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If you have made a decision to generate cash online through affiliate marketing, you have probably recognized the fact you can’t make much progress without an affiliate marketing website. The challenge is not in building affiliate marketing website but understanding how to develop a successful affiliate marketing website. This is the stumbling block for many affiliates. However, developing a successful website can either be challenging or hassle-free depending on what you understand and what you don’t understand.
Before even thinking about starting to make your affiliate marketing website, you must ask yourself numerous questions for which you need satisfactory answers as the success of your affiliate marketing business will depend on your decisions.
- Do you have the technical skills to develop your affiliate marketing site or will you need to outsource it to a freelancer?
- Which platform will provide the right support for your website?
- Do you need a single page or multi-page website?
- How much are you willing to invest in your website?
It is crucial to specify your objectives and set spending limits to prevent overspending on a project with no guarantee of success in the end. This article will outline the steps you need to follow for building affiliate marketing website to improve your chances of success.
Getting Started – Why?
The first step is to be clear on the reason why you are building an affiliate marketing website. Also, you need to understand how the affiliate marketing business model works, discovers the nitty-gritty of affiliate marketing and appreciate the time it takes before you start seeing any results. It is easier to develop your affiliate marketing website and give your business a good chance of success once you have a solid foundation.
The majority of the people have limited resources when they first start out as affiliate marketers so you need to think about your expenses and consider all options. Keep in mind all businesses require some investment and it’s practically impossible to develop a website without investing some cash.
You may be very tech-savvy and understand how to code, however, there will still be costs for purchasing a domain name and hosting as well as maybe some other services to make your site stand apart from the others. When choosing your domain name and hosting provider keep in mind at the end of the day you get what you pay for, however, find the best one you can that fits within your budget.
Picking Your Affiliate Marketing Niche
When planning to build an affiliate marketing website, one of the most essential things to think about is your affiliate marketing niche. One of the greatest success factors in your affiliate marketing business is your selection of the niche. It can be rather challenging to select an affiliate marketing niche, specifically if you don’t have any experience.
You can select a niche that covers a particular category of items or a broad niche that has various product categories. Make sure to select a niche that is profitable and not saturated. This is not an easy task as lots of affiliates are automatically first drawn to the lucrative niches. So before going with a particular niche do your research to read and understand the pulse of the markets.
Furthermore, it’s essential that you pick a specific niche that sparks your enthusiasm. While it’s much better to opt for a specific niche in which you have significant understanding, this isn’t a crucial requirement as you can constantly learn as you go.
The most essential thing is to select a specific niche in which you can comfortably develop quality content, provide value to your readers and recommend products with an authoritative voice. Vital components you require to be successful as an affiliate marketer is a patience, staying power, and selecting a niche you are passionate about to keep going even when you don’t get the results you want.
You may not see the importance of this however all successful affiliate marketers will tell you there will be many pitfalls for you to face before you finally make it big. We all know in life nothing is guaranteed however your niche is what determines the direction of your website, after all, isn’t this the reason for building the affiliate website in the first place? It is very important to take your time and select the best niche for you as your marketing strategy and all your content will revolve around your niche.
Choosing Affiliate Programs
Once you have selected a niche you are happy with it is now time to search for the affiliate programs you wish to promote. There is no shortage of affiliate programs for you to choose from, there are literally thousands of affiliate programs on affiliate marketplaces such as Clickbank or JVZoo. Alternatively, you can decide to go with company-specific affiliate programs such as the popular Amazon Associates Affiliate Program or others.
Before deciding on a particular product to promote look at the metrics of that product, i.e. what is the commission rate, what is the refund rate, and the level of saturation for that product. Keep in mind, bigger commissions don’t always translate into big profits. Any affiliate program with an average commission and lower refund rates will always beat the high-commission program that has high refund rates.
It goes without saying that if a purchaser asks for a refund you will not be getting your commission, and it’s also an indicator of the flaws in the product. Only promote products that deliver value to your readers and always provide full disclosure to your readers to win their trust because if your audience feels you are a fraud you will not make a single dime.
Once you have made your decision on the niche and the affiliate programs you wish to promote then it is time to move to the next stage of building affiliate marketing website.
Choosing A Website Platform
You are now at the point of building your affiliate marketing website. The first consideration is which platform should you choose? Should you develop your site with the most popular WordPress platform or choose a drag and drop site builders like Wix, Weebly, or SiteRubix?
