The Ultimate Blog Podcast - From Clarinet to Clicks: Creating Passive Affiliate Income with Dr. Tonya Lawson

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Monetizing your blog doesn’t have to mean chasing trends or writing product reviews for things you’ve never even used. Just ask Dr. Tonya Lawson, a musician turned blogger, passive income strategist, and SEO educator who’s built a business by sharing what she truly cares about.In this episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast, we interview Dr. Tonya Lawson about how she’s turned her blogs into income streams through passive affiliate income. From coffee to clarinets to garden beds, Tonya has figured out how to make affiliate marketing work in a way that feels both authentic and sustainable. 🔗Check out the show notes for this episode!💻 Grab Dr. Tonya Lawson's SEO Cheat Sheet☀️Join the Ultimate Blog Roadmap✉️ Try Kit for email marketingDo you love this podcast? Say thanks by leaving a positive review and/or rating!  

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. And I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.

Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. Welcome back to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. Today, we have Tanya Lawson here with us, and we are going to be talking about passive affiliate income and how we can do that. We've been talking a lot here on the podcast about monetization and how bloggers can get started right away. And so this is just a very timely conversation. So welcome to the podcast, Tanya. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, we are glad to have you here. And anytime that we can kind of just talk about monetization with our community, we

find that to be really impactful with our listeners because a lot of times bloggers get started, they have a website and they're like, what now? How do I make money? And so anytime that we can provide any insight to that, I think is really helpful and beneficial to those listening. So before we kind of dive into that idea of affiliate passive income and such. Tony, can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself and what you do? Oh, of course.

So I am actually a musician. My tagline is I'm a musician blogger, passive income, an SEO specialist. And, uh, I finished my doctorate in clarinet back in 2005. And with every intention of becoming a university professor, there were 50 clarinet jobs open in the United States when I graduated. I applied for all of them and I made the final two in two of those positions. And they picked someone with experience because, you know, I had none. And then the next year, there were only five jobs open.

And I made the final two in one of those five jobs. And once again, they picked someone with a lot of experience. And this is when the university started switching over to more of an adjunct model. So the full-time jobs started going away. And all throughout college and graduate school, I taught private music lessons for a living. I learned really quickly.

I could teach a few music lessons and make more money in just like five or six hours a week than I could working 25, 30 hours a week in a fast food job. So I was my own boss already. I didn't think of it as a business at the time. I thought of it as extra money. So I just was like, okay, I'm going to start a music studio. It's what I do. I'm good at it.

And I did. And I started a music studio year three. Once again, there were like five or six positions I applied and I actually got offered one, but it was a one year temporary position across the country and I decided that I had put way too much effort into my studio to give that up. So I turned it down. Now, I did finally get that university job, and it turns out it wasn't what I thought it would be. And now I don't do that anymore. I teach part time. I enjoy it, but it's not really my main income stream.

So I built my music studio and I had a thriving music studio. I was actually making more money than I ever would as a university professor. And I live in one of two states that I'm aware of. And they're the two states I've lived in that allow you to go into the schools and teach music lessons. I can pull students out of their band class to teach them a music lesson. It's convenient for the parents. They don't have to do anything after school. So all was well. I was happy. Then the county I live in thought about axing that program and I panicked. I realized at the time I had all my eggs in one basket and something had this was not stable.

I had to be careful. Luckily that never happened. That program still exists. I do still teach music lessons in the schools and I very much enjoy it. But at that panic, I knew that I had a website. It was just my name, Tanya Lawson.com. And I knew I should be able to make money with it because there are all these other people out there. So I took my very first SEO class and this would have been around 2017, 2018. And it was taught by a bunch of like bro marketers who told me I had to have a niche website

if I ever wanted to make any money. So that's what I did. I started my coffee website. And sure enough, within a few months, I was starting to bring in just a little, just a little bit of money, but some, and then it started growing. I did exactly what they said. And then I was like, there's gotta be a way to apply this to my website. And, and it's, it was definitely different.

