You Don't Need Upvotes to Earn Money From Your Steem Blog
Thanks to the Steem technology, we bloggers can now earn money from upvotes! However, alternate methods of earning money on Steem are nearly always overlooked and are undoubtedly underutilized!
Before the existence of Steem, bloggers didn't earn anything from upvotes. In order to make a living from their blog, they had to monetize their blogs in other ways. The easiest and most straightforward way to do this was through affiliate marketing.
If you have a cooking blog and you're using your favorite blender to prepare a dish, you can put a clickable affiliate link in your blog post when you mention your blender. If someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you get a percentage of the sale.
Steemit.com has amazing SEO, yet almost nobody is taking advantage of it.
When you post an article on Steem, you not only get traffic from Steemit, but you also get traffic from Google and other search engines.
Although the traffic from Google is minimal on most posts, you can increase that number dramatically just by writing on topics that people are going to be searching for:
"The best action cams"
"The best portable drone"
"Best 4k tv for the money"
"Strongest coffee"
"Things I need for my new home"
If writing blog posts for the purpose of affiliate marketing, there are some things to be cognizant of:
Keep your followers in mind
Do I want this to be a part of my blog on Steem?
Is it something my followers will want to see?
Will it make me lose followers?
Should I be writing these posts under a new Steem name/blog?
These are questions you should be asking yourself. Be sure to keep Steem and your followers in the forefront of your mind.
Introduce affiliate product
You need to be able to incorporate some type of affiliate product or service in the blog post and it needs to be highly-correlated with the topic. Don't write a blog post on "How to keep your dog from pulling" and then put an affiliate link to a refrigerator.
If you're going to write a post titled "How to keep your dog from pulling", you might have an affiliate link to a PetSafe Gentle Leader
Don't spam links all over your post
Nobody wants to read a post where they feel like its only purpose is to sell you something. Your post should be informative, well-written, and affiliate links should be used sparingly.
Your writing should be to the point where your reader feels like they're getting tons of great information to help them make their decision and the link is just a simple shortcut to find the product.
High traffic / low competition trade-off
When choosing a topic to write about, you'll probably find that the most popular search terms are also going to have the most competition. That means you'll probably have a difficult time ranking high for the most popular searches. However, if you end up with a high-ranking post for a highly-searched phrase, it could be quite lucrative for you!
On the other hand, you can choose a phrase that isn't searched very often. It will be much easier to rank high, but your earning potential will be significantly lower.
An example of a post utilizing affiliate marketing
We (@tangerinetravels) posted The Cost of Living In Mazatlán Mexico 2.5 weeks ago and intentionally put particular search keywords and phrases in it.
Thanks to Steemit’s incredible SEO, it's already near the top of Google for a couple of search terms. There’s a good chance this post will earn us credit from Uber or Airbnb in the future since those are the two affiliate links in this post. If Google ends up sending it to the top of their search results for a lot of search terms, our Uber and Airbnb earnings will likely be significant and may eventually dwarf anything we earned in the form of Steem.
Keep in mind that you’re probably not going to see search engine traffic immediately on most posts. However, if you have a well-written post that uses some good search terms, thanks to Steemit.com’s killer SEO, you’ll likely see some search traffic coming in after a few weeks or months.
The traffic from Google isn’t going to earn you a penny unless you’re doing some affiliate marketing.
Utilize Amazon’s affiliate program!
If you want to do some affiliate marketing, but you don't know where to start. Look no further than Amazon. Unlike many affiliate programs, it's easy to get approved with Amazon.
Regardless of what you think of Amazon as a company, I think it’s going to be worth your while to sign up as an affiliate and start earning commissions. With Amazon, you can earn commissions by linking to just about any product on earth. The buyer doesn't even have to purchase the item you linked to; as long as they clicked to Amazon through your link, you'll get a commission for any purchase they make.
Use affiliate links sparingly and only when appropriate. Don’t put the links in just any post, and keep your Steemit followers in mind because they followed you for a reason. You probably don’t want to start posting on topics completely unrelated to your blog just to try to earn a commission from Amazon. However, even if your post earns nothing in the form of Steem, if it contains affiliate links, it may earn you something for years into the future.
Here’s an example of a post where we utilized this service, by linking to items that we actually use on a daily basis.
If this post ends up getting search engine traffic, we might see earnings not just in the form of Steem, but also from Amazon's Affiliate Program.
My girlfriend and I still have a lot to learn when it comes to SEO and affiliate marketing, but both of us have written Steemit posts that are getting Google traffic every single day. For example, go do a Google search for “Offerup hacks” and you’ll see Maddie’s post at or near the top of the search results. This post is currently getting at least a couple of new views each and every day from search engines.
Earning Steem and SBD is going to be the quickest way to monetize your blog, but don't make it the only way. It's wise to have other sources of income and to not be completely reliant on just one.
Furthermore, I know how dejecting it can be to spend hours working on a post only to have it earn nothing or just a couple cents worth of Steem. If you utilize affiliate marketing in a post, even if it earns you nothing from the Steem network, you'll have the satisfaction knowing you have yet another post in the ether that could turn into an income stream any time in the future.
I would have never thought to add affiliate links to Steemit posts.... if done correctly (as you described it) it might be an awesome way to earn on Steemit, thanks for the info!
