How do I make my blog more profitable?
You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t asking yourself something similar. In the age of a click being worth pennies and the RPM being a rounding error away from zero, it’s hard to know exactly how to turn a blog from a money sink into something more than (cheap) beer money at best. You can build what you want, but in the age of adblock and advertisement inoculation, the bar for what an ad is worth continues creeping lower and lower. If I relied on traditional ads for my blog, I wouldn’t consider it a side hustle; it would be a hobby.
If you want to make money off of your content, you have to have something to sell. It can be a service, a product, or even just an ideal. What do you think most streamers sell? It’s not their ability to game as much as their ability to make people want to experience it with them. I’m not charismatic or social enough to sell myself like that, and (at present) I don’t have any products or services I’m selling via this avenue, but what I can sell is content.
Affiliate links are a great way to make money when used right. They’re also a great way to damn yourself to the last page of Google when used incorrectly. You have to know how to target your content, how to optimize your content for SEO, and how to make your content branch out to be more efficient. I’m going to primarily target reviews as this is what has worked best for me, but the techniques carry over to other types of affiliate content.
For the sake of transparency, nothing here will directly include affiliate links, but it will link to content which does for some examples.
Targeting
Knowing who to target is the first step in knowing how to target them. You can’t good content without knowing who you’re writing for. Who is your audience and what are you doing to differentiate yourself from everyone else writing for them? If you can’t answer this, any success is basically luck.
I try to focus on reviews for things I bought which were hard to find reviews for. I’m a Google-fu expert, so if I can’t find it, neither can the average searcher. You have to find items which sell, which are hard to find reviews on, which are also going to have some staying power. The latest one-hit wonder is great if you were there when it hit it big, but useless a month later. I’m typically late to the game.
When I write affiliate pieces, I target long tail content. The longer the tail, the more specific the search, and the more likely the searcher is to be interested. The other side to this is knowing to only target these things when the item has some degree of staying power (don’t try to long tail target the notebook computer of the month). A niche community can be worth more than a generic audience when you dig deep enough and tap the right way. It’s all about who you target as well as how you do so. What does your audience expect when they visit your site? What would make their lives easier? Target that way.
Optimization
Now that you know who you’re targeting, how do you keep them interested in what you write? When I first started, my reviews were based on what I wanted. While this can be a great approach, it doesn’t work if the audience interested in your content likes it in spite of who you are. I’m good at tech, but I hate working in tech. If I wrote about tech the way I actually feel about tech, no one would ever read my content.
To make your content better, you need to take what you’re targeting and optimize for it. For instance, with long tail content, the more specific the better. Almost no one cares that the Huion HS64 is portable (the spec sheet tells you as much), they want to know if it’s good for a beginner and/or if it works on Linux (true for both, so that’s two angles for the same product). What’s the build quality? Does it scale? These were the pieces I personally struggled to find, so naturally I wrote about them.
Another trick is to combine technical or non-affiliate content with affiliate content. For instance, I wrote about getting Bluetooth on Linux and referenced it with my article about Ink’d Wireless Headphones. Now, someone using Linux is more likely to buy them as they know they work and how to make them work with their OS easily. Since one side heavily targets long tail and the other is more generic, we put out nets in two different places and hedge our bets while improving our odds.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
Avoid making your content too much like an ad as well. People don’t want an ad, they typically want a legitimate review for better and for worse. If an item is bad, either skip writing about it or write about it as a warning.
I’ve written reviews where I don’t include a link. The item was trash and I wouldn’t put my name (even my pseudonym I write under) behind it. Disclaim when it’s bad and avoid a link to it (though maybe you put an appeal to support you with a generic link to an affiliate somewhere). If someone sees this, they’re more likely to believe your other reviews if you link to (or ideally reference) similar items. You also improve how long viewers stay on your site, decrease them going back to search again, and improve your SEO.
For instance, had the Ink’d wireless headphones been like the first pair of off-brand garbage I got, it would be a great chance to write a warning then provide the reader with a suggestion of what to get instead. Your readers want the truth and they want to trust you, give them both. You can lie about how good something is, but unless you can back it up, your overall reputation (and SEO) will suffer and you will only get the first couple suckers who fall for it. Make sure viewers know they’re getting an affiliate link too.
Branching Out
If you struggle to be honest with your reviews or affiliate links for the sake of honesty, be honest for the sake of SEO and branching out. Why do people love brands? It’s because a brand means the consumer knows what they’re getting (roughly) just from the package. American car manufacturers killed their brands by the early 2000’s by pulling moves that eventually justified the joke that Ford stood for “Found On Road, Dead”. Don’t make your blog the same by taking (stupid) shortcuts. Build your brand and build your SEO so you can push people with trust in you and what you offer.
When you build trust, you can sell your viewers on other things than what they’re specifically searching for. Why just sell them on a June 60 pedal when you can sell them on the effect and accessories? People who already bought the pedal and want to know if they made the right choice now know what cable to buy (and line your pockets doing so). If I lied and said the June 60 was exactly the same as a vintage Juno chorus, no one would care about the cable link. I would have burned my bridge at that point.
Another trick to help with SEO is to compare items. I’ve found the best luck for my audience by comparing two specific, competing products (e.g. these Thai books). You might get lucky and sway a buyer with your writing (ideally to your link too). You may also have luck with a list format like my article on Zen books, it just depends on the audience. This approach works best when targeting materials where the reader will struggle to know where to even begin (beginners ideally).
Try to branch out with non-affiliate content as well. For instance, I reference a blank journal as a gag for the best parts of Javascript in my article on JSON (just try to find the link, ideally, it isn’t noticeable unless you know it’s there or are already curious). Will anyone buy it? Probably not, but there’s always a chance they click it (and ideally buy something else) and it doesn’t hurt the article (SEO or content).
Moving Forward
As you start getting more luck with affiliate links, the next logical step is to try to make them more profitable. Try to find new avenues to cash in on. If you use Amazon for affiliates, why not hit up eBay or similar for things you can’t find on the other (most affiliate programs don’t like you putting both)?
Use passive sales as a way to support your site or brand. It’s hard to get the average viewer to give you $0.25, but most people are fine buying an affiliate item with your link if it doesn’t cost them anything. Make affiliate content a way to help support your other content as you branch out more.
Speaking of which, as you branch out, you’ll also hit a natural limit with many affiliate programs. Almost anyone can link to an item on Amazon, but what about something only available from one (or a select few) outlet(s)? As you build your reputation and a traffic around what you’re doing, you can try to negotiate exclusive deals (either limited sellers or special discounts). Obviously, this has been a bit abused in the past, but with a strong community and honest reviews, it’s much more palatable.
Focus on your SEO first and write good content, and the rest falls into place with a little practice and the right pushes in the right places. Link to things your audience wants and make it worth their while. Build your brand and build your income.
Featured image by Blanka Šejdová from Pixabay