It was more of a creative website. It wasn't all about writing reviews and comparing products and all of those things. So I started tweaking what I learned SEO wise. And all of a sudden, I was now making money with my website. Okay, so in walks COVID, everything shuts down. I actually, my music studio did it through it thrived because parents needed something for their kids to do. So I actually got more students during COVID online, but I also had extra time. And I love to garden. And I was like, I'm going to start a garden blog. It's going to be my pet project and just for fun.

And I used the SEO practices that I applied to my personal website. And it started doing well too. Well, that original coffee website with all those old school SEO practices that was making me a lot in affiliate income is out there in the Google graveyard somewhere because with all the helpful content updates, it tanked. And I probably can go bring it back to life at some point, but I don't even know if I want to anymore. It's not my passion.

And I frankly just leave it out there as an example of what not to do. And over time, the other two are doing really well. Now, my personal website, it brings in money through affiliate marketing. It brings in money through course sales. I took ads off of all of them because with all of the helpful content updates, that started hurting me a little bit. So I just got rid of ads. I wasn't making that much anyway in ads. And my garden blog, which literally during COVID, I got probably 50 articles up and I haven't touched it much since and it's still bringing

in affiliate revenue. So I have a whole folder full of articles that I need to edit and publish on it and I just haven't had time. I love that you found a need and also we're willing to pivot and I think that that is Really something that we talk about a lot here on the podcast and to our students Actually is that need to like see like where you're headed but then know like where you need to go next And I also like that you mentioned that what you did on the coffee blog isn't working anymore. It's not because it shifts. Quite honestly, it really does shift. And so how has that shift impacted you? Have you been able to roll with the punches or have you felt like a little resistant to that? Like what has been your attitude and mindset towards those

shifts when things change? Well, I think this is where being a musician comes in handy, because if you can survive music school, you can survive anything. There's nothing more cut through. I kid you not. And it is that constant having to change and pivot and all of that. So when all of this happened, I knew I kind of always felt a little sleazy with my coffee website anyway, because here I am doing all these product reviews. And quite frankly, I haven't even tried all these products, but this is what everybody was doing and it's what you had to do.

So and it was an extra income stream and that's what I needed at the time. So I was kind of happy once I was able to let that model go and shift over to what I was really passionate about. And with the knowledge that I could still monetize that, it just had to look a little differently. So how does that look differently than with your garden blog and then with hongnielaasen.com? What do you do differently now that maybe you weren't doing before in regards to like affiliate marketing? Okay, so one, I put less of an emphasis

on trying to make the sale, trying to make the sale, trying to make the sale. And instead I put an emphasis on providing value. And it, I guess I was ahead of the times because Google then switched over to that and I was already set up and ready to go. But I wanted to provide value. That was my main goal.

So one of my best performing blog posts on my tonylawson.com, I'm a clarinetist and I wrote it not necessarily to make money, although I did monetize it with affiliate links. But I kept getting all of these questions from parents about mouthpieces. And I, because if you know anything about music, the mouthpieces where all the sound is made and it's more important than the rest of the instrument. And I kept getting all these questions and frankly, I got tired of answering the same questions over and over again. So I simply just wrote an article that answered every single question that any parent had

ever asked me about it. And of course, I went ahead and put my Amazon affiliate links in there to the products. And then when a parent would ask me a question, I'd be like, oh, you know what? I wrote this article. I'm going to send it to you. And if you like it, awesome. If you have any other questions, reach back out. And all of a sudden I started making the sales also because it was so valuable. It started ranking.

It was, it was ranking number one easily. I haven't checked it in a while, but I still make sales off of it. So it's gotta still be ranking up there. And this is four years ago and I'm still making affiliate revenue and you know, a mouth Amazon doesn't pay much, but a mouthpiece is a hundred dollars. So that starts to add up. And then, you know, the way the Amazon partner program works is you get a commission off of everything in the cart. And if a parent is on their shopping for a mouthpiece, oh, they're going to throw some reeds in there. Oh, you know what? We need some laundry detergent. Oh, we need this.

