Using SEO, Blogging and Affiliate Links To Grow Your Product Business

Welcome to Follow Through Fridays!

[00:00:00] All right, guys, welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show podcast. This is follow through Fridays today. I'm recording the follow through Friday episode for Julie Berninger's episode, and Julie is the master of digital products. 

The Journey of Creating Digital Products

[00:00:13] And, since the episode aired, my dream was to create this suite of digital products for my Etsy shop.

[00:00:19] which is knowledge vomit, but unfortunately life started lifing once again and I had to make my plans a little bit more manageable. So sadly I was stuck on the couch from late Friday afternoon until early Sunday morning with a horrible headache. So here's my follow up for Wednesday's episode on this.

[00:00:37] It's follow through Friday slash Sunday. So what do you think is the one word that translates for passive business growth, whether you sell digital or physical products? 

Diving Into Affiliate Marketing with Etsy

[00:00:47] My answer for that is affiliate marketing. Just in case you don't know, Etsy sellers can now apply for an affiliate link from their affiliate partner, Awin.

[00:00:56] I'm not a super affiliate marketer, but Awin came across my path in the past. And at that time, I applied to be an affiliate partner, but I was denied. So it was pretty exciting when they changed their policy to let Etsy sellers with third party websites and blogs join their programs. And it was also great because I got kicked out of the Amazon affiliate program after earning a grand total of 0.

[00:01:17] I still don't know what I did to get kicked out, but it's all good. So I've already made about 50 from Etsy and I love to support handmade sellers anyway, so it all works out right. So anyway, what I did here was I wrote a blog and started dropping affiliate links. So using my favorite tool of choice, Surfer SEO, I created a new blog for softball gift ideas. 

[00:01:39] And I linked to a variety of Etsy products. Now, when I went to Etsy to search for the products I wanted to promote, I had no shame. I sorted the options from most expensive to least expensive in the categories I wanted to highlight. And then I chose my top options based on that.

[00:01:55] So you might be wondering, where did I drop links? Throughout the text and also the link from the picture. So if you were to click on a picture, that link would then take you to Etsy with my affiliate information embedded. And then I also added in some of my own gift ideas, which are collages on my website.

[00:02:13] And in my Etsy shop, I figured one way or another, I'm excited about reaping something for the fruit of my labors. 

Boosting Blog Visibility and Indexing

[00:02:19] So one of the things we talk about in my weekly SEO support group, the SEO squad. Is making sure that our blogs and pages are indexed by Google. So if you don't know, if your pages aren't indexed, then that means they're not searchable. 

[00:02:33] Like you might know that they're there but nobody could go into Google or a different search engine, type in a keyword that your stuff should show up for, and your page will show up.

[00:02:43] Okay? Because it's not indexed. So, I've noticed that my products in my Shopify store are indexed almost immediately, but my blogs tend to take longer.

[00:02:52] So here are the ways I try to speed up the process so that this particular blog page can get indexed and show up faster in search. So first I submit the URL to Google search console. And as I suspected, the page was found but not indexed, so I requested indexing. And then I shared the URL to my LinkedIn company page.

[00:03:11] And third, I shared the link to X, aka the artist formerly known as Twitter. And then about 15 minutes passed between the time that I hit publish, You know on that article and then these activities on Google search console and Twitter and Or X. I'm sorry 

Exploring Physical Products: Marquee Letters

[00:03:28] and LinkedIn. So then I went back to Google search console and check the URL again Yay score it was indexed.

[00:03:35] So my blog and all of its affiliate links are live and ready to earn money. 

[00:03:39] The last thing I wanted to share in the hopes that it sparks inspiration for you is that digital products are attractive because you make things once and then you get to sell them over and over again, right? 

[00:03:49] I met Julie in the Shopify digital product summit a few months ago, and after the summit, I started thinking about ways that I could physically make things once and then sell them over and over.

[00:03:59] And this business model isn't necessarily passive like digital products. 

[00:04:03] But the hardest work is done once up front to create the product. So in this particular example, my product is marquee letters. 

[00:04:11] And these are the types of giant letters that have lights built into them. 

[00:04:15] And through a series of unfortunate and then eventually fortunate events, I found a unique niche. 

[00:04:21] That is renting these marquee letters in my area and creating them to work without electricity, which means no cords, no fuss. That means they work in rural areas without electricity. 

[00:04:31] And then lastly, a fun win from these letters just for my first rental: the lights went out at the party and my battery powered marquee numbers kept the party going and served as the only light source in the house. 

[00:04:43] That's a fun story to tell.

Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead

[00:04:44] So let's tie this follow through episode up. Ideally, after the episode with Julie, I would have created an SEO checklist or something to put up for sale in my Knowledge Vomit Etsy shop. But that didn't happen.

[00:04:55] It's still a win, though, that I added affiliate links to my blog. 

[00:04:58] Because with around 10, 000 visitors a month, I can still increase my chances of getting sales somewhere on the internet and Leverage the fact that my blogs are getting found in search. So I want to encourage you if you are getting traffic to your site, especially to your blogs Think about adding affiliate links, even to competitor products.

[00:05:17] You might end up making more money without having to fulfill a bunch of orders. 

[00:05:21] And then of course, if you can create a digital product, do that instead, or do both. If you have time. 

[00:05:27] So I would love to hear what you create. You can let me know by tagging me at simple and smart SEO on Instagram or on Facebook.

[00:05:34] If you're looking for some accountability to build a stronger website and digital presence on the internet, I'd love to have you as part of my monthly membership, the SEO squad. It's currently March, 2024, and you can join as a part of the second round of founders for only 29 a month.

[00:05:49] No commitment. 

[00:05:50] We meet every week at 10 AM Eastern on Wednesdays. 

[00:05:54] So, stay tuned for my next episode of the simple and smart SEO show podcast. It's a smart one! 

[00:06:00] I'm interviewing Sarah Presh all about international SEO. 

[00:06:03] See you on Wednesday and remember you're doing awesome.

[00:06:06] Keep moving forward. 

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