Affiliate marketing websites are one of the hottest sources of passive side income around.
Of course, you also know how to make an affiliate website.
It’s no small task, but it’s easier than many people make it out to be.
Are you ready to get started on a new journey to financial independence? If so, read on and we’ll dive right in and show you a blueprint for making an affiliate website that shines.
Decide on a Niche and a Business Model
There are a ton of different ways to produce an affiliate marketing website that can lead you to a high income.
The first step is picking a niche.
Many people pick a niche that resonates with them. Some handy with DIY might go for tools, a fitness fanatic may review diets and exercise programs.
Those are admirable, but the real start is in the art of keyword research and finding a micro niche. You can expand later, but targeting a low competition sector of a high-volume niche can bring things to fruition.
Once you have the niche down, you’ll want to look into the business model you’ll be using.
For programs, e-books, and informational products you may be better off partnering with a big affiliate network, but those who are reviewing hard physical products will often find themselves partnering with a retail network.
Both are completely viable ways to do things, and you can even mix them when you get farther down the line. The important thing is to find something and stick with it early in the lifespan of the website.
Content, Content, Content
Content often gets overlooked by affiliates.
That’s not to say they don’t have content, many of them have tons of content. The problem is that it’s horrible and it doesn’t inspire the user to purchase from the recommended products.
Bad content comes in a few forms. The big ones: stock advertising copy from CPA affiliate networks and using ESL writers with no expertise on the subject to create a site that is full of badly worded reviews.
Neither of these are appealing or effective.
Instead, you need to create a well-balanced blend of information, reviews, and soft advertising copy to help you sell the products that you’re getting paid to promote.
For instance, when you got to an affiliate website like Surf’n’Buy, you’re not just greeted with an endless wall of reviews. Instead, there are a ton of informational articles along with them.
Hire a good writer, or write great content yourself, and your conversion rate will go up.
Semantic search on Google means that many old keyword practices are dead, but it hasn’t quite caught up with some of the marketing agencies out there. As long as the keyword means the same thing, your on-page SEO will be fine.
A good content writer is worth their weight in gold and affiliate marketing websites aren’t free: don’t be afraid to spend a bit more money than you were expecting on an actual expert… or at least someone who sounds like one.
The end result will deliver.
You should also make sure that you have enough internal links to keep a person clicking through your page. This not only helps to increase the chances of a sale, dwell time is actually an SEO metric which will help your page’s rank on Google.
Off-Page SEO
There are a lot of ways to get off-page SEO going, but the most valuable for a beginner is beginning to build backlinks.
There are a few ways to take care of your off-page, but white-hat methods are usually the way to go. That means forming organic backlinks to excellent content and additions like infographics, as well as relatively neutral outreach in the form of guest posts on other web pages.
There are endless ways to build backlinks out there so pick a strategy and persevere.
Grey Hat SEO
Some people insist on doing things the fast way.
If that’s the case, then we recommend not buying links and instead producing a private blog network to promote your site. You can create free pages with WordPress, Blogspot, and more and then begin to interlink them.
Each should have at least 5 pieces of content and it shouldn’t look unnatural or spun. If you have a bad writer somewhere in stock who works cheap this is often what you should have them working on rather than your money site.
Just be aware that this kind of trickery is technically against the rules and you can drop ranks overnight if you’re not careful.
Hit Social Media
Social media can be important to an affiliate website. It’s also overlooked by many of the people running them.
When you’re creating your accounts on social media make sure to create a persona and engage with your customers. What the persona will look like depends on the niche and your own personality but as long as you’re actively talking to customers instead of being rude or using a copy-paste template you’ll be fine.
Paid advertisements can also do well, but make sure that they’re to value content instead of money content.
Social media’s purpose for an affiliate website is simple: it increases the consumer’s trust.
More trust, higher conversion rate, it’s that simple.
How to Make an Affiliate Website? Just Start
If you’re still wondering how to make an affiliate website… well, you need to brush up on the basics. The above is the foolproof guideline that countless websites have used over the years to become big earners for those who own them.
It’s not as complicated as many people make it out to be. The element which is lacking in most people isn’t knowledge: it’s persistence.