And that really starts to add up. But it was less about selling and more about providing value. So I love that you've taken like, I think where people feel that the pull and the struggle with blogging is that they wanna share what they're passionate about, but they wanna make sure they're reaching people. And so you've taken what we often tell people is like you have to look at the questions,

listen to the questions that you're being asked and use that to move forward in creating your content. So now with your gardening blog as well, you're obviously not working with people in person and getting those questions. Are you able to find a way to connect with your audience on that website as well so that you can figure out how to create your content or how do you go about creating a strategy for that particular website where you can create content, you know you're going to drive traffic, and you're able to weave in some of that affiliate marketing and those affiliate links with that one as well?

Okay. So this is where all of the stuff I've learned about marketing, because I've also studied marketing and all this stuff. The stuff I've learned about marketing has come in handy. I ditched traditional keyword research. I'm not using Ahrefs. I'm not using SEMrush. I'm not using Ubersuggest.

I have a unique approach to keyword research and I have a membership, Creative SEO, because I think SEO these days has to be creative. You can't go with the traditional stuff. So for a lot of those questions, yes, I am not interacting with gardeners on a, on a daily basis. I hopped over to Facebook. I joined gardening Facebook groups.

I am interested in it. I also can provide value in those groups, but what happens in those groups? People ask questions. You get those questions. And when I see a good question, I'll just screenshot it. And then when it's time to create some content, I create content around those questions that people are asking because they're not just going in Facebook groups. They're also Googling people in those groups are sharing articles and I answer

questions in there all the time. If I've written an article around it, I will even just pop that article in. I would be like, hey, I think this is your answer and here's an article on it and I'll just pop that in. That's it. And it's not like, oh, here's my latest blog post. I only share when it is relevant to the question being asked. I think that's really smart because you're having conversations with your ideal reader who is directly asking questions and being part of that I think is a really great way for us to understand what people are asking. And if we're not in those communities or in those conversations, then I think it can feel

a little bit like, well, what do I talk about? Like, what am I going to talk about? Because sometimes I think when we choose our niche, we often choose something that like we are well versed in, like we're not a beginner anymore. And so sometimes it can be a little tough to go back and be like, but what were the questions that I had as a beginner? So putting yourself in those communities where you are surrounded by beginners, I think it really does offer you kind of a leg up to understand what kind of content does need to be created for this website.

So I think that's actually a really genius way of putting some very simple things on your website to just for people who are getting involved in gardening. I mean, if it's not a master gardener website, you know, everybody's got to start somewhere and have to learn that. And there's always new people, especially, you know, this time of year when the weather is nicer and everything like there's going to be like an uptick in that. And so I think that's that's really smart. So back to kind of like the affiliate marketing piece of that,, do you put affiliate marketing in every single post? And do you generally just do Amazon affiliates or do

you do affiliate marketing with other companies as well? I do both. I do put affiliate links in every single post if they are relevant. So if I'm writing a post about how to prune bell peppers, I'm going to be out in my garden, I'm going to have photos from my garden showing where to prune, where to snip, whatever, and then use a pair of sharp pruners, highlight that, link it over to Amazon. So with little things like that, I use Amazon. Perhaps it's raised bed gardening and I have stuff on my Vigo garden beds. Well then I would have a link through Vigo on that.

But I also put an Amazon link as well. You could purchase this through Amazon, purchase this through Vigo. Because there are people who are only gonna purchase through Amazon. And you can buy it in both places. So I put both options up there because there are people who don't wanna buy through Amazon and they'll go to the Vigo link and I'll make more money.

Yeah, I was just gonna ask that. Yes, I'll make more money. But there are also people out there who will see that article and then they'll still go look for it on Amazon. So I'll put both of them up there. You have an option. Either way, I'm making money. But if it's available on Amazon and I leave that link out, there are people who are just gonna go search Amazon to get it there because I've done the same thing. I've done this, I've seen websites

where it's a product I like, it's linking to, I know it's linking to something else that's gonna make them more money, but I'd check the price and it's gonna be cheaper for me on Amazon. I'm gonna go get it off Amazon. Having both links in there, give people options. You will have people go with both options.

