Following our series about how to make money blogging, we have reviewed how to start a website, choosing a name, domain and hosting, how to make money depending on the hours you are willing to put in (you can also check my July income for both sites). I share my big blogging mistake, and how I got my Alexa below 100K in 8 weeks my failed attempts at making money online I failed at making money online, then succeeded, with freelancing and starting my own website.
Following our series about how to make money blogging, we have reviewed how to start a website and how to make money depending on the hours you are willing to put in (you can also check my July income for both sites), then the mistake of blogging in the dark, and how Make Money Your Way dropped under 100K in Alexa rank over its first 8 weeks of life. Now let’s talk about monetizing your site!
When I started blogging a year ago, I thought I would make about $100 per month in Adsense and a couple of referral programs that I was familiar with, like Airbnb. Yes, I just inserted a shameless plus to an Airbnb link, and if you want to book a cheap accommodation this summer, feel free to use it!
Anyway, I had no idea affiliate programs were for just about any product you can imagine. Web hosting (I really have to stop doing that!), credit cards, flights… every other day I receive warnings that a new affiliate program is available, for XYZ product. A few I have been rejected because my blog is not US based, and since the majority of my readership is in the US it may be a stretch to ramp up affiliate sales to high levels but it has been a nice increasing share of my blog income month after month.
Why affiliate and Adsense income is so great
Because unlike direct advertising, this way of monetizing your site is not frowned upon by Google. You can put up links about Airbnb on an online income post and Google wouldn’t blink. Whereas you put a link to a mortgage company in a post about mortgages and you get Google slapped for unnatural linking.
Furthermore, direct advertising can end up being pretty complicated, as paid links should be disclosed and if G catches you doing it without disclosure, you may be penalized in your search engine rankings or even lose your PageRank.
Affiliate sales and Adsense are straightforward, you set them up, and every time someone visiting your profile clicks on the ad (and orders something in the case of affiliate) you make money. No need to keep track of anything, you get a report and a check when you reach a certain threshold.
How to set up Adsense
You have to head over to Adsense and set up an account. It is pretty straightforward, then you will be given unique codes depending on the size of the ad you want to put on your website.
Try putting up one ad, then two, then a different size, a banner on the sidebar, a square box inside the post, etc. experiment and play around to see which ads have the best conversion rate and look the most integrated with your design and writing format.
DO NOT, ever, click on your ads. Google knows it’s you, and runs a complicated algorithm to make sure paid clicks are genuine. You could get banned from Adsense for that.
Which affiliate program is the best?
There are a lot of programs out there. I haven’t tried them all so couldn’t give you an exhaustive opinion about the absolute best affiliate program. However, it is important that you check out a few, as they can offer different rates of reward for the same company.
When you like a product and are going to be talking about it, just Google “XYZ affiliate program”, and see what the company has to offer. It can be a direct program with the company or via third party sites like FlexOffers, Commission Junction, Adspeed, etc.
Amazon runs its own affiliate program which is quite popular as you can use it every time you review a book, a product, etc.
Optimizing the reader’s experience
That is a topic Google is obsessed with. Everything has to be reader oriented, and Google’s algorithm will detect if your page has too many links or ad banners. If you decide to use Adsense, you are only entitled to three banners on each page. Remember your last experience with a website full of flashing banners, when you didn’t know where to click and half the links were taking you out of the website to some scammy content? That is what Google is trying to avoid.
So make sure you keep the ads simple and discreet. At the beginning you won’t have many pageviews, so it may not even be worth your while to set up ads. Some bloggers say you should put them anyway, or you might lose readership if you put them down the road, others say the amount you can make is negligible to even bother.
Whatever you choose, try to limit the ads to what really brings you income.
How much you can make with affiliate sales and Adsense?
The amount is unlimited, that is the beauty of it. Instead of getting a few hundred dollars to place a sponsored post on your site, every time a reader clicks on an affiliate links, a cookie is installed on his computer and tracks the sale to pay you a percentage.
The bad news is, unless you have a niche site with very targeted traffic and a high conversion rate, you won’t be making much until you get some decent traffic. Your best bet, instead of repeating in each post that you use XYZ for your banking/internet/cooking needs, is to create a nice detailed post that will help your readers.
Should you push products you are not using yourself? I wouldn’t but probably more because I am too lazy to research and write an accurate post than for the ethical side of it. I also have a problem with pushing products altogether so you won’t find posts about mortgages or credit cards every other day on RFI.
But if you can write in details about how the latest credit card works, the rate, how to churn it, and who can apply for it, then every time someone clicks on the link and gets approved for the card you’ll get a fee.
