Image Credit: propinoy.net
Thanx to Facebook, I have so many blogger friends on my friends list now. I get to see so many blog posts daily on various topics and I really enjoy reading them. Most of the blogs I read have something in common though. They all are loaded with Google AdSense. Then, there are blogs where there are no updates and no Google AdSense ads. I have contacted few bloggers on why I do not see any updates from them and I hear the same story everywhere. Bloggers think that it is end of the world for them once they are banned from Google AdSense or the revenue is very low. Since there is no or very less revenue from AdSense, bloggers give up and stop blogging. Very few bloggers actually know that there is loads of money to be made beyond Google AdSense or other similar programs which pay just a few cents per click.
Getting Started
Your blogging income beyond AdSense can start right when you have your Google AdSense ads running. You might be earning a few dollars everyday but you are missing the bigger picture altogether. You should try to get more income from your blog working with an affiliate network or directly with the advertiser. Confused? Let’s work on this with an example. How many times have you seen a particular WordPress theme advertisement show up on your blog via Google AdSense? I am sure you see it many times. With Google Adsense, you get paid a few cents when someone visits your blog and clicks on an advertisement. This click can make you some dollars everyday but you can easily multiply this income from your blog. All you have to do is become an affiliate for the product and place banners on your website. So let’s talk on how you can make money with affiliate marketing using your current blog.
How To Become An Affiliate
You can become an affiliate for multiple products by joining a single network. I would recommend joining ShareASale as they have good products for bloggers and webmasters. There are more options like LinkShare, CommissionJunction and more. In case you do not find an affiliate program for the product or service you want to promote, you might want to look for the ‘Affiliate Program’ links on the product website itself. Lot of websites have their own affiliate programs and all you have to do is sign up as an affiliate. Once you become an affiliate, you can promote that product on your blog and earn money every time someone clicks on your link/banner and makes a purchase on the merchant’s website. Top WordPress themes pay around $20-$30 per sale right now. So if you see or have seen such an advertisement display through AdSense on your blog for a long period it means that some affiliate or the theme owner made some serious cash from people visiting your blog. You can be that affiliate now and increase your income immediately
Earnings Per Click Vs Earnings Per Sale
If you are new to making money with affiliate marketing, you need to know that this requires lots of patience. Good things take some time to happen and so will your first sale. Do the math and see how your affiliate earnings have either gone up or down as compared to your Google AdSense earnings. Do all kinds of testing and give it some time. Don’t jump on to conclusions quickly. You might be making zero sales for 3 consecutive days but you can end up making 5 sales on day 4. This does happens most of the times with affiliate marketing and you will get used to it as you make progress. Do not expect to make money at a rapid pace and on a daily basis. Keep a monthly target and see if you are able to achieve that.The money will come and it will come in big quantity.
Optimization is The Key
You can always switch from affiliate banners to AdSense banners and see what is working well for you. Testing various banners and positions is the key when it comes to making money with affiliate marketing. Also, a specific banner Ad or text link might perform well on certain blog posts. Keep checking your stats and optimize accordingly. At times, you might come across a specific offer or product doing lot of conversions. Try and write more posts about that same product or offer and see your sales grow. You may also try your luck with other similar products or offers which pay higher. Get the ones which make you more money and stick to them.
I always tell people who want to make money online – Don’t work hard and earn in pennies… Work smart and earn in dollars.
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Twitter: wsiabelpardo
says:
I agree with the spirit of the article, but just should add a little point. It’s very complicated to select the right product for your site, and if the product have been purchased, you did it, you’ll never receive a new income from this visitor.
Blogs with loyal visitors can find here a problem, if they’re small. AdSense lets you put the add and forget it. Both possibilities have to be studied carefully.
Abel Pardo recently posted..Marketing Digital: El nuevo Twitter
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
In that case the income from AdSense will be very low as well. If your site is about a product, you should also look at promoting something similar. Also, promoting something that suits your demographics can be helpful.
