What’s your blog about? Writing? Gardening? Internet marketing? Dog training? Underwater basket weaving?
Chances are that if you’re blogging on a niche (and let’s hope you are if you want to make money), there are products related to your niche that you could write about (yes, even basket-weaving).
You’ve probably already tried some of those products yourself. After all, you wouldn’t start a blog on the joys of home brewing unless you’d actually brewed something, right? At the very least, you’ve surely read some books related to your niche (and, yes, it’s okay to make money reviewing books you didn’t actually buy–libraries are our friends, especially when we’re still in the willing-but-not-yet-wealthy blogger category).
These products you’ve tried, have you reviewed them yet for your readers? And have you inserted affiliate links so you can make money?
If you answered, “no,” “uhm,” or “I meant to…” to those questions, then there’s money missing from your bank account, even as we speak. It’s time to take action to increase your earnings. It’s time to get reviewing.
How to make money reviewing products on your blog
Why reviews?
Before I go into the nuts and bolts of how to make money with reviews, let’s talk briefly about why reviews work so well.
In short, reviews sell products.
Reviews attract the right kind of visitors from the search engines (people who are already thinking of buying a product and are looking for more information on it), and they also offer social proof. People see that someone else has tried out this product, and they assume it must be better than this product over here that nobody has written a review about. (That may or may not be true, but that’s how we gregarious human creatures tend to think.)
Writing reviews for products with affiliate programs
Okay, reviews sell, but how do you make money writing them?
This is where affiliate programs come in. Here’s what you do:
- Find an affiliate program in your niche — Products in just about every niche are for sale somewhere online. Look around and you’re bound to find a merchant who offers an affiliate deal.
- Sign up — Once you sign up for the program, you’ll be able to create links with your personal tracking ID embedded in them.
- Write the review — Write a blog post reviewing the product. You don’t have to hype up the product. People are more likely to buy something after reading an honest review that points out the pros and cons (we’re suspicious of products that sound too good be true).
- Insert the affiliate link in the review — Text links usually convert best, so insert a text affiliate link right into the content of the review. Feel free to use it a couple of times over the course of the review. You don’t want someone to forget to click after all.
- Get a link or two to your review post — If your blog is already popular, you’ll probably make money just from posting the review, but for newer blogs (or if you just want to help things along), it’s useful to get a few outside links to the specific review page.
- Sit back and wait to get paid — No explanation needed!
Finding affiliate programs
Okay, you’ve got those golden steps printed out and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. But how do you find the right kind of affiliate programs?
The most obvious way is to go to merchants you already know and like and check their site for links that say “affiliates” or “affiliate program” or the like. They’re usually down at the bottom. A lot of bigger companies offer affiliate programs, and even mom and pop stores often do.
If you’re reviewing books, you can sign up for the Amazon affiliate program (other booksellers have affiliate programs too so choose your favorite). Amazon is nice because they have a lot of non-book products as well. But if you’re blogging about products in a certain niche, you may get a better deal (higher commission) signing up for a niche-specific affiliate program.
For example, on my home & garden blog, I occasionally promote lawn and garden products from the Gardeners’ Supply Store. They have an affiliate program you can sign up for through LinkShare. I actually just ordered some raised garden bed kits from them, and you better believe I will review those products when I get them.
When products pay for themselves
The best deal is when you review something you would have bought anyway and your commissions end up paying for the product. It may take me a while to pay for those raised garden bed kits since the Gardeners’ store doesn’t offer terribly high commissions (with shops that sell physical products, it’s rare to get paid more than 10%), but I’m sure that if I work at getting a couple links to that review, the beds will be paid for within a couple years.
If you happen to find online courses or digitally delivered information products in your niche, commissions can be much higher.
When I reviewed Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind program for this site, someone asked why I–someone who already makes a nice living from her blogs and websites–would bother taking a $500 blogging-for-beginners course.
For one thing, I was familiar with Yaro’s blog and knew he had a lot more business acumen than I do (I am much more of a writer than an entrepreneur), so I was sure I’d learn something from the course. But the real kicker was that Yaro offers a 50% affiliate commission for his program. If two people purchase the course after reading my review (and clicking the links), then I’ve made my money back. Anything after that is gravy.
It definitely pays to do reviews for products in your niche, especially for products you would have bought anyway. It’s always great getting something for free, and if you can make some extra money, it’s even better!
16 responses so far ↓
1 Maria -- WAHM // Feb 10, 2009 at 4:28 pm
The best is when you can get the item for free from a merchant or supplier who wants reviews, and use your affiliate link. Good post!
