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Every blog owner wants to generate revenue from their blog. Many bloggers might prefer monetizing their site with Google Adsense or signing up with individual affiliate programs.
All these are good earning sources for your blog, but the downside is that Adsense doesn’t approve bloggers most of the time and the pay is very low, only a few cents per click.
And if you decide to join individual affiliate programs it’s time-consuming because you have to send a request to each product vendor and there is no guarantee your commissions will be paid on time, that’s if you’re lucky to even receive your affiliate commissions.
And most of the time there is no accurate tracking of your marketing and promotion campaigns.
Since that is the case why not find a network that combined thousands of products for you to promote and all you have to do is to apply and get accepted into these networks.
That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in this article. We’ll talk about an excellent affiliate network that helps publishers or website owners to earn more revenue from the effort they put into their blog.
This affiliate network is none other than Skimlinks.
Most bloggers aren’t aware of this giant network. They let their content receive traffic without monetizing it with affiliate networks such as Skimlinks.
What Is Skimlinks?
Skimlinks is an affiliate network that combined thousands of products and services on its platform.
Anyone with a blog can utilize this affiliate network to earn extra money from their blog.
They have over 60,000 merchants and you don’t need to individually make a request to these merchants to approve you promote their products.
Once you get accepted into Skimlinks, you’ll start earning money right away from your blog. All you have to do is install a code that will be given to you.
Skimlinks scan through your website to find pages that are relevant to the products and services that are available on their network.
If you’re an affiliate marketer you know difficult it is to get approved when you request to promote affiliate products from vendors.
Even the so-called instant commission affiliate networks like JVZoo or WarriorPlus will reject your request most of the time if they don’t know you because they’re afraid you’ll spoil their conversions especially when it’s a new product launch.
Another reason why you’d want to use Skimlinks is that there are products in different niches.
Most affiliate networks are niche-oriented networks. Take ClickBank for example, they focus on information products only. Some networks are only about the health niche, they let you only find health products to promote.
Skimlinks have done a wonderful job because they had to combine almost every niche you can think of.
Whatever your blog is talking about it can be monetized for commissions.
And the great thing is that everything is done on autopilot.
You don’t need to manually add links and banners on your pages; all you need is to install a code.
And when the merchant contract has expired, Skimlinks will remove all those products from your pages without doing the job manually.
How do Skimlinks Work?
I’ve shared some light in the previous section on what Skimlinks is but there is a need to elaborate more on how the site actually works.
After signing up and your application has been approved, they’ll provide a code that you can install on your websites.
This code will be available in your dashboard.
Once the code is placed on your website, all the remaining tasks will be handled by Skimlinks, not the merchant also.
Skimlinks will look for related keywords that matched their merchant’s offers and then link those keywords or phrases with an offer within their network.
That’s just how easy it is to use Skimlinks.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using Skimlinks.
Benefits Of Using Skimlinks Affiliate Network
Earn High Commissions
Every blogger wants to earn the best revenue from their blog and that’s why Skimlinks combined the best merchants that pay high commissions.
You can find merchants paying commission in terms of 100’s of dollars easily.
This means if you’re receiving enough traffic to your blog or website you have the potential to earn thousands of dollars every single month.
It’s Very Easy To Use
There is nothing complex when it comes to setting up your account. You just install the codes that will place ads on your websites.
Just sign up and leave the rest to them.
Every page on your blog will be monetized for maximum revenue.
Your site structure will not be affected in a negative way.
When you install the code, other advertisements on your website will not be affected.
This means you can use Skimlinks alongside other affiliate products or networks.
But you have to be careful though; during your application, you want to make sure that there aren’t many advertisements on your web pages during the application process.
Skimlinks will of course check through your pages to see the quality of content you have and also your traffic stats.
When you get approved you can then get back your advertisements from other vendors.
With all that said Skimlinks will not affect any affiliate links on your website nor will affect your website structure.
Advanced tracking tools
Skimlinks leave no stone unturned when it comes to tracking your results.
They have powerful tools which you can use to monitor your sales and clicks performance.
You can measure your success by identifying the pages that perform better so that you can add more of such content to your website.
You can see the performance of your marketing efforts; you’ll be able to see which page generated sales the most so that you can improve it.
The Cons Of Using Skimlinks
Getting accepted isn’t easy.
Don’t even think you’ll be approved with a fresh new website. Skimlinks isn’t for new bloggers, they want to establish bloggers with considerable audiences every month.
Before getting accepted at Skimlinks your website should be at least a few months old and is receiving some traffic.
