The internet offers many different ways to earn money. One of the most popular ones is by starting a WordPress affiliate site. Because with an affiliate site, you can earn money with products which you don’t sell yourself.
This may sound strange, but it isn’t. With an affiliate site, you are referring to existing websites or web shops. If visitors then purchase a product, you get a certain amount for it (also called commission money). If you want to start an affiliate website, then it is smart to use the options offered by WordPress. We will explain here how this works exactly.
Step 1: Choose a type of affiliate site
The most important choice you are about to make is what kind of site you are offering. Not every site is successful when it comes to attracting visitors. The more visitors, the more potential clients you can redirect to your partner(s).
That’s why it’s important to make a site which attracts a lot of people and ranks high in the search engines. In general, affiliate marketers choose a comparison site, review websites, affiliate webshop or sites with daily deals.
These are websites which people specifically search for, because they want to know which product best fits their needs and budget. Usually it is better to choose a specific product type for this; a broader target audience means a bigger competition.
Step 2: Create a WordPress affiliate site
Once you have you chosen what kind of affiliate website you want to create, then it is time to create the site or let someone else create it. You cannot just launch a site with some text and expect it to attract lots of visitors which also click through.
It is important that you really ‘set up’ a website. Luckily WordPress offers a lot of tools to do this. It is user friendly and fits perfectly into the search engines demands. You can completely focus your web design to your goals and also choose for diverse plugins and advertisements that give your visitors even better information.
You can create a site through the WordPress website, but it might be better to make a site with a dedicated host. With this you often benefit from an even better site, focused on your visitors. Finally, choose a good domain name and your site is ready to go online.
Step 3: choose your affiliate partners
If you go to a company’s website, you often see a header somewhere called ‘affiliate program’. When you click on it, you will often find out what is possible in terms of affiliate marketing. It is wise to choose products and companies that have built up a good online reputation. The more that is sold through these webshops, the more you will earn with it. Look at how well they treat their current affiliate partners and what their terms and conditions are. It’s up to you to choose an affiliate partner who operates within a niche and who you can make profit with(together).
Step 4: Fill your site with content
A site which is online but has no content can obviously not really be called a website. That’s why your WordPress affiliate site still needs to be filled with content. You can do this in two different ways: You write articles yourself or let others do this. But make sure the articles are of good quality. This motivates visitors even more to purchase products. Also, articles with higher quality rank higher within the search engines.
Step 5: Manage and promote
The last step we will discuss here is the managing and promoting. When your affiliate website has been running for a while, you will notice whether there are many visitors or not. If there aren’t a lot, there is a chance this is because you are not in the right niche or because your articles aren’t well written. Therefore you should always track which articles do best, so you can keep writing better affiliate texts in the long run. A good way to attract more visitors to your site is by promoting your website on your (social) media. By using special tools, you will become a real affiliate expert. You can for example use a special plugin which will automatically place affiliate links in your article. Read the article Automatically add affiliate links to your website.
Questions or need help?
Nicetoclick is an internet agency specialized in building professional WordPress websites and affiliate- and comparison sites. You can also always come to us to outsource your maintenance work by using a WordPress maintenance contract. We are open to all of your questions and would like to discuss the possibilities regarding your own idea.
