of the tips for building an audience for a Facebook Page also apply or can be adapted to a growing a Facebook Group. Reread that section if necessary. We will briefly recap some tips.
Invite your friends and email list.
Use SEO tactics.
Share your Facebook Group on your other social profiles and on your website.
Create engaging content for your audience.
Reshare posts from your group in another. (But don’t share the same thing in a bunch of groups at the same time! It could get treated as spam and get you in big trouble with Facebook.)
4. Affiliate Marketing With Facebook Ads.
a. Advantages of Facebook Ads
Facebook ads have the benefit of allowing you to be extremely specific in the demographics you target, including things like age, gender, location, and interests. They also have the advantage in that you don’t need to build an audience before promoting.
On the other hand, Facebook has very strict guidelines about what kind of ads can be displayed, what your images need to look like, and what kind of landing pages are allowed.
If you don’t want to be barred from using ads, or banned from Facebook, you’ll need to follow all the rules–to the letter.
Those rules prohibit, among other things, promoting Amazon and Clickbank products in ads. Nor can you boost posts that contain affiliate links.
It may be safer and more productive to use Facebook ads to promote affiliate links indirectly or use it to build your email list (which you can then use for marketing.)
c. How to Advertise on Facebook
To run an ad campaign on Facebook, you’ll need a Facebook Business Page, and an Ad account.
Once you have that, enter your Facebook Ads Manager by clicking “Advertising on Facebook” and then on “Create an Ad.”
Select the most relevant goal for your ad campaign under one of the three tabs labeled “Awareness,” “Consideration,” and “Conversion.
Answer the questions on “Audience,” “Placement,” and “Budget and Schedule.”
Add your ad material (ad copy, images,etc).
d. Be honest and realistic in your ads
Don’t make big, specific claims about things that depend on various factors. For example, promising guaranteed profits. Such ads may be deemed misleading and rejected.
5. Messaging Your Marketing
Using Facebook Messenger for marketing is not recommended in most cases, and randomly messaging people with your affiliate links can get you banned pretty fast.
It may be okay, however, in the context of a conversation where the product you are promoting is genuinely helpful to the other person or they have expressed interest in it.
Try also using the indirect method, but don’t spam with your website links either.
6. Sharing Through Commenting
Similarly, don’t spam with your affiliate links in Facebook comments. That will likely get you into trouble with moderation.
But affiliate links may be shared in certain contexts, like when a poster asks for help with something, and your product can truly help him, or when he is looking for that kind of product.
Just be sure to check the Group’s rules (if you’re commenting in one) to make sure they’re okay with that. (Some are; some aren’t.)
7. Boost Your Posts
The seventh and last way in which it’s possible to do affiliate marketing on Facebook is through boosting your posts to reach a wider audience.
But you can only do this using the indirect method. Boosting posts with affiliate links is not allowed. Instead, direct traffic to your blog post or another landing page.
Or take an even more indirect method and send them to a page that’s intended to create email leads (such as a squeeze page) so you can capitalize on it later through email marketing.
D. Rules, Tips, and Best Practices for Affiliate Marketing on Facebook
1. Disclose your affiliation.
Both Facebook and the FTC require that you add a disclosure to your affiliate promotionals. This is true also for Twitter and Instagram, and even your own website.
But don’t worry about having to write a lengthy disclosure that takes up too much room. You can simply use a hashtag such as one of the following: #affiliate, #affiliatelink, #afflink, #ad, #CommissionEarned, etc.
2. Include Relevant Hashtags.
While hashtags aren’t as widely used or popular on Facebook as on Twitter, they can still work to improve your post reach, engagement rate, and click-through rate.
Just don’t go overboard and load your post with as many hashtags as you can think of. That would have the opposite effect intended. 3 to 5 hashtags should be sufficient.
Moreover, the hashtags should be relevant to, and preferably worked into, the post itself.
3. Employ the Pareto Principle.
In order to keep interest in your Facebook posts, apply the 80/20 rule. Let 2 out of 8 posts be promotional in nature, and the other six focused on providing interesting content.
If all you do is promote products, you’ll bore your audience. Instead, focus on providing them with a variety of content, including videos (and video reviews), images, articles, quizzes, contests, polls, giveaways, or wherever your creativity leads you.
Adding photos to your posts is clearly one of the best ways to increase your engagement rate.
Tip: Create an image gallery containing attractive photos of the product your promoting, followed by an effective review of the product, and link to that product using your affiliate link.
5. Never spam.
Never post your links where they are not allowed.
Nor should you randomly post your links without context. Do you think people are likely to trust whatever random links they see on social media? Especially if it’s a long confusing URL with random numbers and digits?
That’s clearly not an effective promotional method.
6. Clean up your links.
Along the lines of the latter note, consider using a link shortener or Cloaker to clean up your affiliate links.
Some link shortners also provide you with tracking software and other features.
Alternatively, “cloak” your link using a custom URL starting with your domain name. It looks more professional and trustworthy that way.
As a WordPress user, I use PrettyLinks for cloaking affiliate links, one of the most popular and easy to use plugins of the kind.
