One can earn money online by running an affiliate marketing website, which is a fantastic method. Take Adam Enfroy as an illustrious example, who, as both an affiliate marketer and blogger, earns an impressive $80,950 per month solely from affiliate revenue. Additionally, the affiliate marketing process is more straightforward compared to selling products or services online since you merely need to insert a link and earn a commission upon a purchase made through it.
Simply comprehending how affiliate marketing functions is insufficient. Adequate planning and strategies are imperative for affiliate websites to achieve success.
Ways to Make an Affiliate Marketing Website
1. Choose a Niche
Choosing the appropriate niche, which pertains to the specific subject matter you will center your content around, is the initial stride towards establishing a thriving affiliate marketing website.
Choosing a niche that aligns with your knowledge and interests is a helpful recommendation. One common error made by novice affiliate marketers is opting for highly profitable and trending categories without considering their own abilities and passions. Consequently, they tend to lose interest and eventually cease creating content.
You can refer to this list of questions to assist you in selecting a niche that you have expertise in and feel passionate about.
- What are your hobbies?
- What industries have you worked in?
- What activities do you enjoy doing and often lose track of time?
- What types of topics do your family and friends usually seek your input for?
2. Decide on a Website Type
The first step in narrowing down your options when building an affiliate marketing website is selecting a niche. Once that is done, choose a website type that will serve as a reliable source for specific requirements. To provide some ideas, we have gathered five options along with the finest examples for each category.
Blog
Blog owners have the ability to discuss a specific subject on their blog while incorporating an affiliate link into the content. It is important for these links to be related to the blog post to avoid giving the impression of an affiliate marketing fraud.
The Points Guy is a highly sought-after affiliate marketing website in the travel industry, providing valuable guidance to its target audience to effectively utilize credit card and airline rewards, ultimately leading to reduced travel costs. It generates revenue through commissions obtained from various affiliate programs, including United Airlines and American Express.
Retail Listings
If you want to create an affiliate marketing site that resembles a genuine eCommerce store but showcases items from various retailers and directs customers to their websites through affiliate links instead of displaying its own products, take a look at Canopy’s website. The team at Canopy curates collections of popular, trending, and new items and incorporates Amazon affiliate links.
Product Review Site
Review sites provide descriptions of products based on the owner’s personal testing or use. Additionally, they may invite contributors to share their own reviews of products they have used.
Being an affiliate website, Gadget Review has achieved notable success in this particular category. True to its name, it offers evaluations of various gadgets along with top-notch suggestions in diverse domains, ranging from culinary gadgets to computer devices. Every review will encompass referral links to Amazon.
Price Comparison Site
Visitors to price comparison websites are presented with a specific product and its prices from various stores, aiding them in quickly selecting the most cost-effective options. Additionally, certain websites might incorporate users’ reviews and comparisons.
Skyscanner, a well-known site in this industry, specializes in affiliate marketing. It offers a comparison service for flights, hotels, and car rentals from different providers, allowing users to select the most cost-effective choice.
Daily Deals Website
By bringing together deals from businesses and manufacturers in a single location, individuals can earn commissions while helping visitors save significant amounts of money through the use of coupons on the website.
An excellent illustration of this can be seen with Groupon, which gathers deals in diverse categories, such as healthcare products and school supplies. Each deal page provides customer reviews and presents the specifics of the promotion, such as its duration and terms and conditions.
3. Choose a Domain Name and a Web Hosting Provider
Once you have determined the type of website you want to create, acquire a web hosting plan which will store your website data online and allow it to be accessed by internet users. Additionally, to establish an affiliate website, you will require a domain name which serves as the address people type into their web browser.
Register Web Hosting
Although it may be tempting for beginners to select a web host based on the lowest price, we advise opting for a high-quality hosting service to ensure improved long-term performance of your website.
When selecting a web hosting provider, it is important to consider six aspects.
- Speed. Pick a web host with a stable and fast server speed to ensure your website will load smoothly. Check its uptime guarantee and status – the closer to 100%, the better.
- Security. A good web host should offer SSL certificates, regular backups, and essential security measures to protect your website from malware attacks.
- User-friendliness. Beginners should choose a web host with an intuitive control panel to help them set up a website easily.
- Price. Look for web hosts providing reasonable starting and renewal costs. Generally, web hosting costs anywhere between $2 to $500/month, depending on its type.
- Support. Ensure the hosting company provides 24/7 support to assist you whenever you face an issue.
- Scalability. A good hosting provider should let affiliate marketers upgrade their plans as their websites grow.
Figure Out Your Domain Name
Choosing a custom domain name is superior to opting for a free one that includes the name of the website provider. A custom domain appears neat, concise, and enhances the credibility of a website.
