How To Build a Five-Star Affiliate Marketing Website in 2023
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to improve your business ranking, drive more sales, and increase your online revenue. But the most crucial part of this is a good affiliate marketing website. In this guide, you’ll learn how to build a five-star website and thrive traffic to your business.
In this era of digitalization, an affiliate marketing website can bring a significant portion of profit to your company. You can boost your earnings by collaborating with other brands and promoting online products and services with proper affiliate tracking software.
Once you start affiliate marketing, you can achieve new capital levels by merely adding affiliate links for your readers to click. Of course, your most important task is to attract a solid audience that clicks your affiliate links.
You can build an affiliate marketing strategy with little investment if this is just a side hustle. However, if this is your primary source of income, be prepared to put more effort and money into establishing partnerships, creating high-quality promotional content, and upgrading your marketing strategy.
Regardless of the targeted industry, there are some basic steps to affiliate marketing success that beginners need to follow. We will take a closer look at them below.
Choose Your Niche
With the increasingly competitive nature of this marketing tactic, choosing the right niche for you is vital. You can promote products on your website quickly and naturally while cultivating a vital audience and avoiding vast competition. Not every niche is profitable and click-worthy, which is essential in successful affiliate marketing.
Some of the most profitable blogging niches today include:
- Health and wellness
- Pet care
- Fashion and beauty
- Travel
- Finance
- Technology and gaming
- Cryptocurrency
Owning down your marketing strategy is crucial because it reduces the competition and makes optimising the affiliate marketing KPIs easier. Each topic includes dozens of more specific niches. For example, beauty includes skincare, haircare, makeup, nail art, etc. The most crucial part is choosing a niche you're highly knowledgeable in.
Selecting a narrower topic will significantly reduce your competition and make the whole ordeal easier. Instead of dealing with loads of authoritative websites, fewer competitors aim to rank higher in the search engine results with the exact keywords.
In addition to that, the more specific your niche is, the stronger connection you establish with the audience. This way, your product recommendations will be trustworthy to average visitors, and you will achieve the goals of your marketing strategy.
By niching down your affiliate marketing website, you can generate unique and valuable commercial content to evoke trust in your readers. However, there is a certain point you shouldn't cross in this process. For example, you can choose to write about skincare for women, but skincare for women with a particular product type is far too specific and won't get you a broad audience of choice for topics to write about.
Select an Affiliate Program That Works for You
Before you begin your website preparations, you should look at all possible options for affiliate programs and products in your targeted niche. You can generally find affiliates in two ways - via an affiliate network or one-off affiliate programs - learn more in our all-in-one affiliate marketing guide.
The most common way of establishing a solid partnership with a specific brand is through their affiliate program. Every affiliate program comes with its terms and payouts. As a beginner, you should check out the affiliate programs from brands you aim to collaborate with. So, if you start an affiliate marketing website in the fashion niche, you may choose to become an affiliate for a budget-friendly boutique.
Earning commissions from Amazon products is one of the most profitable business deals, and you can achieve it through Amazon Associates. Apart from Amazon, ShareASale is another crucial platform that features thousands of brands from various niches. Additionally, when you select an affiliate, it is wise to check their commission rates as different product categories may not be the same.
There are three basic ways of counting affiliate program referrals:
Per-click - the merchant gives you a small payout when a visitor clicks on your link;
Per-lead - the merchant pays you a small amount when the visitor clicks on the link and submits their data to the affiliate's website;
Per-sale - the affiliated merchant gives you a payout when the user clicks on your link and makes a purchase.
Create Your Affiliate Marketing Website
Once you become familiar with your niche and affiliate options, it is time to build your website.
First, you need to get a domain name, i.e., an address for users to navigate to your page. The domain name should be relevant to your chosen niche and cater to SEO standards. While the simplest domain names in the most profitable niches tend to be taken or pricey, make sure you keep them related and easy to remember. Additionally, implementing DNS protection can help safeguard your domain from potential threats, ensuring a secure experience for your visitors.