Just remember to check the affiliate program terms to make sure they allow it. Some don’t. Notably, Amazon forbids using link cloakers or shorteners.
7. Use Tracking Software.
Consider using tracking software to measure the success (or not) of your campaign and use that data to strategize for more efficient campaigns.
There are a number of good affiliate link tracking software available to you, including ClickMeter, Voluum, and PostAffiliatePro.
8. Pin Popular Posts.
The nice thing about having a Facebook Page or Group of your own is that you get to control which posts get the most attention.
E. Start a Website and Set Up a Blog.
I think by this time you realize the necessity of having a website, and a blog in particular, in order to take full advantage of affiliate marketing opportunities on Facebook.
It’s even more important because you have full control over it, unlike Facebook, which can change its rules at any time and crush your business if you rely entirely on it.
Fortunately, it’s quite easy to create your own website and blog.
Install WordPress in one click (using the above domain/hosting services).
Choose a theme for your website, and customize it. If you don’t like the free themes, get a professionally designed WordPress theme from EnvatoElements.
Having read this post, you have now learned all the methods open to you for promoting your affiliate links on Facebook.
Be responsible, build relationships with your audience, and get posting!
You can succeed, but the important thing now is to get started.
So let’s get moving!
________________
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Do you want to learn how to write a great blog post?
If you don’t have a method or system to guide your blog writing, you’ll quickly run into problems. Writer’s Bloc, inability to write or finish writing and ineffective writing are symptoms of being unmethodical.
What you need is a step-by-step process to guide you from start to finish, even if you have no previous experience writing for a blog.
That’s exactly what I aim to provide you within here.
In this complete guide to writing a blog post, we’ll look at everything you need to know to successfully write an effective blog post.
A. What Is A Blog And Why Have One?
[The WordPress blog post editor.]
A blog is a website, or a part of a website, that has regularly updated content, and is written in a more personable manner than other types of website content, such as a straight news article or sales page.
In the past, blogs were mostly associated with individuals who wrote about their life experiences and reflections but now have also become an inseparable part of most online businesses.
Blogs are essential for both individuals and businesses to build relationships with their consumers.
There are so many benefits to having a blog.
It provides value to your audience, brings your website organic traffic, builds trust, credibility, and relationships with your readers, creates an engaged audience, enables you to provides you with an effective way to build your email list or promote products, and hence gives you a great way to make money online.
Every product marketer needs to build a blog at some point, in order to achieve long-term (or substantial) success in his efforts.
B. How To Create A Blog
If you do not yet have a blogging platform of your own, it’s simple and easy to create one.
Step 1. Choose a niche for your blog.
Your niche is the main topic your blog will be focused on. Choosing a niche, as opposed to blogging about various random topics, will help you build an engaged and interested audience. It’s also better for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Our niche at cybermarketspace.com is internet marketing, and particularly affiliate marketing, but you can choose from whatever niche you are interested in. Just make sure it’s something other people are seeking as well.
If you intend to market products on your blog, you’ll also need to consider whether your niche will provide you ample opportunity to promote products relevant to your niche. For example, promoting gardening tools on a cooking blog isn’t going to convert well, and may annoy your readers.
Step 2. Pick an appropriate domain name.
Your domain name is the name of your website, your primary website address. Example: cybermarketspace.com.
Your domain name should make sense in the context of your niche, and be relevant to it. In addition, If you can include the name of your niche or main keyword in your domain name, it will be better for SEO.
To get a domain name, you’ll have to pay a recurring fee to a domain name registrar service, like Namecheap, for a few dollars a year. I registered cybermarketspace.com with NameCheap because of the low price, and have been very satisfied with them.
Step 3. Host your website online.
Next, you’ll need a quality web hosting service to get your blog online. Webhosting plans provide you with a server to host your website on, upload content, install software, and create email accounts, among other things.
Web hosting plans can be purchased at an affordable price at Namecheap, or from other web hosting services like Bluehost and Hostgator.
But if, somehow, despite the low price, you can’t afford a web hosting plan right now, get it here for free!
Step 4. Install a Content Management System, such as WordPress.
Unless you want to hire someone to code and design a website for you or do everything yourself, it’s better to install Content Management System. I use and recommend WordPress, used by nearly 80 million other websites. It’s free, easy to use, contains an ocean of plugins, and integrates well with third-party apps.
With great web hosting services like Bluehost (the #1 web host recommended by WordPress), Namecheap, and HostGator, installing WordPress is as easy as the click of a button!
Now that you’re ready, we’ll go into the exact process you need to write a blog post.
C. How to Write a Great Blog Post: A Complete Step-By-Step Guide
So how exactly do you write a blog post?
Step 1. Select the Subject of Your Post.
The first thing to do is to choose the topic of your post–what you’ll write about.
This shouldn’t be hard since you have already chosen the niche for your blog (see above). Now you just need to focus on keywords related to your niche.
How to do this? Brainstorm! Alternatively, you can input your main keyword in a keyword tool to find related keywords.
You can use free keyword tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, Answer The Public, Google Trends, etc, to find relevant keywords that get traffic.
Step 2. Research Your Topic Keyword.
