At the risk of sounding like I know what I am doing- I have been playing around with code in some of my Wordpress plugins. Some of the Amazon plugin automatically embed Amazon products into your posts using Amazon API key and search index function. By default the category i in plugins is usually books but I wanted to change to be more specific- like electronics in posts about Blu-Ray players, etc.
After playing around here are the categories I cam up with- I have found the more tailored amazon affiliate links are to the post the higher the CTR and the better conversion to sales. I have an excellent conversion to sales with Amazon and it almost rivals my Adsense revenue at this point.
I am also very wary of relying to heavily on AdSense ( or any one single revenue stream) and happy that I have invested time with Amazon. It is not nearly as easy as slapping in some code on your posts but can be worth the effort in long run. It took almost a year of diligent link embedding in several blogs for me to see real progress and earn income worth mentioning.
My biggest months by far for Amazon and other affiliate revenue are November and December. I probably do about half of the my years Amazon revenue in just those two months. This year I expect to break the 5,000 mark in December. ( At least i did, I am not sire what will happen to retail this Christmas) I am also bit behind on everything because of car accident and my vision loss. I am learning to use voice to text software and that should help.
The secret to making money off of Amazon is not to stick an Amazon affiliate ad in your sidebar or do up a couple of pages on your blog of your favourite books or movies but to embed links to product through your whole blog.
I am conscious of this throughout the whole year and use season as a guide. I generally write about 2-3 months ahead so I can build up backlinks to the post, be ahead of the curve and cross link heavily.
If you do not have any Christmas post or ideas for Christmas, start thinking NOW. Don’t be heavy handed, Go though you blog and find references to Christmas post and see if you can work in an affiliate product link somehow. Star writing some post about about products and weave in Christmas keywords. write about how the current economy will change your buying habits this year. What would you have bought What will you buy now?
Places that sell text links like Text Links Ads will have advertisers who want to advertise on pages that relate to Christmas so keep this in mind when you right up update your blogs content. More advertising dollars are spent now than at anytime of year and advertiser want to find places to spend their money- make your one of them.
scan affiliates at Cj.com for Christmas related product and services items that you can use and pop into posts. A decent commission for affiliate ads is 10% or more when dealing with Commission Junction. Keep this in mind when choosing an affiliate link Also balance with credibility. Look at the site. I would rather link to a site offering 7% commission that is reputable , easy to use and has good copy than one that has 10% commission and a crappy site that scares visitors away.
Google Ad Manager is a new service offered by Google for Google Adsense publishers. You can use it to sell ad space. It lets you set up and manage ads on your site or blog very easily.
An idea whose time has come for many site owners and bloggers who are not comfortable/don;t know how or don’t have a safe payment method set up for advertisers to buy ad space.
One significant factor is valuable real; estate that may otherwise be taken up by a ” your site here” ad can also be used with Adsense Ads.
using the new Ad Manager to not be as intuitive as Google Adsense. It is not something you can can start and finish in 5 minutes.
The tutorial the Google is using for the new program is awful and bound to leave many newbies in tears.
I started setting u today and when I have a bit of data I will post some hints and tips on using Google Ad Manager. It is sure to be a powerful tool- especially when it comes to reporting.
The term is bit vulgar - I apologize. This is a term I use when I take a very popular post on a blog and completely pimp it out to squeeze every once of money and value out of it.
There may be better or more effective ways to do it but this is how my mind works and how I get from point A to depositing a cheque in the bank.
To Pimp Out Your Blog Posts
You MUST ave a popular blog with good, solid traffic and lots of quality content. If your blog is new or you don’t have many posts or readers then you will piss people off. You are taking a popular post and totally prostituting it so you better have some quality stuff surrounding it if you want to maintain credibility.
If your blog is new and you dont have a lot of good content- stop reading now and come back in a few months,
Figure out What ARE your most Popular Posts.
These change day to day depending on news and season. I generally just use something like Daily Top 10 plugin for wordpress You can also see what’s going on using Mybloglog or any analytics program. You basically want posts with lots of traffic. This method will also work very well on “Best Blah Blah Lists”, for example “Best Christmas Albums for Jazz Lovers” I may set this up as a test on the site a report back on result despite it not being a popular post (yet).
