8 Principles for Effective Affiliate Marketing on a Blog

In a little over a year, this blog alone has earned me $6,931.97.

Compared to my other online businesses, that’s not very much at all – but considering I don’t sell anything on this blog and have only 4 125×125 ads (below the fold) in the sidebar, I’d say that’s pretty darn good. My point here is that you don’t have to aggressively sell or advertise to your audience in order to earn some decent cash on your blog. You can do it by being honest and smart with your affiliate links.

Some critics might say that I probably could have earned more. Maybe if I placed Google adsense within my posts. Maybe if I had more advertisements in the sidebar. Maybe if I had text link ads. Maybe if I did product review posts.

I disagree.

All of those things take away from the main focus of this blog (which is the main focus that ALL blogs should have) – the content. If you write excellent content – things that get people excited, things that people haven’t seen before, things that make people want more – you’ll have the potential (and more importantly, the foundation) to make money online.

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3 Types of Affiliate Marketing Explained, And The One I Profit From

In my latest monthly income report, you may have noticed that my affiliate income had surpassed my direct income from the electronic products that I sell online. I received a lot of comments, asking me to explain more about where my affiliate income comes from and how it works.

Instead of just breaking down where it all came from – how much this, and how much that – I decided to turn this post into something a little bit more useful that would do more than just tell you how much I earned. Again, I’m not here to show you the money I make online, I’m here to show you how I make money online, and what I’ve learned along the way.

When thinking specifically about affiliate income, I determined that I could divide how people earn money as an affiliate into three primary categories: Unattached, Related, and Involved. I’m speaking in terms of how we are associated with the product or products we may be an affiliate for.

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