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What To Do About the Recent Amazon Affiliate Commission Changes

Affiliate Sales • Making Money 2 Comments

Have you been affected by the recent Amazon affiliate commission changes as a blogger or influencer? Read this for some practical encouragement & advice!

Those of you who are Amazon affiliates probably know that Amazon released some pretty significant changes to their commission structure last week.

For a lot of people, this was really devastating news — especially if Amazon is one of your primary sources of income.

I have personally experienced this in the past with Amazon, and I want to offer some hope and encouragement!

My Past Experience With Major Commission Decreases

Not only did I get my commissions cut last week, but years ago Amazon did a major cut to my commissions.

How to Get over Your Fear of Marketing to Your Audience

Affiliate Sales • Blogging Tips • Email Marketing • Making Money • Product Creation Leave a Comment

Do you have a fear of marketing to your audience? Are you afraid of coming off as a sleazy sales person? Read this for some encouragement and practical advice!

Do you want to grow your blog and make a part-time or full-time income, but you’re afraid of selling to your audience? Are you fearful you might come off as a sleazy salesperson to your readers?

If you have a fear of marketing, I promise you’re not alone. This holds a lot of new and even experienced bloggers back from increasing their income!

Here’s what I suggest for getting over your fear of selling to your audience…

1. Change your mindset.

First off all, it’s important that you change your mindset — from selling to serving.

Instead of thinking about marketing to your audience, think about serving your audience well.

Serving your audience can often coincide with income-earning opportunities!

You might be letting your readers know about a great deal with an affiliate link, creating products that will meet their needs, or providing services that will help them be successful.

When you prioritize serving your readers well, it changes your perspective on marketing to your audience.

It’s a win-win opportunity. You can serve your audience well and also earn an income for your family (and maybe even eventually your employees!).

This will also help you think about opportunities from a service mindset instead of a selfish aspect.

Remember — it’s about making an impact, not making more money. The money will come over time, if you focus on serving well.

2. Ask yourself if you believe in your product.

If you’re going to sell something to your audience, you have to genuinely believe in what you’re selling.

Ask yourself if you believe in what you’re sharing and if you believe it will change lives.

As a blogger, you will be thrown SO many different income-earning opportunities. And it’s important that you believe in the ones you choose to promote.

I’ve turned down thousands and thousands of opportunities over the years because it’s not a good fit for me, my audience, or both.

You shouldn’t sell something that you can’t stand up on a stage and confidently declare how it makes a difference in your life.

And this includes your own products! You have to believe in your own products before you can get others to believe in them. Because if you don’t, nobody else will.

If you believe your product will change lives, you don’t have to beat around the bush, be mousey about it, hold back, or apologize for marketing. Because you know the product has the potential to change people’s lives, and you’re excited to share about it!

The truth is that your product won’t change everyone’s lives, and there will be people who don’t like it or disagree with you. And that’s okay.

But you need to believe that it will change the right people’s lives — the people who are eager for it, need it, and ready for it. Your market.

If you hold back out of fear, people will miss out and you won’t impact people the way you want to!

3. Provide free value to your audience regularly.

Don’t always sell.

Offer stuff for free regularly to serve your audience, build a relationship, and establish trust.

When you provide a lot of free value in this way, the money will come naturally later.

In fact, you might find that people even BEG you for premium products and services when you provide free value regularly and build relationship and trust with your audience.

Then, when the timing is right, you can make an offer or sell a product to an audience that is ready for it!

I try to serve, serve, serve…then sell.

So for every one time I sell something, I try to serve in free ways three times that amount.

And when you provide great value for free, people know they can expect amazing value if it’s a paid product!

What tips do you have for getting over a fear of marketing to your audience? Let us know in the comments!

Need More Affiliate Marketing Help?

Psst! If you’re looking for some ideas on affiliate programs to try out, be sure to sign up for our FREE list of 20+ top affiliate programs perfect for beginner bloggers!

