There are hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of affiliate programs out there you can join and promote as a blogger.
The question is, do you just go ahead and join anyone you find, and then start promoting it?
The answer is clearly no.
The fact that there are lots of affiliate programs out there does not mean you should join on all of them.
Here’s my approach to affiliate marketing
If you have a very good knowledge of a product, maybe you’ve used it before, and you know what it’s about, then you have a better chance of promoting it.
That means, if I use a particular product, and there’s an affiliate program for that product, I should promote it, because I have a better chance of promoting that product successfully than someone else who have little to no idea about what that product is all about, apart from what they read online.
So, start from promoting affiliate programs of the products you use yourself
The best affiliate program to join is the one you already use their product. So, think about all the products you’re currently using in your life right now.
Search whether they have an affiliate program. Then simply register and promote them.
Right here on this blog, I use Cloudways hosting, so I promote their affiliate program. I vouch for Cloudways. I like the hosting platform, I use it, so I recommend it to my audience.
It’s very easy for me to promote it, because I use it, and can talk to you about it. If I don’t use it, it’ll be difficult writing and talking about it. And I won’t really be confident recommending it to you, because I don’t use it.
I also use the Kadence WordPress Theme on this blog. I don’t promote their affiliate program yet, but they have an affiliate program. And I plan to join shortly.
I use Canva pro as my graphics design tool. I use it for designing most of the graphics on this blog and on my social media pages. They have an affiliate program called Empower Canvassador Program, which I’ve not joined yet.
I also use Rankmath Pro as my SEO plugin. They also have an affiliate program, which I’ve not joined yet, but plan to do so shortly.
These are all very good affiliate programs with products I can promote successfully on this blog, because I use these products myself.
So, that’s where you should start.
The best affiliate programs for you to promote are the ones with products that you actually use yourself.
Now, am I saying you can’t promote any affiliate programs if you don’t use their products? Not at all that’s not what I’m saying.
There are many superb affiliate programs out there you can join today and promote their products, but,
Here’s what you need to know before joining any affiliate program
3 things determine how successful you are when you join any affiliate program as a marketer for the purpose of making money.
They include:
The size of your audience – how much traffic you have
What your niche is – what your content is about
The type of content you produce – whether it’s video, written/blog post style content.
Here’s why these 3 things are very important.
Traffic
Whether you register on all the affiliate programs in the world, but you have no traffic, you’re not going to make any sale and you’re not going to make any money.
You need consistent traffic, and if you have no access to quality consistent traffic, you’re not making any money as an affiliate marketer.
Your Niche
Talking about niche, what your content is about matters a lot. If my niche is finance, if I talk about finance on my blog, I talk about money, savings and all of that, I’ll have a lot of success if I promote affiliate programs that are about finance.
On the other hand, if my niche is finance and I recommend gardening affiliate products like lawn mowers, leaf blowers and stuffs like that, I’ll make little to no sales.
So, it’s not all about registering on affiliate programs. Rather, it’s about registering on affiliate programs in your niche.
Content Type
Lastly, the type of content you create also influence your success with affiliate programs and affiliate marketing.
If you create video content, and you offer a full review and demonstration of the products you are promoting, you’re going to make more sales than someone just writing about the product with just one picture of the product in the post.
People prefer it when you can show them that you’ve used the product. They’ll trust you more, and they’ll buy through your affiliate link when you recommend that product or an alternative to them.
So, knowing about this, what are the best affiliate programs you can promote?
I say, the question is not really about what the best affiliate programs are that you should promote.
The question is, have you established a solid foundation to really become a successful affiliate marketer.
Because it’s not all about registering on the program, getting your affiliate links, and just spamming the whole internet with it.
No, it’s about getting the 3 things I mentioned above right.
This is what you need to do
To make money as an affiliate marketer, first choose a niche. A niche you’re really knowledgeable about. It can be finance, it can be dating/relationships, it can be tech, anything.
Then build traffic. You can only build traffic through content creation and audience building.
Choose a certain type of content you know you can create consistent. Start creating this content in whatever niche you choose, and start building your traffic slowly but steadily.
Once you have content, once you have traffic coming in, then you can start worrying about affiliate programs to promote.
There are many affiliate programs in most of the niches out there. But there are more affiliate programs in these main niches
Finance
Dating/relationship
Health and Fitness
Tech/Software
Productivity
And there’re many more.
I always advice people. If you really want to make money as an affiliate marketer, don’t go into an obscure niche where nobody has an affiliate program for what you’re talking about.
For instance, if your niche is Knitting, I’m not sure there are many affiliate programs for that. I’m not saying there are none. I’m just saying I don’t think there are many.
So, choose a broad niche, and talk about something a lot of persons is interested to learn about.
Related: Never Create An Amazon Affiliate Website – Here’s Why
Rounding Up
So, what are the best affiliate programs for you? The answer is, if you’re asking that question, you’re not even ready to be talking about affiliate programs.
I’m sure you don’t have the content, you don’t have the platform, and you don’t have the traffic. Maybe I’m wrong.
If I’m wrong, just type “best affiliate programs in (whatever niche you are in)”, and you’ll get some of the best affiliate programs to register into immediately.
But if I’m right, if you don’t have an audience, you don’t have traffic, content or anything to promote these affiliate programs, then there’s no reason to hurry into registering for these programs yet.
Most of these programs won’t even accept you anyway, because you don’t meet their acceptance criteria.
So, first of all, try to do what I talked about in this article. Build an audience that will by your affiliate products first, by choosing a niche, creating content and growing your traffic.
Then, all you have to do, search affiliate programs for your niche, and you’ll get a huge list of the best affiliate programs you can register into.
And when you do join these programs, it will be a success and you’ll really make money as an affiliate marketer.