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I've never really considered that. I generally like to use where I'm gonna profit the most just to be completely honest because generally, and I'd love your insight on this as well, Tanya, but generally when you work directly with a brand, you earn a higher commission than you're going to earn on Amazon. And I like the connections that I make independently with those brands,

but not everybody loves to do that. So I think that that's something else that we have to kind of talk about a little bit here is when it comes to affiliate marketing, there are a number of different ways that you can become an affiliate, like a lot, and some of those ways are going to work for you. And some some of those ways are going to work for you. And some of those ways aren't going to work for you. So some of them, like especially if you work for a company, you will have like specific things that you have to do.

So like I'm thinking about an affiliate that I work with or a brand that I work with currently. Like, I think I have to share like at least five links every single month. And they come and check like they are coming and checking. And I'm getting an email of those links have not been shared. And so some people don't want that, but I make a higher commission from them. And if you're sharing more, you're essentially going to end up making more because you're,

you're obviously talking about it more and sharing about it more. So what is your strategy there when it comes to working in those two different capacities, like one being Amazon affiliates, and then the other working with that brand independently? Like how do you kind of balance that or how do you structure that in order to make that continually profitable for you and something that like you don't have to grind in every single day that like you're throwing up affiliate links, for instance, on social media. And I don't even know if social media is part of your strategy. So if you want to talk about that too.

Oh, absolutely. So I have my hand in a lot of pots. So yes, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok and I'm on YouTube. So my strategy is most of the times the brands that I work with don't care if the sale comes from Amazon or from them because they're profiting regardless. However, if it's a brand deal where it's specific to that, then you need to obviously honor that and stick with it. But a lot of times those brands may not even be on Amazon. So the point would be moot. I think sharing is very important and sharing that on your social media channels.

Video content. Video content is huge right now and it's something that I'm incorporating more of into my blogs. Like I said, I have a YouTube channel and my YouTube channel centered mostly around business and planning, which my website, tanyalawson.com,

I've also pivoted in that direction. So those two link closely together. So if I am discussing a topic in a blog post that I also have a YouTube video on, I insert the YouTube video in as well. Maybe they only watch the YouTube video. Maybe they click over to YouTube. That's fine, too. But by doing that, I can have affiliate links in both places. I can have affiliate links within the blog post. I also make a lot in affiliate commission off my YouTube channel. So I was monetized through YouTube before I qualified for YouTube monetization because I was bringing in revenue from those affiliate links.

Will you talk a little bit more about that and how you've been able to do that over on YouTube? Oh, yes, absolutely. So my YouTube channel is about business and planning. So and frankly, we're starting to make the shift more into planning in general. And keeping the business in there, taking a little of the SEO out and moving in with how to plan your business. And in doing so, I do a plan with me every Friday where I sit down with my planner and I plan out my week or I plan out my month, or maybe I do some daily pages. And as I'm going through it, I'm talking about the things I'm using.

Like, this is the planner I use. This is the fountain pen that I'm using today. And this is the ink. This is the the Tombow marker that I'm using or whatever, the washi tape. And I put links to all of those products in the description. That's it. I make sales off of every single one of those because people see it and they're like, oh, I love that color marker. I want that.

And you know, it's a marker. The affiliate commission on it is like 40 cents. But once again, when you need the laundry detergent or your kid is going on a camping trip and you need a new sleeping bag. All of those go into the cart and you boost your commission. I love how you've kind of pivoted from what you felt like was a little icky that you talked about before where you were sharing things like that you hadn't necessarily tried. But now you're really seeing results because you're like genuinely and honestly sharing like here's what I'm doing You're showing people exactly what you're doing and they're really connecting with that

And I think that's such a great way to do it My question where my mind goes is okay. You said, you know, you kind of know you perform better on YouTube How are you keeping track of all this? You've got a lot going on. You've got a lot of places you're sharing. You've got a lot of links. You've got different companies you're signed up for. They may have different requirements. How do you manage this from a business perspective and kind of keep it all straight? Well, there are spreadsheets involved.

