[su_note note_color=”#ffffff”]// I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. This helps me support my family at no extra cost to you. //[/su_note]
So now, you've started your own blog and you've written a few solid posts. Yay! Congratulations! For most of you, that means that now you're probably looking to earn some money. And that's great! I love that I can do something I really enjoy from the comfort of my home and make some money to boot and I want to show you how you can do it, too. And it's so, so EASY! So read on to learn how to make money blogging using ShareASale!
ShareASale is one of the largest affiliate networks out there and, hands down, my favorite one to work with. There are two types of people who use ShareASale – affiliates and merchants. Merchants are the companies, brands, and people who are offering you the opportunity to share information about their products or services and paying you to promote them. An affiliate (what you would be as a blogger) is the person who makes a kickback every time you write about or share a merchant's product or service and someone uses your link to buy it. It is beyond easy to get set up to become a ShareASale affiliate partner. Here's how to do it:
Sign Up For ShareASale
To start, just sign up for the affiliate program. Big Fat Tip: There is NO minimum requirement for page views or visitors to become an affiliate with ShareASale. Visit the site and look for the option in the upper righthand corner to sign up for an account.
Search And Sign Up For Merchants
Once you’ve signed up for your access to the ShareASale affiliate platform, you are able to check out all the merchants and find ones that you'd like to promote on your blog. The sky's the limit on how many merchants you can promote and what types you sign up for. Big Fat Tip: At first, I'd stick with merchants that fit your blog's niche – it will help you to focus on products and services that you can easily promote. You can always look for “outside the box” merchants later when you are more comfortable with the process of promoting affiliate links. Use the menu at the top of the page to find merchants (which you can do by clicking on “Merchants -> Search for Merchants” while logged into your ShareASale dashboard).
Use the search options to find merchants by typing keywords to help you find specific merchants or products. For example, I frequently write about weddings and pregnancy so I'd start by putting those into the search engine and seeing what comes up. If you're still at a loss for what keywords to use, you can also try searching merchants by categories.
Reading The Merchant Details
When you find a company you're interested in, check out the general details of the affiliate program. The general details show up in the merchant search and are a great way to get a quick idea on if a company would be a good match for you. The name of the company is on the left and underneath it will be a link to to join the program (it literally says “JOIN PROGRAM”) and if you’re already enrolled, it will say “ENROLLED IN PROGRAM”. next to that information, you can also see how much you make for each sale (when someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase). Big Fat Tip: You can also click on the “DETAILS” tab to see even more specific about the program.
To help you get started, here's a few of my very favorite affiliate programs:
- Mixbook
- One King's Lane
- Warby Parker
- Hips & Curves
- 100% Pure
- Beau-Coup
- Wedding Paper Divas
- Flirty Aprons
- Tiny Prints
- ModCloth
- Grokker
- Cents of Style
- Zazzle
- Luna Bazaar
- Blurb
- Download & Print
- Tea Collection
- Grammarly, Inc.
- Julep
- Stella & Dot
- Cricut
- Cyber Chimps
- Easy Closets
- Frecklebox
Joining An Affiliate Program
When you click want to join a program and have clicked on the “JOIN PROGRAM” link, you'll be presented with a box where you will be asked to share a summary of your blog and why you want to promote that merchant. Big Fat Tip: You’ll have to do this for every program you join, so just write up a generic paragraph and save it in a Word document. Just so you know, it usually takes a day or two for a merchant to approve you.
Promoting Your Affiliate Links
Once you've been accepted into a program, there are several ways to monetize your affiliate links. The easiest way is to toss up some banner ads and be on your way. You can do this by visiting your ShareASale dashboard, clicking on the “Links>Get Links”, and scrolling through your merchants via the Specific Merchant dropdown menu. Select your merchant and then click the “Refresh Report to View Below” button. Scroll down and click “Get Links”. That specific merchant's linking options will appear. Click on the “BANNERS” tab.
Now you can every single banner available to you from this merchant. Use the search box above to narrow down banners by size, keywords, and category. To get the HTML code for that banner, just click on the banner image and a box will appear where you can highlight and copy the entire code (with the image and link) to paste into your blog in the “TEXT” view. Big Fat Tip: Banner ads are nice but don't convert as well as in post text links. i try to add a few banner ads to my sidebar but I also like to include them at the bottom of individual posts.
The best way (i.e. the biggest opportunity to convert clicks into sales and MAKE MONEY) is to use text links. You can do this by visiting your ShareASale dashboard, clicking on the “Links>Get Links”, and scrolling through your merchants via the Specific Merchant dropdown menu. Select your merchant and then click the “Refresh Report to View Below” button. Scroll down and click “Get Links”. That specific merchant's linking options will appear. Click on the “TEXT LINKS” tab.
Now you can every single text link available to you from this merchant. Use the search box above to narrow down links by keywords and category. To get the HTML code for that link, just click on the “Get HTML Code” at the far righthand side of the text link that you want. A box will appear where you can highlight and copy the entire code (with the image and link) to paste into your blog. If you'd like to change the text that appears in your post then just paste the whole code in the “TEXT” view, switch back to the “VISUAL” view, and change it to the word(s) you want. Big Fat Tip: Randomly linking your text is posts is great but you'll see more conversions if you create tutorials or round-ups that specifically showcase the products and services.
Disclosing Affiliate Links
Always, always, ALWAYS add a disclosure at the TOP OF YOUR POST (before the first outgoing affiliate link) that tells your readers that you are using affiliate links. It's the law. Big Fat Tip: JUST FREAKING DO IT.
How will you be using your ShareASale links to make money?
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