The best affiliate programs for bloggers to earn money
Creating blogs and video blogs have become a fashion
. The number of bloggers are growing every day. Many earn a passive income from it and some bloggers have made it their profession due to the many lucrative affiliate programs available. Each of these programs have their own benefits and each program has its own set of rules for getting approved.
Your chances of earning more from these affiliate programs increase dramatically if your content is unique, of high quality and of interest to your audience. Constant updating is a must to make any inroads in the crowded world of blogging and earn a monthly income.
I find the following programs the best for getting the best deal from one’s website or apps or YouTube channel.
AdSense and Admobs by Google:
Any blogger approved by Google’s AdSense is eligible to carry ads.
AdSense requires the following factors to approve a website to carry its ads. They are:
- Your domain name should be registered for a minimum of three years.
- There should be a Contact us The contact us page should have the same email id with which you are applying to AdSense.
- You shouldn’t be affiliated to any other program while applying for AdSense. After you are approved you can go for the other programs.
- Get an ssl certificate while getting a domain.
- All your pages in your websites should be seo friendly.
- You should have at least a minimum of 5 blogs published in your website when applying for AdSense.
I put AdSense on top in the list of affiliate programs, because it pays per click of the ad in your website and it pays per video ad watched in your YouTube channel.
AdSense pays differently for different parts of the world for each click on the ads. I strongly suggest that you do not click your own ads, everything is tracked, and there is a high possibility of google banning your AdSense account. Once you’re are banned you are banned for life.
When you reach your first 10 usd AdSense will ask for your home address. They will send a pin verification. It may take 2-4 weeks depending on your location. You can verify your pin a maximum of three times. Sometimes the pin takes time to come or doesn’t come at all as it could be misplaced via courier. If this happens you have to upload a valid id proof.
AdSense has a minimum pay-out threshold of 100 usd. Usually your payment of ads from websites of the previous months gets updated by the 5th of the next month and the payment from YouTube ads by the 15th of the next month. It can be transferred via bank or via western union. I have taken the bank transfer as it is a lesser head ache.
Getting your ads approved by AdSense entirely depends on your luck. Mine was approved with only 5 seo friendly blogs. Other bloggers even after writing for 6 months have not got approval.
Ad mobs is also a part of the google network and is only for apps or games in the mobile market. When you make an app and publish it in google play and app store for iOS I would suggest that you use ad mobs ads in it to generate money.
My suggestion is to go for AdSense for your website and YouTube channel and ad mobs for mobile apps or device, all three together will ensure that you earn consistently.
YouTube partnership policy keeps changing every time. In 2017 channels which had 10,000 + views could monetize their channel with ads. Luckily I had my game trailer which helped me through this and I was making money with my YouTube channel for almost a year.
Then in Jan 2018 YouTube changed its policy asking for a minimum of 1000 subscribers and at least 4000 hours of watch time in the last 1 year to be eligible for monetisation. This came as a rude shock for every Youtuber be it a big timer or a small timer.
I understand that this new policy will ensure quality. With 1000 subscribers others can fund your channel monthly. You can also put paid content in your channel after 1000 subscribers. YouTube had two types of payments, one was for YouTube ads and the other was for YouTube red i.e. paid content and funding.
Amazon ads:
Online shopping has caught on dramatically. Bloggers can also earn by cashing in on this new trend. My suggestion is to go ahead and sign up with amazon.com and Amazon.in or Amazon in whichever the country you live in. The only thing you need is to have your website approved by Amazon. The best part is that you get to choose over 1 million products to advertise on your website.
Unlike AdSense where they pay per click, Amazon pays per sale from the click of amazon ads from your websites.
For each product bought via your Amazon ad via your website you earn a commission. The percentage of commission entirely depends on the product and the highest commissions are for the Kindle books.
The pay-out is different for different amazon sites, a minimum of 100 usd threshold is there for amazon.com and since I am an Indian I have signed up with amazon.in and the threshold for the amount is 1000 Indian rupees.
Since I was an individual showing ads of amazon and AdSense and few others, Amazon kept asking me to register myself as a company for taxation purposes. If you are taking this up seriously I suggest you to register yourself as a company.
Hostgator:
Godaddy being the biggest domain and hosting services in the world does not give its affiliate program easily. If you are lucky to get it, go for it. Otherwise go for Hostgator. It is also one of the best domain and hosting services in the world. The only requirement for getting approval is to have a website. Plus the hosting plans in Hostgator are a lot cheaper and thus better than godaddy. There are many offers which keep popping up in the Hostgator affiliate programs. Since I am an Indian I have signed up with Indian Hostgator affiliate. Per sale I get about 1500 Indian rupees (20-25 USD) and the minimum threshold is 3000 Indian rupees (about 50 usd).
Apple (iOS) affiliate program:
If your website traffic is mainly from mobile and especially from apple devices, I suggest that you go for the apple iOS affiliate program.
The only thing you need to have for getting it approval is a website. You may never know, people might buy apple music or buy an app or watch a movie from your apple affiliate links. Since I have my own game I used the affiliate link in my website.
There are many other affiliate programs but I feel these are the best. If you have enough traffic for your websites and your YouTube channel and maybe an app or a game in the stores, the above affiliate programs are enough to make good money monthly. My suggestion is not to bank on AdSense alone but to keep others as well when you are starting out.
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