Infolinks works in a very similar way to Google Adsense. You earn money if someone clicks the “in-text” link advertising within your content. Amazon affiliates is entirely different. Even though a visitor on your website might click the Amazon affiliate link, you will get paid unless the user buys something from Amazon. You will be paid on a commission basis. The commission percentage rate can be found in your Amazon affiliate dashboard after logging in. It is typically 4% to 6%.
One big problem (especially for beginners) is that these types of passive income are tough to earn. In some cases, it might take up to a full year or even more before you receive a single check. This tutorial will look into the techniques on how you can increase your earnings without affecting user experience. The following will be the objectives of this article:
1.) Increase your revenue from these income streams without drastically affecting the user experience on your website.
2.) Blend these affiliate advertisements with your content better so that it won't look distracting but, instead, helpful to your readers.
Commonly Asked Questions
To start learning how to increase revenue from these income streams, you need a reference level to measure success in the implementation. Refer to these most commonly asked questions:
1.) How much daily revenue from Infolinks or Amazon affiliates is considered acceptable?
2.) What CTR value seems to be OK for both Infolinks and Amazon affilaites?
3.) What are the desired overall monthly pageviews for both Amazon affiliates and Infolinks that will provide more positive results in the long term?
4.) What types of website works based on these opportunities?
5.) Can I use Infolinks and Amazon affiliates along with Google Adsense?
Answers to questions #1, #2 and #3:
Infolinks: This estimation is for a “conservative” Infolinks (e.g. you have only 3 to 5 links per page). For an overall channel (several websites in one Infolinks account) with a combined monthly pageview of around 68,000, you should earn a minimum of $20 per month with an estimated CTR of around 0.9%
For single websites or blogs with an average page view of around 43,000, you can earn up to $12 a month with an average CTR of around 0.74%.
The above figure implies that if Infolinks' minimum payout is around $50, you would get paid every 3 months. If you have a single website with a similar page view reported as the one above, you can would paid every 4 to 5 months. This assumes that your website CTR for Infolinks is similar to the above figures. If your website CTR is very poor (less than the above benchmarked figures), then something needs to be done to your website to improve CTR.
Amazon: This estimation is for a “conversative” implementation of Amazon affiliates (e.g. if you only select some of your posts to have Amazon affiliate links) or dedicate only one section in your site to Amazon widgets (such as the carousel).
For a single website with 55,000 pageviews per month, typical Amazon affiliate earnings (e.g. in the Electronics sector; other sectors may be different) is around $20 per month. The conversion rate observed is around 1.5%. The formula for conversion rate in Amazon affiliate is as follows:
Conversion rate = Total items ordered/Total clicks. For example if there are around 1,000 clicks from your site to Amazon, and out of these 1,000 clicks (or referrals), only 20 result in a purchase, the conversion is 2.0%.
There are of course much better figures, as observed in other websites, but the two above examples (for Infolinks and Amazon) are good starting points to assess how good your implementation is. If your website has less pageviews per month than the above example, then expect to have lower revenue per month. If SEO is still not implemented and the traffic is low, it is highly recommended to focus first on improving the SEO aspect of the website before implementing Infolinks and Amazon affiliates.
For question #4:
Infolinks and Amazon affiliates work best with strict content-based websites or blogs. If your website is commonly publishing a lot of text content (at least 500 words per post), then Infolinks and Amazon works best with your site. If your website content is less than 500 words per content piece, Infolinks and Amazon will still work but it will be harder to earn a decent income in the future. If your website is image based, then Infolinks will not work on your site since it is “in-text” based advertising. However Amazon works well for an image based website. If your website is full of video content with very little text, then you will find it very hard to implement Infolinks and Amazon affiliates.
For question #5:
Yes, to maximize your monthly income from passive sources you can blend Google Adsense along with Infolinks and Amazon affiliates.
Best practices for Implementing Infolinks to Increase Revenue
These practices work best if you are creating your website for users not just for the sole purpose of earning advertising revenue. To maximize revenue for Infolinks, even the Infolinks team advises that you use the maximum links per page, which is around 12. But the main problem with this implementation is that the Infolinks “in-text” can be become obtrusive to visitors. In fact, if you try experimenting by adding this to your site for one to three months, you will find that your Infolinks revenue will dramatically increase, but you will receive complaints from your readers pertaining to these ads.
A balance is needed when implementing “in-text” advertising. Below are the recommendations:
1.) Limit the number of links per page to somewhere around 3 to 5 links. 2.) Make the hyperlink text link color and style slightly different from normal links. For example if your background is dark, your normal link color is white in color. A slightly different color would be something like gray. Green, yellow, red or gold is too obtrusive for a dark color background. Feel free to experiment with what looks best for your site and make sure your reader's attention is still focused on your content and not on the ads.
If the link style of your normal link is underlined, then make the infolinks dotted or some other style that is different from your normal link. The purpose is that once your visitor mouses over an Infolinks text link, if it shows some ads over it then it immediately informs them that the link is not a normal hyperlink but an advertisement. This educates your reader and lets them know which link is an advertisement and which is not.
3.) Select a specific category of your site and configure that in your Infolinks account. This will return more relevant in-text ads that increases the CTR. If your website is all about shopping, then select the shopping category.
4.) Recommend some high-relevant words to be underlined to the Infolinks team. This has the biggest effect in improving earnings. To research relevant keywords in your blog, login to Google Webmasters tools – Under “your site on the web” click “Keywords”. Filter those keywords you think have a good conversion rate and email them to the Infolinks team.
Best practices for Implementing Amazon affiliate to Increase Revenue
1.) Most high converting Amazon affiliate ads start with the title tag. For example “Best heart rate monitors for running and cycling”. In this way, most visitors that land on this post coming from search engines are in a “buying” mood, because they are searching for recommended products to buy. This significantly improves your conversion rate.
2.) An elaborate explanation describing why the product deserves to be bought is also important. Make sure you write original content based on experience using the product.
3.) Use images within the post and link the image to Amazon using the text link code provided. An easy way to accomplish this is as follows. If this is your image code:
<img src=”image.gif” />
Then put that image as anchor text of the Amazon Affiliate e.g.:
<a href="...this is amazon product URL"><img src="image.gif" /></a>
Make sure that the image is the actual photo of the product.
4.) Research for industry approved products and recommend them on your site. In this way, it will be much easier to convince your readers to buy, because it is recommended not only by you but the entire community.
5.) Aim for products with good user reviews, low prices, and excellent ratings on Amazon.
Search Optimization 
