How To Make Money With A New Blog

So hopefully you have your blog up and running! If not you might find this post helpful to get you started>>>  “Step By Step Guide For a Complete Beginner To Start a Blog”

Once you get working on your blog, you may want to monetize it… Now to put it simply, there are 2 basic ways you can make money from your blog…

1. You can sell your own stuff

2. You can promote other people’s stuff

Maybe that sounds a bit too simple… But really that’s what it boils down to and I use both of those methods.

You can make your own products to sell … and as an avid crafter I’ve made and sold my own crafted products for years. You can also sell your own digital products… That might be something like patterns, courses, e-books, photographs, music or software.

Then you can sell other people’s stuff… Or to put it more accurately, you promote products and digital downloads on your blog with affiliated links.

What are affiliate links?

Well the easiest and quickest way to describe an affiliate link is… When someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and then makes a purchase from the website you have linked to, you get paid a commission for sending the traffic to that website. The person that makes the purchase doesn’t pay any extra for the products or services they buy, in fact they can sometimes get a better deal because you may well be able to point them to voucher codes or special deals that the website offers just to affiliates.

Now obviously that is the very short explanation… What you will need to know is…

• Is it really worth being an affiliate? 

• Is it a get rich quick scheme? 

• Is it really possible to make a full time wage just with a blog? 

• How much can I earn when I’m an affiliate? 

• How much will I get paid for being an affiliate? 

• Can I become an affiliate even if I’m new to blogging? 

• Where and how do I start to become an affiliate?

• How I got started with my affiliate business

If you already have your blog, then there is nothing stopping you from getting stuck in and becoming an affiliate right now. If you have yet to take the plunge with getting your blog started then I can highly recommend using Bluehost,… That’s who I use to host my blog and they really are exceptional for blogging, and they are very helpful if you ever need to get in touch with them for help or support. … You may find this post helpful 

Is It Really Worth Being An Affiliate?

Well I would say this… If you are running your blog as a hobby and are happy to keep it that way, then perhaps being an affiliate isn’t for you. However, if you want your blog to be an extra income alongside your main job, or if you want your blog to become your full time income so you can work from home at hours that suit you… Then I really think becoming an affiliate is an excellent idea for you! And there is no better time to get started than right now!

“In a year’s time, you will wish you had started a year ago”

Is It A Get Rich Quick Scheme?

No, it definitely isn’t a get rich quick scheme… There really is no such thing!

If you want your blog to pay you a full time income, then you do have to put the work in. You have to be disciplined… Set yourself times when you concentrate totally on your work, no sitting on social media watching cute kitten videos. (At least not in the times you’ve set as working times… None of us can resist cute kittens completely aaaawww they’re so cuuuute)

Is It Really Possible To Make A Full Time Wage Just With A Blog?  

The beauty of blogging is, if you do it right… You put the work in one time for each blog post, and then that blog post can be up and working for you and can bring in an income for years to come (This is what’s known as ‘passive income’)… Simply rinse and repeat with more great content based blog posts. Your affiliate links will be working for you 24 hours a days and 7 days a week. Imagine that great feeling when you wake up in the morning and more money has been deposited into your account whilst you were sleeping 😀 

You might find that a blog post will get a little traffic when you first post it, and then nothing for a long time… Then all of a sudden it could take off and go viral. The reasons for this could just be a trend change and something in your blog post has become vogue again, or it could be that another blogger that has a huge following has shared your blog post. Either way, if you’ve monetized your blog post, then it could create a lovely income stream for you.

If you create great content based blog posts on a regular basis, you could become that ‘go to person’ that people like to follow because they know they can rely on you for great blog posts that can help them, and in the meantime bring in a nice income from your affiliated links.

How Much Can I Earn When I’m An Affiliate?

How much you can earn really depends on you to a certain extent… For instance, I bought an exercise bike to help me lose weight and get fit. It hasn’t helped me do either… Because it’s in the conservatory and I haven’t used it more than half a dozen times… It is great for hanging the washing over to dry though  😀 

It’s the same with most things, if you put the work in you will see results… and if you do things right, then there is no reason you can’t earn a six figure income.

How Much Will I Get Paid For Being An Affiliate?

Each company will pay different amounts… Some companies start off at a basic rate and then will increase your commission as you bring in more sales. Other companies will give a set amount of money… and others still will give a percentage of the money that is spent on their website by the traffic you drive to them.

What you need to think about though is, even if a company is only offering 20 cents, those 20 cents can add up to an whole load of money if enough people click on your affiliated links.

Most companies will be offering more than 20 cents though and some of them offer hundreds of dollars.

My advice on this would be… Don’t just splash loads of affiliated links all over your blog for companies that give out the big money…. I will only affiliate to websites and products that I actually believe in / have used / or do use … Be credible so your readers know they can trust what you say and can buy the products you promote with confidence!

Can I Become An Affiliate Even If I’m New To Blogging?

Absolutely you can!

You don’t need thousands of followers if you are promoting the right things that are relevant to your niche… A few hundred people visiting your blog that are interested in your niche will be more lucrative than thousands that have no interest in what you are promoting.

Everyone has to start somewhere and when you come to contact affiliate programs read their terms, some will want you to have a certain amount of traffic visiting your blog, but there are many that don’t mind if you are a new blogger. So start out with those, and then as your site traffic builds you can approach any of the others that you want to work with.

So now you know what being an affiliate is about… and you know that it’s right for you and that you can make a full time income with it if you’re prepared to work at it.

Where and how do I start to become an affiliate?

I think probably the most well known and the one the majority of new bloggers start with is Amazon… Yep, Amazon have an affiliate programme! 😀

Think about that for a minute… Think about the amount of products there are on Amazon… Think about the amount of people that already know and trust Amazon… Think about your particular niche and what products you could promote for them. And if someone clicks on your affiliated link from the product you’re promoting, and they end up buying lots of items (not just the one you sent them to) you get the commission from the whole order! Doesn’t that just blow your mind! 😀 

To sign up to become an Amazon affiliate, go to the bottom of any page on Amazon and you will see a link to ‘Associates Programme’ (this is what Amazon call their affiliates programme)… Click on the Associate Programme link and it will open a page where you can sign up to become an affiliate.

Another great one for new bloggers is ShareASale 

ShareASale is a bit different to Amazon because it’s an affiliate network… Which means they have LOADS of companies that you can affiliate to. So instead of having to contact each company through lots of different websites, you join ShareASale and then you can choose from the hundreds of companies all the different ones you want to promote. 

This makes life so much easier because ShareASale takes care of all the ‘paperwork’ for you… all payments coming to you from the different companies will be put together and you will receive it as one payment instead of payments from each individual company… It makes life very easy, which is a win win in my book.

Even now, ShareASale is the affiliate network I use the most as they are not just for new bloggers, they just know their stuff and they do it well.

Click HERE to sign up with ShareASale

How Did I First Get Started With My Affiliate Business?

Well I was very fortunate, because I came across a wonderful lady called Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, and she taught me so much through her fantastic course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing! … I already had an idea of what affiliate marketing was, and did have some links on my blog, but when I started reading through Michelle’s course I realized that this was what I had been looking for to really get my blog off the ground! I took the course and honestly have never looked back since. 😀 

Michelle earns over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing, and she shares all of her best tips in this course, and shows the exact steps she’s taken to earn over $300,000 from a single blog post

You can find Michelle’s course HERE