Use a keyword research tool to check whether your target keyword generates enough monthly searches to make writing your post worth it. At the same time, you’ll need to make sure the competition isn’t too high for you to rank in Google’s search results.
A rate of 1000 monthly searches is usually good, but if the competition is high and you’re a new blogger, shoot for lower volume keywords first (as low as 100/month or less).
In addition to search volume, it’s equally necessary to double-check search intent. I.e., what people are looking for when they use a particular search term. Are they searching for a product to fix an issue, a tutorial, an article, a diagram?
How do you check search intent? Google the term and see what kind of results show up. If other articles and blog posts appear, that’s a good sign.
Step 3. Write Your Blog Post Headline.
Yes, write your headline before you write your blog post. In fact, write several of them to choose from.
Your headline should be your guide to writing your post. Your post should be written to deliver on your headline. This keeps you on topic, and from going off on a tangent, only to struggle at the end to bring the loose strands together in a single headline.
It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but at least have a working title before you write your post. Even the headline I chose for this article changed by the time I finished drafting it. This post turned out to be much longer than I originally planned!
[Brainstorm and write down many different versions of your headline.]
Here are some tips for writing an effective headline.
1. Create an attractive title.
Many people don’t read past the headlines, so make it interesting enough to catch their attention!
It could come in the form of a question that the audience is interested in an answer for, or a How-To headline.
To get their attention, promise readers the answer to a problem that irks them (you may need to do research to discover what their main problems are). Be specific, so you don’t overpromise, or end up with a vague answer.
Use case studies. They are not only specific, but also interest people in learning how to replicate the success mentioned.
Use strong language, using power words, and literary tactics like alliteration and rhymes, to make your title attractive. But just don’t try to be overly clever.
Don’t try to be a ‘wise guy’, using sophisticated, unfamiliar, or ambigous words. They won’t interest your readers; it turns them off.
If you’re not writing about a topic that interests your readers (not just you), you’ll get very few readers and followers.
Eliminate impotent, empty, and unnecesary words.
2. Optimize for search engines.
If possible, compress your headline to 65 characters or less. After about 60 characters, headlines start to get cut off in the search results. So no matter how clever the rest of your headline may be, people won’t even see it.
If you can do so naturally, put your target keyword in the headline.
3. Learn from those that know.
“Copy” the style of great headlines you see, and use templates, if they help.
Overtime, however, you’ll learn your own style, and once you have one, make changes only gradually, so your readers aren’t jolted by your sudden change.
4. Impress upon the senses.
Avoid abstractions in favor of concrete, sensory words. They engage and leave a more lasting impression upon your readers.
5. Don’t give it away yet!
If you give away the solution in your headline, people may feel they don’t need to read your post, now that they know the answer, or can look up more about that next.
6. Don’t do that hateful thing.
Don’t mislead people, intentionally or not. It breaks trust and credibility, and leads readers away from your blog.
Misleading can happen not only by lying, but by overpromising. You want your readers to leave satisfied with the answer you’ve given, and ready to hear more of what you have to say.
[Thou Shalt Not Mislead.]
Step 4. Do Your Research.
Research before Writing.
You don’t have to know everything about your topic before you write about it.
Here’s a secret many bloggers won’t tell you: bloggers often don’t know anything about a topic until they decide to write about it!
But the important thing is that you research the topic before writing about it, else you can’t provide anything of value to your audience. Write down what you learn in case you don’t remember it later. (I mean, what would be the use of research you can’t use later on?)
Pro tip: Always check your facts, and use authoritative sources so you don’t end up embarrassed later on.
5. Organize Your Raw Content in an Outline.
Having researched your topic and taken notes, it’s time to arrange that content in an outline. You can do this with sections, tips, lists.
You can be as detailed or as general as you wish. As an analytical person, I like to be as detailed as possible, but whatever works for you.
6. Write Your Post!
The preparation stage is over! Now let’s get into the actual drafting stage.
There are two ways you can write a draft. You can do it (1) in one sitting or (2) gradually write a section at a time.
The first is preferable since it helps your post flow better, and you from forgetting ideas as easily. But time constraints and long complex topics may compel you to take the latter course instead.
What you write will be based on the outline you have created.
7. Create a Captivating Introduction.
Apart from the headline itself, the intro is the most crucial part of your blog post, because you both need to capture your readers’ attention to keep them from just taking a quick glance and leaving your site, perhaps forever.
Grab readers’ attention. You can try this by telling an interesting story or funny joke, being empathetic with your readers, or grip them with fascinating fact or statistic. Or you can describe your post’s purpose, explaining how it will address a particular problem relevant to your readers’ experience.
Tips for writing an effective introduction:
1. Step inside their their perspective.
It’s a common mistake to make blog posts sound too academic. That’s not the way a blog should be. After all, this isn’t high school or college class, and unless you interest your audience, they’ll simply leave.
To capture your audience, you need to be empathetic with them and make them feel you are reading their minds.
Trigger them–in a good way. As you write, feel the emotions you want them to experience, and when that transfers into your writing, you’re audience is likely to feel them too.
2. Draw your readers down the page.
Interest them, and keep them interested.