The most popular platform, WordPress powers over 70% of the websites and blogs on the internet, making it the most flexible site creation and content management system worldwide. There are many advantages to using WordPress from a wide range of features, plugins, add-ons that enhance the site, free and premium site themes for a professional-looking site, and a global community of developers and users who are constantly on hand to answer any questions you may have regarding the platform. In our opinion, you can’t go wrong with using WordPress and the best part of using WordPress is that it does not cost you anything, totally free!
However, you will need to purchase a domain name and hosting. One of the best companies for domain names and hosting that we use if WantCheapDomains.com
Selecting A Domain Name
A domain name is the URL of your website, in other words, the name of your site such as OnlineIncomeNews.com. Select a name that is associated with your specific niche and the products you will be promoting but first, you have to check to see if it is still available or if someone has already taken that name.
To learn if the domain name you are interested in is still available go to the domain registrar and type your desired name into the search box. If it’s available you are lucky and you can buy it for around $10 per year. If, however, it is not available you can either select another name or go for a different extension or your original name. Try to choose a domain name that will be easy for people to remember and preferably something that can be branded.
Web Hosting
Apart from your domain name, you will also need to buy a hosting service for your website. A hosting company provides servers on which they store your website files and serve these to your audience 24 hours a day. You are basically renting an internet space so that your site visitors can see your website content.
There are many hosting providers online and your selection will be based on your budget. Bear in mind cheap is not always the best when it comes to hosting your website, as the speed of loading and the user experience will have a huge impact on your site rankings and the success of your affiliate marketing website.
These days the majority of the web hosting companies provide hosting at fairly cheap price, some of the best even provide hosting for as little as $4 per month! Check out a few hosting companies to compare various hosting plans and what exactly they offer within the hosting plans before deciding on the best plan that suits your budget and needs. Check our review of What Are The Best Hosting Companies.
Install A Content Management System
Now armed with your domain name and hosting, we get to the exciting part of building the website. Currently, we believe the easiest content management system to build a website is WordPress as it is very simple to use even for people who have no tech skills. Still, if you find it overwhelming you can outsource it to someone on Fiverr.com
WordPress is very simple to install and simple to use. In fact, most hosting companies offer a One-Click install option for WordPress which means you can get your site set up in minutes.
Choose A WordPress Theme
Once the WordPress platform is installed the next part is to select from a wide range of themes to produce a captivating user interface where your site visitors will connect with your site. There are literally thousands of free and premium themes to choose from to make a professional-looking site.
You can further enhance your website by adding plugins and add-ons to optimize specific functions on your affiliate marketing website.
Create And Publish Content
Now that you have set up and customized your website it is time to start producing content for your site. Create content that provides value to your site readers by creating content that is relevant to your niche, engaging and informative for your audience.
If you get your SEO right and constantly create content that provides value to your readers they will keep coming back for more. You will gain their trust and position yourself as an authority in your niche. When people start to trust you they will have no issues in buying products that you recommend.
The key is to set a schedule for your content creation and stay consistent. Your readers will keep coming back to check out your new content.
Before You Go…
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Hi Moni,
This is an insightful post about building affiliate marketing website I ever seen!!
I agree with you when you say that “the challenge is not building an affiliate marketing website, but knowing how to develop it.
This is true and those who refuse to recognize it pay dearly for their mistakes.
This is why it is important to seek to acquire the required skills before embarking on this venture.
Creating a website nowadays doesn’t require technical skills. That is true but running a successful affiliate marketing requires skills and knowledge.
I want to enter into this industry and I am looking for an all in one platform that will save me money. Do you know one to recommend me? I means a platform where I can get training in affiliate marketing and also get tools to build my business such as hosting, keyword research toll, etc.
Hi Sebastian, thank you for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment.
From my many years of being online and checking out far too many platforms the one platform that stands apart from all the rest is Wealthy Affiliate.
WA is truly a one-stop platform from buying your domain name, hosting, training, keyword research tool, and in fact everything you need to build a successful online business. This is the reason we have made Wealthy Affiliate our #1 recommendation for newbies and even people who are more experienced.
For me the 2 main reasons why we love this platform are:
1. Anyone can join for free by signing up for the Wealthy Affiliate Free Starter Membership and check out the platform to decide if it’s the right fit for them
2. The technical support provided by WA is excellent and they respond very quickly 24/7 to sort out any technical issues that may arise with your website. I am fairly technical however having that safety net of tech support gives me peace of mind knowing any technical challenges I encounter will be dealt with quickly and sorted.
Sebastian sign up for free and decide for yourself. Let me know how you get on… wish you much success!