The second step is finding web hosting. Web hosting is the foundation of a website, storing all the data linked to your page. With nearshore staff augmentation, you can quickly bring in technical experts to assist with web hosting and ensure your site is up and running smoothly. One of the most valuable affiliates hosting tools is Bluehost, and using it can jumpstart your website in just a few minutes.
Use of Quality Themes and Plugins
When you work on the appearance of your first affiliate marketing website, you don't have to go overboard. However, you still need to have some basic knowledge in coding and building the page that would bring you profit. A website builder for WordPress can significantly ease this process.
WordPress is the most trustworthy content management platform that offers easy-to-use and attractive themes for your website. If you find it hard to choose a suitable theme for your website, you can check out the list HubSpot compiled.
Once you set up your web page, you can use the plugins to add and track affiliate links. One of the vital plugins for affiliate marketers is the link-cloaking plugin. Link cloaking plugins can help you with long and complex affiliate links that can cause a lack of trust in visitors.
These plugins let you, direct visitors, to a page under your URL and, afterward, the external affiliate.
This way, your links will look more reliable, and you will achieve a more outstanding balance between the external and internal links on each page, thus ranking higher in search engine results.
Start Writing Optimized Niche Content
When you have set up your website, it is time to fill the pages with relevant content. Delivering niche-specific, accurate, high-quality content is crucial for bringing traffic and conversions to your affiliates and raising your profit.
The most profitable types of affiliate marketing content include:
- Product reviews with product comparisons
- User testimonials
- Service roundups and tools
- Tutorials
Apart from website posts with the required links to affiliate products, you can also include content on any helpful topic that aligns with your niche. To develop quality content ideas, you should do thorough keyword research and get familiar with what your audience usually searches for.
Many free keyword research tools enable you to choose attractive topics with a substantial search volume but aren't too competitive. Therefore, you don't need to invest in expensive keyword research programs as a beginner. Another way to learn more about the needs and questions of your target audience is by doing some research on online forums such as Reddit or Quora.
Implement Analytics
You probably won't immediately get significant profit after learning the basics of creating affiliate marketing content. Your audience will find some of your posts attractive, but not all of them have to resonate with the readers. Understanding which parts of your website resonate with your audience - and why - is the most crucial growth factor to consider.
The two vital metrics you should consider are clicks and EPC (earning per click).
Clicks - i.e., the number of engagements with your links. You can deduce which links on your website have the best engagement by going through your clicks. You can track clicks by setting up a Google Analytics account with specialized code or other plugins, such as MonsterInsights.
Earnings per click - you can calculate your website's EPC rate by dividing your earnings by the total amount of clicks. This way, you will get a realistic insight into the most successful affiliate links on your website to prioritize them in your upcoming content.
How Much Does It Cost To Build an Affiliate Website?
To start an affiliate marketing program, you should follow several straightforward steps. The main required tools and services are available in all sizes and shapes and designed to fit your specific business needs and budget opportunities.
Basic Website Costs
Your main initial costs for a solid affiliate marketing website include:
Domain name - For purchasing a unique domain name with annual renewal, you must invest approximately $10-25.
Hosting - Monthly hosting fees largely depend on your eCommerce site's specific requirements and features. In general, the costs can range from $15 to $79.
Page design - Tech-savvy content creators can take care of website design themselves, while for those who choose outsourcing to a professional, this can cost up to $5,000.
If you opt for a WordPress website, we recommend using the WooCommerce plugin and checking out its many free, customizable themes to save money. Also,
Hiring an expensive web design professional might be wise, but it isn't always necessary. However, a design service subscription can offer a cost-effective alternative with access to professional design support as needed.
All in all, the minimal yearly costs for maintaining an affiliate marketing website are around $200.
Marketing Tools
To achieve growth in this field, you must assemble a team of affiliates to create educational marketing content about particular products and services. Let's go over the most common tools you should use for recruiting, alongside the expenses they bring.
