Disclosure: Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you
One of the questions I frequently see on the internet is “How to make more money with affiliate marketing?”
It’s a solid question that requires a sound answer but, I feel like the motive behind the question is all wrong. You see, most people who aspire to get into affiliate marketing want to know how they can get “more.”
Whether that be more sales, more conversions, more traffic, more leads, most are concerned with the monetary aspect of their business.
Not that this isn’t an important aspect of affiliate marketing but, it isn’t the most important part of running your affiliate marketing business.
Instead, as an affiliate marketer, your main concern should be creating valuable content. You know, the type of content that keeps your audience coming back day after day, week after week?
This is truly the heartbeat of any business because without great content nothing else really matters.
In today’s post, I want to show you how to write killer content for an affiliate marketing blog, content that keeps your audience engaged and ultimately drives more conversions. Hopefully, these methods will help improve all forms of content you create, whether it be a video or written.
I believe if you stick with me till the end of this post you will see a drastic improvement in all the other aspects of your affiliate marketing business.
With that being said, I hope you enjoy it. Let’s get right into it.
You might see all of these successful affiliate marketers out there and wonder how they are able to generate so much income. The answer is simple.
Every good affiliate marketer has an incredibly valuable blog content strategy.
Without educational or entertaining content, you’ll have a difficult time capturing the attention of your visitor. Without that attention, you can’t build the trust you need from your audience in order to convert them into affiliate sales.
Your main goal behind creating content should be to enhance the reader’s perception of you (the content creator) and increase their interest in your products or services.
The reason why most affiliate marketers harp so heavily on creating content is that it opens a conversation with your current and prospective customers.
If you want to see the statistical importance of creating good content, check this out.
As an affiliate marketer, it pays to invest time and energy into creating highly educational and valuable content.
I hope I have convinced you, at least a little bit, of the importance of good content.
But, you are still probably wondering at this point, what does good content entail? After all, content in the broad sense of the word can be anything.
However, I’m going to show you what good content looks like in the method I use so frequently, blogging.
Here are the steps to creating a well written, blog content strategy.
If you browse the internet you will see hundreds if not thousands of affiliate websites with product reviews. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In all honesty, reviews are a great way to promote affiliate products.
The issue is when these affiliates are promoting products they know nothing about or have no personal experience with. Instead of giving their own thoughts about the product they give a generalized, half-hearted, review that basically leaves the reader no better informed from when they started.
This is the first mistake when writing content, and I encourage you not to follow in that direction. Instead, make it your goal to write your truth, your whole truth, and nothing but your truth.
Now, I don’t want to completely discourage you from reviewing products you haven’t used because it is possible to do so. But, with that being said, you need to go the extra mile in your research of that said product.
Find out what others have said about it: watch videos, read case studies, know it as if you have used it. That way, when you do provide your own opinion, it is a well informed one. (If you would like examples of how I write my own review blogs, click HERE, HERE, or HERE)
In addition, don’t promote products simply because of the commission. Your audience will be able to see right through it and you’ll lose credibility and readers.
Overall, the best practice is to inform your readers exactly what you loved about a given product. Go the extra mile to point out how it benefited your life, improved your outlook, or provided you with something special they’ll take interest in.
This comes off a lot less salesman-like and instead you become a trusted friend commending a product that your audience can benefit from.
If you want your content to have any type of effect on your audience you must first know who your audience is.
This was a difficult concept for me at first because I always thought I knew who I was targeting with my writing? Sometimes, though, your reader can be someone you never anticipated reaching and that is why it’s so important to take it under consideration.
Before you even begin producing content, know your reader and what they want.
A common mistake that even I have been susceptible to, is creating content for my own benefit rather than for my reader.
Instead of truly knowing what my reader wanted I assumed what they wanted and produced content accordingly. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of wasted time and effort.
The reality is, no matter how enticing your product is, if your reader isn’t concerned about it, they will not buy.
