A lot of bloggers think they need hundreds and thousands of followers before they can make any money from affiliate links.
While this is true if you want to make all your blog money from affiliate links, it’s possible to make a few hundred bucks a month even with a few thousand followers. (Note: I don’t recommend using affiliate links as your only income stream because you should have multiple options in case shit happens.)
The trick is learning how to get people to click your blog posts and then getting them to shop your items. Once you master that, you’re golden. Here are 3 tips to make money from affiliate links.
Take advantage of dates (seasons, holidays)
Bloggers don’t do this enough. There are a ton of reasons why you should take advantage of sales, seasons, and holidays, and not just because it makes sense. You have a better chance being found in Google when you blog about specific things at specific times. You can make this as general or niche as you want.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hannakuh are obvious holidays to blog about, but what about Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Labor Day, and Memorial Day? These are also massive consumer holidays that you should include on your blog each year.
You could even take it a step further and acknowledge national lipstick day (yes, that’s really a thing), coats for winter, sandals for summer, snow boots for skiing, etc. By blogging about holidays and seasons, you’ll have an affiliate link post every day of the week.
Create a shop page
Shop pages are genius. At first, I thought a shop page only included bloggers’ favorite things, and that could be the case. From a consumer standpoint, I’m not interested in that - I want exactly what you’re wearing. Show me where I can get that exact outfit or the exact tops you have in your closet.
Since my aha moment, I’ve designated my “shop” page as a virtual closet containting the things I actually own and I think my readers really appreciate that.
You could even make a shop page that is a combination of both options. A section at the top called “my closet” and a section at the bottom titled “latest obsessions” or something along those lines. You just want to make sure you’re posting about products you actually have or genuinely like; otherwise, your readers won’t trust you.
Link your looks
Shopstyle (affiliate link program) added a feature recently called “looks”. Instead of a shop page, or in addition to your shop page, you could make a “looks” page that has all your Instagram looks or recent outfits on your blog all under one roof.
It’s tiring to scroll through a blogger’s Instagram outfits and then hunt down the actual outfit on her blog if she even blogged it. When people are able to see how you styled an outfit, it helps put in perspective how they could style the outfit. You’re showing the whole picture which is much more effective than sharing a top here, pants there.
This technique is similar to a staged house. A staged house is much more likely to sell over an empty house. People can’t really picture what it would be like to live there because they don’t have anything to go off. When a house is staged they can see themselves at the breakfast bar drinking their coffee or snuggled on the couch watching TV by the fire.
You want to create the same kind of experience with your looks. People like to visualize how they would look and feel in clothing and linking your looks does just that.
As much as affiliate links are great, you should not invest your entire blog livelihood in them. Affiliate links are just a small piece of the big blog pie.
Do you use affiliate links? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments.
xx Britt
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You Should Also Read:
How to Make Money That Lasts From Blogging
Everything You Need to Know About Media Kits
3 Steps to Handling Collaborations Like a Pro Blogger
