It’s likely that if you’re here, you’re interested in making money online or starting an online business–both of these two goals can be achieved when you start an affiliate marketing website. In this post, I’ll be showing you how to create an affiliate marketing website step-by-step, and I’ll also include a video tutorial just in case that’s easier for you to follow along.
Two years ago, I decided to learn affiliate marketing. Up to that point, I had done various other things to make money. I spent 9 years in the military, I had started a General Contracting business with my husband, I had done freelance marketing services, but I was intrigued by the leverage you can have with affiliate marketing.
With affiliate marketing, you can build a website into an asset that has passive components similar to real estate or creating intellectual property product sales (book royalties, music album royalties, or licensing deals).
Affiliate Marketing as ONE Way to Grow
Although I love affiliate marketing, it’s not the end-all-be-all. You can create a website and monetize it with affiliate marketing, but later, you can also add services, create products, add product licensing, take on brand deals or sponsorships, or do so many other things once the site is built.
You may start with building an affiliate marketing website, but you don’t have to think it limits you from growing into a business that has multiple streams of income. In fact, I’ve seen many successful affiliate marketers who stack several different monetization strategies over time. You just don’t want to jump into things to fast. Make one thing work, then move onto the next thing.
Focus.
7 Steps for Making an Affiliate Marketing Website
So, building an affiliate marketing website is the foundation for a successful affiliate marketing business, and it could also be a great foundation for a very successful online business with lots of revenue streams. There are ways to build an affiliate marketing business without a website, but I recommend you have at least one website and I’ll explain why more in this article.
1. Choose a Niche
The first step to building a successful affiliate marketing website is to choose a niche. A niche is basically an audience of people who have common interests. One common mistake I see affiliate marketers make is they choose an industry instead of a niche. For example, they might choose fitness and think that’s a niche, but it’s not.
You don’t want to attack industries because even big fortune 500 companies don’t do that. Instead, you want to choose a group of people within the fitness industry that you can reach, a problem they might have, and think about how you can form an affiliate partnership that could benefit them and you at the same time.
2. Build a Website
Next, you want to build a website. Your website is like your “digital storefront”. You pay for hosting and a domain name; whereas, you’re offline counterpart might be paying for a physical property or rental agreement. Your digital storefront is where you’ll be attracting potential customers who will be buying products that are relevant to the niche you chose.
I like to recommend Wealthy Affiliate as the hosting and domain registration platform of choice because of how simple it is to build and maintain websites. Unless you’re very techy and you want to get into coding, website development, HTML, or DNS settings, I’d recommend Wealthy Affiliate.
To build your website, you can use this website builder here or you can follow the exact steps I take in the video I’ll attach onto this post.
3. Find Affiliate Partners
Sales are the lifeblood of any business. In order to make money in business, you have identify a good product and introduce it to the right audience. A cool thing about affiliate marketing is you don’t have to spend weeks, months, or years on developing a product and testing it.
Instead, you can partner with someone who already has a product that works, and help them sell more–this can cut back significantly on the amount of money you spend upfront and how quickly you get revenue. You can start making money as soon as you start getting traffic and sales.
To find good affiliate partners, I recommend you taking a look at one of these 9 affiliate networks. They manage affiliate programs for very successful companies, so you can sell products that are proven to sell with funnels that already work.
I like to choose products and affiliate partnerships based on what would work well for my audience, but also based on what commission amounts would help me to meet my business goals. Choosing an affiliate partner that sells product that will give me less than $20 for a commission won’t be the majority of my focus.
I might promote a low ticket product sometimes, but in order to really see incremental growth, you have to choose affiliate partners that offer you good commissions ($50 or more) and high lifetime customer value (possibly recurring commissions with high retention) or a really good product that will raise trust and bring referrals back to you for more recommendations.
4. Create Content
In the traditional business model, salespeople would go door-to-door, cold call, or set up tables at local places that have a high amount of relevant foot traffic. Now, you can have the same outcome (more potential customers), but do different activities.
You can still do traditional sales activities if you like. They still work, however, the internet has given us access to a much larger audience.
You can create a blog post, social media post, or video, and reach thousands (or millions) of people with the content. The same piece of content can be leveraged to bring new potential customers your way for years and years to come–that’s the appeal of online marketing.
You don’t have to stay in a specific location (unless your choice is to have a local business). Instead, the internet has given us more choices.
You create content, and people who are interested in it, will engage more with the content. If it’s a Facebook post, then you’ll have to create enough quality and push it to a relevant audience so you can attract potential customers. If it’s a blog post, the concept is the same. You want to write content that will attract your ideal customer.
Creating the Menu
The website menu is one of the first pieces of content you should create on your website. The menu makes it clear what you offer, and how to get around. Some normal things you find on website menus are:
- About
- Services
- Products
- Start here
- Or, other pages that help build content, authority, or trust, so people can make a buying decision
Creating Initial Pages
In addition to the menu, it’s important to create your initial content. The initial pages include:
- Your privacy policy
- Your about me page
- and, your homepage or landing pages (if you decide to have them)
Creating Initial Posts
Once your initial pages are set up, then you want to start with your first posts. I like to plan out my content using my editorial calendar, so I can make sure my content is working towards my overall business goals. In the beginning, I live to monopolize my content with content that attracts people with a clear intent to buy.
Tutorials and list posts don’t tend to attract buyers as much as reviews, comparisons, or buyers’ guides, so I would focus on reviews, tutorials, and buyer’s guides, then add more content like how to’s and list posts that link to my reviews, buyer’s guides, and list posts.
5. Get Traffic
In the offline world, you can’t simply rent a storefront, move your products inside, and sit there for customers to come. You have to advertise, market, engage with people, and put effort into attracting visitors to your store. Over time, your efforts will compound and more and more people will come organically–the same pattern happens online.
You don’t just set up a website and people come running there (especially before you have content). Instead, you have to practice things like search engine optimization, running ads, social media marketing, or other ways to use the internet tools, engage with people where they are, and attract a relevant crowd back to your website.
The getting traffic part is one of the longest learning curves I’ve seen for new or established affiliate marketers. What might work for one website may not work for the next. There is some risk and experimentation required for each new business or affiliate site.
Getting traffic can take more than one year if you’re relying solely on search engine optimization because you have to learn how to pick good keywords, how to do market research, how to optimize the content so search engines rank it, how to outpace your competition, and much more.
6. Make Money
Once you’ve chosen a niche, built a website, found affiliate partners, created content, and gotten traffic, you should start seeing your income grow incrementally. You’ll need to keep creating content (whether that is ads or organic content) and you’ll scale up the traffic and grow the sales.
Some other things you’ll have to do over time to keep ramping up the traffic is:
- Optimize for conversions
- Consider building an email list
- Offer more solutions as you get more in touch with what your audience needs
7. Rinse and Repeat
Lawn care services manage lawns. Grocery stores sell food. Every business has a constant that can be expected.
As an affiliate marketer, you entertain an audience and generate sales for your affiliate partners–that’s your constant. As you keep going, you’ll see a growing business, but you have to rinse and repeat.
Other recommended resources:
Some tools you can use to maintain consistency and manage your tasks are…
- Free Blog Post Templates
- Free Editorial Calendar Template
- Free E-Course “All About Affiliate Marketing”
- 7 Days of Free Coaching and Free Websites
Conclusion on How to Create an Affiliate Marketing Website
Overall, starting an affiliate marketing website can be a great way to make money online, to start a business, or to add an additional income stream to an existing business. It’s been a great decision for me and my family, and I love helping others to learn how to make money with affiliate marketing as well.
If you have any questions or concerns about this, leave them in the comments section below.
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