The 4 Biggest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Affiliate Sales • Blogging Tips • Making Money 8 Comments

Are you brand new to using affiliate links? Take note of these biggest affiliate marketing mistakes to avoid!

If you’re just starting to use affiliate links, it’s really important to know how to use them to your best advantage so that your affiliate marketing strategies can be successful!

What is an affiliate link?

First of all, if you’re brand new to blogging and don’t know what an affiliate link is, it’s simply a link that a reader clicks on and earns you a commission by taking a certain action or making a purchase.

Affiliate marketing is a really great way to make a lot of money as a blogger. You can promote your favorite products, great offers and deals, sales, and more using affiliate links.

How To Grow Your Blog With Printables

Blogging Tips • Product Creation 2 Comments

Did you know you can grow your blog with printables? You can increase your page views, grow your email list, and even increase your income with printables!

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

Guest post by Bridget of Sunshine And Rainy Days

I spent hours creating an eBook called The Garage Sale Handbook. This was going to be it — the one thing that readers would love to give up their email address for.

Every one of my blog posts had an opt-in for The Garage Sale Handbook. It was also in the sidebar and the Hello Bar. I plugged it everywhere I could, even dedicating special blog posts to promote it.

What I didn’t realize is that my work wasn’t done with just one product, and that one opt-in was not nearly enough to resonate with everyone who visited my blog.

Monetize Your Blog… on a Shoestring Budget

Making Money Leave a Comment

If you have ever felt frustrated that you can’t figure out how to actually have a profitable blog…

If you’ve ever wondered how people make a part-time or full-time income from blogging…

If you’ve ever wished you could figure out how to quit your job and replace that income with blogging…

If you have a blog set up and running and you’re ready to start getting paid for your time and effort…

I’m here to help!

I get it — and I was once where you are. I was trying to figure out how on earth I could make a part-time or full-time income from home so I could stay home with my first baby.

The only problem was, we were living on a super tight budget and I didn’t have any extra money to invest in courses or classes or fancy software or systems. So I had to learn how to do it all myself and find creative ways to do things on our tiny budget.

Fast forward a number of years (14+ since I first started blogging!) and my husband is now home full-time, my blog earns 7 figures every year, we are completely debt-free (including our house!), we get to travel regularly, and give generously to causes we believe in.

All because of my blog. And I did all of this on a shoestring budget — without a college degree, without a marketing background, and without spending thousands of dollars on coaches, programs, or software.

I want to help you do the same!

Blogging Isn’t Dead!

So many people believe that blogs are no longer relevant or profitable. But I’m here to tell you that is just not the truth at all.

Let me be clear, since I first started back in 2005, blogging has changed a LOT. (Imagine trying to build a blog without Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram! Back in the day, we had to rely on commenting on other blogs and guest posting for people to actually find us on the internet!)

Yes, it’s a very different online world these days, but it is still very possible to make good income from blogging. In fact, advertisers and companies are spending millions of dollars each year in online advertising campaigns.

Plus, blog readers are even more willing than they used to be to buy digital products — because that’s how they consume much of their media now anyway!

There is no better time to monetize your blog than NOW!

WHY I WROTE MONETIZE YOUR BLOG

Every week, I receive messages from my followers asking questions on how to take their blog to the next level. I want to help each and every person, but it would be impossible to offer one-on-one coaching to each of my followers. In fact, I could try, but I’d never sleep or eat or see my family!

But if I had the chance to sit down with you one-on-one, this course teaches you everything I would want to share.

It’s for someone who has their blog set up, who is regularly blogging, but who can’t figure out how to actually start making a part-time or full-time income from blogging.

It’s for the person who is tired of spending hours of time blogging and seeing no income for all their time invested. It’s for the person who doesn’t have money to invest in expensive software or programs and who just wants to figure out how to actually start making a true part-time (or full-time!) Income from blogging.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This is the most comprehensive course I’ve ever created. It’s packed with practical, step-by-step help and ideas, hands-on tutorials, and worksheets.

