Best Affiliate Programs for Mom Bloggers

During my research into making money from blogging, I found support for using affiliate programs to get started.

Unlike advertising programs like Google AdSense and Text Link Ads, which pay blog and website owners when a visitor clicks on the ad, affiliate programs only pay when someone purchases something from your link. But the sign up requirements are often less than advertising networks. For instance, Russian Mafia Babe doesn't (yet) meet the traffic requirements for Text Link Ads, and she's still too young for Blogher.

So while I'm building traffic and aging well, I'll be trying out some affiliate links in the Sponsors section to see how they work. Currently, I'm running programs that are offering holiday season discounts or free shipping, and I tried to pick merchants of interest to moms. If you choose to purchase from the merchant after clicking on my link, I will get a percentage of any sale, but it won't cost you anything extra. In fact, you'll save money by redeeming the coupon. Check back often as I'll be rotating the coupons and offers during this trial period.

Most individual merchants who participate in affiliate offers belong to a bigger network, so that you only have to submit your signup information once and then you can advertise for several different merchants. The affiliate programs I currently belong to are LinkShare and Commission Junction. I just joined Kolimbo as well, and I have my own grant writing ebook available through ClickBank.

Of these, I have found LinkShare to be the easiest to use, and they have several merchants that are willing to accept lower traffic sites. It is free to join and easy to sign up.

Commission Junction seems to be popular among electronics merchants (Sony, Best Buy, Apple), but I find their interface a little difficult to use, and they assigned me a password that I can never remember.

When you have a product of your own to sell, ClickBank is a good option and integrates easily into your sales page. They allow you to offer your own affiliate programs as well.

You can also increase your affiliate sales through advertising, but that is another strategy all together and I haven't tried it. I'd love to hear though if anyone has had success using this method.

SPECIAL OFFER: For any moms out there who have a product to sell, let me know if you are interested in participating in a mom affilitate drive or where your products are listed so I can ad them into my sponsor rotation.

Tomorrow, I'll discuss product reviews.