Affiliate pros like Pat Flynn make over $20,000 a month from ONE product alone, and have a wider range of products they recommend. How is that even possible? Because they spend hours creating an awesome tutorial for potential buyers to check out, and then work their SEO magic for that tutorial to rank first when people look for “XYZ tutorial”. Imagine you want to buy a cool theme for your site, like Genesis, the one I use. You Google Genesis and find out a detailed tutorial telling you the pros and cons, maybe comparing it to other competitors like Thesis, etc. You were already looking into it, so you are tempted to make the sale. And so you don’t have to go back to Google, the tutorial has a convenient link for you to order, maybe even with a discount attached. That’s it, the site owner made a sale. For software and hosting, affiliate payments are around 30% of the order, Genesis costs $90, you just made the guy $30. Maybe another 1,000 people checked that tutorial that day, and 10 converted into buyers, there you have your $300 day. Sweet!
Obviously, any blog owner who is looking into affiliate sales and using Genesis will have an affiliate link to it, so ranking number 1, or even on the first page in search engines is quite complicated. You can try a long tail keyword, with 3 to 5 words and focus on that for your post, but before you do, check out how much traffic that long tail gets. Say “Is Genesis worth it” bringing 500 monthly searches, it may not be worth your efforts, not only for the low amount of searches but also because there is already a doubt coming from the person who looks for that answer, so conversions will be lower than with people googling “buy Genesis now”.
Pat Flynn has a conversion rate of around 6% on his Bluehost sales. If you check out your most popular post, how many SEO visits you got, say 500 (not a very high number), at 6% conversion, it would result in 30 sales. That company pays $65 per sale, meaning the post could make you $1,950! Of course conversion rates are different for everyone and so is the payout for each company. But that is much higher than what you would get as a staff writer to write a post, or by renting a banner on a site whose most popular article only has 500 pageviews.
On Adsense, the problem is the same, the more visitors you get, the bigger the income, but unless you have really targeted ads (which you don’t have much control over) and a great click through rate, you won’t make much. Even nice big blogs making over $1,000 a month are an exception. You can expect anywhere from $2 to $10 per 1,000 views on a normal site, more on a highly optimized niche site.
What you can try to control is the cost per click, that is the price Google will pay you every time a reader clicks on your ads, by doing extensive keyword research for the best paying keywords. I don’t do keyword research and my cost per click has been anywhere from $0.05 to over $2. That means on a $2 per click day I can make as much money from one click as I would from 40 on $0.05 days. It takes a LOT of pageviews to get 40 people to click on your ads, better have just one, but then again it is a question of whether you are blogging for fun or want to maximize your profit and in this case should do keyword research for better paying keywords.
When you optimize a post for a specific keyword, remember Google loves to change the rules of the game, so what may rank well today may not rank well tomorrow. That is why I choose to just write about what I feel like writing (oh and out of laziness, did I mention that already?), rather than forcing myself to write “monetize your blog” 5% of the word count of this post.
How is affiliate/adsense going for you? Do you use them?
This post was featured on the Real Simple Finances, Gaming Your Finances, Canadian Budget Binder, Getting a Rich Life, How to Blog Carnival, thank you!
I am actually starting to make more from Amazon than I am from Adsense, which has been fairly surprising.
Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted…Top Personal Finance Articles #28
nice! do you know if the cookie will track amazon buys from any country? I have US affiliate installed but if a person buys on amazon.co.uk I don’t know if it counts.
It does not 🙁
Savvy Scot recently posted…Would You Drop Everything and Move Abroad?
I do AdSense over at Skinny Seahorse. Im still waiting for my first check. Tick tock tick tock. Ha.
I do better with affiliate badges. I also feel a bit better about promoting and recommending something I’ve used personally.
Taynia @ The Fiscal Flamingo recently posted…Three Ways An Organized Closet Will Save You Money (Without Selling Your Clothes)
yes, you never know what adsense will choose to put. Sometimes I get a great rate per click but for a service I wouldn’t recommend.
Great tips Pauline to use one day. I’m focusing on building my web traffic before I look into those programs. How much traffic is usually needed to start making it worthwhile?
charles@gettingarichlife recently posted…Complaints From A Negative Net Worth 47 Year Old
because of the cost per click varying a lot and the engagement as well it is really hard to say. I have a click through rate of under 1% for an average cost per click of $0.5. So let’s imagine you want to make at least $50 from your ads to justify the visual pollution, you would need 25 clicks, or 2,500 pageviews at 1%, 10,000 at 0.25% and 25,000 at 0.01%.
specific niche sites have cost per clicks of a few dollars, and 2-3 clicks a day out of 50 visits, but I imagine my numbers are pretty average for a blog.