Every word was written by me — which means that it’s not going to be techie language you can’t understand. Because if you’ve been following me for more than a minute, you know I’m not a techie person!

In this course, I will teach you:

Why you need both passive and active blogging income (and how to set up both!)
What ad networks you should join and how to get started earning while you sleep.
How I effectively use affiliate marketing to earn thousands each month.
My best tips and strategies for effectively promoting referral and affiliate links.
Where to find real, legit sponsored post opportunities and my well-tested formula to determine how much you should actually charge for these.
Simple ways to create and sell ebooks — with very little cash outlay to create them.
Other proven income-earning ideas you should consider to boost your blog’s profit.
What types of affiliate disclosures and privacy policies you need to have in place to follow the Federal Trade Commission Guidelines.
How to track your blog income and follow legal requirements for blog posts.
My favorite affiliate companies — and the best ones to get started with.

WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU PURCHASE

When you purchase Monetize Your Blog, you’ll get access to:

23 hands-on video lessons taught by me
Supplementary video tutorials where I show you a screencast of my computer and teach you how to implement what you’ve learned and how I do things on my blog
Our online course portal with all of the lessons and video information
A downloadable workbook that covers all of the lessons in greater depth and gives you loads of extra resources and links to check out if you want to dive deeper into a topic
Access to our exclusive affiliate tracking spreadsheet and details on how to use it
Worksheets to help guide you through some of the projects
BONUS video #1: A recording of a one-hour live training I did on How to Be Strategic on Affiliate Marketing
BONUS video #2: A recording of a one-hour live training I did on My 10-Step Strategy for a Successful Product Launch
My Product Launch Formula cheatsheet

Ready to order? Go here for more information or click on the link below to go straight to the purchase page.

How To Create Printables — The Easy Way!

Blogging Tips • Product Creation 6 Comments

Have a blog or online business and want to learn how to create printables? Read this post to learn some easy tips and tricks!

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

minimalist desk with laptop and notebook

Guest post by Bridget of Sunshine And Rainy Days

In the back of my mind, I knew there had to be a better way. There had to be one piece of software I could use for all of my graphic needs. Something that gave me the flexibility to create designs I could see in my head but couldn’t figure out how to replicate on any of the free software I had used.

When I started blogging in 2014, I really wanted to learn how to create printables. I dabbled in a few different free programs to create pins and printables for my site. Some were okay and others I had a hard time wrapping my mind around, but I pieced it together and made it work as best I could.

How to Think Long-term About a Big Promotion on your Blog

Blogging Tips • Email Marketing • Making Money 4 Comments

Have a big promotion coming up on your blog? Read this post to learn how to think long-term about it!

As you likely know, it was Amazon Prime Day this past Monday and Tuesday. And because of the affiliate income potential, this is one of a deal blogger’s favorite days each year.

Amazon Prime Day means a lot more traffic and affiliate commission for bloggers — especially if you blog about deals.

But these high income and high traffic days only come around a couple of days each year, and then things sort of bounce right back to normal.

Maybe it’s not Prime Day for you, but all of us have spurts of traffic and income throughout the year. Maybe it’s a huge product promotion you’re running. Or maybe you get a spike in traffic from a news spotlight or a social media share from a bigger blogger.

Whatever it is for your specific niche, I think it’s really important to get creative and strategic in thinking long-term when you have a big short-term spurt in traffic or income!

How Much Should You Charge for Sponsored Posts?

Making Money • Sponsored Content 4 Comments

Do you struggle with knowing how much to charge for sponsored posts? Read this to help you decide your rates!

Someone wrote in recently and said,

“You’ve given us a lot of great information about sponsored posts, but you haven’t yet specifically explained how to know what to charge. Can you elaborate on that?”

Knowing how much to charge for a sponsored post can be difficult — especially when you’re first starting out!

I touched on this slightly in a recent post, but I wanted to give some more specific details on how to figure out what you should charge.

Here’s what I suggest…