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If you are looking for ways to monetize your blog, then the Amazon Associates Program is a natural choice for a blogger to use. The Amazon Associates Program allows you to add affiliate links to your blog posts and earn a commission from any sales generated via those links.
The Amazon affiliate commission rates are not exceptionally high, but the trust that people have in the Amazon brand does provide a reasonable conversion rate.
If you have never used the Amazon affiliate program before, though, there are few things you will need to know if you want to maximize your earnings. Here are eight tips to help you make money from the Amazon Associates Program.
Don’t Hide the Fact that You Are Using Affiliate Links
Don’t attempt to hide the fact that you may earn a commission on your Amazon sales. Readers of blogs are used to using links to Amazon, so they won’t hold it against you if you are making money from your blog through affiliate links.
It is a part of the Amazon Associates terms of service (TOS) that you declare you are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.
So, you may as well be open about the fact that you are participating in the Amazon Affiliates Program.
Don’t Over Hype Products
If you have reasonable traffic coming to your blog, you must have a blog that people trust. So, don’t break that trust by overhyping products to make more money.
If users of your website are disappointed with the products that you recommend, they won’t come back to your site again. Also, it is against the Amazon Associates TOS to make false or exaggerated claims about products.
Only Pick Products that are Relevant to Your Niche
When you are searching for products to promote, only pick items that are relevant to your niche and to the page on which you want to mention them.
Think about the value to the reader that affiliate links will provide rather than how much money you can make. You want to monetize your blog with Amazon affiliate links, but you do not want to alienate your readers.
Use Text Links and Native Ads
You can link to amazon products via text links, and Amazon provides native shopping ads that you can insert into your content. There are also some excellent Amazon affiliate plugins that you can use to create Amazon links blog pages.
Plugins and native ads work well, but do not underestimate the power of a simple text link. A simple mention of a product that you recommend within the body of your content can yield surprisingly good results.
Don’t Hide or Cloak Your Affiliate Links
Cloaking or hiding your Amazon affiliate links is another tactic that could get your Amazon Associates affiliate account closed. Even so, a lot of people do try to disguise their affiliate links to Amazon products.
Hiding or cloaking links may get you more click-throughs in the short term, but it will also annoy your readers.
As mentioned above, if you are transparent and honest with your affiliate links, your readers will trust your site more.
If you are using a WordPress PlugIn such as Thirsty Affiliates, simply put all of your amazon links in the Amazon Category and check those as UNCLOAK.
Don’t Overdo the Affiliate Links
When you first start adding Amazon affiliate links to your blog, you may get tempted to add too many links. Avoid the temptation to go overboard with affiliate links because it will make your website look crowded and messy, and too many ads of any type will annoy readers.
Use Product Images
Product images enhance your blog posts, and they are an excellent way of generating Amazon Affiliate sales. However, be aware that you should only use royalty-free images or images that you have permission to use.
You should not download product images from Amazon because that is against Amazon Associates’ terms of service.
You can, though, add pictures of products from Amazon using Amazon Site Stripe or plugins that use the Amazon Application programming interface (API).
Give It Time
It can take a while to build up a reasonable income from Amazon affiliate links, so you will need to be patient. Even so, if you begin adding affiliate links and ads to all your blog posts, your revenue will gradually grow.
Your affiliate links can generate income for you for many years to come. So, participating in the Amazon Associates Program can provide a reliable source of passive income.
Conclusion
As you will see from the above tips, getting started with Amazon affiliate links Is not difficult. Even so, you must remember that people visit your blog to read your content, not to see hundreds of ads.
If you place your affiliate links sparingly and keep your content looking natural, you can keep your readers happy and monetize your blog.
Lori Ballen is a real estate agent in Las Vegas. She’s a digital marketing specialist, speaker, and marketing coach and loves to share her “Ballen Method” to generate website traffic and leads online. Lori’s specialties are SEO content writing (ranking on the search engines), social media strategies, and affiliate marketing. Need a website? Contact Lori’s brothers Jeff and Paul Helvin at Ballen Brands.