Fortunately, understanding your customer can be very simple. Instead of guessing about what they like. You can always search or even ask them directly.
Methods I find useful are asking around in forums or relevant Facebook groups. This gives you an idea of your audiences’ questions and frustrations within your niche.
Once you get to know your reader better, you can then create content focused on their needs.
By doing this, you will notice how much more effective your content becomes and you will also notice how grateful your reader will be for addressing their concerns.
In addition to writing content from your own personal experience, you also should write content that is honest as well.
What I mean by this is it is okay to let your readers know when a product is sub-par or bad. Don’t oversell a bad product simply to get a sale. Yes, you might get the sale but this can be detrimental to your credibility and trust in the long run.
Think of it this way. You wouldn’t want someone to knowingly recommend a bad product to you, right?
So, treat your audience with the same respect by providing them with honest recommendations.
It is also important that you are honest with your affiliate commissions as well. Most people are reluctant when Disclosing their affiliation with a product because they think it will greatly impact sales.
You will be surprised, however, how little this matters to your readers. If anything, some might go out of their way to give you a sale.
Once again, this all comes back to building the trust of your readers. Being honest in all aspects of your content is how you build a business that becomes sustainable.
One thing that makes me cringe when reading some of the other blogs out there, is how direct the author is when promoting their affiliate links. My issue isn’t the fact that they are promoting their product, it’s the fashion in which they do it.
An easy way to turn your reader away from your content and therefore your affiliate offer is by being obvious with your promotions.
When promoting your affiliate offers within your content, you should do so in a way that is natural. You should never tailor your writing simply to promote your product. Rather your offer should seamlessly flow with your writing.
In its simplest form affiliate marketing is referring someone to a product; therefore, it shouldn’t ever feel like affiliate marketing. When writing your content treat it as a natural recommendation issued by a friend to a friend.
A good way to incorporate your offers within your writing is by building a story behind it. Using anecdotes makes your product more appealing and exciting to your readers and goes a long way toward building their trust.
Showcasing your product, letting your readers see it in action, is a lot more natural and way more compelling tactic.
After all, The last thing you want is for your readers to feel like they are being sold to every time they read your content.
The first few steps in this post were, more or less, general techniques to improve your blog content strategy. The next several steps are more technical and can leave a long term impact on how well your content is ranked in search engines, like Google.
Believe it or not, having great content isn’t simply about what you write. It also has to do with how well your writing is structured.
If your content is well written but structured in a way that is difficult to understand, then your reader will likely go somewhere else.
For starters, you should always try to include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This might seem pretty obvious to you, but you would be surprised how many people forget this simple step.
Good structured content also includes using short, clear paragraphs for your reader. Gone are the days where you write 5-6 sentence paragraphs. Doing so will turn your writing into an intimidating wall of text that your reader won’t likely finish.
Breaking your paragraphs off into smaller, more manageable chunks helps make it flow more easily for the reader.
It’s also good for you to include images, special lists and bullet points when appropriate. This keeps your readers engaged throughout the entirety of your post.
Most of the time, when people come to read your content, they are searching for an answer to their question.
A good way to add to your credibility and present yourself as an authority on your topic is by adding data to your content.
Like images, including statistics and data in your writing helps the reader to digest your content. But, more importantly, it provides evidence and social proof, which is extremely important to readers.
Of course, the data you choose should still be relevant to your topic and should draw interest from your reader. Simply adding some random charts and graphs won’t do.
When you include data in your content, readers perceive your content to be more valuable, more authoritative and more trustworthy.
Try including at least some data in your content and watch how it increases user engagement, generates more social shares, increases click-through, and drives sales.
Without sacrificing the quality of your content, another good strategy is tweaking and fine-tuning your writing to the specific demands of the search engines. This is where the power of SEO and keyword research comes into play.
