Affiliate Marketing Startup Tips

Updated: June 07, 2010

  • How is your blog hosted? Your host can/will dictate who and what you can affiliate with, if anything at all.
  • What is your blog about? Content associated ads is a must; it makes it much easier to integrate marketing without offending your readers. No readers, no clicks, no money, no point.
  • How do you currently market your blog? Are you actively making an effort to promote your blog? Are you a guest contributor on other high traffic blogs? Do you make comments on high traffic blogs and websites? Are you publishing your posts as articles across the web? Do you partner with other websites to cross promote one another?
  • Who is your audience? Do a little research on your most active subscribers, go to their blogs, websites, watch their tweets, etc. Try and find a commonality amongst their interests and cater to them as much as possible without changing the identity of your blog.
  • How big is your audience? Will it support an affiliate marketing campaign? Affiliate companies reserve the right to cease running ads with you if any one of many standards are not met, and that can include a minimum number of site visits and even a minimum amount of monthly clicks.
  • Where do readers come from? Knowing who your top referring sources are will help you increase traffic by targeting similar sources that do not know about you yet. Analytics are crucial to any business, and by becoming an affiliate marketer you are running a business. I doubt there are any services out there not offering some form of analytics for your website free of charge. If you feel you need a more robust analytical tool there are plenty to choose from; figure out what analytics you need and find a service capable of providing it.
  • Are people clicking links on your site? If you have not tested this I highly recommend you do so you can get a feel for what your readers respond to.
  • Will ads be autonomous or will they be integrated into your posts? How will you do it (directly as a product review, or seamless in the story)? If you plan on mentioning a product or service in your posts and you want it to blend in and become a subliminal message for people to click through so you get paid I suggest you practice. Write some articles and have some friends critique them, the last thing you want to do is turn off the readers you have worked so hard to earn by "selling out".
  • Are you prepared to have ads in prominent positions on your site? It can be a little unsettling for some to see their website have advertisements on it, especially when they are prominently placed to maximize their effectiveness and in turn increase that commission check. Nobody wants to be a "sell out", but nobody wants to be broke either.
  • What do you want to advertise? Products, services or both? Again, make sure it fits with the look and feel of your website and is associated with the content being posted.