Harshad recently posted..How Affiliate Summit Helped Me Make More Money Online
I think this is why affiliate banners need to be manually alternated however it will become even more tricky finding multiple products to promote each time (ones that convert)
Richard Brown recently posted..What is the Best Budgeting Tool for Getting Out of Debt
Optimizing a site is considered as the most important thing to do in order to improve a site’s earning. Many actually recommended that the more focused the site is, the more interested visitors who will be willing to engage themselves with the site.
Cosmin Hora recently posted..Bissell Big Green Deep Professional Carpet Cleaner 86T3 Review
Twitter: kezanari
says:
That is so true but sometimes you have to be very disciplined to be able to focus your blog upon one subject because it’s so easy to Make your blog general.
kezanari recently posted..The Day Facebook Died
Twitter: Burnworld
says:
Adsense should always just be the ground level way to monitize a site. If you can make money with adsense then there will always be a way to monitize a site with an affiliate network or at lease Amazon. I gave up just making adsense sites years ago and focused on adding real value to a niche with adsense as the base to keep it running. The meat comes from affiliate offers.
Rob recently posted..Why Online Backups Should Be Part Of Your Business’s Data Backup Strategy
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
Yes, adsense can be a good start but the real money is in affiliate marketing. You are right with amazon and I think even ebay. Amazon and ebay can fit in any website.
Harshad recently posted..How Affiliate Summit Helped Me Make More Money Online
Twitter: lovesoasis
says:
The reason I like adsense so much as it’s crawler is great at showing relevant ads, especially if you have a diverse site that covers lots of topics….I have tried other ad networks like adbrite and chitika and they cannot compare to adsense in earnings, not in the home improvement niche anyways.
dave recently posted..Internet Dating …. For Beginners
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
You should try selling products directly on your website. That’s what AdSense advertisers do. Have you tried ebay or Amazon?
Harshad recently posted..How Affiliate Summit Helped Me Make More Money Online
Twitter: sanjaykhemlani
says:
Optimization is really one of the things a blog owner should spend time on. Testing A/B and see what works.
Sanjay recently posted..How to Create a Calendar in Photoshop
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
Absolutely. I have seen that changing a button color or even a single sentence can change results. Always keep testing.
Harshad recently posted..How Affiliate Summit Helped Me Make More Money Online
Optimizing a site will surely improve the website revenue. One should keep testing all the options and see what brings in most revenue.
Cheolsu recently posted..Farmville Facebook Login
Twitter: kezanari
says:
Optimising your site is easy far but all the split testing can be boring sometimes by guess it has to be done to be able to maximise your revenue
kezanari recently posted..FREE Seo Pressor Alternative
Twitter: techmunchies
says:
Well thanks for letting me know about this thing,i didn’t knew how we can make money through a blog other than Adsense.
Abhishek recently posted..Get Inspired To Make A Change Through Your Personal Blog
Twitter: Ileane
says:
Harshad, you make some great points here. I use a mix of AdSense and Affiliate marketing but most of the products are the ones I endorse because I actually use them. I haven’t tried CommissionJunction but I might look into it one day. Thanks for the advice.
Ileane recently posted..Is Your Blog Ready to Generate An Income Online?
Twitter: TechieSaves
says:
Affiliate marketing has saved quite a few blogs from disappearing. Adsense has been the main money maker for many bloggers and most don’t to monetize their site otherwise. It’s the simplest option and the most popular one.
Marty recently posted..Benefits of Using an Air Purifier in Your Home
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
I feel bad when good writers give up just because something like AdSense is not working for them. There is a very big world outside pay per click ads and bloggers should make most of it.
Harshad recently posted..How Affiliate Summit Helped Me Make More Money Online
Twitter: troyp
says:
Makes me think of motivations behind blogging: fun, profit, or both.
