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An extremely effective, low cost and low risk way of making money from your blog is to promote other people's products as an affiliate. By merely linking to the merchant's website with a special link provided by them, you can make commissions over and over again as your blog grows in traffic and popularity.

Although you can promote both physical and digital products, I prefer the latter as they typically pay more commissions and are easier to sell. Here are a few ways that I have personally used to make $500 - $2,000 in sales of affiliate products every month from my blog:

1) Interview The Product Owner

Who better to answer questions and clarify doubts on a certain product than the owner himself? By arranging for an interview with the owner or a representative, you get to be the middle-man and ask the most important question on behalf of your blog readers.

You can conduct interview easily using Skype and a recording software that integrates with it. Once recorded, you need to do some minor editing using Audacity, a free audio editing software. If you're using Wordpress as your blog platform, you can easily install some podcasting plugins and get the whole thing up easily.

The key to selling affiliate products using podcast interviews is to ask the right questions. It works much better if you've already bought and used the product, so you're familiar with how it works and any limitations it has.

During the interview itself, make sure you mention your affiliate link. Also write a short description of the podcast on your blog post and put your affiliate link there.

2) Write a Complete Product Review

This is not something new, but it's rarely done by most of the new affiliate marketers I've come across promoting my own products and other people's products that I happen to be promoting as well.

A product review is not a sales pitch, so avoid making it sound like you're totally in love with the product. If it's really that good, maintain your enthusiasm but do let your readers know on it's limitations as well.

To increase the clicks on your affiliate links, include screenshots of the product (if it's a software) to let people get an insider's view of how it works and the results that can expect from it.

If it's an e-book or information product, let others know the results you've observed and recorded from using the techniques or secrets mentioned. Everyone loves something that works, but most people will wait to see if it works for others before deciding to buy it.

3) Presell With a "How To" Article

A "How To" article teaches people how to solve a specific problem or achieve a specific result. In your article, start with the problem or desired outcome, and give specific step and action that need to be taken to solve it.

Somewhere towards the end of the article, mention about how a specific software can help your readers automate or skip some of the steps mentioned in your article. Once people have discovered the solution, they still may not want to do it all by themselves. If the software you're talking about helps them do it faster or easier, they will definitely consider buying it.

Your goal is to presell the benefit of using the software, and lead them to the affiliate product page. Don't make your article a sales pitch or this method will not work as well. People want to buy, but they don't want to be "sold".

Try to work on a Wordpress platform as your blogging tool, as it allows you much more control and flexibility in promoting affiliate products, especially when your "catalog" of affiliate products grows significantly.

Using these three strategies alone, you can make a significant income promoting affiliate products. Focus on these and affiliate marketing from your blog becomes so easy you won't believe the results.