Here is an income report for 350,000 pageviews and $460 in adsense. http://dollarsandroses.com/march-income-report. That is $1.3 per 1,000 pageviews, I get slightly more by 1,000 but this site may not have high paying keywords like debt on a finance site.
Thanks for sharing such helpful information. I hope to monetize my blog someday once I’ve built up traffic, but I’m still getting my head around SEO stuff. I really enjoyed this post, it will definitely help me once I increase my traffic!
debtfreeoneday recently posted…August Debt Total Update
thank you, and good luck with your monetizing journey!
Good info for us just starting out, thanks Pauline!
FI Pilgrim recently posted…Side Hustling Lessons I Learned as a Guinea Pig
no problem, happy to help!
I am banned forever from AdSense and I have applied multiple times to Yahoo ads but they have a high volume of applicants and may never get back to me.
I will try Amazon and I have signed up for Flex Offers. I don’t expect to make millions but I would be thrilled if my site paid my blogging costs and my monthly internet fee.
Jane Savers @ Solving The Money Puzzle recently posted…When To Sell, Rates Are Up, Windows Are Alarmed And Money Quickies For August 25,2013
I hope you get approved for affiliates, the Amazon program is easy to get into, plus your web hosting company and a few here and there you should make your goal easily.
I don’t understand this part of the sentence “plus your web hosting company”.
Will that be covered in part 2 of this tutorial?
Jane Savers @ Solving The Money Puzzle recently posted…When To Sell, Rates Are Up, Windows Are Alarmed And Money Quickies For August 25,2013
Great post Pauline! The one thing I would note is to not put up affiliate links all of the place as well. That gets frowned upon to by Google but not as much as paid/sponsored links. I used to make good from clickbank products and other affiliate products. I prefer those types of product that are kind of hands off. Compared to freelancing I would go with this strategy. Again thats what works for me. But you shouldn’t push every product known to man. You readers will think you are just selling them on only anything. I only sell for the most part what I truly have used. Seems to just work best for me.
Thomas | Your Daily Finance recently posted…Grocery Shopping List: How I Save Money on Groceries
if you used them you will write a very helpful post and draw more interest than just link dropping so it is really worth the effort.
Affiliate income is something I want to increase in the future. As of today, it is a very tiny percentage of my revenue. I plan on researching various programs in the future and making some very targeted posts and hopefully some will turn over some good revenue.
DC @ Young Adult Money recently posted…The Weekly Quick Hits Roundup
helpful posts are the best way to go, if you know the product they should come easy.
This is great stuff Pauline! I’m just getting ready to start some of this on my site so this article was very timely. Seems like Adsense is a good place to start and then go from there. My main focus just has to be on building traffic to my site.
Brian @ Luke1428 recently posted…If You Had One Wish, Would It Be For Money?
Adsense can be deceiving at first. Take a $2 per 1,000 pageviews and see how much you could make. For 20,000 pageviews that is $40, sure it’s better than nothing but you have to be ready to earn even less. I recommend trying it out, although remember you don’t get a check for anything under $100.
AdSense and affiliate income is my absolute favorite because I don’t have to work very hard on it. The key is to keep up-to-date on affiliate programs and to remember to actually put the links in your post!
Holly@ClubThrifty recently posted…Reader Question: Am I an Asshole?
I am so bad at it but now I have an automatic thing that if I write Hostgator in a post will link to the affiliate for example. Super helpful.
Great breakdown Pauline! I think this is, at least for now, the long term way to go. I’ve been trying to ramp up my affiliate income and will be changing my strategy a good bit once my redesign is launched here soon. I’ve never done AdSense, but I’ll be adding it with the new site too. The thing with affiliate is that it does take time, generally speaking, but it can be a great way to produce some income.
John S @ Frugal Rules recently posted…Frugal Friday: Do You Suffer From Nomophobia?
and then it is really passive so that is the great part.
Great post! I’m looking to get more into affiliate advertising. I do a little bit right nowbut I dedicate hardly any time to it.
same here I need to do it more..
I’ve got adsense going and it’s starting to make me a small amount of money, but you’re right that you really can’t count on a lot. I want to get my affiliate marketing going, but I only want to recommend products or services I actually use and I haven’t had a ton of luck finding affiliate links for them. But I definitely think that can be a great way to monetize. I would really like to create little series around them so I can get several really focused, detailed posts that people might find.
