Just because you’re a blogging purist doesn’t mean you can’t make money from your site. You can blog for fun, to educate the troops, or gain a sense of community and still monetize your blog without being considered a sellout. Once you develop a trusting relationship with your readers, you can subtly offer them value added services that help solve their problems. But the key guideline to prevent your blog from turning into an infomercial is to only advocate products you would actually use yourself.
I know that sounds simple, but I’ll say it again, endorse products you would actually use that provide a clear benefit to your reader. I’m mainly talking about affiliate marketing here since you have full control over what you promote. CPC (Cost-Per-Click) advertising like Google AdSense is a little different since you don’t have too much say over which products are displayed on your site. There’s nothing wrong with a little CPC, but I’ll leave it out of this discussion since you cannot promote it (that’s almost always against the terms and conditions). However, you can promote affiliate products and services on your site.
If you’re not familiar with how affiliate programs work, think of it like this: in order to get paid, a visitor typically has to click on one of your links AND has to take some action on the advertiser’s site. This could be the purchase of a product (like a book if you were an Amazon affiliate) or the visitor could supply personal information (like a loan, credit card, or insurance application). Because a visitor has to take an action, advertisers typically pay decent sized commissions as opposed to just paying for a click.
These higher commissions tend to attract lots of marketers who want to make fast cash. All you have to do is type “bad credit” into Google and you’ll see a ton of websites with affiliate links. But these sites don’t tend to get a lot of repeat visitors. Instead of trying to make a quick sale, you should write what you are passionate about, and THEN look to see if there are any products or services that compliment your blog. Don’t blog to sell products, sell products that support your blog.
The Wrong Way – Blogging to Sell Products
Many new bloggers start out by searching affiliate marketplaces like Commission Junction and look for high margin products they can start peddling to their readers. They see that loan products or new credit cards offer $50+ commissions so they start churning out posts about those products and how great they are. Often times ignoring the fact that some products are frivolous or even detrimental to their readers. This is the exact opposite approach you should take if you want to build a profitable, high traffic blog.
Shameless marketing will quickly alienate your readers. Not only will your readers see through your thinly veiled sales attempts, but you’ll slowly lose focus and the desire to keep writing new content. And as the Internet evolves, it will become increasingly difficult to make money this way.
The Right Way – Selling Products that Support Your Blog
When I say “support your blog” I don’t mean bringing in enough ad money to pay for hosting (although that is nice). What I mean is when you advocate a product, only do it if it truly helps your readers.
When I first started the Car Negotiation Coach, I was excited to help people save money on cars. I saved so much money using car quotes when I bought my own car that I decided to write an ebook about it. Then I realized I could make affiliate commissions from people who used the same car quote services I did. The affiliate program became a fundamental aspect of my car buying advice. And I would be linking to that service whether or not I got paid a commission. Since the affiliate product supported my advice in a real way it turned out to be a win for both my readers and me. It didn’t cost them anything to get car quotes through my site and I could make a few bucks in affiliate commissions.
As my blog grew and I exhausted my car buying advice, I shifted gears towards saving money on any type of big purchase. Now, as I write my posts about buying big ticket items, if I see an affiliate service that may benefit my readers, I include it along with the post. But I only do it when it makes sense for my reader and I’d use the same service myself.
You Can Do the Same Thing with Your Blog
Just remember to focus on your passion first, then add valuable services, not the other way around. It doesn’t really matter what you are writing about, there are affiliate programs for almost anything. What may surprise you is just how many big name companies have affiliate programs. Once you find the niche you like writing about, think about what companies could help your readers and look ‘em up. You don’t have to start at a marketplace like Commission Junction. Google the “company name + affiliate”. If they offer a program you’ll probably see details in the “partners” or “company” section of the their site, often with a link to sign up through Commission Junction or another marketplace.
And remember to be honest about affiliate products. You need to maintain that trust with your reader and sometimes a few negative reviews will actually lead to higher conversions on the products you do recommend.
My Latest Venture – “Don’t Do It Yourself”
I’ve taken this same strategy with me in my latest venture where I write about what I know and solve a problem with useful affiliate services.
I’ve noticed a recurring theme in the Yakezie forums. Bloggers looking for help with their WordPress theme, fighting spam, needing a new logo, SEO advice, or trying to find a staff writer. What do all these things have in common? Most Yakezie members are primarily writers (with a few exceptions) and these other aspects of blogging all have to be learned or outsourced. So I decided to build a site to help bloggers and entrepreneurs find freelancers for these types of small projects. I called it Don’t Do It Yourself: How to find and hire the right freelancer.