I’ve not made the mental transition to say the blog is a business and a revenue stream. While I do have affiliate products, sales are elusive. My guess (and it’s only that since I’m just starting) is that I don’t spend enough time on keyword research to get buyer-traffic.
But the blog goes on. Any suggestions on ramping up revenue while the blog is still motivated by “fun”?
Troy recently posted..Workout Finisher Review | Work Out Tips
Twitter: kezanari
says:
You just have to keep on going until Google starts to send decent traffic to your site. My site at one stage had a bounce rate of 80% then out of nowhere My bounce rate dropped to nought .02% Because Google took notice of my blog and started sending me better traffic.
You just have to do keep writing quality content and focus more time and effort in getting traffic that your website via Blog commenting, guest posting and social media etc
kezanari recently posted..Backlink Resources
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
I would suggest you to forget the keyword research and only focus on building something that is for your readers. Everyone including search engines loves content that is built for human beings and not search engines. As far as monetizing is concerned, I am sure you are talking or recommending products and services in your blog posts. Just see if those products and services have an affiliate program and simply use those links.
Harshad recently posted..Win A Free VIP Pass For The Affiliate Ball By MaxBounty #ASW12
Twitter: RachaelSlorach
says:
Thanks for this very thorough training on Adsense and affiliate marketing. I have a few affiliate banners on my site and no Adsense, as I mainly use my blog to drive traffic towards building up my own list of followers for a primary MLM business. Cheers,
Rachael Slorach recently posted..How NOT to use Facebook for Building Business Relationships and Trust – True Story!
I’ve never had very good luck with adsense. I make a little, but nothing worth talking about. Affiliate types of systems or programs are up and down. Sometimes they do well and other times not so well. They seem to come and go like you mentioned. Overall I would say affiliate programs are better earners than adsense providing you have the right program and ones that are at least somewhat related to your niche.
Ray recently posted..Making Money Online
Twitter: hally0301
says:
Hi Harshad
Definitely agree with you that Adsense is not the be all and end all as far as monetising a website goes. It does take some testing and optimising to find what works best. Affiliate marketing is also a great way to monetise a site, developing your own product is great too, and there are other methods like CPA also, so Adsense is definitely not the only way to make money from blogging.
Thanks
Completely agree with this article. In fact, you can earn so much more from affiliate marketing, especially if you are promoting expensive products.
Another alternative to adsense is infolinks (those greed intext links)
Rose recently posted..Wizzley Writing Challenge Diary
Twitter: RasmusKB
says:
I agree with the optimization part. It’s a crucial key to try and test different positions with adsense. There is no right or wrong, what is working for me maybe doesn’t work for my friend.
According to me, it can be “to much” to have adsense ads and affiliate ads on the same page. I always try to choose one of them. It works for the best for me.
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
You need not always have affiliate banner ads. Affiliate links can be within your post which wont really look like ads.
Harshad recently posted..Win A Free VIP Pass For The Affiliate Ball By MaxBounty #ASW12
I thought affiliate programs have been getting troublesome lately. Like clickbank where the refund/return rate seems to be going higher and higher. Then amazon affiliate program has lately been banning some states. Looks like it’s getting harder for internet marketers.
Gil recently posted..Hotweb Promo Winners
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
I agree. But there are tons of options available.
Harshad recently posted..Tools Needed For Affiliate Marketing
Twitter: kezanari
says:
It’s true, some of the more popular affiliate routes are sometimes the ones you need to keep away from.
kezanari recently posted..Where & How To Link Build
Can you tell me about CPM ???And can we use Adsense along with other ads???
Albert recently posted..Karagattakaran movie songs download
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
CPM ads can be a good option but you can make good money from CPM ads only if your blog has huge amount of traffic. Yes, you can use AdSense with CPM ads.
Twitter: CPASiteSolution
says:
It’s an amazing tool, blogging. It not only gives readers something to read, something to learn from, but you can also get profit from it. Depending on what you set your mind to do with it, you’ll be able to do much with it!