Matt Becker recently posted…Accomplish the Important Things in Life by Holding Yourself Accountable
at least there is your hosting company if you are happy with them, then on Amazon you can recommend tons of products.
I have adsense because it’s worth it now, but before, for newer bloggers, it’s not. You just don’t make enough off of it at the beginning to be putting tacky ads there all the time. I do think that there is a ton of potential in affiliate income though.
Daisy @ Prairie Eco Thrifter recently posted…How Much is Your Commute Costing You?
It is not worth it but you don’t risk losing readership that won’t come the day you put ads. I waited too but there is a case to be made for putting them straight up.
I use Adsense and Link Offers. Adsense has been pretty slow, but that’s to be expected. I don’t get much traffic. I love Link Offers. Again because of the low traffic count, I haven’t made much, but when I do convert the traffic with them, it’s well worth it! Thanks for the great post!
Josh @ CNA recently posted…I’ve Finally Started To Invest…Off To Betterment!
will have to check that out thanks for the recommendation.
I have not started doing any adverts as I want to build some traffic first. I have adsense for another website I have though.
Demaish @ Borrowed Cents recently posted…The three paycheck month equals winning
good decision. I put the ad blocks after 6 months or so, no one seemed to mind.
In the past month, running one modest Adsense ad, I’ve had ~7K pageviews, 9 clicks, and $13.71 in earnings. I’ve also been getting a bit of income from LinkOffers, those ads work better for me.
Nick @ PFDigest recently posted…Free book (again), new pointbreaks, how to cancel an Amex, and chemical arbitrage!
your cost per click is pretty high. What I don’t like with Adsense is I get all excited about the amount and then your “estimated earnings” lose 30% when it is actual payout time.
I’ve had mixed results with affiliates. Some have been awesome on my site and generated tons of signups. Others were more a flop. You never know until you try though.
Eric recently posted…7 Ideas to Make Your Commute Suck Less
yes, and writing one post about it doesn’t cost you much. I see some bloggers repeatedly promote one or two products, but wonder how effective that is over a wider range.
I have Adsense and have done a few things with Flex Offers, but it’s pocket change at this point. I have some big changes coming soon and hope to be able to ramp up these efforts without feeling like a used car salesman, hopefully.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted…DIY Rock Chip Repair and Some Extra Savings
Oh, thanks for the mention!
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted…DIY Rock Chip Repair and Some Extra Savings
big changes, exciting! Apparently the affiliate sidebars work pretty well, I have to look into those.
Thanks for the informative and detailed post Pauline 🙂
I make money using both Adsense and Amazon, and while it is only about 100 bucks a month or so at the moment, I am starting to ramp things up for the coming months.
I also like the affiliate network Share A Sale over CJ and the others because I like the owners’ ethics!
Take care and thanks again. All the best.
Lyle
Lyle @ The Joy of Simple recently posted…When Enough Becomes ENOUGH, Hit The Delete Key!!!
good for you Lyle! I am not familiar with share a sale, will look into it.
Awesome post, Pauline. I have a Commission Junction account but never went into it in any detail. You have motivated me to get on it this weekend! We shall see if it does me any good :).
Tony@WeOnlyDoThisOnce recently posted…How To Begin To Let Things Go
I hope so!
Thanks for breaking this down, Pauline. I am more interested in affiliate marketing than adsense. Right now, we just don’t have the traffic where I think adsense would be very profitable and I’d prefer to earn money over products that I use and am comfortable supporting and recommending. My eyes tend to glaze over adsense but I do pay attention to products that people I trust promote.
Shannon @ The Heavy Purse recently posted…A Labor Day {Inforgraphic} – How Do You Compare?
there is actually an add on on Firefox to remove the adsense blocks and FB ads, I have it installed and it is pretty neat.
Very helpful as always, Pauline! I’m going to save this article for reference!
Lisa E. @ Lisa Vs. The Loans recently posted…Back to School Money Savers: Save Money on Books
thank you Lisa.
Right now, I don’t have enough readers to make a ton of money from my blog – I just started advertising this month in fact. But I’ll be looking into the services you mentioned in the future. Thanks for the information!
Amanda recently posted…Onward Ho – August Goal Update & How I Save Money
you’re welcome!
I´ve been interested in affiliate sales lately, so it was nice to finally read a thorough post about it! Definitely going to check out various affiliate programs!!
The Norwegian Girl recently posted…The Liebster Award
I hope unlike me you don’t get denied for not being US based!
Right now I haven’t made hardly anything from affiliates. It’s something I need to get better at.
Budget and the Beach recently posted…Don’t Quit/Link Love
it is a fine line between a sales push and a helpful affiliate review, I don’t like to sell so I am not the best either.
