Making Money with Reviews
Sunday, November 15th 2009 @ 10:33 AM 
(5 ratings)
I suppose the actual title of this blog post should be, "Making Money with Affiliate Links" but I want to go a bit deeper and show one particular strategy that works very well.
I will assume that most of you reading this blog are already familiar with "Affiliate Marketing". There are many ways you can work with affiliates just as there are hundreds of types of affiliate programs you can join.
One of the most powerful ways to promote your affiliates is to feature a "Reviews" section on your membership site. This application is almost always overlooked as an income stream yet it is perfectly designed for it!
Before I go further, just a small caveat to mention is that obviously you need to provide authentic, honest reviews and create engaging content in your review to provide value to your members--this isn't about trying to "trick" anyone to buy.
The concept is very simple:
First, find a wide range of affiliate products that fit your membership site niche and more importantly, that you enjoy personally or believe in. I highly recommend using Linkshare simply because they offer literally thousands of affiliates and boast major clients such as Apple, Avon, CompUSA, Lands End, Zales, Netflicks and MANY more. Obviously you can (and should) also include other types of affiliates such as information products (ClickBank is generally known as the leader in this area).
Once you have a list of affiliates that you believe in, simply create a review of the product or service and share with your members what they offer and why they are worth checking out. Your affiliate link should be used on every review item you post.
A good friend of mine who runs a very successful membership site uses polls where he offers a free product download if his members will fill out his short poll. The poll is designed specifically to discover what his members really want--it could be a physical product, service or information. The members get a real item of value in exchange for giving him valuable information--the way transactions should work. He then uses the poll info and explores his affiliate list, finds the product, service or info product that fills the need and offers it back to the members in the form of a review.
The real "power" in using reviews is that you are not pushing your product on people. You aren't flashing a "BUY ME" ad on your homepage or sticking an affiliate widget in your sidebar. Sometimes these do work but they also are blatant ads that your members simply can "tune out" given all the advertising online these days. Reviews are much more subtle and more personal as you are given the opportunity to share your experience with the product/service/info and even allow an interaction via comments to discuss your review. Permission marketing at it's finest...
Michael Dunlop, the 20 year old pro-blogger of IncomeDiary.com uses a similiar affiliate marketing strategy on nearly every link on his successful blog. He provides information on how to start your own blogging business and every link is an affiliate link. If you want to learn more about where to buy your domain name and get your site hosted, Michael offers a chart of domain providers, what it costs and the pros and cons of each with a star rating of the one he prefers. Don't think he only has an affiliate link on just his preferred choice though...EVERY provider is an affiliate.
Michael is expected to be worth 10 million dollars by the time he is 25 and considering his current success, I wouldn't be surprised!
Dig into affiliate marketing and discover other innovative ways that you can provide valuable information and get paid to do it!