Open your post with a question or short sentence. This is more inviting to the reader than a large paragraph block.
Gut your Intro. Cut out all unnecesary words.
Get things moving quickly. You can slow down later.
Use brief sentences.
Use brief paragraphs. Preferably no more than 3 sentences each.
Let each sentence connect with the other, so things flow smoothly down the page. Reading your page aloud will help you check the flow.
Make your readers crave the solution.
Allude to their fears. Refer to the consequences that will or could occur if the problem is not solved.
Present your post as the solution.
Tip: Ask a question that addresses the problem facing your audience, then explain how your post helps them overcome that obstacle.
8. Deftly Draft The Body of Your Blog Post.
At this point, having done your research, you should be able to write your post based on what you know. But if you feel the need to research further, you are free to do so.
This is where you deliver on your promises; and more.
The content of your body is based on the outline you have previously made.
Tips for writing the content of your blog post:
Break up the text. Don’t intimidate your readers with long walls of text. Use subheaders, sub-subheaders, etc, to break up the text, help your readers navigate or scan your post with ease, and to support the main headline. Bullet points and numbered lists also help break up the text (as do images, discussed below).
Stick to a format, and formula.
Give your audience something unique.
Be generous with your knowledge, and thorough. Give readers what they need to know. (Don’t annoy them (for example) by saying they need to buy your product or go somewhere else to find the answer to the question your post was supposed to solve.)
Just as you should start out strong, so should your ending be.
Each section of your content should be structered and written to support your headline and intro.
9. Creating the Conclusion.
Let your conclusion be motivational.
Show your readers how far they’ve come, what they can do after reading your post, and what things will be like once they put what they’ve learned into action.
Raise their expectations.
Above all, it’s important to tell them they must act by creating an effective call to action–telling them what you want them to do next. This can be something like asking them to subscribe to your email list or signup for something, download an ebook, etc.
Pro tip: Never introduce new information in a conclusion! A conclusion should (briefly) reflect what went before and what to do next.
10. Enhance Your Post With Images.
So you’ve finished writing your blog post. Congratulations! But there are still a few more steps to take.
Every post should have images.
Photos and infographics help break up the text wall, add interest, and explain complex topics in a simple, understandable way.
As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Where can you get images for your blog post? There are three sources to choose from: (1) free images, (2) stock (paid) images, and images you make yourself (or someone else on your behalf).
1. Free images.
I am somewhat amused when I see people giving credit to Google as their image source. Google is not a source for free images! They only display images, most of which have a copyrighted or other restriction on their use.
To get free images, you can use a site like Pixabay, or Pexels that provides you with free images.
Unfortunately, however, free image sites will often leave you unsatisfied, unable to find the graphic you were looking for.
2. (Paid) Stock images.
These are images you pay for a license to use. You can buy quality photos and images from sites like Shutterstock, iStock/Getty Images, and Alamy.
3. Create images.
Creating unique images, and especially infographics, is great for SEO, a free way of getting backlinks.
Fortunately, it’s easy–even for people with no experience–to create aesthetically pleasing graphics using tools like Canva. (The blog banner at the top of this page and the infographic at the bottom of this post were both created using Canva.)
And, of course, shooting your own pics is another way to get free images.
11. Proofread Your Blog Post.
Correct basic writing errors.
You’ll need to fix obvious writing issues like grammatical and spelling errors, and improper word choices.
Grammarly, a free writing app for desktop or mobile, is an excellent tool for doing that.
It also helps to get others to read and proofread your post and give their feedback. With Grammarly Premium, you can also have real, professional editors proofread your work.
Also, check the flow of your article by reading it aloud.
You needn’t be a perfectionist. While you should polish your post as best you can (and continue to do so), there simply isn’t enough time to make it perfect.
2. Revise your writing style.
Avoid: repeating yourself, abrupt turns, going off on tangents, being inconsistent, and using uncertain, ambiguous, weak, or unnecessary words.
What you should do: write smoothly, engage the senses, put things in their natural and logical order, and be consistent.
Don’t worry about cutting things out or adapting them right before publishing.
3. Double-Check Your Format.
Are you using subheadings generously? Bullet points? Is your post scannable? Are you using enough short sentences? Short paragraphs? Do you have appropriate topics and tags?
4. Review your visual appearance.
Does your post have a featured image? Is your post visually engaging (including the formatting)? Is it easy on the eye?
12. Optimize Your Blog Post for Search Engines (SEO).
1. Include a meta description, a 150-60 character summary of your article, in your post. Use action verbs like “discover…,” “learn…,” “read…,”. Metadescriptions give people a snapshot of your article which they see in search engine results.
2. Include your target keywords in your post title and subheadings.
3. Create anchor text. (Clickable text that links to another page) thatlinks to other pages on your website.
4. Have at least a couple of H2 (format) headlines that include search terms.
5. Make your website mobile-friendly. Mobile traffic will make up a big chunk of your traffic.
13. Publish Your Blog Post!
This is really the easiest step of them all. If you’re using WordPress, just press the Publish button and it will be live!
At least…if you were using the WordPress editor. But what if you were using something like Google Docs? No problem, you don’t have to go through all the trouble of reformatting and so forth.
