Review & giveaway bloggers you are leaving money on the table….

You work so hard to test, photograph and write about products, and you are proud and relieved when you finally hit publish on that review.  But you are leaving out something that could potentially earn you residual income for the life of your blog, and it doesn’t take that long to incorporate.

Did you know you can monetize your reviews and giveaways?

When I look at my blog stats and the search terms people use to find my blog, I often see them clicking over to my past reviews, some almost as old as my blog.  People use the web to find information, consumer opinions and where to buy certain products, that is the whole reason blog reviews have become such a popular form of advertising for companies.  There is no reason you shouldn’t profit from your hard work, provided you are a review blogger who has provided an unbiased opinion, presented the pros and the cons of the product and generally written a thorough, well-thought-out article.  But it’s not just limited to reviews.  Press releases, giveaways without reviews, or a personal blog post where you happen to mention a product your family uses, any time you mention a product, you should be providing people with a link where they can buy it.

There are two main things holding people back from incorporating affiliate links into their review and giveaway posts.

#1: They are afraid that it is not professional to make money off a product that a company sent you to review.

#2: They are afraid it is too much time and effort for too little return.

Is it ok to include affiliate links in review and giveaway posts?

Absolutely, unless someone has explicitly asked you not to for some reason.  The whole point of using bloggers to help promote products and services is TO GET PEOPLE TO PURCHASE THEM.  By using your affiliate links and directing people to where they can find and purchase the item you have reviewed is a BENEFIT to the advertiser.  The fact that you might make some money off it is the whole reason affiliate programs were created to begin with.  SO USE THEM.

Is it worth my time to add the affiliate links?

I believe it is.  You are not going to make a ton of money overnight, in fact, you may never make a ton of money with affiliates, but you already did the work reviewing the product and writing the post, take an few extra minutes and add the links.  Over time, you will find yourself making something off your affiliate links, and even if it amounts to pennies a day, it’s pennies that you didn’t have before but that you already did the hard work for – writing the article.

The key to monetizing your blog is diversification and patience.

Affiliate income is residual income.  Do not expect to slap up an affiliate banner on your site and have money rolling in.  You have to incorporate it into your content in order to really be successful.  Some people do find success with banners, but in my experience it’s just not the best use of your blogs real estate.  And even if you do have some success with placing affiliate banners in your sidebars, you are still missing out on the residual income you could be earning in your posts.

And just because you only earn a few pennies a day from something doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.  Very few people make money off their blogs using only a single income source.  You have to diversify and your pennies will add up to dollars.

Affiliate Programs

For a review blogger, the best and easiest affiliate program to sign up for and implement is Amazon Associates.  From any product or page on Amazon.com, members of Amazon Associates have quick an easy access to their affiliate links and banner for that particular product or page.  They have taken all the work out of it, all you have to do is grab your link!  They also have widgets and other banners and campaigns available in your Associates dashboard, but for simple links and product images, you can grab them right from Amazon if you are signed up for associates and logged in to your account.  If you are already an Amazon customer, your Associates account can be linked directly to that account and use the same login.

Additional affiliate networks that may contain affiliate programs from some popular stores are:

Linkshare

Commission Junction

Pepperjam Network

Shareasale

Each of those affiliate networks has a number of great advertisers, but for review and giveaway bloggers, your best bet is Amazon Associates or Linkshare.  Amazon has the benefits I listed above and Linkshare has Walmart.com as an advertiser and they also allow you to link to individual products like Amazon Associates, although Linkshare’s interface is nowhere near as intuitive as Amazon Associates for finding individual product links.

Monetizing your reviews

I recommend you do three things to monetize your products reviews.

1. Provide a text link using the name of the product as the keyword and link to the product using your affiliate link.
2. Provide a small manufacturer’s image of the product and link to the product using your affiliate link.
3. Provide suggestions on where to buy the product using the site name(s) as the keyword(s) and link to the product.

You never know which of those three methods will inspire someone to click over, so make you sure you do all three.

It also may help to provide a “price comparison” for your readers from a number of different stores, even if you don’t have an affiliate link for some of them, especially if the stores you have an affiliate link for have a lower price on the item, or free shipping, or something that makes that store more appealing.

With Amazon.com, I don’t recommend grabbing their entire code to create your links because it contains some extra stuff that you don’t need.  After you click on “link to this page” to bring up the screen to customize your links, just grab the code that is simply the link code, and create your own links in your posts (see the yellow highlighted section in the screen capture below).  Make sure all of your links are set to open in a new window so people do not leave your page.

Something you need to remember about affiliate links is that the person doesn’t need to buy the exact product you linked to in order for you to earn money.  A few months ago I linked to a $30 toy on Amazon, someone clicked through my link and ended up purchasing a $250 item instead, which I received a $10 commission on.  The “tracking cookie” on your Amazon Associates links lasts 24 hours, so as long as someone makes ANY purchase without closing the Amazon page within that 24 hours, you get credit.  Also, if someone adds something to their shopping cart using your link, but doesn’t purchase right away, you will still get credit if they buy it within 90 days before their shopping cart expires.  Most affiliate programs use some kind of tracking cookie, some valid up to 30 days (unless people clear their cookies manually).

Walmart’s link interface works much like Amazon’s except you access it from your Linkshare dashboard NOT from Walmart.com.

Once it has become habit for you to take a few extra minutes and include affiliate links in your reviews, you should go back to your past reviews and add the affiliate links into your posts.  Check your stats counter and see which ones are getting some search engine hits and start there first.  Eventually all of your published reviews, giveaways and press releases will become potential money makers for you and begin earning you some residual income.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to add this layer of monetization to your blog, because over time it could really pay off, especially considering how little time and effort is involved.

And if you want to buy that DVD I used in the example above The X-Files: I Want to Believe, it is currently $12.49 on Amazon. com and $19.86 at Walmart.com.

~Kim