I have been running an art blog for over an year now, and it is getting pretty decent amount of traffic for the amount of effort I am putting into it. In terms of monetization, I use Adsense, and it seems to be doing ok. Quite some time back I had gotten an Amazon account, and I did drop a few affiliate links in blog posts, usually regarding books I reviewed. That did not give me much in terms of returns - but I think that is understandable - I never really gave thought to it. But it did land me up with few trinkets and it got me thinking. I would appreciate any suggestions and tips you can give from your experience. How would one approach using the rather detached community of an art blog, to get some returns through Amazon?
A blog while used for many different reasons is essentially a platform for personal journalism, not generally an ideal platform for retail. Why not run a blog and an e-commerce store? You don't have to do everything inside your blog, matter of fact, you shouldn't. If its online retail you are interested in, then you need a proper sales platform for it. You could setup an art store, and sell art books, wine, art supplies and equipment. A good example of how to marry your blog and retail area could be seen here: blog.mygourmetonline.com www.mygourmetonline.com Notice how the look is consistent throughout and how the blog and retail area actually compliment each other. You could/should be doing the same thing. Just an fyi, I am a little bias since I work developing Amazon e-commerce sites, but the information is accurate and it should help you achieve your goal of monetizing your web properties further. If you'd like to learn more about working with the Amazon Associates program, check out these amazon associate video tutorials. I hope this post was helpful for you. Happy Selling!, PuReWebDev
I would disagree on that point. A blogging engine might have been used for 'personal journalism' few years back, but quite recently it has grown beyond that. But that is a whole discussion on its own. I do agree on the rest of what you say. I was on the edge in terms of using the articles itself as selling points at my blog. I wanted to have them separate (but still associated with the site). The example you gave - mygourmetonline.com - I must say really did convince me on this. The blog I am talking about is KalaaLog.com - so I think I should be setting up something like shop.kalaalog.com (or may be kalaalog.com/shop ). Your YouTube profile was helpful indeed. Brushed up the basics of Amazon Associates I had read through couple of years back.
Thanks I'm glad the videos are helpful. I'll be updating them regularly. Please subscribe so you'll know when a new one is released Your right, blogs have really grown beyond just personal journalism, but essentially I was trying to make the point that a blog is great for use in combination with your retail site, but shouldn't be the sole basis of it. Yes, you can make a sale from a blog, but the most effective tool will still be a retail site. Just the same way I can make a hole with both a shovel and a spoon, I will want to use the tool that will make my job easier. Nice art blog btw, are you the artist? thanks, PuReWebDev
Subscribed! Yup - point conveyed. Not yet a full fledged artist. I just do some art apart from my day job - and have not yet gotten into 'commissioned art' scene - intend to do it soon. Coming back to the topic on keeping the blog and the Amazon setup separate - yes. I was poking around now on exploring what I should be using to set one up at the subdomain ( shop.kalaalog.com ) - obviously, since I am thinking of going for a subdomain, I need not limit myself to Wordpress (the blog engine I use). Options I think are - Plain HTML - this will be a pain to keep updated - Another Wordpress installation? Not so keen on that. - Drupal setup - it has pretty good Webservice interface, and I believe if I need to go for Amazon Storefront to be hosted at my site itself, I will need to approach its Webservice APIs.