Why not get started today and get on your way to the kind of side income you’ve always dreamed of?
If you’d like us to build your affiliate website contact us using the “Contact Form” and we will get to started.
A Beginners Guide for WordPress Web Design
WordPress powers around 34% of the internet. Not only is WordPress powering blogs, but many eCommerce sites are using WordPress as well.
If you’re thinking about starting your own website, you might be considering WordPress but are wondering how hard WordPress web design is. If you aren’t very technically inclined, it can seem daunting to design your own website but we can help. Continue reading this article and learn some simple tips for designing your website on WordPress.
Choose a Theme That Will Work for You
Depending on how good you are with technical matters, you might need to choose a pretty simple theme. WordPress themes are what make your website show up the way they do online. WordPress themes allow you to have certain functions and ways to showcase your content without coding it yourself.
There are literally thousands of themes available online. You will find some themes are paid themes and some are free. You’ll find themes that require a yearly subscription and other themes that you can buy with a one-time investment.
Depending on the type of site you want to make, you’ll find that certain themes work better for you than others. If you’re building a magazine-style website, there are themes that are specifically for this style of website. If you want to build a photography website, you’ll be able to find themes optimized for sharing your photography.
Keep a Tidy Sidebar
The sidebar of your WordPress site is seen on every page on most designs. The sidebar isn’t where you should put everything that you can think of. Recent posts, ads, promotions, about sections and many other sections could confuse or distract your readers.
Be purposeful when you put things into your sidebar. Whether you’re using managed hosting or cpanel hosting, you access your sidebar settings the same way. Go into your dashboard, go to appearance and click on widgets. When you are in the widgets section, you’ll be able to easily change what’s in your sidebar.
Make It Easy to Navigate Your Website
Nothing is more frustrating than going to a website where you can’t find what you’re looking for. Your website navigation should make sense when people come to find information.
Group related topics, create categories, and structure your menu section in a way where people can see your system and thought process. If you have a finance section on your website, you might add subsections like Debt Resolution, Savings, Investing, and anything else related that can be considered a subtopic.
User experience is an important part of web design. Focus on planning out your website navigation before you even create content and it will work much better for you.
Choose a Clean Permalink Structure
Permalink structure is your website link structure. For instance, if your website is yourwebsite.com, your permalink might be yourwebsite.com/post1 or yourwebsite.com/posttitle. You can choose what your permalink structure is in the settings section near the bottom of the dashboard sidebar.
Use Images to Drive Your Point Home
Images help your readers stay engaged. We all remember loving to read picture books and getting excited to see what was on the next page. Now as adults, images still help drive points home so we are able to understand the information.
Not only do images make your page look better and engage your readers but they can also help with search engine optimization (SEO). You have the ability to put “alt text” with the keyword when you upload it to your WordPress page or post for better SEO results.
You can use stock images or you can take your own images and use them on your site. Stock images are inexpensive these days or you can even find some online for free.
Select an Appealing Font
If you don’t want to look like every other website online and use the Arial font, you might want to look into other fonts. You are going to find that there are a lot of options available but you need to find fonts that go along with your brand’s look.
You don’t necessarily have to use a different font throughout your website but you might want to use a fancy font on your headers. While you want your website to be attractive to your visitors, you don’t want to visually overload them or make your website difficult for them to read.
There are even places where you can create your own font, download it and use it on your site to make it uniquely yours. This is a little bit of a pro-tip but it might be something you want to consider later down the road when you’re working on your branding.
Don’t Forget the Footer
While the footer might seem a little boring, it is prime real estate. People scroll to the bottom of your page to get an idea of how long the content is. Make sure you have important information there so they can see it and possibly decide to stay on your page longer.
Depending on the theme you choose for your website, you may even be able to pull images from your Instagram feed, show excerpts from your About page and more.
WordPress Web Design for the Win
Now that you know more about WordPress web design, a whole new world is open to you. Why not keep learning? We have many other articles on our site that can open up more worlds and exciting opportunities.
Browse our website, find your favorite section, drop a bookmark and come back soon for more great reads.