2 Genevieve // Feb 10, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Thanks for this inspiring reminder, Lindsay! I have a stack of reviews I want to write, but for some reason I push them to the back burner.
One problem I’ve had with many affiliate programs (Gardener’s Supply is an excellent example) is that they go out of stock or change the page or whatever, and it breaks my link. I updated my Gardener’s Supply link 2 or 3 times before finally switching it to an Amazon link, because even if Amazon’s item goes out of stock, the page is still there and it’s easy to click on the brand name or author to find what you’re looking for.
Changing a slew of links every other week isn’t what I had in mind for passive income. Do you have any advice for dealing with this problem?
I’d also love to know how exactly the affiliate programs at Amazon in particular work. Is it that you get credit for anything the person purchases without closing that Amazon window, within a certain timeframe?
Problogger indicated a couple months ago that it was anything purchased within 24 hours of clicking through, but that doesn’t sound correct to me somehow.
I’d love a more in-depth post on this if the inspiration strikes you!
3 Lindsay // Feb 10, 2009 at 8:48 pm
@Maria I always find it a bit of a gray area to write a review for a product I was given for free. I have a hard time being completely unbiased when I’m writing about something that was a gift. I think reader perception of the authenticity of your review (if they know) can be a bit different too. That said, I’ve accepted freebies and posted reviews about them before. Fortunately, the products have always been good ones, so it was easy to write a favorable review.
@Genevieve Yes, I hate when merchants break your links, too, and it’s a big reason why I like Amazon even though commissions rates aren’t that high. I know there are software programs for tracking broken links and automating affiliate feeds, but since I’ve always found it easier to make money from advertising, I haven’t spent as much time getting into the nitty gritty of affiliate marketing as I should. I’ll have to see if I can find some hardcore (AKA really successful) affiliate entrepreneurs to interview at some point.
As for Amazon, if someone clicks on your link and buys something (or multiple somethings) within 24 hours, you do indeed get credit. I’ve had people buy everything from archaeology books to sex toys after clicking my home and garden links.
4 Brian // Feb 10, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Getting links to your main page via content exchange, directories, etc. I get, but how would you go about firing an external link or two at an individual product review post?
5 Lindsay // Feb 10, 2009 at 9:53 pm
@Brian I love article marketing for this, because you get to pick the links (and anchor text) for your bio box. This is something I intend to do a post on shortly, but essentially you write articles on your niche and submit them to sites such as ezinearticles.com where others can pick them up and redistribute them on their own sites.
You can also leave comments on “do follow” blogs (there’s a plug-in many Wordpress bloggers use to encourage people to leave comments, and it tells the search engines to count or “follow” the links left in the signature fields of the comments).
6 Julie // Feb 11, 2009 at 8:25 am
Great post as usual, Lindsay. I’ve had great success reviewing eHow ebooks on my blog.
I’ve found that there is something of an art to writing reviews. I find it very rewarding.
7 Julie // Feb 11, 2009 at 8:25 am
Oh, and it IS interesting to see what people buy on Amazon. I’ve earned affiliate commissions on all kinds of things unrelated to my affiliate links.
8 Genevieve // Feb 11, 2009 at 8:33 am
Lindsay, cool, thanks so much for confirming the 24 hour deal with Amazon and commiserating about the whole broken link thing. I’m glad to feel like it is just an issue people experience, and it’s not just that I’m missing something. I’ll think about that kind of software if I get really into affiliate sales.
9 Brian // Feb 11, 2009 at 1:24 pm
For article marketing, would the article you write be related to the product too?
10 Jamie // Feb 12, 2009 at 1:18 am
Seems like a good strategy to submit related articles at sites like eHow, Bukisa, and InfoBarrell to backlink to blog posts. That way, you get the link and the possibility of residual income from the articles!
11 Agent 001 // Feb 12, 2009 at 1:49 am
Reviewing products can surely be a good source of income. I review good products and recommend some products which has been useful to me. I am yet to make real good money from it.
12 make free money at home // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:46 am
Thank you for this article. I too believe in product reviews and you have laid out the information very well.
13 Fez // Jun 29, 2009 at 1:40 am
Thanks, a very informative post.
14 Hk // Jun 29, 2009 at 1:44 am
Great.
15 Colin // Jul 7, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Thank you for the information. I am going to start up a blog soon and I am trying to find out all the details about how to make an income doing it. YOU Rock!!
16 ERNEST // Feb 3, 2010 at 3:55 am
Afiliate marketing is the best to expand products/ services, but ufortunately most products are restricted to areas like America& Canada only. How do we promote their products in Africa?
There is good market and market awareness need !!Like in Kenya why i live and come from
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