[How to write a blog post. Infographic by CyberMarketSpace.]
Well, you’ve come a long way toward understanding how to write a blog post–from start to finish.
Now the important thing is for you to go forth and write!
If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more articles like it, please subscribe to our newsletter.
Have any other tips for writing a blog post? Feel free to share them in the comments! And don’t forget to share this article on social media to help others begin or improve their writing journey!
[Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links.]
(If you’re new to affiliate marketing and looking to get started, or are trying to understand the key terms and concepts, see our previous post here.)
I. What are “Affiliate Links”?
Since we’re going to spend the rest of this time learning looking at ways to promote affiliate links, let’s make sure we know what we’re referring to and how to acquire them.
When you sign up for an affiliate program, you are given a unique URL (exclusive to you) that contains your referral ID or username.
When people click on an affiliate link, they are redirected to the sales page (usually containing promotional material) on the merchant’s website.
Here’s a couple of examples from my affiliate links:
[Clicking on the affiliate link redirects to VidScribe’s website.]
Affiliate links also install a cookie in the visitor’s browser (when clicked) which enables the merchant to give credit to the affiliate for the sale. Unfortunately for the affiliate, if the customer blocks or rejects the cookies, he likely won’t get credit for the sale.
II. Ways to promote your affiliate links on your website
Do you need a website to do affiliate marketing? No, but you’ll be missing out on a lot if you don’t have one, as you’ll see when reading this guide.
Here are the top ways to do affiliate marketing on your website.
1. Writing blog posts or informative articles
This is one of the best methods overall. It gets you plenty of search engine traffic, provides readers with a lot of value, helps build your credibility, and gains the trust of your readers. So they are more likely to follow your recommendations and buy the products you are promoting (AKA, a higher conversion rate.)
What to do: Share your affiliate links in your blog posts by recommending products in your posts or integrating your links with your content.
This is a subtle, but popular and effective subtle promotion method. Many people look for product reviews when interested in buying a product because they want to learn more about it and hear other people’s experiences with it. Often this will influence their decision on whether to buy it.
What to do: Write a review of your product sharing your experience with it, giving your honest views on it, what you liked about it (or didn’t, but be careful with the latter). Give an overview of the product’s outstanding features, and direct the user to where and how they can buy it, or learn more about it on the merchant’s website.
[Speechello: Example of a product review page for affiliate marketing.]
3. Product Tutorials/How-To Guides
What to do: Write an in-depth guide on how to use a product or some feature of it. This is especially effective if you thus showcase the product’s use and features as the solution to a problem, to help your reader do something they want to get done.
4. Product Comparisons
A product comparison is like a mini-review of several products focusing on their similarities and differences in chosen aspects.
What to do: You can use a product comparison to highlight the advantages of certain products over others or to demonstrate the uniqueness of each.
A checklist is one common product comparison method.
An affiliate banner ad is a clickable image (ad) that contains your affiliate link.
Some affiliate programs provide you with premade banners. All you need to do is add the code to your website. If you use WordPress, you can do with the Custom Html block (or Shortcode).
III. Ways to promote your affiliate links that don’t require you to have a website
1. Email Affiliate Marketing
Your email list is your most valuable asset. Building an email list allows you to contact your audience directly and personally without depending on search engines and social media algorithms, hoping your audience will see your content. It’s one of the most profitable forms of marketing.
What to do: Create a landing page (you can do that with Aweber or Leadpages) offering some valuable freebie (like an ebook) that they can receive only by submitting their email address. This kind of landing page is called a squeeze page, and the offer is called a lead magnet.
If you’re a newbie and looking for an easy way to get started, Covert Commissions provides you with done-for-you squeeze pages and done-for-your automatic email campaigns promoting your affiliate links. All you need to do is add your Affiliate ID in your dashboard and connect your autoresponder (like Aweber).
If you have a website, you can use pop-ups as well as landing pages.
And yes, you can do email marketing even if you don’t have an email list of your own. No, I’m not talking about spamming. That will get you in plenty of trouble. I’m talking about running email solo ads and safelist marketing.
a. Solo ads
One of the best places to buy solo ads is Udimi. It gives many sellers to choose from, showing their average conversion rate and other ratings. It also gives you free live-time tracking for all clicks on your links. Even better, you can choose to have them write the solo ad for free if you don’t have your own.
b. Safelist Marketing
A safelist is a mutual mailing list for marketers. Since all the members have agreed to receive marketing emails, they can’t get marked as spam.
The major downsides of using safelists are that (1) you will receive a stream of emails in return that can quickly take up your time, and (2) with all the other marketing emails they receive each day, you’ll get a much lower conversion rate. But I guess you get what you pay for, and it’s usually free to join.
For the second reason, I would advise mostly advertising free products to generate leads for building your own email list.
You must go where the people are if you are to succeed. And nearly half the world’s population uses social media. If you’re not using social media to promote your business, you don’t know what you’re doing.
Two different methods of promoting your links on social media are available to you.
