Affiliate Blogging

After you have been writing a blog for a while, you might be wondering how to make some money with your new site; there is a way – affiliate blogging may be the answer to your question.

Affiliate Blogging

So, just what is affiliate blogging? This type of blogging relies on affiliate marketing, which is the Internet's answer to commercials and commissions. There are two ways to advertise on the World Wide Web: by paying outright to place your ad on a site, or using the pay-per-click method that is often termed “affiliate marketing”. While both methods are employed by large companies with something to sell, pay-per-click ads are much more likely to be used on a blog.

The most common type of affiliate blogging uses Google Adwords and Google Adsense. These two technologies are tied together in order to create an affordable way for companies to market their services and products, and an easy way for bloggers to make money. Companies, ranging from large places like Amazon.com to small websites selling crafts, pay Google Adwords to place their ads on affiliate web pages. Depending on the amount of money they agree to “pay-per-click”, these ads can be placed on popular websites, or smaller blogging sites.

A blogger can then sign up for Google Adsense. This program allows bloggers (or really anyone with a web page) to create an account for their site with Google. A code is then generated (or in the case of Blogger.com, this entire process is automated), which can be placed on your site via HTML or a site editor. The code causes ads to show up on your site in whichever format you specified to Google, and can be tailored to your site's content.

Visitors to your blog will then see these text ads, which will usually be selling or advertising something related to your blog's content (ie, for a cooking blog, kitchen supplies). Since the ads are tailored to the visitors' interests, many will click the ads for more information. This is where the money comes in. For every ad that is clicked on your blog, you will be paid a set amount of money (determined by Google and their metrics). Once you reach a preset limit of money, you will be paid by Google Adsense.

Affiliate blogging is a good way to pick up some extra change, and if you are already blogging for free, it makes sense to add this to your site. Just be aware that affiliates rarely make enough money off of their blogs to make it a sole source of income.

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