A desirable domain should be concise, uncomplicated, and straightforward to spell – ideally consisting of three to four words. Incorporating pertinent keywords in a domain name can also assist users and search engines in understanding the purpose of a website.
If you want to reach a specific audience in a particular location, it is advisable to opt for a top-level domain that corresponds to that region. For instance, select .ca for targeting Canadian residents or a .es domain to appeal to the Spanish market.
Choose a Web Host and a Website Builder.
Selecting the correct hosting provider is essential for improving the performance of your website since the domain represents the address of your site, while hosting refers to the storage location for all files such as pages, content, images, videos, and more.
When selecting a hosting provider, it is important to take into account certain important characteristics.
- Amount of storage and bandwidth provided
- Database support
- SSL and CDN support
- Uptime
- Backups
- Number of email addresses
- WordPress and WooCommerce support
- 24/7 customer support
Popular web hosting providers like Bluehost, Cloudways, HostGator, Hostinger, and InMotion offer a variety of services. Additionally, signing up for a hosting account with Cloudways grants you the added benefit of receiving Astra Pro at no extra cost.
5. Set up a Theme and Plugins for your Affiliate Website
After setting up WordPress, the next step is to install a theme and essential plugins for your affiliate website. The theme plays a critical role in defining the overall appearance and atmosphere of your website. It includes preset configurations that affect the layout and features of your site, including elements like your logo, color palette, and typography.
You have a variety of themes to choose from, including both free and premium options that offer a range of features. Additionally, there are several plugins available to enhance your website’s performance and security.
- SEO plugins: Boost traffic by optimizing your website for search engines. Use plugins, such as Yoast SEO, RankMath, and AIOSEO
- Backup plugins: While your hosting has you covered, you can carry out periodic website back-up by installing plugins. Some popular ones include UpdraftPlus and ??WP Time Capsule
- Caching plugins: Want to optimize the speed of your website? Use caching plugins, such as WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, and WP-Optimize
- Security plugins: Secure your WordPress website against malware and cyber-attacks. Some popular
6. Create Content for Your Specific Niche
Blogging serves as an excellent method for producing website content, allowing you to delve into subjects that you find enjoyable and fascinating. Furthermore, your blog can serve as a platform to curate informative materials and engage your audience effectively.
To distinguish yourself as a reliable and dependable affiliate marketer, what type of content should you focus on producing?
Types of content to create
Reviews of products.
Creating product reviews is an extremely effective content marketing strategy as customers constantly seek valuable information pertaining to different products and services.
If you produce an outstanding product review that outlines the different features, advantages, and instructions on product utilization, you will effectively educate your audience and potentially persuade them to make a purchase.
Comparisons between products
Are you having a hard time deciding between two products? Why not take a look at our comparison post for product A and product B? Product comparisons are most helpful for customers who want to choose between two options, as they provide the finishing touch before making a purchase.
Imagine if your content had the ability to assist customers in making a choice between products. This can be achieved through a skillfully crafted product comparison post. By ensuring the relevance of your content, you can generate passive income by incorporating your affiliate links.
Articles that are considered the best
The ‘best of’ articles are another effective type of content for affiliate marketing websites. These articles include the top themes, plugins, and page builders, among others. In these articles, you can highlight multiple products, provide their advantages and disadvantages, and genuinely guide customers with your honest opinion of the product.
It goes without saying that the affiliate link for each of the products will serve as their CTA.
Manuals that provide instructions or guidance.
Looking to generate significant website traffic from the beginning? Start by creating informative ‘how-to’ posts! These posts usually provide a step-by-step guide on using a specific product, and they are effective at driving a large amount of traffic.
7. Create an Email List
Were you aware that an email marketing campaign can yield an ROI of 3600%? In other words, for every $1 spent, you can expect to receive ??$36. Despite the time-consuming process of building a list, the outcome justifies the effort.
By consistently providing valuable content and actively engaging with your audience, you can establish a loyal customer community. How can you develop this community? The most effective method we have observed is to create a free lead magnet and offer it to your target audience.
Lead magnets that are commonly used include eBooks, printables, online courses, cheatsheets, trial software, and subscriptions. To create a subscriber list, employ plugins like Convert Pro and ActiveCampaign for generating high-conversion email opt-in forms.
8. Use social media to promote your content
Considering that over half of the global population is active on social media, it is highly probable that your target audience can be found on one of these platforms. This further emphasizes the importance of promoting your content on social media.
Just like email marketing, investing time in building an engaged audience on social media is a valuable endeavor given its immense potential reach.
9. Work on your website SEO
SEO is essential for the success of any online endeavor, serving as a foundational aspect for decades. It assists search engines in identifying and highlighting your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). The SEO of your site is paramount in determining its triumph.
Ensuring the high quality of your website’s content is essential, as it will affect your website’s SEO if it is poorly written, contains errors in grammar or spelling, or does not meet the required standards.