Twitter: iblog4dollars
says:
Great post man.. i have to do more testing to see what works.. As of right now though, i don’t have ads on my blogging site.. I want to focus on creating the great content right now and get the traffic. Once I get the traffic and subs, i’ll start focusing on making money with my blog.
Lucky for me there’s affiliate marketing.. that’s how I make 80% of my money online..
Great post dude..
Thanks
Dennis
Dennis Marshall recently posted..13 Powerful Free Plugins that Every WordPress Blog Should Have
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
Thanx for your kind words.
Harshad recently posted..Win A Free VIP Pass For The Affiliate Ball By MaxBounty #ASW12
i don`t use much adsense or affiliate marketing… i prefer a method selling products and get paid straight to my paypal account. learn it from a wso and it`s working great.
although i will try affiliate marketing, great tips by the way.
a smal guid to traffic generation will be nice tho
Twitter: 1baldeagle77
says:
Great article! I’m using AdSense for a long time on every blog I own, but with very little results. The Share-A-Sale Affiliate program is good, but you have to promote it. I’m trying now Amazon and it works well for me. Still the best that’s working for me so far, is selling product directly to the public and getting paid through PayPal.
It looks like I need to do some more testing and see how can I improve.
Mike Borlovan recently posted..Can You Afford What Rudeness Is Costing Your Business?
Twitter: kezanari
says:
Selling my own products showing to the public is definitely one of the routes that I will be taking next year.
A quick tip for you Mike because you are using Amazon you should try to go directly to the source of the product that you are selling. When I say straight to the source I mean if you are selling a Panasonic flatscreen TV try and find if there is a Panasonic affiliate program because the commissions will be 20% + per sale. I think you could try out affiliatewindow.com
kezanari recently posted..Backlink Resources
Twitter: RyanSprout
says:
That’s some good advice. Adsense has been making the income streams flow for my niche sites. But for my main blog, it’s still generating traffic so I think low traffic blogs should rely on affiliate sales rather than Adsense. Thanks for sharing good stuff!
Ryan recently posted..The Price of Being a Musical Genius-Derek Amato
This was a wake up call for me thank you. I have been using adsense for a few years with little success. I thought about adding some affiliate marketing into my portfolio but I wasnt really sure on where to start. I guess its time to get going.
James recently posted..Safe Weight Loss
Twitter: troyp
says:
What affiliate networks do you recommend?
I’ve looked at a few, but there are so many options it is hard to sift through the marketing to determine what’s real. The ClickBank seems to have a bad rep with some, but I keep running into bloggers who are doing well solely through CB.
Thoughts?
Troy recently posted..Make The Most Of Your Workouts – Mike Whitfield Interview Part 2
Twitter: kezanari
says:
as long as you have targeted traffic in a buying niche click bank works good. If you have a blog that surrounds a physical product then you could either use Amazon or commission Junction.
kezanari recently posted..Top 8 Ways To Procrastinate In Internet Marketing
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
There are so many of them… ShareASale, Buy.at, LinkConnector, ebay partner network.
Harshad recently posted..Win A Free VIP Pass For The Affiliate Ball By MaxBounty #ASW12
Twitter: jonpaulwade
says:
I have dabbled with the affiliate / commission based services but always struggled. In one niche I have had some success, but it is very hit and miss. I think that being in the right niche is key – I just have not worked out what one that is yet!
Jon Wade recently posted..25 Ways to Promote Your Business with Traditional Media
Twitter: kezanari
says:
Great blog post, I forgot all about Those are the networks that Are more beneficial than AdSense. And so true that if you become an affiliate directly with the product website your commissions are way higher.
This can also be done if you are an Amazon affiliate because if you go directly to the source your commissions could be 30% per sale on physical products.
I will be definitely looking into these other networks.
kezanari recently posted..Google Panda Good Or Bad?