I’ll be blogging about life as an entrepreneur, managing and monetizing blogs, and finding people to help you do it. So far I’ve written a series of guides for hiring graphic designers, programmers, staff writers, virtual assistants, and I’ll be adding more. I’ve also written honest reviews of all the best freelance websites (and some of the worst). And if anyone happens to sign up for a freelance account through my site I’ll make an affiliate commission.
Come on By
I’ve seen a great show of support so far and have already been able to run a couple cool guest posts from Yakezie members with a few more in the pipeline. If you have any experiences or tips you’d like to share about finding help to build your blog, please drop me a line. I’m still learning myself, and I’d love to host a place where Yakezie bloggers can learn from each other in this area.
p.s. You’ll notice I share details about my professional life which I’ve never talked about on CNC, so come meet me and say hello!
Question from Sam: What does selling out mean to you?
Geoff – absolutely love the concept. Classic filling in the gap/needs approach. Very interested in the long term success of this project – keep me updated.
Sunil, will do! And I’d love to have you guest post sometime and share some of your many great entreprenuerial tips and stories.
Congratulations on an excellent post CNC. It is very pertinent to a newbie blogger like myself.
TMG
I love, love the synergies of blogging. On my site, I have a CD and savings rate widget and my Bills.com mortgage calculator which are awesome b/c I’m looking at those rates constantly to optimize my own finances! They are such a great resource, and I used my mortgage rate widget to refinance and calculate my own payments. I’m in the process right now.
There’s something to be said to use your own blog as resources and earn income as well. It’s a double bonus! I never thought that I could have my own site who could host advertisements that would benefit my owner personal finance well being. This is one of the big reasons why I love personal finance blogging.
I have yet to sell a product more than just my writing, stories, and advice. When I do, I will think about scale and SYNERGY.
Good luck with your new venture! Love all these new initiatives you are coming up with.
Best, Sam
Sam, right on, finding synergies in order to to help out your readers is a much more sustainable way to build revenue than blinding promoting products. Plus, it’s so much to help someone and make a little dough at the same time.
wow, had trouble sending that comment and lost some edits….looks like a fourth grader wrote it :). i meant to say “blindly” and “so much fun”
@ Sam
“I have yet to sell a product more than just my writing, stories, and advice. When I do, I will think about scale and SYNERGY”
I have to say I am really quite surprised by this as what you have created with the Yakezie network is really quite amazing.
TMG
There’s always a variety of opinions when it comes to what it means to “sell out.” That’s actually going to be the part of the topic of my talk at the Financial Blogger Conference.
Hey Flexo, it’s funny, I saw you asked that question in the forum the very next day after I submitted this post as “pending”….perfect timing! I didn’t respond cause I had just written this whole post, but would love to hear your presentation, unfortunately I can’t make it. I’m sure the conference will be a blast and it would be so nice to meet everyone out there as well.
I agree that there can be great synergies when working with advertisers!
Good points! I’ll have to start thinking about synergies vs. just products.
Personally, I think the best blogs have advertisers, make money, etc. When someone does it for “free”, it’s a bit of a side hobby and it’s often not going to last. They’re either going to ‘sell out” as some would refer to it, or they’re going to quit. By just cutting to the chase and making some money while providing awesome content, it keeps a blogger motivated and readers benefit.
Darwin, I agree and I’m all for everyone making money with their blogs, that’s half the fun! I also have no problem displaying ads on my site from a variety of advertisers (that I display but don’t actively promote- Google Adsense for example). However, I do think it’s a different story when talking about affiliate programs where you actively promote products to your readers. In that case, I do think bloggers should be a little more selective in which advertiser programs they actually recommend and suggest that their readers use.
I love hearing about creative entrepreneurial ventures. I’m also nosey and looking forward to learning more about the “professional” you. I’m off the visit right now!!! “Best regards, Babs”
Babs, always will to share with you!
Great advice! When one begins to sell anything and everything on their blog, that’s when you call them a sell-out. But, when you begin to sell products that make sense with your niche, not only could you make loads of extra money, the readers keep coming back because it’s a help to them as well! Thanks for the post!
Derek, you’re right…..”selling” is almost a negative word. When done the right way it’s almost more like your “advising” or “helping” your readers….not selling to them.