What Kids of Posts Work Well for Monetizing:
-Product posts work very well. This is why “top” or “best” lists work very well. I may have a popular post on how to stop page rank bleeding but will not get me a great return on any products. This is why if you are going to create “make money blogging” type site forget about the making any money part .
Take a look at your existing popular posts and see if there is a way to include products on the post- software? electronic something? tool? equipment? Beef up the post if you can with mentions of tools or utilities you use. Don’t be obvious about it- only add the info if it enhances the post.
Pimp Out Your Post
Throw every things you got at it -in an intelligent way.
1. Google Adsense - The Best Ad Size to Use for Highest CTR
What is the best Google ad size to use?
The BEST ad to use for Google Adsense HANDS DOWN no questions asked when you want a high click though rate is the 336×280 square. It is in your face but it does work. I wold not wrap your text if you to maximize. The first thing your reader should see when then land on your page is that ad- above the fold and preferably in the middle of the page.
2. Amazon Widgets
- I use a slideshow. I use the biggest size that will fit on my blog. I select 5-16 related products. Using my ” Best Christmas Albums for Jazz Lovers” scenario I would have in my slideshow all the albums listed and then some.
Place this bedside or under your large Adsense rectangle. Don’t embed it in your post. You want these ads above or as close to above the fold as possible.
Amazon recently added a widget for users to to listen to mp3’s- for this kind of post I would ad at the end of post and use some sort of call to action that will get them to listen, Like-” this is my favourite cut off the album- listen to it and tell me what you think” etc.
For the truly aggressive you could offer a contest or promotion and have readers write a review, or a post on their blog about a favorite memory that one of song invokes.
Add product images. If a long-ish post add some product images. Breaking up paragraphs create visual interest. Do NOT go too big and by all means embed and wrap into post text.
Text Affilate Links- Commission Junction, Amazon, etc.
Make sure you link your products to affiliates . I prefer Amazon for lots of reasons. I do a bit with Commission Junction for the really niche products . In a text link embedded in a post I rarely leave the anchor text untouched. I will edit to make it sound more natural and I almost always add nofollow tags.
You can also try linking to presell pages. Link to other posts on your site that review or describe the product in more detail and that pages links to affiliate.
Use Your Posts Popularity to Boosts Other Pages
Use your popular posts to encourage visitors to visit other related post that might be buried. A plugin like Related Posts is limited. With the ‘Best Christmas Jazz list” you could also mention in post that you have a list of “Best Fathers Day Gifts for Audiphiles” or whatever the season dictates.
Popular posts also are a good way to get readers to subscribe to your feed and newsletter- Make sure you are using call to action and not mamby pamby wording.
What NOT to Do to your Popular Posts
Don’t sacrifice integrity of your blog for some quick and easy money on a few pages. I do this to 10-20 pages on a blog where I have all ready established myself to my readers. My blogs are not littered with affiliate ads in sidebar and header. I will say this again you will PISS OFF readers if you do this to all your pages and lose all credibility .
Do not over sell a product or give too much information- This is directly opposite to the idea of linking to a pre-sell page where you go into greater detail about book/product/service. It is a bit fo trial and error.
If I use a popular post to links to pre-sell page then the person who follow the link is all ready pretty intersted and the pre-selll page can tip them over to buy the item. Sometimes.
Mentioning product in a post without giving away too much information may encourage reader to click on the affiliate link and a cookie is dropped and you will get cut of whatever they buy within a time period i.e Amazon is 24 hours and other affiliates can be as long as 30 days. There is no right answer on which is best- it is situational and you will have to test.
I will say during Christmas season getting a reader to click on affiliate link when buying trends are high is more effective then trying to “sell” one specific product.
You can really maximize a popular blog post and drive up its revenue by being aggressive with Google ads and affiliate links. It takes careful balance not to turn off your reader and should be handled with care.
If you want ideas for specific site then feel free to post site info in comments section.
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