Earning Income Through Affiliate Marketing on Medium
By: Tessa Schlesinger
Tags: Writer, Affiliate Marketing, Income, Business, Writing

Earning Income Through Affiliate Marketing on Medium

Affiliate income is another income stream for writers. Pixabay Geralt

While I deeply admire Ev Williams for taking a step in the right direction and moving away from advertising, it has become clear that to some extent, Medium isn’t earning for too many writers. I also read something recently that Medium is a little more relaxed than it was about CTAs and affiliate marketing. That said, Google hates it, and nine years ago, many of us had our sources of income quartered, halved, or simply destroyed when Google pulled the plug and introduced Panda.

Panda was an algorithm released by Google on February, 23rd, 2011. Many content sites went under as a result. That’s because most of their income derived from a commission earned from affiliate marketing. The problem was that there were many web designers, marketers and sales people either using or creating content sites in order to sell goods. On top of that, many of them used black hat SEO to get to the top of the SERPs, and that meant that Google wasn’t providing decent content for its search engine.

The stated purpose of the Google Panda algorithm update was to reward high-quality websites and diminish the presence of low-quality websites in Google’s organic search engine results. It was also initially known as “Farmer.” According to Google, Panda’s initial rollout over the course of several months affected up to 12 percent of English language search results. We’ve tracked 28 data updates to Panda between 2011 and 2015. Source.

Writers have to Earn a Living, Though

Hubpages (a content site for which I write as well) has a different set of rules for your articles to be accepted. The process is far more rigorous. It’s virtually impossible to use it as an affiliate marketing place, although some of the pieces pre-Panda still do well. It’s also the only content site still on its legs from that time, so it had to be doing something right.

Sticking to its rules for using affiliate marketing would, therefore, be a good thing, if Google is not to penalize Medium. And there really is no need to slay the goose that lays the golden egg. Greed is out, and responsibility is in. We can earn through affiliate marketing if we use it judiciously.

The great thing about Medium is that it garners a lot of traffic from Google. Of course, we don’t get paid for that because these are non-members. We can, however, take advantage of it, and sell products from various sites in order to finance ourselves as writers. You will have to learn some SEO in order to get to the top of the SERPs, and I have written a couple of articles on that. So go through them if you don’t know anything about Search Engine Optimisation.

Medium doesn’t really focus on lifestyle, homes, decor, beauty, crafts, etc. so I think it’s a wide-open field, And I think through affiliate sales, referrals to Ko-fi, Patreon, Amazon, etc. we can earn a few pennies. However, in order to do that, the magazine needs to be good. I don’t settle for second best. Source.

How to Use Affiliate Marketing on Medium Responsibly

Make sure that you have a good few articles written. You have to apply to various sites that have affiliate programs, and they want to know that you have sufficient traffic to warrant them accepting you. Amazon and Clickbank are the two most successful sites for affiliate marketers, but there are many, and there’s something to be said about offering something that many people might consider purchasing but is not available on the main sites. I opened my Home and Crafts publication specifically to cater to people who wanted to write articles and then sell a product alongside it. You might open a publication on cameras, ballet dancing, or horse-riding. Generally the Medium readership is about self-improvement, writing, IT, and business — and the competition in those areas is fierce. It’s best to create new niches which aren’t yet exploited. Yes, it will take a little time. It can take three to six months for an article to rank on Google. It’s worth the investment, however. After it ranks, it’s passive income all the way. So what you’re doing here is creating a publication which has a legitimate reason for selling particular products. If you want to sell products that are not on your publication, look for a publication that is relevant to your product and doesn’t mind your having an affiliate link. Then submit to them for publication. Never sell more than one product in your article. And it absolutely and utterly must be specific to what you are writing about. Your article should be lengthy enough to provide excellent information for that product in general, but not be written about a specific product. For instance, you might write an article about night time photography, and then you might offer a specific camera that is known for its excellence in the field. Your article would not be about the camera. Always have a notice that says something like “In the interests of fair disclosure, I earn a few pennies should you decide to purchase the above product.” Medium wants you to do that, and Google prefers it as well.

What Can You Earn Through Affiliate Marketing?

There’s always an element of luck in these things. If you happen to be writing about the right product at the right time, you can make a decent income — enough to give up your day job. If you’re not so lucky, you might sell three products a month or two products in six months. The thing with content writing is that you have to keep adjusting. You might write ten articles that do nothing, and then you write number eleven, and you’re in the land of milk and honey. The market is always changing, and there are too many writers and too few readers. So we have to adjust.

Please feel free to ask questions in the comment section.