I didn’t have time to write a blog post this week, but my affiliate newsletter for the Hips&Curves affiliate program last month got an awesome response, so I wanted to share it, with a couple of edits for you. This post is about how some of the top affiliates I work with drive year round or seasonal passive incomes.
There are a few simple steps in how they do this.
- Create a resource with content that doesn’t go bad
- Plan at least two posts for each season
- Remember to share the resource at relevant times
How To Create A Passive Income With Affiliate Marketing
1. Create a Resource Page
Resource posts or pages are ones that you want to have rank in the search engines. They are detailed, user friendly and provide a solution that can be used year after year, seasonally or year round. They also need to be able to be monetized through affiliate links and other channels. The ads can appear on the resource, or the resource can funnel the traffic to landing pages which have products and ads on them.
A couple of examples for Hips&Curves could be:
- Your Body Shape and the Proper Lingerie For It
- What type of (insert lingerie style Bra, Corset, Bustier, etc…) to Wear for (Insert event or clothing type)
- How to Heat Up (Insert a holiday like Valentine’s Day or Anniversaries)
- The Best Lingerie for (Insert Type of Person or Profession (Brides, Burlesque Dancers, Actors in (insert show name), etc…)
- How to Buy Her the Perfect Plus Size Lingerie
To help make these resource pages more useful for your website visitors, make sure to include step by step instructions, images and back up any claim with facts and examples. This can help to build confidence in the visitor that the solution can work for them. Building trust with these pages is the key to making money. If the end user does not believe it will be effective, they may not shop through your links, share the resource and may move on.
You will also want to make sure you use affiliate links when you reference a store, use an image, or recommend a product or service so that you can earn commissions when you send your visitors to buy the supplies to create the solutions in your resource page.
Now pick a few specific keyword combinations and SEO modifiers that are relevant to the post. Make sure you incorporate them in a natural way and do not stuff the content with the keywords. You’ll also want to use H tags, proper image names and alt tags, as well as other on site SEO attributes.
When possible, use videos to demonstrate how to use the products or show how the solution works. When your visitors can see you creating or demonstrating the solution, it can help to add trust and credibility, not to mention show that it is a possible solution for them to try. If it is you in the video, it also adds a face to the site and can build a bond with your readers and visitors.
By having a video demonstration, you can add verbal and visual calls to action. This can also help to encourage your viewers to click through your links and shop.
The last thing to do is to make sure you have social sharing icons on the top, but more importantly the bottom. The bottom is the most important if you’re posts are long since many people may forget to scroll back up to the top and share. What is the point of having a resource if nobody can share it easily?
2. Plan at Least Two Posts for Each Season
Now that you have a resource page that you can build backlinks to, and try to rank in the search engines, it’s time to build an internal linking stucture and drive other visitors already on your website too it.
One option is to plan a couple of posts each year that you can use to reference the resource.
If you choose to write about romantic valentine’s ideas, and your resource is about lingerie and body shapes, lingerie is an easy and natural tie in for your internal link. Linking off of “check out our lingerie buying guide” or another variation can also help to generate the idea to shop now with your visitors while you guide them to your resource. Here’s one more example if you are a Hips&Curves affiliate.
If your new post is about the “hautest” honeymoon lingerie for 2015, and your guide is about bridal lingerie, there is a natural tie in for the keyword phrase.
3. Remember to Share the Resource at Relevant Times
The last thing to remember is to share the resource at relevant times. If it is product based for a holiday, make sure it goes out to your social media and newsletter lists while people are shopping/planning, and while there is still time to ship the products and produce the results since they’ll need to be able to shop online for you to make money with affiliate links.
Because these resources aren’t affected by dates, and your content should not expire, you can use them a few times each year when they become relevant, or you can line them up for the following season once they become relevant again.
You should also remember that your website attracts new readers and followers year round. This means that your resource pages will be brand new for your these followers. This gives you a great opportunity to send it as a newsletter and market it to your new followers.
Although this strategy takes a while, the long term passive income can be worth it. It isn’t guaranteed to work or make money, but if done right and you can build quality backlinks to it, or get the right people to find and share it on social media sites, there is a good chance you can generate some additional revenue each season or year when the resource becomes relevant again.
All images were purchased from DepositPhotos.