You don’t need to have an authority blog before you apply.
If you’re a new blogger it’s better to utilize other affiliate programs that don’t have this requirement to help you start making money fast on your blog.
When your blog is old enough and has met all of the Skimlinks criteria you can then apply and you’ll definitely be approved.
Skimlinks doesn’t have strict rules when it comes to approval, they want to make sure that you’re not promoting their products through illegal ways and you can promote their products effectively.
They want to make sure that every affiliate they choose to work with will remain active by generating sales for their merchants.
Another downside of Skimlinks is that you get paid once a month (which is not that bad).
Most affiliate networks these days pay bi-monthly or even weekly, with other affiliate networks like JVZoo that pay instantly through PayPal.
So if you’re the type that can’t wait till the end of the month, then Skimlinks might not be your first option.
Who Should Join Skimlinks?
There are a lot of bloggers out there that have no idea how to make money from their blog.
I’ve seen posts on forums where bloggers are requesting information on how to make money from their blog that’s receiving 100,000 visitors per month.
Skimlinks is the answer to such bloggers.
Anyone that wants to earn money from their website should use Skimlinks.
Without any technicalities involved, you can start earning money from your blog immediately after you’ve been approved.
As long as traffic is coming to your blog you’ll be receiving commissions every month from Skimlinks.
Tools Available In Your Dashboard
Here are some tools that are available in your dashboard to help you track your performance and marketing efforts;
Daily Analytics Report
This will provide an overview of the earnings you have generated for the day.
You’ll be able to see the daily clicks, the sales generated, and your commissions as an affiliate.
You can also view your conversion rates so that you can understand the pages that perform better.
Website Analytics Report
This tab will show you how your websites and pages are performing.
You’ll view the keywords that make users click on your Skimlinks ads placed on your website.
This report is very similar to the Google analytics report, it provides details of your website traffic sources and the things that need to be improved.
Unaffiliated Clicks Report
This tool provides a report of an estimate of how much money you can earn.
With this tool also you can view affiliate links that aren’t performing, that’s to say the ones that are not generating clicks or sales.
And the good part is you can remove or swap these links to other pages if that’s what you want.
I hardly come across an affiliate network with such a feature.
Even though Skimlinks handle things automatically, you still have the option to customize the affiliate links the way you want.
Product Report Tool
This is another great tool that will help you find the top-selling products from a merchant so that you can add content on your blog that will be monetized for such offers.
Instead of blindly adding content on your blog, you can now aim for content that’s proven to generate sales with high conversions.
Page Report Tool
With this tool, you can find out the pages that generate the most sales for you.
This tool isn’t something affiliates should ignore because only with this tool you can find an accurate report on the pages that make money for you.
And when you find such pages what do you do? Well, it means the visitors that land on these pages are in buying mode.
You can then spend more time on such pages and if possible create more pages similar to them to maximize your revenue.
How Does Skimlinks Make Money?
Skimlinks make money by deducting a commission from all the sales you make.
They take about 25% out of all your commissions.
Ok, some might think 25% is a big deal. When you look at the advantages of working with them and how reliable they’re you know it’s worth it.
By bringing together almost 60,000 merchants Skimlinks has saved you a lot of time rather than sending a separate request to promote merchants’ products every day.
Other networks such as CJ (Commission Junction) have this lengthy process of approval.
First, they’ll have to approve your joining request and then each merchant will review your profile or some will provide with a form to explain who you’re and how you intend to promote their product.
Most of the time affiliates get rejected and as you can see it’s a time-consuming task to be doing this task every day unless you’ll hire a VA to do such task for you, and that means spending more money that could be used on other marketing channels.
You shouldn’t hesitate to use Skimlinks because of the commission they take.
Skimlinks will help you make money from all your websites on autopilot, there isn’t the need to check affiliate links that are broken, they’ll handle the removal of any inactive affiliate link and then replace it with an activation link that will keep on generating those paychecks you’ve always wanted to receive.
Verdict
If you’re really looking for a long-term and consistent income you should consider using Skimlinks.
Skimlinks is an affiliate network you can rely on because they’ve stood the test of time, they’ve been around since 2006 and are still into the business.
This means it’s an affiliate network you can count on when it comes to making money from your website.
You can still incorporate other monetization methods on your website alongside Skimlinks.
In the long run, you’ll realize Skimlinks is the most dependable affiliate network.
If you wish to compare Skimlinks to other similar networks, I suggest you read our case study on Skimlinks vs VigLink: Which One Is Better?
