How Many Blog Posts Do You Need to Make Money From Your Affiliate Links?

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In this post we are going to go over how many blog posts do you need to actually make affiliate sales? 

If you’ve started adding affiliate links to your blog, you’ve probably wondered at some point how long it’s actually going to take before one of those links turns into a sale.

Do you need 10 blog posts? 50? 100?

Is there some magical number where your blog finally has “enough” content and affiliate marketing suddenly starts working? The answer…. no.

Thankfully, it doesn’t really work like that!

You could make an affiliate sale from a genuinely useful blog post if it reaches the right person at the right time.

There’s really no minimum amount of content your blog needs before affiliate links can start turning into sales.

Of course it makes sense that having more useful content does help. Every new post gives someone another way to find your blog and gives you another opportunity to naturally recommend products, tools or services that could genuinely help them.

With affiliate marketing you are connecting readers to products that they may potentially buy. The more “offers” you have across information people are actually looking for, the more likely you will get sales.

So rather than worrying about reaching a certain number of posts first, focus on creating useful and really helpful content that attracts the right readers and gives your affiliate links a natural reason to be there in the first place.

The good thing is, you don’t have to wait until you’ve published a certain number of blog posts before your affiliate marketing has a chance to work for you.

Having more useful content gives people more ways to find your blog and gives you more opportunities to include your relevant affiliate recommendations along the way.

But there’s a lot more to making affiliate sales than simply how many posts you’ve published lol.

So let’s look at what can actually help turn your affiliate links into sales.

How Many Blog Posts Do You Actually Need for Affiliate Sales?

I know this is the answer you are here for, and I am here to tell you that there truly is no magic number. However, there are things that can significantly help initially.

If someone finds one of your posts while they’re looking for information on something or a solution, they then like the sound/look of the product you’ve recommended and they then decide to buy it, that sale can happen whether you have 10 posts on your blog or 200 posts. That is the beauty of affiliate marketing.

Of course, publishing more useful content can absolutely help.

Every new post you write and publish gives you another chance to show up in Google, get found through Pinterest, Social Media or any other channel. 

The number of posts you have is only one part of it. The type of content you’re publishing can make a big difference too.

Tutorials, product reviews, comparisons and posts where someone is actively looking for a solution or researching a specific product/service can all create really natural opportunities for you to add affiliate marketing to your content.

And the more useful content you build around the topics your audience is genuinely already interested in, the more opportunities you’re creating for people to find your blog, discover your recommendations and click through to the products you’re talking about and referencing.

So there’s honestly no need to wait until you reach 50 or even 100 posts before you start thinking seriously about affiliate marketing. You can start creating content with affiliate sales in mind from the beginning and keep building on those opportunities as your blog grows.

The Type of Blog Posts You Publish Matters More

When you’re trying to make money with affiliate marketing, the type of blog posts you’re publishing can make a HUGE difference.

Not every person who lands on your blog is going to be looking for exactly the same information or recommendations.

As an example, someone searching for:

“What is email marketing?”

is probably right at the beginning of their email marketing journey, and looking for initial information.

Where as if someone is searching for:

“Is MailerLite good for bloggers?”

They then already know what MailerLite is (to at least some degree), and there’s a much higher chance that they’re trying to work out whether it’s the right email marketing platform for them.

Both searches from people could bring useful traffic to your blog so don’t discount either, but as you can see, the second one naturally gives you a much better opportunity to make an affiliate recommendation if it’s a product you love and someone is looking into it anyway.

You definitely don’t need to turn your entire blog into one giant collection of affiliate posts lol. But if making money from affiliate marketing is one of your main goals, it makes sense to create at least some slightly more specific content where the products you want to recommend naturally fit in.

This is where the people looking for and then finding those posts are actually going to be interested in them.

This means you’re also not trying to squeeze affiliate links into every post you write. You’re just creating useful content that gives you a genuine reason to recommend something that could help the person reading it. It’s the perfect win-win.

