If you’ve been looking for ways to make money online, affiliate marketing has probably been suggested as an option.
If you have been considering this popular online method of making money, then you are probably wondering how to set it all up.
To help you, this article will fully explain what an affiliate marketing website is, how you can start one, and whether you could profit from it.
What Is An Affiliate Marketing Website?
An affiliate marketing (AM) website is one that’s built to refer individuals to products or services that match their needs.
For example, a site in this category could refer teachers to software that’s designed for educating special needs students.
Or a different site could focus on providing information to lighting technicians and contain links to tools and supplies that they need to do their work.
These products and services are promoted in exchange for commissions. The amount that an affiliate receives as a commission varies from one program to another.
Commissions for digital products, such as those offered through ClickBank, can be quite high, with affiliates earning 50% on each sale made for a particular vendor.
Some programs, such as those offered by megastores like Amazon, have modest commissions, averaging 2% per sale.
An affiliate site can be on any platform. Sometimes beginners like to start with a free site on Blogger or WordPress. This allows them to gain experience with online publishing without the stress of worrying about the cost or technical aspects of hosting.
The Wealthy Affiliate Starter membership gives you access to your own site for free, along with their free training.
How does An Affiliate Marketing Website Work?
An affiliate marketing website has content, along with referral links. A Call To Action (CTA) may be used to introduce a link or group of links.
These three elements must coexist in a way that is seamless. If you’re starting an affiliate marketing site and don’t have much content but lots of links, you’ll discourage visitors from clicking on your links.
If you have lots of useful content but bury your links in a position on your webpage where they are barely visible, your visitors won’t be able to access the products or services that they need.
Many affiliates choose to associate their personal brand with a product or service that they enjoy.
For example, suppose an affiliate goes zip lining in Jamaica. They enjoy the experience and discover that they can earn a 10% commission for every person who signs up for a package with that particular zip lining provider.
They can then build a site using a free platform, since they’re new to marketing and want to gain experience through practice and they don’t have a lot of cash to invest yet.
They can upload content, in the form of pictures displaying the beauty of Jamaica, written descriptions of the plants, flowers and landscape, and a video of certified guides checking their safety equipment.
To start with, their site may have just four pages. With time, this may grow to 25 pages or more, each focusing on different phrases that people interested in zip lining may use to search for information.
Links may be placed throughout the website in different ways and when someone purchases a package via the link, the affiliate will get 10% of the sale.
How Do You Create An Affiliate Website?
To create an affiliate website, you can have either a free or paid site. Free sites can be started without any money on platforms like WordPress.
The disadvantage is that the type of products that you can promote and how often you can promote them are restricted with some platforms. You also don’t have complete control of your content.
Paid sites can cost between $36 and $100 a year for a basic site. Once you’ve set up a host and registered a domain name for the site, you can start adding content such as videos.
There are many courses that will how you how to create an affiliate website. Some are free and give you a boost, with information that helps you to start earning more quickly.
Creating A Profitable Business from An Affiliate Site
Affiliate marketing still works in 2022. It is a low cost and low risk option either for a new or existing business.
Training however is essential if you hope to earn a profit from an affiliate site.
With some expert guidance you can learn how to choose the right site, how to develop your niche, where to place referral links and more.
For your site to be profitable, you must have visitors purchasing a product, signing up through a service or taking some other action through your affiliate link.
Affiliate links contain a code that is unique to each affiliate. Each sale that you make, or any other desired action that’s taken, can be tracked back to you by using that code.
That allows you to be credited for all of your sales made within a specified time.
The time within which you’ll receive credit for the action varies from one program to another.
Each program explicitly states how long that decision-making time can be because it’s critical for many affiliates.
Some programs give you credit for every sale made within 30 days. Others may only credit you for a sale within 24 hours.
It’s often better to look for programs that give visitors a decent window of time to make a decision. Just 24 or 48 hours is a short span, in sales terms.
This means that if a person visits your site, views your content and is convinced to buy a product but only proceeds to checkout three days after becoming interested, you won’t get a commission.
Your affiliate site must be designed so that it’s easy for site visitors to find your affiliate links and click on them.
If this doesn’t happen, you won’t make any sales and your site won’t be profitable.
A course such as the one offered by Wealthy Affiliate will show you how to give potential buyers the knowledge they need to make a purchase decision.
If they’re not prepared to purchase, they won’t buy even after they click on your link.
The content on your site has to make them feel comfortable about making a
buying decide. A site that does this can be very profitable.
Thanks for reading my article, I hope you found it informative and you gained some insight into starting and making money from an affiliate marketing website.
Check out more articles about making money online on my website Wealthinflator.com. HERE