How To Use Affiliate Links To Monetize Your Website

Affiliate links are one of the most effective ways to make money as a work from home mom.

Affiliate links are tracked links that pay a portion of a sale on a product or service if the customer reached that link through your website.

For example, let’s say you’ve started a mommy blog and published a list of best toys for your child’s bath time. You might link each of the toys to Amazon via the Amazon Associates program.

If a reader were to click on that link and make a purchase, you’d get a commission of the sale.

There are many benefits of affiliate links.

The primary benefit is that you’ll have a passive income.

Once your link is live, it sits there for as long as your domain is active, and can generate money for years to come, long after you’ve published the post.

Another benefit is that it’s cost-effective. All you need to do is link your blog to relevant products, and you’re good to go.

With that in mind, here’s how you can use affiliate links to monetize your site:

Choose Niche Affiliate Partnerships

One of the best ways to ensure you have affiliate links that are relevant to your website is to work with an affiliate partnership that matches your niche.

For example, if you’re a travel blogger, you might have an affiliate partnership with businesses like Booking.com.

To better the user experience, you shouldn’t be trying to cram in affiliate links that don’t fit your content, simply because the affiliate has a large payout (some affiliate links pay as much as 80% of the total price tag).

You want your affiliate links to fit in as naturally as possible.

A great way to start researching niche affiliate opportunities is to use Quantcast, an audience insight tool. Publishers can sign up for free to get a deeper, high-level view of their audience.

Once you’ve signed up and are logged into the platform, you can use the “Explore” tool to find which websites are the most popular in your industry.

Then head over to each of those sites to see whether they offer an affiliate program.

You’d be surprised at how many websites work with bloggers on affiliate links.

Have a look at this big list of high-paying affiliate programs for more info.

Do Your Research On Affiliate Products

Every affiliate product you promote should be heavily researched.

If you’re promoting a link on Amazon, it’s easy to see how well that particular product is doing. You’ll see the number of reviews it has, the reliability of the seller, and more.

But for other products—such as those you find through platforms like ClickBank—you need to make sure the product will be worth your while.

Speaking of ClickBank, it’s also a great place to check for monetization opportunities. Signing up for Clickbank is completely free, although you will have to be “interviewed” by an affiliate agent before you become an official affiliate partner with any of their listed products.

Check out the different categories in the ClickBank portal and head over to the one that matches your industry.

Select a category and sort your results based on “gravity,” which is how well any particular product is doing. For example, let’s say you were searching through the Home & Garden category.

You might find that an ebook in your niche has a great gravity score, and is offering a decent percentage of profits made from your affiliate link.

Advertise, Advertise, Advertise

In a perfect world, we’d all rely on organic traffic to come in and save the day.

If we post a great blog with awesome affiliate links that aren’t spammy, we’d rely on that strength to bring in readers.

But this simply isn’t the case. To spread the word about your affiliate products, you’ll have to invest in some advertising to spread awareness.

By now, you should have already launched a website and blog to house those links.

If you’re still in the early research phase, you can launch a WordPress blog easily.

Once your site is up and running, you can point your advertising efforts in that domain’s direction.

Your advertising campaign can come in many forms. You might publish a blog post and choose to promote that blog post on Facebook through a “boost post.”

Or, you might choose an information product on Clickbank and use Google Ads to launch a PCP campaign. There are dozens of different ways to advertise, and your methodology depends on your industry and target market.

Publish a Resource Page

A website resource page is one that lists the products, services, tools, and anything else that you find useful and promote across your blog.

This comprehensive list is not only great for filling it with your appropriate affiliate links but is also a helpful reference guide for visitors.

If you were mom blogger writing about a keto diet, your resource page might include all the most important information about a quiet diet in one place.

You can check what other keywords are currently being used in your industry or niche by using a few search tricks. The following search strings can help you quickly locate resource guides: