Many new bloggers and affiliate marketers get hung up on the smallest details. People sometimes think they have to do everything exactly right the first time and that there’s a specific formula for everything when it comes to affiliate marketing. I recently wrote an article about common questions new bloggers ask, then one more question came to mind that I hear all the time. That question is: what’s the best ratio of info to money posts on a blog?
So let’s not waste any time and get right to it.
What’s the best ratio of info to money posts on a blog?
Like a lot of things when it comes to blogging, there’s no magic formula for the ratio of money posts to info posts. No knows for sure what Google truly wants to see, so based on what Google does tell us and what people talk about we can make some educated guesses.
Having a site that consists of mostly articles that start with the word “Best” will look spammy. It will be obvious to anyone that you aren’t trying to be a helpful blog, you’re just an affiliate site leveraging search traffic. That used to be ok until recently.
Now Google and internet users alike seem to be wise to these straight-for-the-jugular tactics. Now, when it comes to niche websites the best strategy is to come at it with the intent of helping people first. Making the money comes second after providing a free, helpful resource. You should ideally build an authority website that has all types of content.
Having said all that, I see 2 options here. You’re either building an affiliate type site to monetize with affiliate links, or an informational site to monetize with mostly display ads.
Affiliate site
Let’s say I was building the prototypical Amazon affiliate site, or whatever type of affiliate site for that matter. I would never make more than 25-30 percent of my content be money posts. The remaining 75-80 percent of the content would be about a variety of topics not containing the word “best”.
That’s just me though. I’m pretty sure many people still do 90/10 in favor of affiliate content. I just don’t think that strategy works as well as it once did, unless your site is already an authority in your niche.
Best is the #1 buyer intent keyword in affiliate marketing, so if you ever see that in a title it’s a dead giveaway of a money post.
Info site
For what I would consider to be an informational site, that ratio of money posts to info posts would drop down to more like 90/10 in favor of info posts. I honestly got burnt out slogging through best post after best post. The topic choices were limited and often ultra-competitive, so now I build sites that I consider to be more informational.
That may be a bit confusing, don’t affiliate sites inform people? They do, but they’re highly commercialized and it’s obvious. Basically everything screams “buy me!” on an affiliate site. An info site might be littered with ads, but other than that the content is solving a problem and free for the reader.
Affiliate links can still be added to much of the content on informational sites, aside from the money posts. A lot has to do with the stage of buyer readiness that you determine your readers are at. I still get plenty of conversions with affiliate links on articles that I would not consider to be money posts. If you can pump the traffic up enough, it kind of evens out the lower buyer intent and conversion ratio.
Informational to money article ratio on 3 of my sites
I pulled 3 sites from my portfolio below to compare info to money post ratios. For the purposes of this article I’m not going to get into earnings for the 3 sites below. To give you an idea though, all 3 sites bring in over $1k/month.
When I refer to the money/info percentage, I’m specifically counting the number of “best” posts vs all other posts as any other post I consider to be an info post.
Site 1
- Money posts: 20
- Info posts: 243
- Money/info percentage: 7.6% money posts
Site 2
- Money posts: 5
- Info posts: 334
- Money/info percentage: 1.4% money posts
Site 3
- Money posts: 30
- Info posts: 56
- Money/info percentage: 34.8% money posts
Site 3 was created about a year ago with the intention of being mostly affiliate in nature. Now that I have a decent amount of money content on that site I’ll be adding plenty of supporting info content over the coming months. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop adding affiliate content altogether, just less of it.
Sites 1 and 2 are obviously highly informational in nature and ad revenue are their major income sources. I’m very pleased with the performance of both of these sites.
Can you have too many money posts?
Having too much affiliate content, aka money content, can harm your reputation and trust factor with Google. Do I know that for a fact? No, but I believe it to be true. The days of having sites stuffed full of “Best X For Y” type articles are over. Create actual helpful content, drive traffic to money posts from the info content. When it comes to affiliate marketing, there are many ways to funnel traffic to your money posts and get sales.
Can a site with little or no money posts still generate decent income?
Absolutely, sites with very little money content can still earn you a lot of money. In the examples above, site 2 that has just 1.4% money posts should bring in over $6k this month. On top of that it’s a pretty new site and has huge growth potential.
In summary
Unfortunately there’s no magic ratio of info and money posts, and you shouldn’t worry about trying to find one. Make sure that your number one goal to solve the searcher’s problem. Don’t think you always have to go for the so-called money keywords in order to get affiliate sales. Be creative and experiment with different levels of buyer intent. Try out the display ad model, or one of the other many different ways to make money online by creating content.
Thanks for reading!