Retailers around the world are capitalizing on the retail season. Sports bloggers have a chance to make some additional money as well. By using an affiliate program, and some timely recommendations there is opportunity to supplement your blogging income. With the holiday season upon us, a post suggesting gift ideas related to your topic or team might be appreciated by your readers.
I’d imagine that most bloggers, if they haven’t already signed up for an affiliate program, are at least familiar with them. Amazon is probably the most common and well known program. You sign up to be an associate, and then if a reader clicks a link on your page that results in a sale, you’ll get a percentage of the sale. The percentage is typically small (4-10%), but then again you’re not really doing that much. While Amazon is the most popular, there are others. Art.com also offers products relevant to sports bloggers and has an affiliate program as well. Programs like Linkshare and Clickbank are affiliate aggregators where by signing up you can participate in a number of affiliate programs at once.
Now you probably have a relationship with your readers, and you don’t want to alienate them. Your readers trust you, and you don’t want to sacrifice that for a couple bucks here and there. If you’re recommending or suggesting a product, you probably only want to push products that you actually believe in.
The other item to consider is whether or not you disclose that you receive a percentage of each sale. Many feel it isn’t necessary, because many readers are web savy enough to know it is probably an affiliate program. If I use a product link with the picture I don’t usually indicate that it is an affiliate link. If it is a text link I typically note “aff link” in parentheses. I’m not sure that one way is right or wrong, I just prefer to disclose the information. The other advantage to disclosing an affiliate link, is that loyal readers may choose to buy the product through your link to support your site.
In addition to “suggested gift shopping” you may want to go back to older, popular posts where you mention books or products that could be linked as well.
For additional affiliate tips I’d recommend 10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on Your Blog from Problogger.
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