1. The Direct Method: This is where you directly share your affiliate links and pitch a sale.
2. The Indirect Method: Send them to a landing page (such as a blog post, or product review) to learn more, and this page contains your affiliate links.
What to do: Share posts on Facebook in groups, in your bio, and your regular posts. Some groups allow you to promote your affiliate links but be sure it’s ok so you don’t get banned from the community.
You’ll be more effective if you regularly share posts that provide value to your followers/readers, rather than just annoying them by spamming their feeds.
Tweets being as limited as they are, you may want to use the indirect method instead of sharing your links directly. You can also add your affiliate website to your bio.
3. Instagram
As popular as Instagram is, it’s a bit trickier to use for marketing than others. Only those with 10 thousand or more followers can share links in their feed, put links in your bio, and direct people to go there.
Reddit apparently does not allow for affiliate links, so use the indirect method on Reddit and link to your blog posts or landing pages that contain your affiliate links.
Try to be helpful when sharing links, as simply link-dropping will not be appreciated.
5. Medium
Medium allows affiliate links, but you must clearly disclose your affiliation on whatever page you share your affiliate links on. It’s not the most affiliate-friendly platform, but it’s popular enough to give you a good chance at making sales.
3. Video Platforms
a. YouTube
YouTube being the second largest search engine in the world, you don’t want to miss out on using it. In fact, for many YouTube is their primary way of making a living.
What to do: You can promote your affiliate links as resources in your video descriptions, or with popups during the video. Use YouTube to create product reviews or tutorials.
b. Rumble, Vimeo
Vimeo and Rumble are YouTube alternatives and Rumble allows you to monetize your videos.
c. Webinars (or live videos on social media)
Webinars have the highest conversion rate of any marketing method. If you’re trying to sell a high-priced product, your best bet is to do a webinar on it.
You don’t have to go live if you don’t want to. Many webinars are pre-recorded and replayed multiple times.
d. Never forget to share your videos on other platforms as well.
4. Advertising (besides Solo ads and safelists)
a. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
With Search Engine Marketing, you’ll pay for ads that will appear at the top of the search results when people search for certain keywords.
You must verify that it is allowed in the terms of the affiliate agreement since some affiliate programs strictly prohibit you from using keyword bidding to promote your affiliate links.
b. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
In addition to SEM, you can pay for other ads for your affiliate links. You can purchase PPC ads from Google and social media platforms.
c. Free Advertising methods
In addition to safelists, you can get free advertising for your affiliate ads or banners.
You can either get a set amount of credits per month or earn ad credits for viewing other’s ads.
d. Traffic exchanges
What to do: For every site you visit, you get that many guaranteed visits to your site.
To do this, you’ll need to join a network like Traffic Splash.
5. Ebook
A clever way to promote your affiliate links is through an ebook. If you offer the ebook for free, it will serve double-purpose as a lead magnet as well as a marketing tool.
If you’re looking for an easy way to make and design ebooks (including some DFY), I recommend using Sqribble.
Not a writer? No problem. Affordably hire someone on Fiverr to write an ebook for you.
6 & 7. Comment on blogs and forums
Only provide your affiliate links in blog comments if they are relevant and helpful, else you likely won’t get past moderation or spam filters. Even then they may not allow it, so it’s better not to link directly.
The same applies to commenting on forums.
8. Referral link sites
Some websites allow you to share your referral and affiliate links directly on their platform. In fact, that’s the whole purpose of their platform.
With Invitation, you can easily share your affiliate links and get free traffic automatically. It’s like a social media site for link offers. Sign up here.
Conclusion
Have any other ideas? Let us know in the comment section below! And don’t forget to subscribe and share this post onsocial media!
A. Affiliate Marketing Made Simple: Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Beginners.
Are you here to learn about affiliate marketing or interested in tapping into this lucrative billion-dollar industry but don’t know where to start? In either case, this affiliate marketing guide is for you.
Affiliate Marketing Keyword Definitions and explanations.
1.What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is an earnings-sharing marketing model in which a person earns a commission (for a sale, usually) from a merchant for promoting that merchant’s product(s) online. Affiliate marketers direct potential customers to the merchant to get a product, and if they do, the merchant rewards the affiliate.
2. How does affiliate marketing work?
Merchants want to reach, and sell their products to, as many people as they can. Through affiliate marketing, they incentivize people to promote their products, by rewarding them for certain actions they get a consumer to do, such as making a purchase, clicking a link, or signing up for a program.
When you sign up for an affiliate program, you are given a unique URL or referral ID. When someone buys something using your link, you are credited for the sale and paid your share of it.
The three most common types of affiliate marketing models are:
1. Pay Per Sale (PPS): in which the affiliate usually receives a percentage of the sale proceeds, or else a fixed dollar amount. PPS is the most common and profitable type of affiliate marketing program.
2. Pay Per Lead (PPL): where the affiliate is paid for getting a consumer to sign up for a program/product, or enter their email address. The affiliate is paid even for these free sign-ups because it is likely the customer will upgrade to a paid product, or at least the merchant has the opportunity to continue to advertise to them.
3. Pay Per Click: in which the affiliate is paid each time a person clicks on their ads or views their site. (In hopes that a worthwhile percentage of them will make purchases.)
