No matter how much money you hope to make blogging, the journey starts with one. The single, solitary dollar. Many digital entrepreneurs will tell you the first dollar is the hardest one to make and I happen agree with them. The first dollar of profit helps you realize it really is possible to “make money blogging” no matter how ridiculous that statement might sound to your friends, family, and even yourself if you’ve yet to take this necessary first step.
Now, if you were to take a straw poll of experienced bloggers on how they made their first dollar, a popular response would involve Adsense and my own experience is similar.
My first blog was about a topic I had zero personal interest in: remote control airplanes. I wrote some content, slapped up some Adsense ads, and waited for the profits to trickle in. After just a few short weeks, I had made about $4 and created a steady Adsense income of about $2 – $5 per month. If you want a nearly surefire way to get past the $1 mark this is a great way to do it. Just keep in mind that at this rate it would take me about two years to reach the $100 threshold Google requires to cash out your Adsense account so don’t expect to have this money direct deposited to your checking account anytime soon if you want to follow my lead.
There is a better way.
Although Adsense is the way I made my first buck online, posting content and hoping for a few errant clicks is not the path I advise for beginners today. No sir! I recommend a different technique that I believe will pay dividends down the road by flexing your affiliate marketing muscle and getting used matching up your audience with products they might be interested in buying.
The program I recommend to make your first dollar blogging online is theAmazon Associates program, which is just a fancy name for the online retailer’s affiliate program. Here’s why I’m so bullish on the Amazon program versus Adsense:
1.) You’re making sales, not just clicks. This is an incredibly important concept because if you eventually want to make serious money blogging you’ll need to be able to sell stuff: i.e. your own services, information products, software, or even physical goods.
This is what the biggest bloggers in the industry like ProBlogger‘s Darren Rowse do. Rowse isn’t making a six-to-seven figure income from Adsense alone. He’s recommending selling his own products and affiliate products.
2.) You’ll start identifying products that your audience is willing to pay money for. Being able to figure out what your audience is willing to spend money on is essential when blogging for profit. And fortunately for you, the Amazon Associates program has stuff to sell to almost any market imaginable. Fitness? Check. Dog training? Lots of options there. Relationship help? I think you get the point.
Just about any niche you could want to enter is covered in this affiliate program. In fact, I’d be reluctant to start a blog around a niche where products weren’t offered by Amazon. Odds are nobody wants to spend money there anyway.
3.) Easiest affiliate sales online. I saved the most important benefit of selling through Amazon for last. In my opinion, it’s the easiest affiliate commission you’ll find on the web period.
You see, unlike referring traffic lesser known retailers or even worse ClickBank products, people generally have a warm fuzzy feeling about ordering products through Amazon because of the level of trust for the online retailer and some of your audience probably has an account with Amazon already.
From my experience, if the product you recommend matches the interests of your audience you’ll be able to generate some sales by including affiliate product links within some of your posts.
But don’t take my word for it, give the Amazon Associates program a test drive on your own blog–even if you’ve already made your first dollar blogging.
