Make Money Blogging: Tips and Techniques - [2020] Part 3 of 5

Make Money Blogging: Tips and Techniques - [2020] Part 3 of 5

Make Money Blogging: Tips and Techniques - [2020] 

Part 3

Product Reviews.

Promoting Affiliate products.

A much better way than simply displaying affiliate ads on your blog is to promote them by writing product reviews. Write about the products you really like or even use yourself, first of all addressing the problems they solve, as well as giving an easy-to-read review of their main features and benefits for users.

Quite often the product description that comes from the seller/manufacturer is scarce and skips on some important details that users want to know before they can make up their minds on whether they need it. And if you conduct research on topical forums, blogs or even ask the seller itself for information that you believe is vital to potential users, then you may write and publish a great product review.

When writing it, present yourself as an expert in your field by sharing practical tips and offering more insightful comments on really helpful features.  Avoid hard-selling tactics, instead be sincere in sharing your thoughts on the pros and cons of the product, using informal language and interspersing your posts with occasional humor.

If your review turns out really helpful and informative, people will be more likely to buy the product via your affiliate link merely as a way to say “thank you” for the great job you have done. Even if they don’t buy the product, you will still benefit from additional visitors that come and read your posts, and some of those visitors may eventually become your permanent readership. And the bigger your readership gets, the higher the potential is your revenue, as people will occasionally click on your ads, subscribe to services or buy products.

If your readers leave comments asking a question or inquiring about further details on the product, be sure to answer them timely and constructively.

Publishing Sponsored Reviews.

This method of blog monetization is becoming more and more popular lately. The essence is that many advertisers are happy to pay a blogger for visiting their site, writing a product review and publishing it at his/her blog. Quite often the review article stays permanently on your blog, so for the advertiser, it’s not only exposure of the product to your readership, but also a way to get a topically-related link (!) and thus is a method to link building.

Below I am giving a list of most popular product review sites and advise you to join as many as you can. Some of them may reject you upon or after registration (e.g., if you don’t have enough traffic, post too rarely or irregularly, etc.), while others may prove to be of little efficiency.

It doesn’t hurt to try them all and see which one works out best for you. Ultimately, the more review services you join, the higher your chances to make money. If you get too busy, you can always drop some of the programs later on.

Main Resources:

These are the main players in the field:

ReviewMe - quite picky;  minimum no. of subscribers and traffic requirements

PayPerPost - blog min 90 days old,  min 20 posts written within 90 days prior to registration

SponsoredReviews - $5 to $1000 per review, bid system, the one I use and recommend

Blogsvertise - $4 - $25 per entry, no minimum traffic requirement.

Additional Resources:

Blogitive.com - no requirements published;

Loud Launch - paid posts or press release distribution; blog min 60 days old, must be regularly updated

Blogging Ads - pay for posting ads; low PR blogs not accepted; 6 weeks approval time

A blog to Profit - plain text ads; 90% of content & inbound links must be indexed by SEs

V7N Contextual Links - paid to place contextual links; no minimum requirements

Thinking of your readers.

Sometimes advertisers may contact you directly, asking to write a review about their products and offer you a free sample or a gift certificate as a payment (or in addition to payment). If that is the case, you can think of sharing the benefits with your readers by setting up a contest for the most interesting/valuable comment. You can even ask the sponsor (advertiser) to offer an additional free sample or gift voucher to the best commenter. This way all three parties involved - namely, the advertiser, your readers and yourself receive the benefit.

The idea of this mutual “three-way” benefit belongs to Mack Collier, and here is what he says:

This way, everyone benefits twice. One reader and myself both get a Target gift certificate. Target’s blog gets exposure here. Target also gets a ton of great advice from the community and myself on how to improve its blogging efforts. And myself and the readers also benefit from the great comments making the post more interesting.

I personally like this idea very much. After all, it’s great when you can make your readers happy by sharing a part of your benefits with them. This is a way to make friends and build a loyal readership for your blog.

Part 2

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