And there are a few types of affiliate blog posts that are particularly good for this:

Product Reviews

Product reviews are a REALLY good fit for affiliate marketing because by the time someone searches for one, they’re most likely already interested in the product.

They’re not randomly browsing and discovering it for the first time if they are at the stage to be looking up reviews for it. They’ve probably either seen it somewhere, heard about it, had it recommended to them personally or already started thinking about buying it. Now they’re just doing that (sensible) final bit of research to work out whether it’s right for them and if it’s actually worth their money.

And this is where a useful review can do a lot of the work for you!

Instead of just listing every feature you can find on the sales page (not a good plan), think about what you’d want to know if you were considering buying it yourself.

Try and answer as many questions as you can that someone may have. What’s actually good about it? Is it easy to use? Who would get the most out of it? Is there anything you wish you’d known beforehand? How much is it? And ultimately, is it something you would or have spent your own money on?

Those are the sorts of helpful things that can actually help someone make a decision and work out if something is right for them and their needs or budget.

Comparison Posts

Comparison posts are another really useful type of affiliate marketing content because the person searching may already have narrowed their choice down to a couple of options and is just looking to make that final decision.

Someone (for example) searching for the differences between Semrush vs Keysearch probably doesn’t need convincing that they want an SEO or keyword research tool as they already know that. They are there to work out which one is best for them.

A good comparison post can help do exactly that for people by explaining the differences between the products. Things like what each one offers, who they might suit, pricing differences and anything else somebody would want to know before choosing between them.

You can then include your relevant affiliate links to the products you’re recommending specifically, so the reader can go and have a closer look for themselves when they are ready.

Recommendation and “Best” Posts

You don’t need to concentrate on one particular product either.

Recommendation posts can be really useful when somebody knows what they need, but hasn’t decided which product they want yet or what suits their needs best.

That could be:

• Best blogging tools for beginners
• Best email marketing platforms for bloggers
• Best affiliate programs for beginners
• Best keyword research tools for bloggers
• Best tools for creating digital products

These sorts of posts work really well because you can give people a few different options rather than trying to find one product that’s going to suit absolutely everyone (an impossible task anyway lol).

The important part is not only to be honest but to give them a reason to care about each one. Try to cover things like: why have you included it in this list? What makes it different from the others? Or who would you recommend it to?

If someone has landed on your post because they’re trying to choose between several tools or products or are looking for a comparison between different ones, helping them work out which one actually suits what they specifically need is going to be far more useful and effective than throwing a huge list of options at them with next to no info and hoping they click on one lol.

Tutorials and Problem-Solving Posts

Some of your best opportunities to use your affiliate links might not actually look like traditional “affiliate posts” at all.

Things such as tutorials or problem-solving content can be a really natural way to recommend a product because your reader has arrived already looking for help with something specific.

As an example, if you’re showing somebody how to start an email list, you’re going to need to talk about email marketing software at some point lol.

If you have a platform you use or recommend, you can explain why it works for you or why it works for what you’re showing them in the post, and you can then include your affiliate link for anyone who wants to try that specific tool.

Another example would be a post about how to make money with Shopify. If someone is searching for that specifically, there’s a good chance they’re already interested in Shopify and potentially looking at signing up.

Throughout the post, you could explain how to set up a store, different things they could sell, useful Shopify features or even walk them through one of the ideas step-by-step if you have experience setting up your own store.

Because Shopify is already a big part of what you’re talking about, your affiliate link can naturally be included wherever it’s actually useful to the reader. It could be when you first mention setting up a store, when you’re talking about a specific feature or anywhere else that someone might genuinely want to click through and take a closer look at Shopify.

This is one of the reasons you don’t need every post on your blog to be an obvious product review or “best” list to make affiliate sales.

The best affiliate content often starts with what the reader needs help with and then introduces a relevant product as part of the answer.

So when you’re planning blog posts for affiliate marketing, don’t just think about how many posts you can publish. 

Quality over quantity!

Think about what somebody will be looking for when they find each one. Think about how close they might be to choosing a product and whether there’s a genuinely useful affiliate recommendation you can make while helping them. That is where the most conversions can happen.