3. Who are the parties involved in affiliate marketing?
As far as the affiliate program alone is concerned there are only two parties involved: the merchant and the affiliate. But for the program to be worth anything, you of course need a third party: the customer. Often, there is a fourth party involved, the affiliate network.
a. Who is the merchant?
The merchant is the businessman or company that creates the whole program. They own the products and pay affiliates for bringing them sales.
b. Who/ what is an affiliate marketer?
The affiliate marketer is the person (or sometimes a business or organization) who is paid a share of the profits that he brought to the merchant by promoting his products online.
c. What is an affiliate marketing network?
An affiliate network acts as a middle-man between the merchant and affiliate. It provides a platform for managing and advertising the affiliate program, paying affiliates, keeps track of the sales, and often also traffic brought by the affiliate.
d. Who is the customer or consumer?
The customer or consumer is anyone who purchases or signs up to receive a product or service provided by a merchant. There are also potential customers, who haven’t yet made a purchase, but might, so the merchants and their affiliates advertise to them in hopes that they will land a sale.
4. What is an affiliate program?
An affiliate program is a performance-based marketing program which means the marketer only gets paid when he produces the desired result to the merchant, which usually means sales.
5. How does an affiliate marketer get paid?
Merchants or affiliate networks keep track of the purchases and sign-ups that occur as a result of using an affiliate’s link or ID, using software, cookies, and other tracking technologies. They are then credited with the sale and paid out at the time and method set by an agreement.
Sometimes affiliates get paid immediately; other times the payment is delayed up to 30 days (or more), especially for newbies.
Payment methods include anything from PayPal, to direct bank transfers, checks, cryptocurrencies, and credit points, but usually in cash.
6. Why should I be an affiliate? Is it worth it? Is affiliate marketing right for me?
Affiliate marketing is for everyone! You don’t need any educational qualifications or prior experience. Affiliates are just ordinary people trying to make a living, or some money on the side.
There are many advantages to affiliate marketing.
13 reasons to be an affiliate marketer:
1. You can generate passive income, the ‘holy grail’ of making money. You can literally make money while you sleep. While you do need to put in some initial work, once you get things in motion, automation can help you do most of the work.
2. No customer support is necessary. The merchant handles all the customer support issues, inquiries, or refunds.
3. It is convenient and flexible. You can adapt it to your schedule, platforms, and methods. No office hours. You just need a device with an internet connection.
4. You can work remotely. Work from home or anywhere you want. You don’t have to go anywhere, so long as you have an internet connection.
5. The rewards are performance-based (which is why affiliates are sometimes called performance-marketers) so the more sales you bring, the more you earn.
6. No stocking, shipping, or handling. You don’t need to buy or pay for any product, or send it to customers. Just refer them to the merchant, and they handle the rest.
7. Low to no-cost to start up and run. It’s possible to market products without spending a single penny. In any case, the costs, if you have them, are inconsiderable compared to the costs of starting a business with products of your own.
8. No experience or educational requirements. Though it is recommended to read or watch educational resources, (including those on CyberMarketSpace–that’s what you’re doing right now, after all!), and talk to those who are already affiliates.
9. You’ll have time for doing other things. Time is more valuable than money, and you don’t want to spend your whole life just trying to make bucks. Making passive income will enable you to use your time in other important or enjoyable ways, such as spending time with your friends, families, doing your favorite hobbies, going on vacation, etc.
10. Be your own boss. No employer around to tell you what to do!
11. Make unlimited income. There are no caps on how much total money you can make.
12. Minimal time necessary. Apart from the initial work of setting up a website and writing posts and emails (if you choose to do things that way), technology and automation will carry you the rest of the way.
13. You can sell any kind of product you want. Nearly every major online business has an affiliate program. There is an affiliate program for every type of niche and product out there.
7. How much money can I earn as an affiliate marketer?
The sky is the limit! With diligent and intelligent effort, you can even become a millionaire, as some have. Individual results, however, will vary depending on several factors including your niche, the programs you join, and your marketing tactics.
B. How do I become a merchant?
If you’re interested in becoming a merchant and having affiliates promote your own product, here are the basic steps to follow.
You must:
1. Come up with a product idea.
The way to do this is to find a problem that people want or need to be solved and creating a solution (your product!) to solve that problem.
2. Research to find out if there is a big enough demand for your product.
If there isn’t, you won’t make a profit. There needs to be people to be looking for your solution, or else be persuaded that they need it before they’ll be interested in buying your product.
3. Create your product.
How you do that will depend on what your product is. It may be a book, software, or physical product. You have the idea; now you need to make it a reality.
4. Test your product.
If your product doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, you won’t a profit, and you may gain a bad reputation.
On the other hand, having happy customers is a wonderful and fulfilling experience, and makes it likely that they will recommend your product to others, even if they don’t become affiliates–and that is the most valuable form of promotion.
5. Find affiliates to promote your product.
If you use an affiliate network for your affiliate program, others may find it when searching for related programs in that network. But since it can be hard to get recognized as a newbie, consider asking affiliates who promote similar products, or write on topics related to your product, if they’d be interested in promoting your product as well.