Social networking - You can get in touch with potential affiliates by being active on the most famous social networks, leaving comments on social media posts or forums, and joining groups relevant to your niche. The best thing about this recruitment method is that you can do it for free.
Paid social media ads - As a beginner in this, you can start with easy entry and low-cost Facebook ads or use Instagram ads for integration. By investing around $0.97 per click, you can reach new influencers.
Visual content - It is wise to include shareable images, graphics, and other types of visual content in your marketing program. To minimize your expenses, we recommend you design them with a free tool like Canva.
Landing pages - By adding landing pages to your website, you can introduce potential affiliates to the benefits of your marketing program. You can use Easy Affiliate to build them for free, choose a website builder or CSM (content management system), or invest in a premium landing page builder.
Affiliate Payouts and Commissions
The costs of affiliate payouts and commissions in your marketing campaign will depend on the industry, niche, individual partnerships, and specific products and services.
The average expenses vary from 5-25%.
However, when it comes to digital products, the payouts can increase to 50% because the reproduction and shipping of these products are much less pricey. Before deciding on your budget, research your niche and potential affiliates thoroughly.
Optional Tools and Plugins
The steps above are must-haves for beginners establishing their affiliate marketing website. You should also consider optional strategic tools and investments to accelerate your website's growth.
SEMrush - This tool can help you with keyword research, competition analysis, and other aspects of your SEO strategy. Its monthly fees start at $99.95.
Pretty Links - Shortens and optimizes links on your website, which leads to better traffic and increases brand awareness. Monthly fees start at $99.
Which Website Builder is Best for Affiliate Marketing?
Some SEO experts don't consider website builders the perfect solution for your business strategy, but some have proven effective in this marketing strategy.
WordPress + Elementor: Best Free Solution for Website Building
You cannot use Elementor as an independent website builder - it can only be used with a previously created WordPress website. Nonetheless, this is a solid deal because WordPress is famously known as the number one choice for affiliate marketing that offers the best features, plugins, and design flexibility.
Elementor offers more than 30 free customizable templates and more than 300 premium ones for users who opt for one of the Elementor Pro plans. His website builder enables you to customize every feature to your website's needs, from colours to layouts and fonts.
The Elementor plugin includes many useful integration options for email marketing campaigns, such as MailerLit, MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, etc. With their help, you can build effective landing pages, create action links, form widgets, and hotspot widgets.
Zyro: The Leading Budget-Friendly Website Builder
Zyro is famous mainly in affiliate marketing because of its affordable prices. This website builder offers four monthly plans ranging from $2.61 to $14.30. You can also choose the free version, but its features are limited.
Most affiliate marketers build multiple websites; therefore, choosing a budget-friendly option that gives you reliable marketing tools and a blogging platform is wise.
Zyro allows you to choose from more than 130 customizable templates for every purpose, multiple SEO tools for advertising, and additional AI tools such as writing tools, a blog title generator, an AI heatmap, and a free logo maker.
Squarespace: Best Premium Website Builder
Armed with in-house tools that give extra opportunities for affiliate marketers, Squarespace is the most trustworthy premium website builder. It is remarkably user-friendly and offers professional, customizable templates for your website. Although Squarespace doesn't give content creators much design freedom, this website builder enables you to build an efficient affiliate website with ease.
Squarespace prioritizes high-quality service and value for money. You can choose from 4 available plans with monthly fees that range from $14 to $40. Beginners can also test out the benefits of Squarespace by trying its 14-day free trial.
Squarespace offers more than 110 attractive and responsive templates for vast purposes within the affiliate marketing area. This website builder provides affiliate marketers with SEO-integrated and effective blogging platforms with various advanced tools. It also comes with a simple and user-friendly design editor, a traffic analytics tool to help you track the performance of specific pages on your website, and social media integration tools that increase your reach.
I specialise in creating content that resonates with audiences and aligns with marketing objectives. My approach combines persuasive narratives with a keen understanding of brand essence to foster genuine connections and inspire reader engagement. Each piece is designed not just to inform but to captivate and convert readers into customers.