How Much Blog Traffic Do You Need Before Making Affiliate Sales?

Just like there isn’t a set number of blog posts you need, there isn’t a magic traffic number you have to reach before you can start making affiliate sales either.

You don’t need to wait until you’re getting a huge amount of visitors every month before somebody can find one of your posts, click on one of your affiliate links and buy something you’ve recommended.

It matters what kind of traffic you’re getting, not just how much. 

Think about someone who searches for a review of a specific product. It’s most likely because they’re already considering buying it. If 100 people find your review through that search, they’re coming to the post already interested in the exact product you’re recommending.

More blog traffic obviously gives you more people who COULD click your affiliate links, but it doesn’t mean you need to reach a certain number before sales can start happening.

This is why I’d look at more than just your overall monthly traffic. Have a look at which posts are actually bringing people in, what they were searching for when they found them and whether they’re clicking the affiliate links once they get there.

Looking at that will give you a much better idea of what’s actually happening than only looking at your total monthly traffic. 

Why You Might Have Plenty of Blog Posts But Still No Affiliate Sales

If you’ve already built up a decent amount of content but the affiliate sales still aren’t coming through, I wouldn’t just add loads more posts as the first thing to concentrate on.

It would be easy at this point to assume you just need MORE content. First though, have a look at what’s already happening with the posts you have. There could be a much easier opportunity sitting there already that just needs a little more attention!

Your Affiliate Posts Aren’t Getting Traffic

You could have an amazing review post or recommendation post that would genuinely help someone choose what to buy, but it needs people actually finding it first before you can make those sales.

Have a look at which posts are currently bringing traffic to your blog. Check whether the posts that contain your main affiliate links are actually getting much of that traffic.

If they aren’t, that gives you something much more useful to work on than simply adding another load of posts. (New posts are always important but just not necessarily the first thing to focus on at this point.)

You might need to improve the SEO on certain posts, create more Pinterest pins for them, add some internal links from posts that ARE getting traffic or find other ways to get more eyes on that specific selection of content.

The Posts Getting Traffic Aren’t Your Affiliate Posts

You can also have your blog traffic growing really well while most of those visitors are landing on posts that aren’t particularly connected to the affiliate products you promote.

As an example if your blog is all about Good Sleep, your main affiliate products could literally be beds and mattresses and have reviews and comparison posts on your blog. But if the main posts getting the most traffic are your more informational style talking about good sleep hygiene etc then you can have good traffic but not many eyes on your links.

You might have one informational post bringing in thousands of visitors while the review you’d LOVE people to find is sitting there getting 20.

That doesn’t make the traffic to your other posts any less useful. Those people can still read more of your content, click through to a different post via an internal link, join your email list, or can come back later.

But it does explain why seeing your overall traffic go up doesn’t always mean your affiliate sales will immediately (or automatically) go up with it.

It’s not just how much traffic your blog is getting. WHERE that traffic is actually going makes a huge difference too.

The Product Doesn’t Really Fit the Post

The products you recommend need to make sense with what someone is already reading about lol. It sounds like common sense but can be worth double checking.

If they’re reading a post on how to start an email list, recommending MailerLite fits perfectly as an example. They need an email marketing platform to actually DO what you’re showing them, so there’s a genuine reason for you to mention it. Especially if you already use it too.

However if you put that same MailerLite link into a post that has nothing to do with email marketing and there’s far less reason for anyone reading it to be interested lol.

This is why relevant affiliate links can be so much more useful than simply trying to get more links onto your blog. Think about what the person reading that particular post might actually need or be interested in next.

I know this is common sense but I just wanted to mention it just in case.

You’re Adding Affiliate Links Without Really Recommending Anything

Just adding an affiliate link to the name of a product and carrying on with the post doesn’t give someone much reason to click on it.

If anyone is interested in the product already and wants a direct link then it can work, but for most people, not so much.

If you’re recommending something, actually tell them why lol.

