When Should I Start Monetizing My Blog with Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing has become a major source of income for thousands of bloggers and helped them gain something most people only dream of – passive income streams. Affiliate marketing is one of the key ways people monetize their blogs, but at what point should you start monetizing? With your first post? When you have a hundred visitors a day, a thousand?
Today we’ll answer some of the most-asked questions about when to time the monetization of your blog.
How Long Should I Have My Blog Before Starting with Affiliate Marketing?
There’s no rule about how long you need to have a blog before you start monetizing it. Most people can start monetizing a new blog right away – as long as you can get an affiliate link for a product, you can promote it.
The main thing you should consider is how you integrate these affiliate links to ensure you gain the necessary traffic to actually make money. If you have a blog that already gets a good amount of traffic – great, that’s a perfect time to monetize.
If you’re just starting out there’s no reason why you shouldn’t monetize either, just ensure your focus stays on creating a site people actually want to spend time on and content they want to spend time with, or they’ll never get to the part where you “pitch” the affiliate product.
Essentially, the more traffic you already have, the better chance you have of making money right off the bat. It’s also important to note that some affiliate marketing networks won’t accept you until you have a certain sized audience, so always focus on gaining quality traffic.
How Much Blog Traffic Do I Need to Start Making Money?
Well, to a certain extent, this question is like asking how long a piece of string is. In theory, one visitor could make you money. If you had a small but loyal following of 500, and 10% bought a product you recommended for what equates to $100 in your pocket, you would make $5,000.
If you have a large amount of traffic that comes and goes, and never really answers your CTAs (calls-to-action), you may have 50,000 visitors a day, but only 1% click-through, meaning you would make $500.
So, the answer to how much traffic you need to “monetize my blog” or “make money with my blog” is any, but generally the more the better.
Also keep an eye on your analytics tools, and keep an eye on bounce rates and repeat visitors. You want to minimize bounce rate and keep visitors around on your site for as long as possible, so utilize other strategies like email marketing, to capture your visitors for good.
How Do I Find an Affiliate Network to Work With?
The best thing is to do a simple Google search for affiliate networks to work with, or go on Pinterest (a blogging mecca for many niches) and search “affiliate networks and blogging” or “affiliate networks for (insert your particular niche here)” and you’ll find plenty of lists of not only possible affiliate networks, but industry-specific networks too, if they exist. You can also identify brands that resonate with your audience and then search on Google for that brand name plus “affiliate program.”
Before you apply, you’ll need to have your website up and running, and make sure to check the guidelines for what that specific network looks for in new bloggers – often called “publishers” – as some affiliate networks require you to have an established audience before they’ll work with you.
So, when can you start monetizing your blog? Right away – just keep creating great, helpful content and there’s a good possibility you’ll make meaningful income from the affiliate marketing you do on your blog. Many other bloggers are doing just that, and you can too.