Google Sheets is my friend. But yeah, it's really not that hard once you get into a system. Once you know exactly what you're doing. Because I am not, at the moment, I am not creating content around a brand. If I sign a brand deal, that's obviously going to go on my content calendar, and I am going to create content around that brand. But at the moment, I am creating content that I want to create. Therefore, I can put whatever I want in there. Also, as far as some of it, like tracking whether that monetization came from my blog versus whether it came directly from YouTube, That's easier in that all that planning content

is only on YouTube. So I know that those sales came from that. And if it's, you know, if they're buying other things, I can kind of look through the list and go, oh, okay, yeah, there's that planner. Okay, that came from this content. And then some of it's a little bit of a guessing game. And I don't worry about it too much. I don't worry about the details.

I worry about whether or not sales are being made, whether or not money is coming in. Because like you said earlier, you know, you're going to use the one that makes you the most money. Blogging is lovely. It's fun. It's a passion, but also you're putting time into it. You need to be compensated for the time you're putting into it. Yeah. And one thing that that burns me up is when people are like, oh, blogging is my business or YouTube is my business,

but I don't do it for the money. I do it because I love it. Well, you can't have it both ways. Either it's your business or it's your hobby. And you've got to think about it that way. And there's nothing wrong with either way. If you're doing it for a hobby, that's great. But let's face it, most of us want to make money off of this. And you have to think about it like a business. What can I do to make money to bring in the bottom line? Because we're out there paying for hosting. We're paying for all of this stuff and we've got to be

compensated for it. I love that you mentioned that. Very, very important. And I think especially as women, we need to hear that too. We need to hear like, it's okay to put a link up. It's okay to share a commissionable way. It's okay to do that because you are spending time creating the content that is in turn helping someone and they're not having to pay extra. Like if they're already going to be purchasing something like that, you're just giving them what they need in an easier format. You know what I mean? Well, to tie back into what you said about as women, we need to hear that.

I think that from that perspective, we need to be just blunt about it and be upfront. When I send a newsletter out, I'll include the TLDR and have the list of affiliate links and then I will put on there and of course these are affiliate links because do you know what my content is about? Just make a joke about it and people appreciate that. Yeah, yes, 100%. So with that kind of said, Tanya, as we're wrapping things up here, what is something that you would tell a beginner blogger, like somebody who maybe is just getting started or maybe they've been blogging a while and they're just not making money yet? What is some piece of advice that you would give to them in regards to affiliate marketing? I would say blogging in general, not just affiliate marketing,

it's compound interest. If you start a blog with the intention of making $10,000 a month in your first six months, that's a pipe dream. It's not going to happen. I mean there's the anomaly out there, but it's not going to happen. But if you are persistent, if you continue to create quality content that is helpful to your readers and continue to just incorporate affiliate links into each piece of that content, over time that is going to start to build. And then that interest is going to start compounding. Because once that article is out on the internet, it is out there. It can still be bringing you money in five to 10 years later if it is still relevant. So maybe you look at that first Amazon sale and you're like, oh, I haven't even hit my

$20 to get my check. You know what? That's okay. Because maybe you made $5 this month, but if that same article brings in $5 the next month and the next month and the next month over 10 years, what is that gonna be? It's going to be a lot.

So you need to think of it like an investment. It is a long-term goal. It is not a get rich quick. And you just need to know that upfront and be okay with that. I think that is excellent advice that is empowering and a great reminder. I love that you said it's compound interest because that's truly what it is. It's not just what you're doing today, but it's what you've done in the months past and it's what you're going to be doing

in the months ahead. And the only way that you're going to fail at blogging and making money is if you quit. And I think being willing to pivot and continue learning and to continue growing I think is one of the best gifts you can give yourself as a blogger, especially if you're wanting to do it like a business and earn income. So thanks for your insight today, Tanya. Can you please let our listeners know where they can connect with you? Oh, absolutely. So I'm very active on Instagram and YouTube. On both of those, I'm at dr.tonyalawson at drtonyalawson. And my website is tonyalawson.com and that's Tanya with an O. All right. Thanks so much, Tanya. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog,

visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.