Earning on Steem/it is only going to earn you something in the short term. In order to develop a longer-term and arguably more-sustainable income stream, affiliate marketing is key.
@shenanigator Thanks for posting about affiliate links in Steemit post, I have only recently, after much deliberation, begun to add Amazon Associate links in my posts. It's too early to see any results, and my traffic so far is practically zero anyway, but like you said, those posts can generate commissions for years to come if Google picks them up.
I just hope the whales here on Steemit are ok with it, I often wonder.
Keep in mind that the Steem whales have the most to gain if the price of Steem goes up and the most to lose if the price goes down. If you ever get questioned about it, I'd say something like:
That's exactly why I started adding affiliate links to my posts, to attempt to generate income to be used solely for 2 things: 1) buying more Steem and powering it up to increase my voting power and reward amounts, 2) paying upvote and resteem bots so that my posts are seen by more than one person.
The other day I almost spent all of my remaining SBD on a few bots trying desperately to get a couple of posts out there in front of people. The results were not at all encouraging.
This got me to thinking, I shouldn't be PAYING to post, so maybe with an affiliate link or two in most, but not every, post I could make a few cents to help with this unfortunate expenditure.
In time, as my followers increase in number and SP, the bot-use will decrease. Hopefully it works that way, we will see.
Thanks for the help!
This is actually a really good point. It's not even that you said anything I didn't already know but I wasn't thinking about it. tip!
Hey @nikema, thanks for the tip! For the longest time we didn't consider it either. However, posting on Steemit is like posting on your own blog only with far superior search engine optimization.
I'm still pretty new here. I think another commenter mentioned that it could be considered spam to post affiliate links. Have you run into any problems with that? I'm guessing if you do it the way you propose here a link or two will not take away from the quality of the post.
If you're writing quality posts and using links sparingly, I don't think you're going to have any problems. I replied to another commenter saying that if you get questioned about it, I'd say something like this:
Good answer :0)
I got flagged a couple of times for using affiliate links. In my experience, you always need to add an affiliate discaimer (= statement that you’re using affiliate links) to your post, and of course write a quality post that is not just an advertisement
What's funny is, I have blogs on my own websites and have affiliate links in about half of them, but have never added a post here on Steemit with an affiliate link in it. I'm going to give some more thought to possible overlap where it could work. I tend to write on different types of topics on here, but I could mix it up more. Thanks for this useful suggestion.
Suddenly when the blockchain is paying one for their blog, they no longer tries to think about ways to monetize it. I didn't consider it for the longest time, but with Steemit's awesome SEO, I'm thinking "Why not write some posts for Google's eyes?"
@shenanigator Definitely a great way to monetize the steemit posts beyond the 7 day period. I agree, as long as the products are relevant to the content, and the content without the recommended product itself is of value, this should be a good match. Something I will be implementing in my posts. Cheers!
If a lot of people start writing posts for Google's eyes, it will also help grow the Steem blockchain because it would mean a lot more posts focusing on topics that people are going to be searching for. They'll get led to Steemit and some will sign up for a Steem account.
If blogging was dead, it has come back alive, and stronger, thanks to Steemit. We now have a platform where we don't have to pay for hosting, worry about getting our sites hacked, and "hope" that people will read what we have written. One of the best times to be a content producer. The community aspect of this platform makes it a no brainer for anyone looking to give before they receive. Cheers!
Actually, I was reading that Steemit posts are set to no follow until they reach a certain amount. So while I agree with most everything in your post, one does actually need to get upvotes for a post to have a shot at search engine rankings.
Thanks for the info! For clarity, does "no follow" mean the posts won't be indexed by search engines? If so, this is probably to insure that Google only sees higher-quality posts?
Yes. You are correct on both statements. :)
Super interesting!! Before steemit I was close to paying WordPress so I could get paid for ads but was also thinking about trying affiliate links. Then I found Steem and dropped the idea. But I could try out the affiliate link thing!
Earning money from a blog is tough, so I don't see why we shouldn't be doing both affiliate marketing in addition to writing for upvotes.
Wow what great information. I never even thought about doing this. Will definitely being doing in my future posts!! Thanks!1
Cool, I'm glad to hear some people are taking action on this!
Wow thanks for sharing. I need to start utilizing this. Amazing!!!
We've already had two people sign up for Airbnb through our affiliate links which will help us reduce the cost of our (@tangerinetravels) travel. I'm glad you found it helpful.
It’s good to finally see some articles on marketing on SteemIt. For as far as I new, the niche was pretty invisible.
These are things most Steemians are not aware about. It’s about time someone steps up and educates them - lol.
I can see your post is doing well, which means there is an interest in the subject. Which means I can start sharing some tips too.
A thing you might have missed, and of which I learned because it got me flagged a couple of times in my early days on SteemIt: always add a disclaimer to a post in which you use affiliate links, To make people aware those links are monetized.
Thanks for the informative post. I’ll be on the lookout for more :0)
@simplymike
Thanks for the advice! I still have a lot to learn on the topic myself.
I'll have to think about how to best put that disclaimer. Due to FTC laws, Amazon affiliates requires a certain verbatim disclaimer "on the main page of your website" but since we don't really have a main page on Steemit, I'm not totally sure where to put it. Do I put it on every post?