Earn affiliate commission from your off-line experiences

What many struggling webmasters forget is that pretty much any experience could be a solid ground for a profitable site. Writing about personal interest also adds other advantages; it’s much easier to write interesting content in an area you feel comfortable with and you - as you already know your topic - get much for free, no need to research for ever before you can make your site.

A very good example of a topic familiar to most is vacations. Almost everyone go on vacation, and everyone has opinions in regards to that very vacation. No matter if you had a good time or a bad time, sunny weather or two weeks of rain – people will find it interesting.

Due to the high competition for travel sites, booking you airline tickets, hotel or car rental is often cheaper using the web. This is why the market for travel related keywords are so broad, thus making it more than possible to find a few good keywords to target.

Writing about vacations is obviously a good topic for a blog, but you can easily make a full site about it. Even if its only one vacation, one destination – you can add information about sightseeing, shopping, night clubs or attractions.

How would this generate an online income?

Any site with visitors is possible to monetize, it’s just a matter of how. If you are running many sites of different niches, finding a good versatile affiliate program might be a good alternative to the obvious; contextual advertising. If you – on the other hand – are running one, or a few sites similar in nature, you should really try to find the best paying affiliate program you can. If you can send many potential customers to only one affiliate program, the importance of high commission is naturally higher.

In this case – with a blog or website about travel and vacations – the potential revenue is good. You have the opportunity to advertise expensive products, often with high commissions making the niche more lucrative than most.

Just as most people have opinions and experience from traveling, many travelers try to find as much information of a destination before going. This is an excellent opportunity to present them with products related to that destination, or to vacations in general.

If you are lucky enough to attract people looking for the information to choose destination, you will have the possibility to present them with even more – on target – offers. The potential commission on a flight and two weeks of hotel for a family of fours is very high. If you choose your affiliate program well – and offer low airfares, cheap bookings and interesting information – you will no doubted earn quite a bit of money.

Promoting travel related affiliate programs give you an excellent opportunity to pre-sell the products you are advertising. Many affiliate programs have a wide range of products, ranging from expensive all-inclusive packages to small guided tours on a particular destination. Take advantage of your knowledge and experiences. If you have been on a spectacular trip, a major football tournament or just have an odd vacation memory, be sure to write it down, join a travel related affiliate program and you will be sure to make at least a little bit of money.

Add more revenue with affiliate programs

If you are selling a service or product online, and you want to increase your revenue even further, one idea is to join a few relevant affiliate programs. No matter what products you are selling, odds are you can find a profitable affiliate program matching your content. But, be sure you do not join a program offering products to similar to yours, that way you do not risk sending your hard earned customers to shop elsewhere.

Knowing exactly what programs to join is hard – not to say impossible – but if worst comes to worst, you can always join another program if your first choice turns out to be wrong.

Most websites have pages not intended to market their products or services directly, but to explain various details of the site, company or area of expertise. These pages are perfect for promoting products closely related – but not competing products. If you have an art site – perhaps selling your own work – you might have a few pages describing the canvas, paint of choice or the technique used to make your paintings.

Assuming you only sell your paintings and nothing more, you can easily add a few banners for selected affiliate programs on your site. Find a program selling the canvas YOU are using, and explain to your readers why you choose it. If you have a good reason for using that particular brand, people may feel intrigued to try it out them selves.

If you are on the other side - selling art supplies - perhaps you can find a few affiliate programs selling paintings made with your material.

Except for really large websites, most sites are somewhat specialized, making it easier to find non-competing products to promote. The easiest way is to search for affiliate programs using similar keywords, but staying clear of the ones targeting your own top keywords and/or phrases.

Start by trying to figure out what areas of your trade you are NOT covering with your website. After you have figured this out, search or browse for an affiliate program matching any of these areas, more often than not you will find many programs matching your criteria. If you can’t find a program matching but NOT competing, you have to broaden your search. The risk of giving your existing customers away – for merely a commission – is worse than the potential profit you can make from the customer. In rare cases, you can find programs good enough to risk it, but that is something every website owner needs to figure out her self.

To broaden your search, try to figure out what your visitors might have in common, except the interest in your website. If you can pinpoint a few likely areas of common interest, you have a good starting point for finding a good affiliate program.

The trick is to find common areas between your site, your customers and the large amount of affiliate programs online. Considering the numerous programs of pretty much all niches, no matter what your site is about, there is a good chance you can find many similar products. For websites with only a few products, this can really help to add to the revenue without risking sending people to competitors.