[More Blissdom posts: BlissDom notes: Day Two, Meeting Alyssa Avant at Blissdom, Social Media Mavens, Building Content and Readership]

This session deserves a post all its own.

For a couple of reasons.

I talked to several women privately at the Blissdom conference who have fantastic blogs and are wonderful writers but are totally frustrated.

They’re frustrated because they aren’t making any money.

They aren’t making any money because they do not understand affiliate marketing.

Now, if you don’t want to make any money with your mom blog that’s cool.

But if you do want to make money, I’m here to tell you that not only CAN you, but many of us ARE doing it and earn a full time income doing so.

My fellow Blissdom attendee and Mom Masterminds member Alyssa Avant and I are proof of that, as are hundreds of women at MM.

(Don’t forget, if you attended Blissdom and did not get my card, please DM me on Twitter or email me for your special link that entitles you to a FREE MONTH of membership.)

The affiliate marketing panel had some basic info on what affiliate marketing is and some advice on making it work for you, yet I feel that it left many women wanting. That may be because it’s impossible to say enough about affiliate marketing in such a short amount of time.

I talked to a few of these moms who were adamant about wanting to know how to earn real money – and not just get free products – with their blogs.

After I type my notes, I will share some of my favorite resources, including a free affiliate marketing ecourse that I offer for those who are in the “natural/crunchy mom” niche like myself. (But the same principles apply to every market so it really doesn’t matter what niche you scratch.)

Affiliate Marketing as a Mom Blogger

To maximize your results from affiliate marketing, it’s imperative that you learn how to skillfully weave affiliate links into the body of your post.

While buttons and banners can and do perform, they do not perform *nearly* as well as natural, organic product mentions in your actual content.

Another effective strategy is to both write about in your posts AND put a button on your sidebar for a product you endorse. Your readers may not realize it consciously but they will understand subliminally that you mean what you say about the product if you do both things.

If you’re getting lots of free stuff from companies to review, ALWAYS check to see if they have an affiliate program and MONETIZE that post with your affiliate link.

I do this all the time and it works great. You do not need to ask permission from the company either. If you’re doing reviews for free (which I hope you’re not), you need to be benefitting in some way from the free exposure and traffic you’re giving these companies.

At the very least check Amazon to see if the product is also sold there before publishing the review. If you already have a ton of reviews on your site, go back through your posts and add affiliate links.

To maximized your results, search your stats for your ten highest traffic pages and begin there.

The panelists recommended creating “gift guides” that you release around the holidays and big shopping days. I don’t do this at all, my affiliate recommendations are evergreen in nature, but I know some that do it with great success. Maybe start there.

Another tip I tell moms that I coach is:

Look around your own home at the products you can’t live without.

Make a list of them on a piece of paper, Is it your baby sling? A favorite well worn parenting book or cookbook? Some skin care product?

Whatever it is, if you can write a compelling review, sit down and search for an affiliate program for that product and get busy writing.

Here are some of my favorite sources for information on affiliate marketing.

Lynn Terry’s blog Clicknewz. It was Lynn who inspired me to launch my very first niche affiliate site 5 years ago. It was a great success and proved to me that a system works if you work it. If you’re brand new to the internet marketing world, some of her posts may seem a little hard to understand, but she is great at linking back to some of her 101/how to posts for beginners. Just keep reading and the lingo will start to make sense.

Alice Seba’s Affiliate Marketing Sweetie – if you want to have a basic solid education on how to make money with affiliate marketing and can only afford ONE thing, this would be the one thing I recommend. Alice is a great friend and mentor and I trust everything that comes out of her mouth (you can see my guest posts on her blog here).

I linked to it above, but my free ecourse on affiliate marketing has some valuable free info to help you get started.

Please feel free to leave a question you have about how to make money as a mom blogger with affiliate marketing in the comments below.

I will do my best to publish them here and answer them for you or point you to a resource.

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