For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of SEO, it is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
SEO essentially begins and ends with the quality of your content. You should write content in such a manner that it begins to rank higher for the related keyword searches. Most people understand the importance of keyword research yet they don’t know how to effectively perform it. So, here are the three steps to get you started:
Every time you construct new content, you should ask yourself what your mission is. In other words, know what you want to accomplish with your content and how you plan on making it stand out. each new piece of content you produce should add value to the overall mission of your website.
Once you have identified your mission, you can then start making a list of all the search terms you want your content to be found for. Make sure, however, that your search terms apply to your niche market and your unique selling points.
In order to find valuable search terms, you once again should understand your audience. Knowing what they commonly search for and how they search for it in Google will help you out tremendously.
By the time you finish your keyword research, you should have a list of all the relevant search terms your audience might use. To maximize your efforts, you can always use keyword research tools that make research easier.
Note: Some awesome Keyword Research Tools include: SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, Long Tail Pro, Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and more.
Good SEO content, nowadays, focuses on answering the questions your audience search for on the internet. If you wish to provide the most value to your audience you must understand the intent behind their search. There are 4 kinds of intent searchers to recognize:
Recognizing what intent your keywords apply to and creating your content accordingly will enable you to reach your audience more effectively. In addition, It also helps you identify what stage of the buyer’s journey your customer is in when they read your content. You, therefore, can tailor your writing to where it is providing the most value to them.
One final thing you must do when performing keyword research for your content is target long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords, as opposed to regular keywords, are more specific and less common. They are typically three to four words long and highly targeted on whatever you are selling.
You will find that whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, such as with long-tail keywords, they are looking for exactly what they are going to buy.
Long Tail keywords become even more crucial if you are in a highly competitive market, with large companies dominating the search results. Ranking in markets, such as travel, can be difficult because your budget won’t be able to compete with other big businesses for popular keywords.
Make it your goal to rank for specific terms, ones that most companies aren’t targeting. You will soon realize it can be quite profitable, as long as this specific term closely resembles the product you’re offering.
Once you have become more established with your content creation, next it is important to decide on the frequency of posting. In order to create an authoritative affiliate marketing website, you will want your readers to register to receive updates about your new content. By deciding on a posting interval and actually sticking to it, you help your readers anticipate whenever your new content comes out.
If you are just starting off with your blog, I recommend you write no more than three posts a week, unless you truly feel like you can do more. Remember, quality content is your first objective. Such content can take a few days to be written.
With regular posting, however, you will notice how it becomes easier to write valuable content over time. At some point, you’ll be able to gradually increase the amount of information you provide. By then you will have an established audience who loves your content and you can expect it to only increase from there.
While there are many people out there that dabble in affiliate marketing, the hard truth is most of them can’t get their business to gain traction. This is largely due to either their inability to write great content or their lack of drive to do so.
It is important that you understand that–
regardless of how fantastic your website looks,
regardless of how much traffic you generate,
regardless of how active and professional your social media accounts are–
if your content is poor then you aren’t going to make many sales at all. Because, in the end, it is your content that sells your affiliate products, which is why it is vital you take the time to get your blog content strategy right.
However, I’m confident that if you implement these few steps we went over in this post, you will put yourself ahead of most people in the affiliate marketing business.
Now that you know how to write killer content for an affiliate marketing blog, remember to: always keep your readers in mind, promote products you’ve used and loved, be honest about a product’s flaws, and incorporate product stories into everyday content.
With content writing, it becomes easier over time and once you get used to it you’ll be that much closer to building a solid blog content strategy that benefits you and your customers.
Getting your website to rank in Google can quickly become a long-drawn-out process. If you…
The idea of not having to wake up every morning to a demanding nine to…
I’ll admit, one of the scariest times in my affiliate marketing journey was when I…
I'm no genie but something tells me you have been struggling to get traffic from…
Before we dive into this post, let me first ask you a simple question. Why…
Odds are you are here because you are interested in getting started with affiliate marketing.…