How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing (for Bloggers)

Making a full-time income with affiliate marketing is possible. The key is to have targeted content that catches readers’ attention while they are in the research stage of the buying process.

Here are eight tried and true ways to make money with affiliate marketing. They can be applied to almost any type of blog and will hopefully inspire you to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing!

Related: Affiliate Marketing Basics

1. Write Round-Up Posts

Round-up posts bring in a ton of traffic to my home decor blog. The conversion rate to affiliate sales is pretty high, too.

What is a round-up post?

Essentially, it’s a list of recommendations surrounding one specific item. A few examples: 12 Best Straighteners for Girls with Thick Hair, 10 Most Popular Cameras for Travel Bloggers, 8 Gorgeous Fall Sweaters Under $100, etc.

The idea behind the round-up post is that people like having options. They want to choose from several items the one that suits their needs. This type of blog post also reads like a listicle – which is great for generating blog traffic!

Unless your blog targets the luxury market, be sure to include affordable options in the items you recommend. Most people are budget-conscious when making purchases so your blog post should recognize that!

2. Write an Individual Product Review Post

Another high-converting affiliate marketing post is the product review post. These are typically long-form blog posts (over 1,000 words) that offer a detailed review of one specific item. Your review should be titled “{product} Review” or something really simple to help it rank in Google. I share my tips for writing a blog post title here.

3. Write About a Popular Product Alternative

I discovered this type of blog post accidentally when I wrote about a fairly expensive mirror, and noticed in Google Search Console that I was ranking for the name of that mirror plus the word “dupe” at the end. I didn’t even include this word in my post, which made it all the more surprising. It turns out that a lot of people were looking for a less expensive version of that product, and I adjusted my post to reflect that!

Hello, affiliate sales!

You can implement this strategy on your own blog by writing about popular product that people can get for less. Focus on keywords like “{product} Alternative” and “{product} Dupe.”

4. Write a list of products you’re using that particular day (Latest Beauty Buys, Outfit of the Day)

This strategy works really well with fashion – show off what you’re wearing that day! If the item is no longer available, you can link to a similar one. “Hauls” are also popular among beauty bloggers, where they essentially round up their latest batch of purchases and write about why they purchased the product, whether they’ve tried it, and the results they achieved. This type of post typically isn’t evergreen, so you need a fairly dedicated audience to make it work best.

5. Create a Free Course

Offering a free course on how to do something is a great way to make affiliate sales because you can include your affiliate links to paid products throughout the “free” course you made! It doesn’t even have to be a professional course – you could put the entire thing inside an email sequence using a service like Mailerlite. This method is extremely popular with “How to Blog” bloggers who insert affiliate links to their hosting provider and services like Tailwind, while they teach new bloggers how to get started blogging.

6. Publish a Tutorial

Publishing a tutorial on how to use a specific product is a great way to sell that product and more, too! For example, you could write about how to use a Nikon camera and link to the camera you’re describing. It’s highly likely that someone who is thinking about buying this product may come across your post and click through, and purchase when they’re ready. You could also link to tripods, SD cards, and other accessories that go with the camera and earn affiliate sales that way!

7. Search your existing posts and pages for Affiliate Link Opportunities

Going back and editing old posts is never much fun, but it can be super profitable if you take the time to do it! Take a look at your most popular posts first and see if you can find any opportunities to link to products. Be sure to also search for words in your posts that mention products you’re already an affiliate for. For example, after joining the Tailwind affiliate program, I searched all my previous posts for the word “Tailwind” and updated those words to affiliate links!

8. Link to products in Social Media, Email Newsletter, etc.

Sometimes we overlook the various channels we’ve built up – including Pinterest followings, email subscribers and more. Be sure to post affiliate links to products throughout all your media channels as often as you can!