I definitely agree. I’ve been trying to get different types of education institutions to advertise on our site. My theory is that it should be the ideal demographic for a lot of distance-ed type of courses where geographical proximity wouldn’t matter so much. I would have no problem standing behind the program once I did a little research and made sure they were legit. So far no takers, I guess I need to build up the site a little more.
Great post, I think it’s important to try and identify and live by a certain blogging ethics if your readers are going to stick with you.
Very interesting. Have you tried associated companies eg student insurers, letterman companies, restaurants, book vendors etc?
TMG
Only a few, I wasn’t sure what metrics I should be attaining before advertising became a realistic possibility. We’re about 250K in Alexa, and getting around a hundred visitors a day. My thinking is that, we still need more exposure before we really have a legitimate shot at getting advertiser interest.
Interesting….maybe you could look into ways to help your readers by text books cheaper (I heard there are companies that let you used or rent them….now that’s a cool synergy).
I did write an article about the benefits of a credit card, but I’m still a little squeamish about actually having CCs as my first advertiser. Just doesn’t feel right for many of the reasons you listed above.
Great post! I have only been writing about products that I think will actually help my readers. I hate credit cards and I was approached by the affiliate company asking me if I wanted to promote them because they bring in big bucks. I politely declined and said ‘no thank you, I am not a big fan of credit cards.’ That is mostly because I don’t use credit cards right now, I am all cash. But in the future if I found one that I liked, I may share that with my readers. But I always remember that my readers come first, not the cash.
LaTisha, yeah, credit cards are definitely something that can easily be abused.
Very nicely worded article. I think as my traffic increases I would like to get into more affiliate advertising, but for products/services that I use and fully support. I’ve my blog as a pulpit from time to time to talk about services and products that I cant stand…so it would be nice to go the other way for a change. At times I worry Ive gotten a little too much into direct advertising. Extra money is nice but at what cost.
That’s funny Justin, I also sometimes talk about products and companies I don’t like just as much as the ones I do! But that can work in your favor showing that you do have an objective opinion.
Lots of good points! I was bummed when Amazon closed down their affiliate program for Californians. I’ve had some success from other affiliate programs but definitely not a steady flow.
The one or two times I actually used an Amazon affiliate link I didn’t have much luck. The fact that they expire tracking so quickly is a killer (one day as opposed to most programs that will count visitors if they order within 30 days).
Great food for thought. Thanks for sharing. :)
My favorite example of selling out was seeing a post in the Polish language on a “mom site”. It was weird.
That’s so blantant it’s kinda funny. You’d think Google would notice something that drastic too.
On an unrelated note (but related to my new freelancing site), I’ve hired a couple Polish software developers and found them to be extremely knowledgeable with very low rates. Eastern Europe is great area to find talented technical guys.
Absolutely loved the post CNC! Good content will triumph for-affiliate posts any day!
I love this post. In fact, it is the very reason why you don’t see advertising on my site right now… I’m certainly interested, but I need to have the “right” fit… someone/something I believe in and would feel no hesitation about advertising. Thanks for your thoughts!
Great post on affiliate marketing. I haven’t started yet, but will figure it out as soon as I have time. Maybe the don’t DIY site will be useful. ;)
Let me know if you have any questions when you do start….I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, but I have learned a few tricks along the way.
Hello all,
Have any of you had any experience of, or knowledge of, coffeeshopmillionaire?
TMG
These are all such awesome tips. I like how you spun it around to customize things around your blog not your blog around things. I still haven’t come up with too many products that fit my niche but in time I will. Thanks as always for sharing all the knowledge that you have learned.
@collegeinvestor, @krants, @moneygrower,@worldoffinance, @moneycone, @dr. stock, and @miss T…thanks guys!
I agree with you CNC. I’ve turned down more than a few sponsored posts because they were from companies I would never endorse. I just can’t bring myself to do that to my audience.
It’s so tempting to get any ad offer that comes your way, but I wish more bloggers would read posts like this! I know I’ve gotten a few where I am already thinking of how to use that extra $50 or whatever, and I have to tell myself that blogging integrity is more important than extra spending money (though it can sometimes be incredibly hard!)
Seriously, when people start blogs..this should be part of their platform signup before they start!
Thanks for these helpful tips!
I’m starting to outsource a bit more, like carnival submissions. It does help to free up time. Good point that one has to ensure that advertising does not compromise the quality of content.