Pay per click (PPC) affiliate programs are a type of affiliate marketing program that pays based on (you guessed it) clicks. As an affiliate marketer, you are selling someone else’s product through your website. Under a pay-per-click arrangement, you get paid when someone clicks the link on your website to purchase another merchant’s goods.
Two of the most popular ways to get paid for clicks are the Amazon Associate program and by using Google AdSense to monetize your website. This article will outline proven practices within both of these programs, and also provide examples of businesses that have found success in these areas.
Google AdSense:
If you already run a website that gets traffic, Google AdSense could be your solution for making more money just from the traffic you already receive. By adding one piece of code to your site, Google will tailor ads to appear on your page, and you will be paid for clicks on these ads. With a successful website, AdSense can be a great source of income.
This all sounds great doesn’t it? But it is important to stay realistic. For most people, Google AdSense is really more of a passive income. Recent estimates are that in order to earn a full time income of $40,000/year, your site would have to get roughly 10,000 visitors per day. That is a significant amount of traffic, and not very attainable for most websites.
This is why your best bet with Google AdSense is to keep your focus where it likely was before, building your website with a focus on your target niche. AdSense will likely be more of a bonus on top of an already successful website, rather than a full-time source of income. If you start to think about it as the “cherry on top”, you will likely be happier with the extra income you receive.
How do I succeed with AdSense?
Many successful websites use AdSense to display ads throughout their website. From how-to websites like WikiHow (wikihow.com), to online newspapers like The Japan Times (japantimes.co.jp), to extremely popular link aggregating sites like Reddit (reddit.com), and many more in between.
There are several things you can do to help your chances of success with AdSense, but the one variable that stands out above the rest is traffic. People will not click your ads if they aren’t visiting your site. You need to build a website that gets significant traffic before you can start to succeed with AdSense.
If you already have the traffic, there are several tips that can help you optimize your ads for further success. For example, optimizing your mobile site so ads are easily clickable no matter where the consumer is browsing. Ads should also be shown prominently at the top of page so that the consumer doesn’t have to dig to find them. Webpages should load as fast as possible so that the consumer does not lose patience. All of these are proven tips, but your first priority should be providing quality content that attracts traffic to your website.
Amazon Affiliates:
The Amazon Associates program is one of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the world. Essentially, you create a website that sells something from Amazon’s enormous catalogue of products. If people click on your link and buy the product, you get paid a share of the sale. This is not a pure PPC strategy, as you are paid on earnings per click (EPC). However, the more impressions your site gets, the more people will click your links, and the more money you are likely to make. Traffic is still a massive indicator of your success, and your best bet is still in creating a site that ranks highly.
There are many ways to structure a successful affiliate marketing site. You can offer product reviews and comparisons, curate lists of unique or interesting products, create how-tos for various topics, and much more. The common denominator is generally a trustworthy website that is up-front with how they make money, and quality content that keeps people coming back.
If you are struggling to make content that appeals to your niche, Content Refined can help. Your personal product manager can evaluate your needs and work with you every step of the way. Content Refined can help you write content and optimize it around relevant keywords so that your affiliate site stands out above the rest.
Examples of successful Amazon Affiliates:
Thisiswhyimbroke.com:
This is Why I’m Broke curates fun, unique items that are mainly for gifts and novelty use. They rank highly in numerous search terms concerning gifts, and generate a lot of traffic by continuously posting fun, interesting, or weird products. They have built a strong niche by curating unique items from across the web, and are an excellent example of what a strong product catalogue can do.
Consumersearch.com:
Consumer Search ranks products based on real Amazon reviews. They effectively rank products in a certain category based on how they are received by people who have actually bought the product. Trust is a major part of their success, as people will more readily purchase an item that is well received by fellow consumers.
Wrap-up
As you can see, there are many ways to optimize clicks on your website to be successful in affiliate marketing. Amazon and AdSense are two of the most popular methods, but there are many examples of affiliate marketing success stories all over the Internet. The key is to focus on building a website that people want to visit. Carve out a niche and cater to it with high quality content, and success will follow.