I’ve averaged just over $4 per 1000 page views with adsense since my blog went live mid July. That said, I haven’t had a whole stack of pageviews so that figure is based on an extremely small sample size.
Affiliate Marketing is something I haven’t had much success with previously – I used to run a site dedicated to generating amazon affiliate sales for a specific product and it’s accessories. My best month made around $30.
Not expecting to retire on advertising or affiliate revenue anytime soon!
Financial Independence recently posted…Motif Investing Review
haha you would have to find a very cheap country to retire on $30! I made about $4,000 last month and will publish my online income next week for August, it does get better.
Exactly, it would be foolish to assume you can earn a living income from day one. It’s something which needs to be built up over time. I’ll definitely be checking back in and having a look at your results – it’s good motivation to keep going.
Financial Independence recently posted…Motif Investing Review
A lot of great information here. I just put up Adsense a few weeks ago and have a few links to amazon. I have very little traffic so I have made nothing. Plus the people who go to my site are probably fellow bloggers. It’s still a work in progress…
Andrew@LivingRichCheaply recently posted…When Being Cheap and Lazy is Better
I didn’t check analytics early on but now about half of my traffic comes from SEO so it gets better with time.
At this point, I’m on the brink of getting my first adsense check, so that is exciting, but I have mixed feelings about adsense. On one hand it is very easy to set up, and easy to track your progress, but I’m wondering if more minimal targeted affiliate ads are the better way to go.
Michael | The Student Loan Sherpa recently posted…The Sherpa Guide to Finding a Co-Signer for your Student Loans
I think it is good for small blogs to make at least something with adsense. For the big blog I mentioned who makes $450 a month from Adsense, it seems low to me compared to a banner rental, but if you don’t close banner deals you can still fall back on Adsense.
Thanks for all the info Pauline. Once my site is moved I’m sure I’ll be leaning on ya 😉
Canadian Budget Binder recently posted…The Saturday Weekend Review #35: It was a start the car moment day today
happy to help if you have any questions!
Really enjoying this series of posts. They’re quite helpful. Thank you Pauline.
Stefanie @ The Broke and Beautiful Life recently posted…Money Manners: Splitting the Bill
So far I’ve just used Adsense to make a few bucks. I opened a Commission Junction account a few months ago, but I never got a response to my applications to do affiliate marketing. Do you see that as a common issue?
CashRebel recently posted…Friends and adventure are the spice of life
Nice post Pauline! I had my first affiliate sale in July, so that is pretty awesome. I still have A LOT to learn though. 🙂
Nick @ AYoungPro.com recently posted…What I Learned from a Book – The Last Lecture
Congrats! It is a fast moving industry, even pros learn all the time…
Good info Pauline, thanks.
I’m fairly new to the PF blogger world and starting to try to monetize my site, so these tips will be really useful.
good luck!
Hi Pauline,
I have tried 4 affiliate programs so far and had terrible results in all 4,
everybody is sharing their numbers and stats online which only make it sound too good to be true, and the best advice i can get from anywhere is “Do not give up prematurely”, everybody says that, but no one shares real valuable details, it’s starting to get a little depressing,
Could you please share a specific good affiliate program that works, besides Google’s !
Many thanks and Best wishes!
Mitch recently posted…Free CV Builder, Free Resume Builder, cv templates
Hi Matt, it is a tricky question to answer because every site is different. For example I talk a good bit about travel, so I have an Airbnb affiliate that is performing quite well but I am sure most financial sites have less readers who are travelers and a target for Airbnb so they wouldn’t make money with it. I have hostgator and godaddy too when I talk about hosting and Genesis which is the theme I use on this site.
You can check dollarsandroses.com/march-income-report/ or http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/my-july-2013-monthly-income-report/ to see the breakdown of affiliate vs private ads and what those bloggers make with their different ad networks, I use flexoffers and am just subscribed to commission junction but too early to tell.
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This was great! Thanks for the great over-view and tips? Do you still do this as a side-job? I would love to be able to get something like this to replace my income.
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If we look in the deep, both way of monetizing is good enough and works best depending upon the niche of blog and type of readers.
Arup recently posted…Show Related Posts in Genesis without any Plugin
You make it sound so easy!! but its so much work, strategy, and effort it can be frustrating! I’ve had my blog up and running for over a year now. I’m aiming to focus on my passion rather than the revenue but I will continue adding affiliate links, AdSense and SEO into my blog.
Do you have a post on how you remained persistent and motivated when your sites weren’t making income? What strategies did you use? Which ones failed? Which ones were a success?
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