You begin to consider monetizing your blog as soon as you build loyal readers.

You start researching the topic of monetizing a blog, and uncover hundreds of tips and tricks. Reading about the methods available makes you feel that there is at least one method that will suit you.

You narrow it down to say, writing an e-Book. Just do what you are good at (writing) and sell the e-Book to your loyal readers. Sounds easy right? Theoretically, yes. But once you get into it, you will find that it’s more complicated than you imagined.

Months into the journey you’ll feel frustrated, and use the low risk, low return method; which is placing AdSense all over your blog. Maybe some of you have more patience, I didn’t, and I know tens of others in the same boat as me.

My advice: Don’t give up too easily. Do not settle for AdSence, there is another low risk method that provides a higher return. It’s called, “Amazon Associate Marketing.”

What’s So Great About Amazon Affiliate Program?

Straight forward answer: Amazon is the most popular and trusted online store. Yes, their commission is low compared to other affiliate programs, but promoting products from a trusted store makes it easier to convert your readers into buyers — as long as you are promoting products that are relevant to the post.

Amazon affiliate marketing gives you peace of mind when it comes to tracking sales and producing summary reports. Amazon has a sophisticated system to help you track clicks, earnings, conversion rate and much more.

All this is user-friendly and easy to read. With Amazon you don’t worry that the vendor won’t respond to your emails and questions. Neither do you wonder whether the vendor will be honest when it comes to transferring the commission to your bank account.

The different ways Amazon allows an Associate to promote their products- is the icing on the cake. You can promote products using links, widgets or by creating a niche store using an eStore.

The one that I like the most is Amazon widgets. These small customizable widgets can be added at any location in your post. You need only know how to copy-paste to create them.

So if you want to monetize your blog all you have to do is:

1. Login to Amazon associate central.
2. Choose the method you will use to promote Amazon products. For example, an Amazon widget.
3. Follow the steps to build the widget.
4. Copy the widget code.
5. Paste the code into your blog post.

You are done!

You now have Amazon products placed on your blog. If you are a Word Press blogger and looking for more options and customization than what Amazon provides, use one of the Amazon Word Press plug-ins available out there.

As I said, if you want to monetize your blog easily without allocating too much time or cash to it, then the Amazon Affiliate Program option is great. Once you give it a try you’ll wonder how you did without it.

Byline:

Areej is the coauthor of WinkPress.com–a web resource about leveraging WordPress and its tools for online publishing. She enjoys anime and dreams of becoming a pianist.

Tags: blog posts, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Starting a Blog.
Posted in Blogging Advice |