Earn Money From Your Blog With Affiliate Programs

Join Affiliate Programs One of the most popular ways bloggers earn money from their blogs is through affiliate programs. So, if you're not an affiliate yet, you might want to consider becoming one.

First things first: What are affiliate programs?
The basic concept of affiliate programs is simple: Sellers offer a percentage of the sale (or a flat fee) to people who refer a customer to them.

Many companies and individuals who wish to promote the sale of their products online offer affiliate programs. That is, if you (a weblog owner) sign up for an affiliate program, you will be given a unique affiliate ID. This affiliate ID is then used to identify the referrer of the sale. If there are successful sales of products using your affiliate ID, you will then receive appropriate renumeration as stated in the affiliate agreement.

The range of payment can be anywhere between 1 US cent to US$100 per sale, depending on the product and the program.

Two of the most popular affiliate programs among bloggers right now are run by Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Once you decide which affiliate program you'd like to join, all you need to do is sign up for free. When your registration as an affiliate is complete, you can start adding affiliate codes in to your weblog.

The top three ways to add affiliate link codes are as follows:
1) Reviews. If you like a book, music, or video, just write about it in your blog with a link to the specific product in your affiliate program.

2) Recommended List. If you do not wish to write any specific review but you want to come up with product recommendations, you can do so either in a blog entry (e.g., 'Top 10 Writing Books,' 'Top 5 Video Games,' etc.) or in a short feature showcasing 3 to 5 products in your blog's sidebar.

3) Random or General Links. If linking to specific products do not appeal to you, you can use scripts or codes that can generate random links to products with your affiliate link. Or, you can simply add a search engine that links to your affiliate program.

Whatever way you decide to use your affiliate programs to earn money from blogging, just remember that people generally don't like the feeling that you're just selling stuff to them when they read your weblog. Make sure that you provide a service when linking to products in affiliate programs. However, if you really want to use a 'hard sell' approach, you should state that your blog is a commercial endeavor.

From Sheila Ann Manuel Coggins