With affiliate marketing becoming a staple in many brands’ marketing strategies, writing a blog as an affiliate marketer seems like an easy money-making venture. After all, the affiliate marketing industry is now worth billions of dollars.
While anyone can start blogging, it’s not easy to run a consistently high-quality blog that will reel in readers and, eventually, customers for your affiliated brands.
If you want to make it big as an affiliate marketing blogger, keep these tips in mind:
6 Blogging Tips for Affiliate Marketers
1. Make Your Recommendations Honest
It’s easy to add a random link to a product on the blog post and call it a day. However, your readers don’t just come to your blog for entertainment. They’ve decided to place some trust in your word, so make sure you’re not just recommending them to buy a product just for the sake of it.
Instead, research thoroughly and write a genuine assessment of the product. For example, when writing about a healthy food product, don’t hesitate to tell your readers if it’s unsuitable for a particular demographic, like those who are gluten or lactose intolerant.
Likewise, when blogging about credit cards, you can compare their pros and cons for those interested in applying for one.
By being honest, you allow readers to make a more informed purchasing decision, increasing their trust in your blog.
2. Make Your Blog Posts Easier to Read
Another point to remember when writing a blog as an affiliate marketer is to make your articles easy to read.
One way to do so is by keeping your paragraphs short. Readers aren’t going to bother with a literal wall of text. Instead, keep the sections around three to five sentences and let readers digest the content much faster.
Don’t be afraid to use subheadings, lists, and bullet points. These help readers better understand your blog’s topics and make it easier to navigate the content if they want to read a specific section.
3. Include Visuals in Your Posts
Besides relying on words, you can add images, videos, or GIFs to your blog posts. These elements will engage your readers. Blogs with visual content are typically more successful than purely textual ones.
Visuals help you communicate your point to the audience more effectively. For instance, suppose that you’re promoting a recipe on your blog for a meal kit brand. Instead of just describing the food and how it tasted, why not include photos of the meal? You could also go the extra mile and show a short video of the cooking process.
When you use visuals, your readers can better understand what the results would look like if they tried it for themselves.
4. Make Content First, Launch Your Blog Later
Before launching your affiliate blog, it’s wise to have several pieces written in advance instead of writing and posting one at a time. Having multiple, well-researched blog posts ready to upload once the site launches lets you quickly establish yourself as a blogger who markets trustworthy products.
It also makes setting up a regular posting schedule more manageable so readers know when to expect new content. Planning like this gives you some breathing room while making your next post.
Let’s say you only have one post (or none at all) when the blog is up. If so, you risk disappointing your audience—especially if you’ve been advertising it before it’s ready. Not many are willing to wait long for new blog content. In the meantime, you could lose readers.
5. Engage with Your Audience
If you’ve got readers commenting on your blog, you can make it a habit to reply. It’s best to keep the conversation flowing as long as the discussions are still valid, as this helps the audience feel that you value their thoughts. They’re more likely to return to your blog, read, and comment on future posts. This engagement boosts site traffic and the probability of readers purchasing advertised products.
Your readers can also have insights and questions about the topic or product that you can use as inspiration for future blog content.
6. Expand Your Affiliate Partnerships
Affiliating with one company at first is normal as you get the hang of your blogging gig. However, it’s unwise to only rely on one brand for your commission profit in the long term. There’s always the possibility that the company will reduce commission rates or completely shut down affiliate programs on short notice.
To minimize this risk to your income, you can diversify your sources by signing up for different affiliate programs. Of course, you’ll want to see if the brand you wish to affiliate with resonates with you and your audience.
For example, financial topics like loans are things any adult reader would relate to. You could join a lender’s affiliate program and direct the audience to their site to take out a loan.
Which Type of Blog Is Best for Affiliate Marketing?
Need help deciding what to write? There are generally three kinds of blog posts that work well for affiliate marketing:
1. How-to Guides
A how-to blog post is an article where you teach readers, as the name implies, how to do something. This piece doesn’t solely focus on promoting a product, but it can be part of the content.
To illustrate, let’s say you’re affiliated with a cookware affiliate program and want to write a guide for a homemade recipe. You can mention using that particular cookware brand when making the meal. Don’t forget to add the affiliate link!
2. Product Reviews
In a product review post, you give your readers a thorough evaluation to help them decide whether it’s a good fit for them.
For instance, if you’re an affiliate for a skincare company that just launched a new sunscreen, you can write a post about the product detailing your experience while testing it. You’ll also want to list its ingredients, strengths, and weaknesses—is it organic and friendly to sensitive skin? How does it compare to the brand’s previous sunscreens?
3. Listicles
List blog posts for affiliate marketing typically entail comparing various products in a niche. Marketers sometimes call these “best-of” posts since they often pit the best in the category against each other. Some sample titles would be like this:
- Best Budget Mountain Bike Handlebars
- Best Gaming Chairs Under $200
- Top 5 Headphones for Audiophiles on a Budget
While listicles usually include reviews, they’re less detailed than product review posts. They generally provide an overview for readers who want to decide on an item quickly.
Get Started with Your Affiliate Marketing Journey
Writing a blog as an affiliate marketer isn’t without its challenges. With these tips, you can become a trusted blogger and earn significant commissions by selling more products. Get started by searching for affiliate programs that can help you partner with the businesses that fit you best.
