We are always looking for new and inventive ways to make more money online. For most of us, are core business is outside of the make money online or blogging niche, so we have to apply the tips and tricks in our own unique ways to cater to our audiences and increase our revenues.
Over the past week and a half, I have been testing a new theory that I picked up from a long time site owner to increase my affiliate commissions on Bike198.com, and…guess what…it worked much better than I would have ever imagined.
Where This Story Starts
I ran into the same scenario over and over again. I have had readers asking me constantly how to help out the site because they love the content delivered on a daily basis. After I explain the process of affiliate commissions from page referrals, I get the same answer almost every time.
Man! I wish I would have known! I read your article and then went to xxx retailer and bought the product, but I didn’t click on your link!
After enough of that money left on the table, I started looking for ways to educate my readers on how they can help the site grow and continue to deliver top shelf content on a regular basis.
The World Outside Of Blogging
Outside of our blogging niche, there are very few of your readers that will actually understand how to help your site. All they know is that you have a couple of ads showing and you continue to pump out content. Outside of that, they will not understand affiliate marketing simply because they have not had to deal with it on a personal level.
With this understanding, I went looking for ways to help my readers understand the process a little bit better than they were now.
Now…it is important at this point to understand that I am attempting to convert readers that are targeted leads for my affiliate retails from my content through rss or organic search. Theses are not paid leads through advertising or PPC campaigns so this process does not violate any of the agreements with these retailers.
During my search, I hit up one of my favorite photography sites, KenRockwell.com. Ken has been full time blogging for a long time, so his methods have been tried and true in a product niche. At the bottom of every post…so you see this.
Genius! Simple and effective. So it was time for testing. At the bottom of each of my posts on Mountain.Bike198.com, you now see the following box.
The result: There was a drastic increase in affiliate commissions in just the first 72 hours. If that is not results…I don’t know what is.
Some Things To Consider
Now…there are still some things you need to consider before you jump in and test this theory on your blog.
Your Market
Some markets will be more receptive to this than others. For instance, in the blogging and make money online niche, we all know the routine. So putting up a box like this at the end of your posts might look like you are begging for more money which would not be a good thing for your audience. This is going to work best in situations where your audience is actively looking for ways to help your site and they do not know how the internet world works.
Your Affiliate Agreements
Check and double check your affiliate agreements to make sure this does not violate them in anyway. Most agreements center around keyword selection for PPC campaigns, but you need to be sure before jumping in head first.
Test Different Phrases/Colors/Etc.
Over the course of this testing period, I will be testing different ways of wording this box, link colors and box colors to see what performs the best on my site. Just because you found something that works, that does not mean you stop the testing process.
This has been a very positive experience for both my readers and the general health of the site. Hopefully, you can adapt this theory to your blogs as well to increase commissions and get one step closer to going full time.
Image by AMagill
13 comments