To be honest, influencer marketing has transformed the way people create an online income. As an influencer, you have so many ways to earn an income online, but one of the best and most accessible ways is affiliate marketing. By promoting products, choosing to include affiliate links, and earning commission when people click on your affiliate links or use your discount code, you can make a business out of influencing!
However . . . there’s a “right” way to use affiliate links. Because promoting in the wrong way can mean no income at all. Whether that’s because your audience isn’t engaging with your links or because you’re in violation of FTC guidelines, it’s all no good for your influencer goals! So, today we’re going to break down how you can make the most out of your affiliate links, drive traffic, and EARN that money!
How To Promote Affiliate Links: The In’s and Out’s
In this post, we will start with the basics of affiliate marketing, and then dive into the nitty gritty of it all. We will answer common questions like “How do you promote your affiliate links?” And “How do they help create a passive income?”
By understanding the answers to these important questions, we can then move onto the fundamentals. We can do this by exploring actionable strategies that you can do, even as a beginner or someone new to the world of affiliate marketing for bloggers and influencers.
What Are Affiliate Links?
To put it as simply as possible, affiliate links work by tracking referrals from influencers, back to brands. Thus creating a great win-win situation for everyone. The reader gets a great recommendation from a trusted influencer, the brand receives a sale, and you get a cut of the profit. Doesn’t that sound amazing???
So, here’s how it goes.
- The influencer reaches out to gain approval for an affiliate program.
- Once approved, the influencer promotes a product using a unique affiliate link. This link tracks any sales or actions that come from the promotion.
- A follower clicks the link and makes a purchase.
- The influencer earns a commission from this sale.
For brands, this is a super cost-effective and easy way to reach their audience and drive more sales! At a really low cost, advertisers can sell like crazy, which is why influencer marketing has gotten SO popular among brands.
For influencers, it is a straightforward way to monetize content and earn passive income. It can be as simple as sharing a personal experience, posting a picture, writing product reviews, or creating blog posts. As long as your affiliate link is in there somewhere, you’ll hopefully reach your monetization goals!
How Do Affiliate Links Work?
Affiliate links are specific URLs provided by brands or affiliate programs. As said above, these affiliate links make it super easy for both influencers and marketers to earn commission on sales when people click their link and purchase the product. These links have tracking codes in them that help to identify where the referral came from. Basically, this makes sure that the right influencers get to profit from the sale when they add affiliate links to their content and it gets clicked!
Usually, affiliate links come from direct partnerships with companies or affiliate networks like Amazon Associates, ShareASale, LTK, and, and Collective Voice. When you sign up for one of these awesome programs, you’ll get a customized link to help you begin earning immediately! This is the best way to turn your recommendations into revenue.
7 Best Ways to Promote Affiliate Links
Use hyperlinks.
When you add hyperlinks into your blog posts, articles, and other content, you make it much easier for your readers to click the link without having to copy and paste 50 characters. This easy method will help you keep a natural flow in your writing while seamlessly promoting your product!
Use relevant anchor text with keywords.
When adding affiliate links to your content, use relevant anchor texts with relevant keywords. Instead of generic (and boring) text that simply says “click here”, instead use specific text like “best noise-canceling headphones” (or just type out the product name!)
This not only helps increase the readability of your content, but also boosts SEO, and increases click-through rates.
Find the right blog post topic.
Try to choose blog post topics that align with the product or service you’re trying to promote. For example, if you’re a fitness blogger who is going to try to promote a cool fitness gadget that helps track your workout performance, incorporporate your links into a listicle about your favorite fitness tools or a post about your recommended summer exercises! (Just to name a couple examples.) When you create content that relates to your link, it feels much more natural and it’s easier to make sales.
Don’t use too many links.
While it can be tempting to share affiliate links in a mass amount to “get your bag”, you actually want to avoid this. Too many links can look spammy and cause your audience to leave your page instead of click-through. It can even worsen your SEO! Focusing on a few key links is a WAY better option. Remember: quality over quantity.
Ensure they open in another tab.
To keep readers engaged with your content, make sure all of your links open in another tab. This way, they won’t be leaving your site entirely when they click on your link. This makes them much more likely to come back and keep reading, keeping the possibility that they may go on to click more links or read more content.
Include a disclaimer to be in-line with FTC guidelines.
When you have an online presence, transparency will ALWAYS go a long way. This remains true for affiliate marketing. When you include a disclaimer like “as an affiliate,” “I earn from qualifying purchases,” or “contains sponsored links,” you maintain transparency with your audience while also upholding FTC guidelines.
Utilize marketing tools.
Leveraging social media platforms and email marketing is a fantastic way to boost your affiliate links. Social media channels have a huge reach and engagement, while email marketing offers your content to a more dedicated and direct audience. By strategically adding your affiliate links using these channels, you can continually increase your changes of making sales!
Promote affiliate links with ease with these tips!
When it comes down to it, affiliate links are a GREAT way to earn passive income online. In fact, there are affiliate programs for moms, affiliate programs for food bloggers, and affiliate programs for pretty much ANYONE! This makes it easier than ever before to have your voice heard while earning from it.
If you need help establishing your voice online, check out our huge range of services. You can also do your homework by searching or heading to our blog and reading all the great content we have written for people just like you. We love to see people succeed.
If you’re interested in working with us, get in touch today! Let’s make your online income dreams a reality!
Jordan Becerra, founder and Lead SEO Strategist at InfluencerSEO, has spent almost 15 years in the creator internet space, the last nine building InfluencerSEO into the go-to SEO partner for content creators, with 500+ creators served from pre-launch to massive publication. She learned creator monetization and community building strategy from the inside working for Lauryn Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential prior to founding InfluencerSEO, so she understands both halves of the game: how search actually works AND how creators actually build a strong community online and make money. Her job now is to stay ahead of where search engine optimization is going, especially as AI rewrites the rules, and to make sure the creators she works with get there first.
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