Twitter: jonpaulwade
says:
Amazon Associates pays so badly doesn’t it. I recently looked into selling books direct, I think that it may be better, but of course, has many other issues surrounding it! Storage, packaging, payment systems. But still tempted.
Jon Wade recently posted..UK is the biggest nation of Internet Shopaholics
Twitter: kezanari
says:
To make any decent money from Amazon associates you have to have a number of websites because the commissions are so low. But when it comes to making money online you have to put the work in
kezanari recently posted..Where & How To Link Build
Twitter: PakistanHotline
says:
Hi Harshad,
Can we not take benefits of AdSense and Affiliate ads on the same blog or website?
If I add some affiliate ads on my blog will it negatively affect my AdSense earnings?
Twitter: GhodkeHarshad
says:
You can have both ads on same page. Not sure if the affiliate ads will negatively affect your AdSense earnings. I would suggest you to test and see the results.
Harshad recently posted..Win A Free VIP Pass For The Affiliate Ball By MaxBounty #ASW12
Twitter: PakistanHotline
says:
OK Thanks Dear,
I have to make some experiments to know it better. I am also thinking about a new blog with affiliate ads where I will not place any CPC or RPM ads. What’s your advise in this regard?
Twitter: kezanari
says:
When it comes to having other ads apart from AdSense on your website I think you better check out there TOS just to make sure That it is Alright
kezanari recently posted..Where & How To Link Build
Twitter: jonpaulwade
says:
John, I think that you have remember that people generally do not click back to a site after following a link. So you need to determine what makes the most money. If 100 affiliate clicks leads to 1 sale that makes you £5, and 100 Adsense clicks brings £20, then you place the Adsense in the prominent places. You can use both, you can stick as much advertising on a page as you like really, but you will reduce traffic going to the best performing adverts. Sometimes less is more.
Jon Wade recently posted..International Relations in the Age of Social Media
Twitter: kezanari
says:
I think that is quite a wise statement “less is more” I used to have lots of ads on my site but I took them all down so now I only have two AdSense ads until I finish creating my own product.
kezanari recently posted..Where & How To Link Build
Twitter: MindMart
says:
Lots of good points being made. I think success depends on niche and the variety of products available to you. It’s possible to confuse your visitor with competing ads. How much would you make if they click on Adsense vs. an Amazon or Shareasale product? It may be better to monetize with just one product that pays well compared to something that gives you a few pennies.
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Twitter: nirmalche
says:
I’m interested to join affiliate marketing. You have given me more details on that. I would join Shareasale soon.
Nirmal Kumar recently posted..Tamil Actor Dhanush Biography, Profile and List of Movies
Twitter: hendri
says:
I think success depends on niche keyword and the variety of products available to you. It’s possible to confuse your visitor with competing ads. How much would you make if they click on Adsense vs. an Amazon or Shareasale product?
Twitter: findingforward
says:
Good stuff here. I am wanting to wait a while to sell my own product on this site for now, but wouldn’t mind some affiliate income. I started adding my book recommendations in a Amazon widget, but I am not expecting much.
In the mean time I will keep my eye out for a better fit.
Tony Elam recently posted..Merry Christmas!!!
Twitter: ithauphy
says:
I really need tips about how to use google adsense in a blog. But I also love to learn how to be an affiliate marketer. So, what is the best choice? PPC or affiliate marketing?
Twitter: familybizguy
says:
Thanks for the tip on ShareASale…. I need to do a better job monetizing my blog and this is the kind of post I need to be reading! Thanks!
Joseph
Joseph Shaw recently posted..Want The Best WordPress Plugins for 2012?
Twitter: dotcomstreet
says:
I was really looking for this article, thanks for the tips.
I really like the saying on the last line – Don’t work hard and earn in pennies… Work smart and earn in dollars.
Ben Thomas recently posted..The Dot Com Street
Twitter: dotcomstreet
says:
I really think split A/B testing can help increase conversions, one can always choose the offer which performs better.
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