Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Business Articles, Earning Money Online, Home Business Articles
Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs: Step Three – Content Makes the World Go Round: Reviews, Interviews, Quality Content.
June 3, 2009 by NicoleDean · 2 Comments
Welcome back to Day Three in the “How to Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs”. If you’re just joining us, you can catch up on the first two days at the link above.
On Day One I showed you how to get a blog set up and running for $10 – plus the cost of the domain and only $5/month hosting. So, basically less than ordering pizza for your family, even with good coupons!
On Day Two, I showed you how to figure out which categories to set up and where to look for targeted products with great affiliate programs to promote.
Well, I’m back with Day Three. And, this is the part that people tend to get stuck with.
What Do I do Now? What should I write about?
Well, my friends, let me start by saying this is not nearly as difficult as you’d think.
You can write your blog posts yourself of course. Or you can borrow or even buy blog posts from other places.
Let’s Start with Ways to Borrow or Brainstorm Content
Guest Columnists
Right here, right now. Who’s writing this blog post? Not Melissa, even though she’s a fine writer. It’s me, Nicole Dean. Know what she’s paying me to do this? Nada.
So, why am I doing it?
She’s posting about these blog posts on Twitter, telling her newsletter about it and announcing the Blog Tour on her podcast – all of which is super cool. I’m doing the same.
It’s a win-win situation.
I get to reach an entirely new audience as does she, while she gets the benefit of having a Guest Expert on her blog.
All without any sweat or tears on her part.
Melissa also has other contributors on this site. Look around and you’ll see her panel of experts. And, you want to know what a small world it is? Melissa has been a guest expert on my site www.ShowMOMtheMoney.com for quite some time, too.
See? http://showmomthemoney.com/author/multitasking-mama/ Told you she was a good writer!
So, one way of getting content on your website is to get guest experts. Now, before you start thinking that there’s no way someone would want to contribute to your brand new blog, there are a few ways around that issue.
They don’t call me a ‘content expert’ for nothing.
Free Reprint Articles & Audios.
Go to places like LadyPens.com and you’ll find articles written by experts on a variety of topics. The authors are screened prior to being accepted so there is no junk allowed. You may grab any of the articles on the site and post them on your blog, just as long as you include the author bio/resource at the end. It would say something like…
Nicole Dean is the mostly-sane online business coach and mom of two. Are you a Work at Home Mom looking for ways to get more traffic? Take Nicole’s Web Traffic School tutorial – Free! www.webtrafficbasics.com
I always recommend that, when you use articles from places like LadyPens.com or EzineArticles.com that you add an intro to the beginning of the article so that your page is a little different than the one posted at the article directory.
So, basically, if you can copy & paste, you can have guest experts from LadyPens on your blog.
If you notice, at LadyPens, you can also grab free reprint audios that you can post on your blog.
Where else do you see that going on?
Free Affiliate Articles
Similar to LadyPens.com, there are experts who will allow you to use their articles on your blog, but there’s a cool twist.
In the author bio, instead of linking to the website like you normally would, you can sometimes link to the author’s website using your affiliate link for their product or service.
Cool, isn’t it? Now, to do that, you can search through article directories and ask the authors if it’s ok for you to use their articles as an affiliate. Some will say “yes” and others will not understand and will say “no”.
Or, you can go to FreeAffiliateArticles.com and find a bunch of authors who have already agreed to allow you to reprint their articles with your affiliate link inside.
Interviews
I do interviews all the time. In fact, I normally do 1-5 per week – a combination of written and audio interviews. Why? Because, again, I get to reach a new crowd of people who may like me and want to learn more from me.
If I do interviews, you know that other people do, too. In fact, just go to www.BlogTalkRadio.com and you’ll find a whole slew of people who are being interviewed day in and day out.
Audio interviews are great, but, text interviews are even easier. Just write up a few questions and email it to someone who your readers would enjoy learning more about. (If that person has a product or service that you can recommend with your affiliate link – even better!)
Authors, experts, speakers – everywhere you look, you’ll find people who want exposure. Since you’re now a blogger, you can help them to get it, while building up your blog as a valuable resource for others.
Excerpts
I’m an Affiliate Manager. What that means is that I Recruit, Train, Motivate and Manage affiliate programs for others. Well, I’m not taking clients anymore, because I’ve found my perfect job. I’ve been the affiliate manager for Jimmy D. Brown who is an amazing mentor and friend for several years.
Well.. where this is going is that we offer excerpts of his most popular courses in our affiliate center at www.InfoProfitShare.com for affiliates to use to promote his programs. So, I’m sure you can find other affiliate sites in your niche that might do the same.
Videos
Oh, how I love YouTube.com. It’s full of fresh content for the taking. You can embed most of the videos on YourTube.com and other video sites into YOUR blog.
See? You can even grab mine here: Nicole Dean Videos! (So sorry about the scarceness of them… I’m working on that.)
Heck, if you want to talk about your favorite products and services and post the video on your blog with a link, you can certainly do well with affiliate marketing.
And, those ideas are just off the top of my head! You think you can work with that for awhile?
Let’s Move On to Ways to Buy Content
Now, I’m kind of flying through this since I don’t want the blog post to be so long that no one reads through it. So, here are two ways to buy blog posts…
Ghostwriters
A ghostwriter is someone who writes for you, as you. They take no credit for the work and you keep it forever.
The benefits of this are obvious. Less work for you!
The drawbacks are – money out of your pocket and finding a great ghostwriter.
Where can you look? Your first stop should be Shelancers.com. Of course you can also ask around and post on eLance.com, too.
PLR Content
This is one of my most favorite inventions. This is similar to hiring a ghostwriter, except that the articles are sold to multiple people.
Here’s what I mean. I could find PLR articles about just about any niche, and buy them affordably. The owner of the PLR site sells the same articles to anywhere from 25-2000 other people, so you can get them pretty affordably. (Less expensive than hiring a ghostwriter to write them for you.)
Once you have the articles, you then use them as drafts for your blog. I always encourage you to edit them to make them your own. Change the title, add your thoughts, add examples that are specific to your niche.
The only real drawback to PLR is finding articles on the correct topic that are quality. Luckily I have a good source for you: www.EasyPLR.com (or learn more at www.EasyPrivateLabelArticles.com )
Well, I’d better run so that you actually have time to choose a few of these ideas and implement them.
I’ll be back tomorrow with the next step.
Warmly,
Nicole Dean on her Rock Star Blog Summer Tour









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