You can also ask product reviewers to review your product. People with product review sites or YouTube channels are very often affiliates of the products they review. You can further incentivize them by giving them a free product, or sample of it, for them to review.
C. How can I be an affiliate marketer?
How can you take advantage of the financial opportunities available as an affiliate marketer?
How to become an affiliate marketer: a step-by-step guide for beginners in 2021.
1. Decide what niche and audience you will market to.
What is a niche? Your niche is a specific market category that your website or business is centered around.
A niche is not the same as a keyword, though it may be represented by one. For instance, “love” is not a niche. But “online dating site” is a niche, and a highly competitive one at that.
You should choose a niche that is profitable, that you have a special interest in, and that you have some knowledge about, otherwise you won’t make any worthwhile profit, or you’ll lose interest in it or burn out.
It’s important to choose a specific focus for your online website/business, rather than everything at random because if you don’t, you’ll have to try to beat all kinds of competitors at once, and you’ll lose the advantage of having an engaged, focused, and interested audience.
If you choose a niche so broad, like cooking or pets, you’ll have too much competition. Narrow your chosen niche down to the point where the competition is not too high, but also not so narrow that you get little traffic. This is why it’s important to do keyword research.
2. Pick your platforms and methods for promoting products.
Platforms and methods for promoting affiliate products include websites, email lists, social media, ads, content marketing, product reviews, webinars, etc. It’s best to integrate and use more than one, but focus primarily on one.
3. Build your website.
Is it possible to do affiliate marketing without a website? Yes, it is, but you’ll be severely limited in your potential, and long-term success. Moreover, some affiliate networks and programs require you to have a working website in order to apply, and some even have traffic minimums.
After that, choose a good theme, and customize it if and how you wish, and you are pretty much done, so you can then focus on producing the content. (Of course, you can tweak it whenever you want, or change your theme entirely.)
You can also hire someone from Fiverr or Upwork to build a custom website for you.
4. Choose which products to promote and the programs you will join.
Having chosen your niche, you must then choose (if you haven’t already) what kind of products to promote, and which product programs to join. You can search for affiliate programs using your search engine. You can just ‘DuckDuckGo‘, for instance, “dog training affiliate programs,” or, and this is preferable, you can search an affiliate network for affiliate programs in your niche, getting the details there.
5. Join an affiliate network and relevant programs.
Most affiliate programs involve a network, so you’ll need to join one or more at some point.
Clickbank is one of the largest and most popular and they offer a variety of physical and digital products, but you needn’t and shouldn’t limit yourself to any one network. WarriorPlus and JVzoo are popular sites for digital products (and digital products give you a much higher commission than physical products.) A couple of other big ones are CJ Affiliate and ShareASale, and there are many others worth checking out.
Amazon and eBay have their own affiliate programs, but they pay very low commissions, so you’ll have to get a lot of traffic and sales if you’re going to make a decent profit.
Upon joining ClickBank, you are automatically approved for promoting many products. Other networks and programs require approval from each merchant before you can promote them.
When requesting approval, you are more likely to be accepted if you tell the merchant how you intend to promote their products and give them your website so they can verify that you can drive sales.
6. Promote your products
There are many ways of doing this.
One of the most popular ways to sell affiliate products is to write or film a review of the product and link to it with your affiliate link.
Email marketing is the most profitable way of making sales. Build your email list by offering something valuable (called a lead magnet) on your website to subscribers, such as a free ebook, in exchange for subscribing with their emails.
You can share posts on social media. But since some social media sites (like Quora and Reddit) ban affiliate links, you may have to promote them indirectly, by linking to your website for more information or to read your product review, which then contains your affiliate links.
If you don’t feel up to writing the content yourself, you can hire content writers cheaply from Fiverr and Upwork.
7. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
To get traffic to your affiliate links, and build your email list, you’ll have to get people to visit your site. The biggest and most valued way of getting traffic is through organic search engine traffic. By writing on topics related to your niche, you can attract visitors because they’ll find your site when they search using certain keywords.
But getting to the top of the search engine rankings is something you’ll have to work for, using various techniques. These include writing posts focused on certain popular keywords, getting backlinks to your site from other websites, writing long-form content, and other techniques which are beyond the scope of this post.
D. Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a profitable business enterprise in which everyone can be involved and in which everyone wins. The customer gets a good deal (especially if the affiliate offers special bonuses and discounts); the merchant makes a bigger profit, and the affiliate gets a part of that profit without all the hassle. And it can be done by anyone with any interest and background.
But if you’re still overwhelmed with getting started, let me offer you a way to jump-start your affiliate marketing career. For a limited time, I’m offering you a unique opportunity to get a completely Free and done-for-you affiliate marketing system. It’s called Covert Commissions. Try it out here:
But if that’s not what you’re looking for let me refer you a couple of other resources.
Wealthy Affiliate. They not only train you but give a website you can get started right away! In addition, they have a very friendly user community. It’s also free to join.
Affilorama. It’s another source for free affilliate marketing training. You can sign up for free and get access to over 100 video and article lessons that will teach you everything from the basics to more advanced tactics.