The next step in the ‘how to make a blog” series is monetization with Digital Products.
Many blog owners, by now, would be making the mistake of building their site and publishing blog posts…all without any plan or idea of how they are going to monetize their site!
The successful blogger doesn’t do that. The successful blogger ensures that they can monetize their site before building anything!
So let’s check some digital products…
What is a Digital Product?
In simple terms it is a product that can be instantly downloaded or viewed on-line.
One of the best-known places for finding digital products on the web is Clickbank.com; they only sell digital products that can be downloaded instantly and one of the most attractive things about Clickbank is the high affiliate commissions they pay – up to 75%!
Digital products are great because people buy them on impulse and they can have them within seconds. Write an article around a digital product that’s relevant to your niche, rave about it (but only if you loved it!) and make some money.
Some internet marketers concentrate solely on selling Clickbank products and make substantial incomes.
Where to find Digital Products to sell
Clickbank has over 10,000 digital products in just about every category, including
- Arts & Entertainment
- Business & Investing
- Computers
- Cooking
- Education
- Games
- Employment
- Health
- Home and Garden
There’s sure to be at least a couple of products you can find that will be relevant to your target market.
Some products sold on Clickbank contain “upsells”. These are additional items offered with courses, or could be a monthly membership. You will get additional commissions if your visitor decides to purchase any of them…so you see how lucrative this can be.
The company offers great management for its advertisers to keep track of stats and figure conversion rates. They pay weekly or bi-weekly via direct deposit.
Just like affiliate marketing, Clickbank deals with the tracking and all the accounting, leaving you to concentrate on marketing your blog and the Clickbank products you’ve chosen to promote.
If you want to find out which Clickbank products are selling the best, they provide tools and instructions on their site.
You could also visit cbengine. This site is packed full of useful free information about Clickbank products, or you could sign up for a free 15-day trial membership to get even more in-depth help with product choice.
This is a must do action…
If you do decide to promote a Clickbank e-book for example, we suggest you purchase it yourself to make sure it’s good quality before you offer it to your readers.
Product quality does vary enormously.
If you don’t like it, you do have the option of getting a refund within 60 days, as do any of your readers who purchase it through your link.
Other Places to Find Digital Products
PayDotCom.com is another good source for finding digital products to promote. They have thousands of products in the following categories:
- Business to Business
- Computing & Internet
- Fun & Entertainment
- Health & Fitness
- Home & Family
- Marketing & Ads
- Money & Employment
- Society & Culture
- Sports & Recreation
- Miscellaneous
If you sell any kind of affiliate products on your blog you should clearly state on a separate page that you earn commissions for products sold. Successful blog creation depends on you being open and honest with your readers.
In the next post on the series, “How to make a Blog” we shall cover the topic of “Choosing a Domain Name and Hosting”.
The previous posts in the ‘how to make a blog’ series:
Part One: How To Make A Blog: Getting Your Niche Right Is Crucial
Part Two: How To Make A Blog: Finding The Best Keywords For Your Chosen Niche
I haven’t tried doing affiliate marketing for digital products. My friends say that it is profitable and good if you know how to promote it. I am considering on joining clickbank and i stumbled on your post about digital products. I just hope i will be able to make this work. Thanks for the information by the way.
Farrell
It’ws not easy…you do need a lot of traffic and a big following (i.e. customer list) to make it worth while.
Andrew
This is really a unique presentation. You have revealed new ways to make money through ‘digital products’. Waiting for more information in the current series.
I love this point: “The successful blogger ensures that they can monetize their site before building anything”.
I had spent 2 years to understand this and that’s why I believed that we should build a plan before start a blog that matters.
Thanks for the great guide.
Trung
The vast majority just jump straight in and start building their site. Hence why I started this series of blog posts on exactly ‘how to make a blog’.
Andrew
digital instantly available products are easy to create yourself too so anyone looking to attempt their own products should have a look into this.
Matt
That is another option which I agree with. Making your own products is a must.
Andrew
We’re doing more of this this year for sure. I’ve been putting affiliate links to the free e-books we’ve written placed on the thank you and download pages as upsells. We do this for affiliate products we used to create the e-books as well as related to the specific topics of the e-books.
Cheers
Mark
All great ideas, Mark.
Thanks for sharing…others reading this should take note of the excellent advice you are sharing in your comment.
Andrew
Corinne
I agree – you have to provide numerous differnet formats for the customer…PDF, Kindle, physical…
Andrew
Currently I am working to create my first own digital product and I hope it will be selling well. So far I was working as affiliate but decided to switch to my own product because people will help me to sell it and push it in front of many people. You won’t need to rely just on your promotional skills but there will be team who will help to sell your product. Of course if the product is good enough and if commissions are reasonable as well.
Mike,
Congrats on creating your own product – that’s a big step.
Having your own product is only the first step…you have to market and sell (and then create your next one!).
Good luck!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew for inspiration! 🙂
Will try to do my best!