Maybe it’s something you use yourself and love. Or maybe there’s a particular feature that makes something SO much easier and you want to share with people as it’s made a big difference to you. Or it could be that it’s simply a really good fit for what you’re helping them with in that particular post. Could be a few reasons!

You don’t need to write a mini 500 word product review every time you add an affiliate link either lol. Sometimes a couple of sentences explaining why you’re recommending it is all you need.

You want it to be clear and obvious but not pushy. If you have a review or comparison post about that particular product, linking to that as well/instead is also a good idea.

It gives the reader a reason to actually care about the product rather than just seeing another link in the middle of a paragraph with no extra context as to what the link even is.

People Are Clicking Your Affiliate Links But Not Buying

If people ARE clicking your affiliate links, that’s actually really useful information and means you’re already doing well!

Something you’ve said has made them interested enough to leave your blog and go and look at the product. This then means you can start looking at what’s happening between that click and the sale as to what could be then putting people off.

(The amount of people clicking a link and actually buying a product is always a low percentage anyway – even for the best affiliate marketers. So we aren’t talking if only 1 out of 100 buys something… this is for if NO ONE does.)

It could be the product itself, the price, what they see when they land on the sales page or simply that they were interested enough to look but weren’t quite ready to buy yet. All are completely real and valid reasons.

There are quite a few reasons this can happen, so I’ve gone through them properly in Why Your Affiliate Links Get Clicks But No Sales (And How To Fix It), including what you can look at on your own blog to help turn more of those clicks into actual affiliate sales.

Should You Publish More Posts or Improve the Ones You Already Have?

Sometimes you actually do need more new, fresh content.

If your blog only has five posts, publishing more useful content gives you more keywords to target, more opportunities to get traffic and more ways for people to find you.

But if you already have a decent amount of content, have a look at what you’ve already got before deciding you need to publish loads more. 

Could you:

• Update posts that are already getting traffic?
• Improve posts that are starting to appear in Google?
• Add useful affiliate recommendations to relevant older content?
• Add better internal links to your reviews and comparison posts?
• Improve the explanation around affiliate links that already get clicks?
• Create more content around products or topics that are already showing some interest?

You might already have posts with plenty of potential that simply need a bit more attention.

Google Search Console, Google Analytics and your affiliate dashboards can all help you work out where that potential is.

How I’d Approach Affiliate Marketing on a Brand-New Blog

If affiliate marketing was going to be one of the main ways I planned to make money from a new blog, I wouldn’t wait until I had 50 or 100 posts before thinking about including it in my content.

I’d start by finding affiliate products that actually made sense for the topics I was planning to write about and then add them as I went.

Then as I planned my content I’d make sure I had a mixture of useful informational posts alongside things like tutorials, reviews, comparisons and recommendation posts.

That doesn’t mean forcing an affiliate link into every post!

Some posts simply won’t need one. While others could (really naturally) include several.

That way you’re giving yourself opportunities to make affiliate sales from the beginning, rather than publishing for a year and only THEN looking at everything you’ve created and wondering how any of it is supposed to make money. Or having to go back and add in more text/info/pics/links into all of your older content.

This may happen with some, but it would save you missing out on potential sales before you get the chance to go back and edit all your old posts.

If you’re wondering exactly where to start with affiliate marketing, you can have a look at my Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners (That Actually Convert!) post for some ideas.

And if you’re completely new to making money this way, you can also start with my Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: First £1,000 post.

You Don’t Need 100 Blog Posts to Make Your First Affiliate Sale

There honestly isn’t a particular number of blog posts that suddenly means you will start making affiliate income.

More useful content gives your blog more opportunities to be found, which is important, but what you publish matters just as much as how much you publish.

Do Keyword Research and think about what people are searching for, include products where they genuinely make sense and create some content for readers who are already researching the things you are recommending.

Then you can keep an eye on which of your posts get traffic, which links get clicked and what starts showing signs of working for you.

Your blog doesn’t need to reach a certain size or a certain number of posts before it can start making money from affiliate sales.

Give it opportunities to make them from the beginning and build from there.

Speak soon!

Katherine

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