Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Some will tell you that anyone can create a website and start promoting a product or service to earn profit. While technically true, it will involve efforts and hours of work.
Like anything else, your success with affiliate marketing highly depends on how much effort you put into it.
If you have enough time to grow your website and create high-quality content, you can find your target audience and start making passive income.
What is an affiliate marketing website?
The main objective of an affiliate marketing website is to recommend products and services to visitors to find good deals and suitable needs.
For every successful referral, you will earn a commission through the affiliate programme you are enrolled in. It sounds simple, but getting it right can be quite tricky and needs a strong marketing strategy.
An affiliate marketing website is a great option if you are looking for a side project earning passive income. We will guide you on the path to finding the one that best suits you.
Let’s be honest, affiliates don’t have the best reputation with the community. Affiliate links may seem suspicious and the services they redirect are often frowned upon.
An affiliate marketing website, however, could be more friendly and sincere, which can make the entire customer experience more transparent.
Why do you need a website for your affiliate marketing effort?
It makes your offers more informative
People need a clear understanding of what they are about to put their money into. You can get almost everything from your publisher, you just need to slightly tweak the content to match your marketing style.
It also means that you need to provide an effective sales copy and invest in the design you choose for your website. With that, it almost guarantees you a significant conversion.
Being more credible to your customers
Some of the largest affiliate programmes like Airbnb evaluate your worth as a potential partner affiliate based on your online presence. So, owning a website will become a decisive factor.
It is advisable to think and consider before submitting your Linkedin profile when applying for a new job.
Recruiters are driven by your online presence and, being an affiliate, a website often tells and highlights the story of your successes.
In addition, there is no better place to store all the positive feedback that you received from your visitors or customers.
Others would feel more confident in your products looking at others’ agreement and approval.
How to decide whether to start an affiliate marketing website
In the past, building a successful affiliate marketing website was not difficult. All you needed to do was set everything up and start creating creative content.
Today, however, competition is fierce so yours has to stand out and be unique.
The following are some of the “requirements” for affiliate marketing.
- have some free time. If you have some free time and a steady income (from your permanent job, perhaps), you can grow your affiliate website on your own on a long-term basis.
- have experience in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is one of the most critical skills for a successful affiliate marketing website, as its success depends on organic traffic. Is SEO Still Relevant in 2022? Top 10 Trending SEO Strategies – Click to read more.
- have web development experience. If you know how to build a website, you can save a lot of money.
How to Get Started with Your Affiliate Marketing Website (in 3 Steps)
Remember, there’s a lot to learn if you want to be successful in affiliate marketing. These are just some basic steps to guide you to the right path and launch your first affiliate marketing website.
Step 1: Choose a niche for your website and find an Affiliate Programme
When it comes to your niche, you can be very specific, or choose one that encompasses multiple topics, such as fashion, gaming or technology.
Instead of having the various types of topics on your website, you are encouraged to focus on a specific product type, such as website design, web hosting or even digital marketing.
Next, you need to enrol in one or more affiliate programmes. If this is your first attempt at affiliate marketing, we recommend sticking with an established programme like Zalora if your niche is about fashion or sport.
Zalora has a lot of different variety clothing for you to promote, so you can focus on the ones you feel comfortable writing about.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for a more targeted plan, there are plenty of options.
Step 2: Set up a domain and find a web host
This next step is much simpler. Once you have a niche, you’ll want to register a domain name for your website:
You can use any registrar you want. All you have to do is pay for a year upfront and the domain name will be yours.
Next, you need to find the right host. We offer many affordable plans, so feel free to check them out if you haven’t already:
With our hosting plan, you will get a lifetime free domain name. As long as you continue to host your website with us, we will help you renew your domain name for free. It is cost-effective for you in the long run.
With a domain name and hosting plan in place, it’s time to start working on the website itself!
If you’ve never built a website before and haven’t come up with a solution, we recommend WordPress, which is great for affiliate websites.
More so, we provide free website building classes for all of our clients. If you want to learn how to build a website with WordPress, please submit your registration at Exabytes Events here.
Step 3: Start creating content
Now, all that’s left is to start creating content relevant to your niche.
For example, the more articles you have on your website, the easier it will be to drive organic traffic, as long as you follow a few simple guidelines as follows:
- Try posting regularly. If your visitors know you are following an established schedule, they will be more likely to check your content regularly.
- Optimize your content for specific keywords. Every article should target a keyword related to your niche to attract people looking for that term.
- Keep posting even if you don’t see quick results. It takes time and effort for a new website to gain traction and establish itself, so be patient!
Learn more about How to Create High-Quality Content? Affiliate Marketing Guide
As for what type of articles to publish, it’s always wise to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
That way, you can research and study their methods and technology and take notes of them.
In a Nutshell
Affiliate marketing remains one of the most reliable ways to earn recurring passive income online.
Building a profitable affiliate marketing website takes more effort than it did a while ago, but it can still be done.
It will take more effort to start, but after that, you can outsource most of the work and focus on other projects, if you wish to.
Join Exabytes Affiliate Programme and Let’s Grow Together!
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